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The following responses and comment to "Faith and Science: A Forum" were submitted by members of the Holy Cross community. Post your own reactions >>
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Stanley E. Macora Jr. ’59 (March 1, 2007)
As a ’59 grad who teaches philosophy, I thought someone should have represented philosophy in this forum. Philosophy can prove the existence of a Creator. (defined by Vatican I based on Romans I:20). Evolutionary biology cannot deny a Creator on biological grounds. One may deny that God revealed himself (Revealed Religion, taken on faith) but not the existence of a Creator, because the universe is contingent and needs a non-contingent cause or you have a contradiction. (See Fr. Stanley Jaki’s The Road of Science and the Ways to God) I believe the classical philosophical curriculum at Holy Cross began to be dismantled in the ’60s and as a result people are trying to reconcile faith and science, when classical philosophy—the “handmaid of theology,” with its defense of the existence of God, an immortal soul, and free will—is an indispensable antidote to some of modern science’s claims, which are really philosophical in nature. However, modern scientists show how limited they are when they say things such as: “the world is not intrinsically reasonable or understandable” (physicist Percy Bridgman) and “causality has been done away with” (Von Neumann). These are quoted from Stanley Jaki's Chance or Reality and Other Essays. Also, Marjorie Grene says, in explaining evolution, “We have an explanation whose convincing power rests at one and the same time on causal necessity and on a LACK of necessity, on historical contingency” (see her The Understanding of Nature, p. 223). I think these statements are rooted in the prominent role of chance in modern physics and biology and they remind me of a statement that Fr. Herman Reith (former chairman of philosophy at Notre Dame) made to me years ago: “God is another name for non-contradiction.” I am well aware of the state of modern philosophy and its agnosticism about the contingent natural world and, consequently, about God the Creator. It may be that the crisis is not only about faith and science but reason itself—namely philosophy. God’s blessings on Holy Cross.
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George Posnak ’68 (February 28, 2007)
Before I make my humble contribution to this discussion I wanted to provide a resource where anyone can listen to approximately eight hours of presentations by professors in science and philosophy on the subject of faith and science.
http://beyondbelief2006.org/Watch/
My views on the subject of science and faith have changed over the years. I now find the evidence-based, disciplined and systematic approach, utilized by science, more appealing than the faith-based approach of religion. For me, the method of science explicitly recognizes the imperfect and flawed nature of the human intellect. The scientific method of testing, adjusting one’s hypothesis, making a new prediction and retesting, is to me, the best way we have found, so far, for detecting what the Creator actually had in mind - not what we wish or hope or insist that She had in mind. In my view science is the best way so far of overcoming our inherent biases, preconceived notions, and presumptions. I look at scientific methods and results in arriving at this view.
Science is about making distinctions. It is about reducing things down to their essential constituent parts. In that controlled and reduced arena you can make inferences and predictions with a high probability of success. For example, microbiology looks for something unique such as a receptor in the cell membrane of an infectious bacterium. The science looks for some property the bacterium has and normal cells don’t. Using this unique property, an intervention may be suggested which kills the bacterium but leaves normal cells alone. This is an example of the germ theory of disease. Compare this with the demon theory of disease, which I understand was prevalent around 1600 and resulted in tens of thousands being burned alive - to purge the demon. How did we get from there to here, by faith or by science?
Science has in its toolbox logic, mathematics and an emphasis on observation and experiment along with the peer review process. All hypotheses must be framed as falsifiable propositions, then tested and then subjected to a rigid peer review process before being accepted. A hypothesis must generally be internally coherent and externally consistent with an established body of scientific principles. Consistency, or the lack of it, I find most important. If you claim that a ball will roll uphill instead of down, you are contradicting a well-established body of scientific principles. In my view, you need a lot more than the phrases, “I believe” or “the Lord works in mysterious ways”, appended to your claim, to warrant being classified as an adequate explanation or systematic description of events.
I contend that we use the scientific method most of the time. For example: you flip a switch and the light doesn’t come on. You formulate a tentative conclusion or hypothesis: bulb burned out, or cord not plugged in, or circuit breaker tripped. Your search space consists of three items. You predict that the light-out-state is due to one of the three causes and proceed to test each item in turn. You feed back the results of your test, eliminating one possibility from your hypothesis with each iteration. What you don’t do is postulate an electron demon as a cause, or the many cousins of demons the human imagination is capable of cooking up. The restraint you exhibit in formulating your search space is explicitly recognized by science under the principle known as Occum’s razor: do not multiply entities (i.e. causes) unnecessarily. Science says: do not speculate about fifth dimensional phenomena that you have no means, even in principle, of measuring or testing. If you do speculate for entertainment, don’t act on your speculations by burning the house down! (Or come to think of it, flying a plane into the building.) Science says we don’t have absolute knowledge of anything, let alone a demon haunted world that we can’t, even in principle, measure or test.
To see results, which emanate from a scientific way of solving problems, one need only look around. Our whole civilization – e.g. whether six billion humans eat today or not – depends on technology. We may quibble over some of the adverse environmental impacts of technology, but who among us is ready to give up running water or indoor plumbing? Who among us is willing to “take on faith” the assertion that a religious ideology is to be preferred over a scientific one? Are you willing to “take on faith” that your children don’t really need stem cell research or microbiology or for that matter modern medicine? (If you believe the latter, the U.S. Supreme Court disagrees with you.) A humanistic scientist is not willing to “take on faith” the dogma that what we need is more suffering and sacrifice, because the real game doesn’t begin until after we die. A humanist is about reducing human suffering - not adding to it. To a scientist, most religious dogmas are extraordinary claims. In science, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In science, faith is not a virtue. In science, belief is defined as informed opinion, with the emphasis on information. Foundation for belief is ideally obtained from verifiable, repeatable, controlled experiments.
I could dilate on the differences between a science-based way of thinking and a faith-based approach, but instead I’ll recommend that you pick up a book on philosophy of science or critical thinking. (e.g. E. Klemke, or P. Hurley, or I. Copi, or J. Ruscio). I’ll end with a quote and a question. Here is a quote from this week’s gospel: (Luke 4: 1-13) “Jesus said…you shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” The question is: how does one know anything at all, without logic or a test?
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Mike Corrigan ’68 (February 14, 2007)
Faith and science are two separate—but actually faith-based, given the essential un-verifiability of all sense perception—ways of knowing that cause confusion when conflated, as so many “rationalists” in this forum have done.
That so much of life—so much that is pleasant, actually—is non-rational (think, a “Stones” concert), yet truthful in its own way confirms the non-rational/faith realm as valid, as “is.”
Rationality is subordinate to faith (again, think the essential un-verifiability of all sense perception), and should be used to refine what it is we believe in. But to use it to confirm faith’s raison d’etre is to court confusion, criterion contamination, and ultimate corruption of innocence.
Thaaaat’s all, folks.
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Announcement (February 14, 2007)
Matthew Koss, associate professor of physics and “Faith & Science” forum participant will deliver the lecture “A Physicist Reflects on Science and Religion” as part of the 2007 Clark University Physics Colloquium. The lecture will be held on Thursday, Feb. 22, at 4:15 p.m., in room N-105 of the Sackler Science Center at Clark University, 950 Main St., Worcester, Mass.
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Dan Collins '66 (February 13, 2007)
I trust the forum will indulge multiple responses from its readers. As one reads the responses of others and gleans their insights into the Science/Faith debate further considerations will emerge that may enhance and continue the debate.
In my initial response, I noted the absence of a sociologist from the panel and therefore the absence of one who could speak for the body of knowledge that concerns itself with the actions of people in groups. Certainly faith can be seen as a group activity that deserves a different analysis from the individually oriented considerations of psychology, and the non-behavioral considerations of philosophy, theology, biology, physics, etc.
Within the Durkheimian tradition of Sociology, the “sacred” is seen as a regularly re-invented form of collective consciousness. The sacred, therefore, does not exist by its self, and only exists in the mind of the individual to the extent that it reinforces one’s connection to the collective.
The doing of rites and rituals creates and reinforces the collective consciousness of the sacred and all in it, including the sacredness of things, even the Sacred Force itself. The reality of God is in the collective conscience. God is an understanding given through one’s collective experience and revealed to the individual participants by their doing of the group’s designated rituals.
With this in mind, to answer the questions “Is there a God?” or “Did God create man?”, we must look to what any particular group does to obtain knowledge. In other words, the answer depends on the rituals a group employs in pursuit of knowledge of its real world. If a group pursues science in one way, e.g. through the methodologies (rituals) of creationism, the answer will be “Yes”; if others pursue science in a different way, say through the methodologies of evolution, the answer will be either “No” or “Unknowable”. In their books, Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Kitcher (Living with Darwin) do an admirable job delineating the methodologies of each group. But, the existential question is quite different from the elegance of the methodology, and this is where the heat of the debate is to be found.
What are the behavioral outcomes of one answer or the other? Where does one answer, or the other, leave you relative to the collectives you hold dear (e.g. family, friends, tribe, community, nation, denomination including all their living and their dead)? What does it do to your existential reality? Herein lies the profundity of the Science/ Faith debate: It is not one’s eternal reward that is at stake; it is the fundamental, nature and quality of one’s temporal existence that is at stake. The Science/Faith debate turns on one’s fear of the existential consequences in the here and now.
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Roseann Fitzgerald (February 12, 2007)
Although Charles Darwin was not discussed in the forum, I heard on today’s Writer’s Almanac that today, 2/12/07, is the anniversary of his birth and that Darwin was concerned after publishing Origin of the Species that people might consider him an atheist. Interesting reflection on Darwin & Religion on the Wikipedia open source site:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin's_views_on_religion/
Worth reflecting on today and Origin of the Species was described today by Garrison Keillor as one of the few scientific treatises that can be read and understood by the general reader.
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William J. Downey ’67 (February 12, 2007)
The FAITH and Science Forum in the Winter Holy Cross Magazine is, hope, the beginning of a meaningful inquiry into the relationship of these two pursuits and reason. One’s world view is key to how one lives his/her life, and these three have a profound effect on that view, something which no “educated” Holy Cross grad should be without. While there is a diversity of views, some are demonstrably better than others. HC grads will not all buy into this, but they should be exposed to the best arguments and I think it is incumbent on the College to present them. I suspect that all Forum participants believe that each culture affects how we live life, then each religion, as a part of culture will have an impact.
While the forum posed some questions I would call it faith & science “lite” as it did not dig into these fertile areas and there seemed no polemic. The answers in this forum were not obvious.
I consider it a compliment to Father William Clark, S.J., that he was the only member of the ten who taught a course on faith. His quote from St. Ignatius “everything that is available to us in creation can be a means of finding God” says it very well. It’s not just the rose or the sunset, but that the world is ordered, not chaos. Without order, the repetition of outcomes, ergo science, could not exist.
Richard Dawkins popular book, The God Delusion, is mentioned several times but none of its problems are. In one of the negative articles about it, H. Allen Orr, reviewing it for the New York Review of Books calls Dawkins “more an amateur” and “a blunt instrument” for not distinguishing Unitarians from abortion clinic bombers. He cites “Dawkins failure to engage religious thought” and “he suffers from several problems when attempting to reason philosophically.” Dawkins argument that positing a God who could be the author of natural complexities requires one to posit a God more complex than the complexities, is a philosophical argument of the type Dawkins denigrates, and is certainly not from science. More on this can be seen by Googling “Dawkins Review.” Popularity does not necessarily mean the truth.
Which brings us to another point. The forum does not address which faith in God. There is a vast difference between ones that brought us Johnstown, sacrificing virgins, thousands of gods, sacred cows, even sacred cow urine and Jesus Christ. Disease, as the West determined, was not from evil spirits. This diversity is not surprising given the vast amount of scientific hypotheses on the same subjects. The one that tells us that God is love, we and everything created are good, we are made in his image and likeness, and are co-creators of this world builds us up to be all that we can be. It was no accident that the Christian West spawned capitalism that has raised more people out of poverty into the middle class than any religion or “ism,” given us democracy, the dignity and rights of man, the Rule of Law, religious and economic freedom and more scientific discoveries than any other, especially in medicine. That the Industrial Revolution occurred in Christian Europe was no accident!
That Christian countries have the most hospitals and colleges is further testimony. The Catholic Church, which divorced itself from the Bible fundamentalism against Galileo’s claim that earth revolves around the sun, is open to science. Reason and Faith are both declared gifts from God and cannot be at odds. The question is whether we can have the creativity and entrepreneurism that has obtained the benefits for the West without the vulgarities and reign of money inherent in the West.
The effects of worldview are readily seen in David Aikman’s article “Garlic, Dracula and Al Qaeda” in the December 2006 Christianity Today Magazine. He states, “Historians acknowledge a ‘golden age’ of Islamic culture, from the 8th to the 12th centuries, when Arab civilization was more advanced in medicine, science, and philosophy than Christendom But near the end of the 12th century, a dogmatic interpretation of Islamic theology overthrew Islamic philosophy. Put simply, the triumphant view was that Allah was so arbitrary and all-powerful that he didn’t need to be either reasonable or logical. Speculative science and philosophy became a no-no in the Islamic world. In 1192, Islamic leaders in Cordova Spain, acted on this concept and burned a huge library of scientific, astronomical, and medical works.” According to Bernard Lewis, an expert on Islam, in his book, The Crisis of Islam, the 1999 Gross Domestic Product in all Arab countries was less than that of Spain. There were 24,963 research scientists in Australia while only 1915 in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, even today Islamic extremists target and kill innocent civilians while claiming it is God’s will. Christianity says that is not reasonable and cannot be God’s will.
In his lecture at the University of Regensburg in September 2006, Pope Benedict XVI stated that in the first verse of John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the Logos,” the Greek word logos means both “reason” and “word.” Despite the unfortunate quote about Islam from the Byzantine emperor, the lecture was against the increasing secularism in the West, where reason and faith are denigrated as subjective and below the “facts” of science.
Science and reason which have no ethics cannot answer the great metaphysical questions of why we are here and where we are going. Only the one who created us can. No creator, no morality. Beyond the promulgation of the human race which we see in evolution, science is valueless. There is no absolute dignity of the human being. Human dignity depends on that which a society or nation decides to confer. Without God, human dignity is subjective. Genocide can be acceptable. Abortion, slavery and even killing people to harvest organs, as is now alleged in China, is acceptable.
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Joseph E. Wilson Jr. ’76 (February 5, 2007)
No matter how much things change, they seem to remain the same. I was really surprised to learn from Kee (HCM page 20) that “when you ask the ‘why’ question, you're no longer asking a scientific question.”
I remember discussing similar topics with Fr. LaBran back in 1971-72. I asked him a question about “Faith.” Does faith mean that you just blindly believe without having any real knowledge? Our discussions ended with me concluding that blind faith was silly.
I went on to discuss similar things with Dr. Zlody in 1975 after I had become an agnostic; taking the Freudian perspective that religion is “the neurosis of mankind.”
However, 36 years later, I seem to have arrived at a different perspective. I now think that the knowledge of ourselves and of the physical world cannot be completely achieved without a better understanding of the God revealed in the scriptures (the Bible.) My problem when I was younger was that I didn’t have a clue as to what was being said in the scriptures.
I never knew the scriptures said that God showed Himself to anyone in the so called Old Testament times. And even with that knowledge, I did not see the relationship between the God who had called Moses out of Egyptian captivity to the One that died upon a cross somewhere around 1400 and 2000 years later. I either wasn't reading the scriptures closely enough or my brain had been too thoroughly washed by various secular and religious doctrines to see what they were saying.
However, now, I know without a doubt that the attainment of knowledge is the opposite of sin; if sin is that separation between the source of our life (Who the scriptures call the LORD or YHWH - science may call Him the God Particle) and ourselves.
In my view, there is absolutely no separation between science and faith. You have to have faith to pursue science. Every belief or doctrine is based upon faith in something. Sometimes, it is faith in the belief that God does not exist. This is the religion of Atheism.
If an Atheist pursues a scientific endeavor, the Atheist will use a different world view from the scientist who believes in God. If they use the same world view, then somebody is telling a lie.
However, both can pursue science and knowledge and wisdom and justice and power and intelligence. They just serve different faiths in their pursuits. And the results could be (should be) different. That is, from the same scientific experiment, one might produce energy to serve mankind and the other might produce powerful weaponry that can be used to destroy mankind (a gross oversimplification.)
So, the Atheist and the one who believes in God will necessarily have different world views that guide their works in the flesh (the material world.) But both have a faith. The faith, however, is simply based on (or immersed under) different gods; god being the supreme whoever or whatever you serve to accomplish whatever it is that you choose to do in your life before you die in this physical world.
But these words might be considered Theology. Is it scientific to ignore Theology? I submit, it is not good Theology to ignore science.
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Jim Callahan ’57 (January 29, 2007)
This forum was defensive, narrow, self-congratulatory and sexist (only 5 comments from the women and 38 from men excluding Mr. Hitt.) It demonstrates by its guarded discussion and the comment attributed to a student—“Wow, I didn’t know that. I always felt like I wasn't supposed to think about these things”—that Catholicism continues to be a barrier to open intellectual inquiry. Not much change from 1957 when The Communist Manifesto was in a locked cage at Dinand.
Nor are the present Holy Cross faculty above taking a cheap shot. In my day, Luther was a melancholy lecher and Wesley a reformed drunk, thus maligning Lutherans and Methodists. Garvey, with no evidence, states, “But I think most scientists are unaware of the presuppositions that they believe in that allow them to do their work.” Then, misrepresenting Kuhn, he states, “we hardly ever talk about where science screwed up.” Most of the time, most of the scientists know when they screw up because their system is based on testing and revising hypotheses based on evidence. Religion shuts the door to inquiry that may threaten its tenets and power holders.
My feelings echo those of another responder, Thomas Lee ’59. It looks like the substance of education at Holy Cross continues, while only the accidents change.
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Dan Collins ’66 (January 26, 2007)
I read the forum “Faith and Science” with great interest and applaud your effort to bring this issue forward. The accompanying article on the new science facility made the forum even more apropos.
Nonetheless, the forum left this reader with the sense that it was a make-nice session for public consumption. The panel, though distinguished in their professional credentials, seemed more a group of colleagues with a common, vested, employment interest, than grappling intellects trying to get beyond the easy labels of the Intelligent Design and Natural Selection controversy to the core of the issue, i.e., to the consequences for individual and group behavior that result from either the interventionist-creator principle or from the principles of evolved matter. In this regard, I note the absence of a sociologist from the panel.
What one calls faith within the confines of elite academia is not faith on the street. There are real consequences for human existence when faith becomes an orthodoxy that defines reality for the masses as in the Roman Catholic orthodoxy. What the various panel members call faith comes down to either their individual, idiosyncratic wonderland, or the indescribable “[whatever] happens when people get together and share things in community that one individual person cannot do.” to quote Ledbetter. (I wonder if she would include Nazism in that definition.) In either case, the panel members conveniently exclude their “faith” from the controversy and thus fail to confront the issue.
It would seem to be more proper for the panel to understand that, in fact, as Hwang suggests, the Faith/Science debate confronts the very foundations of one’s worldview. And, I would add, it does this with train wreck profundity. This is a dramatic confrontation (one is reminded of Galileo and Copernicus). It is a confrontation that is radically uncomfortable, perhaps even more so, for those gambling on heavenly reward. So, if Dawkins creates drama, let the drama begin. If he is still too much for the refinement of the hill, then try Kitcher’s Living with Darwin, but, either way, get to the issue.
At the end of the discussion, the panel cannot co-opt the controversy as was attempted in Humani Generis. At the end of the discussion, the panel must deal with the possibility of being employed by the College Formerly Known as Holy Cross.
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Todd Pearson ’98 (January 25, 2007)
It was with great interest that I read the cover story on “Faith and Science” in the winter 2007 issue of HCM. As a scientist and a Catholic, I am always curious to hear what others think on this topic. My personal interest is to learn how others come to a “big picture” synthesis between faith in God and acceptance of scientific data.
Unfortunately, this topic also seems to bring up the question of what is Holy Cross’ role in the education of young men and women, especially as it relates to the topics of faith and science. I do not intend to enter into this debate and I think it is a bit off topic.
I will weigh in on the topic of the tensions and harmony between faith and science. First and foremost, in my opinion there is no inherent conflict between these two realms. When I decided to choose science as my vocation, I knew that I had to come to a resolution with my faith and the scientific findings that seemed to be in opposition to it. The first thing that freed me from the apparent conflict of faith and science is the notion of “block logic.” This type of reasoning is not employed by scientists (or many people in modern society for that matter), where the linear step-wise Greek logic prevails. According to Marvin Wilson, a professor at Gordon College, the notion of block logic was employed by ancient Hebrews and can be exemplified using many Biblical examples. There are many seemingly contradictory statements found within the Bible, such as Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven” and Matthew 5:16: “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (My own example) As both of these are the Word of God, both must be true. However, it is hard to resolve them, unless I understand each to be true separate from one another (i.e. as blocks of information). I believe that accepting block logic is the most straightforward approach to understanding faith and science: I accept the Bible as Truth and I accept rigorously tested, peer-reviewed science as fact. I acknowledge that I am not smart enough to completely understand how these two distinct “blocks” fit together, but somehow I know they must, because they are both true.
Having realized that faith and science aren’t at odds with each other (at least in part due to my acceptance of “block logic”) has left me trying to understand how the blocks fit together as best I can. To this end, I have found the thinking of Francis Collins, MD/Ph.D. (director of the human genome project and author of The Language of God) to be insightful. Additionally, another book that has helped shape my understanding of the synthesis of faith and science is The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder, an Israeli physicist and Genesis scholar. I am not suggesting that Collins or Schroeder are presenting “bulletproof” convergences of faith and science, because of course, they are not. However, I think they are attempting to do what all Believer scientists must do: come to some sort of understanding of these two topics.
While I may find it necessary to come to a resolution of faith and science, I don’t think it is necessary for all Christians to do so. For example, is it necessary for my 95 year-old grandmother to seek the same convergence of faith and science that I do? I hardly think so. Her faith is simple and actually probably stronger than mine. I only take exception when people feel an unresolved tension between faith and science (remember, not everyone will feel this) and hide behind one or the other to avoid exploring this issue.
I applaud the Holy Cross community and Holy Cross Magazine for not shying away from this discussion. I know that my growth as a Catholic and a scientist has really had its foundation in my experiences at Holy Cross and has only continued to expand since graduating.
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Richard P. Kane ’59 (January 25, 2007)
The “Faith and Science” forum was a fine idea. Please continue the dialog—and it might be worthwhile to plug several holes in the discussion. Teilhard’s bridge between anthropology and the theology of St. Paul provides a new context for faith-science dialog and understanding. Michael Behe’s (work on) Intelligent Design has given academic credibility to alternate theories of evolution even while it raises the hackles of scientific materialists not always aware that they have stepped beyond the limits of science into philosophical materialism.
There is after all a third way of knowing between faith and science—philosophy. It has a bad time of it in our age, having been imprisoned in the thinking subject and turned in on itself, plumbing such things as the meaning of meaning instead of focusing outward on human beings in community. But philosophy can go where science can’t, beyond the bounds of efficient causes to the issues that really matter, like What can I know? and What must I do? and What can I hope for? And philosophy remains useful to the person of faith in seeking to understand the truth of doctrine.
Perhaps the notion of mystery requires further light as well, especially as regards what it is not. It is not equivalent to the unknown. Unknown includes those things not yet discovered by philosophy or science. They are puzzles perhaps, but not mystery. Mystery involves what is known by faith, the conviction or assurance of things not seen. Such things are impenetrable to reason, but not contradictory to reason. For example, when we say the Trinity is three persons in one God, we do not say three persons in one person, rather three persons in one Divine Nature. Such a statement is beyond reason but not contrary to it.
Concluding Unscientific Postscript: Intelligent Design is not a new concept. It can be found in Aquinas, Bonaventure and a number of other thinkers. What is new is the claim that science can demonstrate that there is intelligent design. Aquinas and Bonaventure and Kierkegaard didn’t know yet about the irreducible complexity of the cell (anyway, Kierkegaard was more interested in the leap of faith than in the dance of the molecules). I never worry about conflicts between faith and science. I once sat at the feet of a great philosopher and Holy Cross graduate, Bill Richardson, S.J., ’41 who taught us that Truth is a Person who reconciles all things. I told you the postscript was unscientific!
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Rev. John Staudenmaier, S.J. (January 25, 2007)
Assistant to the President for Mission and Identity
Editor: Technology and Culture
The University of Detroit Mercy
Your “Faith and Science” forum made for a fine early morning read as today began. Two aspects of the forum stood out as I read.
One: lots of ease all around the table, it seems, with speaking and listening without a compulsion to resolve all differences. I don’t think I noticed any backdoor attempts to proselytize. The forum seemed a model of the civility that is a hallmark of the academy.
Two: Robert Garvey's comment that “we hardly ever talk about where science screwed up,” which appears fairly late in the forum, surfaced my awareness of something I was missing throughout. The forum participants tend to discuss the practice of science and the practice of religion—and the practice of being an academic institution generally—only in terms of people when they are up to their A game, so to speak. I wonder whether a second forum with the same participants might wrestle with the humanity of the women and men who practice science and who practice religion, every one of whom carries burdens, is subject to the ambiguities, inconsistencies, meannesses that are part of the human condition. No one that I know—and I expect the forum participants would agree—has constant and lifelong access to themselves at their best; nor does a college, nor a city . . . How does the practice of science or of religion engage, not just put up with, the mix of human nobility and elegance with human violence and mediocrity? Both appear in every human being and notably influence the wide-world which provides the foundation for any human practice and in everyone who aspires to serious practice of either discipline. Something like an affective, aesthetic, moral Heizenberg uncertainty principle.
That said, I loved reading the Forum.
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Dan Gorman (January 22, 2007)
Based on the results of a survey of Holy Cross students conducted a few years ago, it seems that science is winning. That survey found that the majority of Holy Cross graduates had a weaker faith than they had when they entered the College. Fr. Clark’s “truly strong faith” that faces heretical ideas seems, in many cases, to accept those ideas rather than those held by the Church. Perhaps the positions of the Church aren’t given quite the emphasis they should. For example, I would think that an atheist’s presentation on stem cell research to eager young students might be slightly skewed. Given his personal opinion and that of the American Physical Society that human embryos are fodder for research, the Church’s concern for life doesn’t seem to have much of a chance at Holy Cross.
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John E. Anderson MD ' 68 (January 18, 2007)
A few comments on The Faith and Science Forum on Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion." Professor Dawkins' popular books on the subject of natural selection beginning with "The Selfish Gene" are exquisitely well-written, and enviable for their logical and scientific clarity. His intellectual duels about punctuated equilibrium and evolutionary psychology with the late Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, also a brilliant popularizer of natural selection, finally extended to the relationship of religion and science when in his book "Rocks of Ages," Gould claimed he had resolved "the supposed conflict between science and religion."
Dawkins is now engaged in a similar debate with Francis Collins, the scientific leader of the Human Genome Project, and author of the book "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."
Although I am and was a secularist, non-believer when educated at Holy Cross, I was struck by the intellectual honesty of the religious and philosophical debates there about the absence of compelling proofs of the existence of God and the incontrovertible evidence for Darwinian evolution (Teilhard left me cold). As a result I have taken a generally benign view of the relationship religious beliefs and science. Dawkins' assault struck me at first as picking an unneeded and potentially counterproductive fight.
On reflection, however, the Catholic Church and monotheistic religions in general do not seem so much to need to defend their faith from attacks from rational scientists but their own inconsistent beliefs and actions.
If the discussion is: Richard Dawkins vs Cardinal Law or Richard Dawkins vs No condoms to prevent AIDS in Africa or Richard Dawkins vs Creation Science or Richard Dawkins vs Jihad.
Professor Dawkins is the clear winner.
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Margaret T. McDonough (January 17, 2007)
A teaching colleague at my school highlighted the “Faith and Science Forum” as an article for me to read. We eventually hope to have a discussion about this very topic between our Science and Religious Education departments. I have only begun to read and think about the forum's ideas. I, however, am put off by the graphic of the article's title. The primacy of FAITH over Science immediately struck me: in the contrasting font sizes (the larger font size was for FAITH); all capital letters versus capital and lower case letters to spell out Science; and even the small point that Faith is listed first in the title. I am a Religious Education teacher so my bias is probably toward Faith, but I had to share the immediate disproportionate emphasis given to FAITH over Science that the title graphic created for me. I will go back now to read, question and learn from the Forum.
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Thomas Lee '59 (January 15, 2007)
I must admit to a strange sense of deja vu while reading your forum on “Faith and Science.” I recently retired after 35 years as a biology professor at a nearby liberal arts Catholic College—smaller and less wealthy than Holy Cross but with much the same atmosphere. I have often participated in forums like the above—so I recognized the same old careless and friendly dialogue that they engender. Questions are raised—sometimes serious and challenging ones—and then the next speaker gets to say his or her piece—not bothering to attempt to answer the questions. After all, these are mostly professors, who are attuned to offer their own clever insights—and besides, with such an eclectic mixture of faculty, most had little ammunition with which to respond anyway.
You know, this whole tired business of “faith seeking understanding”, which might be modified at times to read “faith sacking understanding,” is simply a way of saying that one has strong religious convictions which are not open to argument even if they sometimes fly in the face of facts or even reason—but we must try to be intellectually honest and show our students that we sincerely want to expose what are only “seeming contradictions,” as the Jesuits would tell us in the fifties—those dying days of the “Ratio Studiorum”.
The rather startling comments by your forum participants include Mary Lee Ledbetter’s assertion that “There remains that which is...beyond the realm of science try to explain.” Perhaps we should tell neurobiology and psychology to stop trying to figure out human behavior, the mind, and free will, for example.
Anyway it was all great fun and nobody raised anyone’s hackles. But I couldn’t help but think of the last time I was back at Holy Cross. It was last year, and I went to join a group from the local Catholic Worker’s house who were there to protest the long-standing and honored presence of the R.O.T.C. on the campus. As we stood on the steps of the library, generally ignored by the well-dressed students hiding behind their iPods, a student approached me and asked for an interview for a campus publication. In our conversation, I pointed out that our group was puzzled that a Jesuit institution, which preached the social justice values of the Catholic Church, would welcome the military. I waited for the usual answers but was surprised when he responded something like this—“So what is the connection between the Jesuits and Catholic teachings?” Turns out he didn’t know that the Jesuits are a religious order of Catholic priests. Looks like you have a lot more work to do besides trying to get these professors to answer each others questions.
Of course, I am guilty by association. Discussions are great fun—but when one hand is shaking the other they are hardly worth publishing.
Thanks.
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Hans Schmid ’57 (January 12, 2007)
Just a bunch of nonsense. Faith is a belief in a relationship between God and man. Clearly, nothing to which science can contribute. Your exploration dealt with Aquinas’s proof of God from reason, an area where science has some input. Some years ago, Fr. Grippo, Vicar, when asked to get Holy Cross back spiritually, he said for Holy Cross it is too late. You’re proving him right.
If you consider this a “provocative” discussion, it’s no wonder Holy Cross students are so ill informed of Church’s position on evolution and embryonic stem cell. Dawkin’s The God Delusion is likewise ill informed. Does he write about all religions—has he scientifically examined all? Or is he writing about the Power we can know from reason? I’m reminded, “Unless you become as little children,” and “You cannot come to me, but the Father calls you” and “The learned ....eyes to see, ears to hear, but they see and hear not, because it is hidden from them.” Your intro of a potential scientist fearing parochialism at Holy Cross should be more concerned of atheists and non-Christians as teachers. Not that this is a bad thing, but it’s unnecessary at a Catholic institution.
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