Faith and science
Why faith and science are not rivals.
Many think science has made God redundant: once we can explain how the universe and life developed, no creator is needed. The Church does not see it that way. The Second Vatican Council says that genuine scientific research can never truly conflict with faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith have the same origin in God.
Here we go through why faith and science are not rivals, with Thomas Aquinas and the Church's documents. Read the argument in short first. Then walk through it step by step, and at each step pick the most common objection to see how to answer it.
The argument in short
The argument in five sentences, to learn by heart.
- Truth cannot contradict truth. The same God has given us both reason and faith.
- Science asks how things develop and act. That something is created means it receives its existence from God all the time.
- God acts through nature, not instead of it. A natural explanation does not take God away.
- So the believer need not fear science, and science need not exclude God.
- Faith and reason are two wings that raise us towards the truth.
Concepts you needCause
Cause causa fiendi, causa essendiA cause is what something depends on. Thomas distinguishes the cause of a thing coming to be from the cause of its being. He also distinguishes chains whose links merely follow one another from chains where each link acts right now through the one before.
Example
A builder is the cause of a house coming to be, but the house still stands when he goes home. The sun is the cause of the light in the air, and the light vanishes the moment the sun stops shining.
In Thomas
The builder and the sun are Thomas's own examples, in Summa theologiae I q.104 a.1. He writes about the two kinds of chain in I q.46 a.2, reply 7: a stone moved by a stick, moved by a hand, compared with generations where one man is begotten by another.
Step by step
or tap a box in the map to see the texts behind it.
Test yourself
Think of your answer first. Nothing is saved.
Why can faith and science never truly conflict?
The same God has given us both reason and faith, and truth cannot contradict truth.
What is the difference between creation and change?
Change starts from something that already exists. To be created is to receive one's existence from God all the time.
How do you answer someone who says the big bang makes God unnecessary?
The big bang describes how the universe has developed. It does not explain why anything exists at all, and the ways to God do not rest on a beginning.
What does the Church say about evolution?
It does not forbid research into the human body having developed from earlier life, but holds that the soul is created directly by God.
Why is God not an explanation for gaps in our knowledge?
God acts through nature, not instead of it. He is the reason there is anything to understand, not what we do not yet understand.