Reflections of a Jesuit Scientist
George Coyne, SJ, associate pastor at St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Raleigh, N.C. He was formerly director of the Vatican Observatory.
Evolution as a scientific explanation of origins is often viewed as atheistic.
It is not.
Science, by its very methodology, is completely neutral with respect to religious considerations. But if one does believe in God, creator of the universe, can scientific knowledge be helpful in supporting and nurturing that belief?
I would like to discuss how a believing scientist like myself views, based on scientific knowledge, the nature of God and the nature of the human being. Such knowledge is basic to any discussion of faith, and I hope such knowledge complements that derived from philosophy and theology. Several criteria exist to determine the veracity of scientific theories, such as predictability, repeatability of experiments, simplicity or economy of explanation. There is, however, a growing awareness among scientists of another criterion: “unifying explanatory power” – not only are the observations at hand explained, but the attempt to understand is also in harmony with all else that we know, even with that which we know outside of the natural sciences.
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