"SCIENCE
AND
THE CHURCH"
Rev. Bro. Dr. V. McKenna, B.A., M.Sc.,
Ph.D.
An edited version of an address given by Rev. Bro. Dr. McKenna
at the University of W.A., June, 1964.
ACTS No 1470.
"SCIENCE
AND THE CHURCH"
I have been led to discuss the connection between science and
religion because of the constant discovery during my twenty years as a
teacher and a scientist of evidence that some people feel that there
has been, and even still is, a conflict between the Church, in
particular the Catholic Church, and Science. The one form of evidence
is the repeated discovery in books, particularly science text books, of
false and unnecessary statements about the Church's attitude to
scientific advancement.
Church Fosters Science
Personal experience has shown me no evidence of such an
attitude in the Church's policy or in Church history, and when I
started to look deeper into this matter in preparation for this paper,
I discovered such overwhelming evidence of the Church's fostering and
encouragement of scientific advances, that I was tempted to change to
some other topic which might have some real foundation for discussion.
However, two events in Canberra in May, 1964, strengthened my resolve
to air this matter, as apparently there is still some misunderstanding.
The first event was listening to the statement by Professor Oliphant at
the opening address of the Science Teachers' Association Conference in
Canberra, that religious instruction had no place in the schools, that
such time would be spent better in the teaching of science. The second
event was during a tour of the Canberra schools during the Australian
Council of Education Conference when I found a mural in the new
laboratories of a Church school, depicting Galileo being led off to
prison at the bidding of some ecclesiastical prelates. For a modern
mural, its message was remarkably clear, but what an unnecessary
distortion of the truth.
Wrong Statements
Most of the similar erroneous statements found in text
books are in reference to Galileo. and even his purely scientific
achievements are sometimes wrongly presented. For example. two physics
texts for Leaving Certificate Physics, refer to experiments allegedly
conducted by Galileo from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I quote: "Galileo
and an assistant dropped a cannon ball weighing over 100 lb. and a
musket bullet weighing about half a pound from the top and found that
they reached the ground practically simultaneously." * [Footnote "Hydrostatics and Mechanics". A. E.
McKenzie. 1960. (Cambridge). Page 215.] This book has a very "useful"
picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa printed on the opposite page! The
other text has a slightly different version: "Galileo persuaded a
number of the great scholars of the day to come with him to the Leaning
Tower of Pisa. Climbing to an upper gallery, he leaned over and
released simultaneously two objects, one many times heavier than the
other." * [Footnote "A General
School Physics". Smith & Smith. 1962 (Rigby Ltd.). Page 27.]
This book even has an illustration showing the bodies being dropped
from the tower.
There are two things wrong with these statements. Firstly,
Galileo is being quoted as the first to challenge the Aristotelian view
about falling objects. This is very unfair to Simon Steven, who published the
findings of an experiment he actually performed in 1586, three years
before Galileo even came to Pisa. * [Footnote An illustrated History of Science. F.
Shewood Taylor. 1956 (Heinemann). Page 20.] Secondly, there is no
historical evidence that Galileo used the tower of Pisa - he does not
mention it himself nor do any of his contemporaries record witnessing
such a demonstration. * [Footnote "Foundations
of Modern Physical Science". Holton & Roller. 1959 (Addison
Wesley), Page 24.]
Contradicted
by Evidence.
But a far worse example of a false and unnecessary statement is
in a physics text-book of Lecture Notes from the Sydney University:
"Aristotelian Philosophy alone was not the cause of the failure of
scientific knowledge to advance during the early and middle Christian
Ages. The Church was the authority which dictated what men should
study, both natural and supernatural. Mysticism and superstition were
revived and befogged man's mind. Freedom to observe and experiment was
denied." * [Footnote "Lecture Notes
on an Introductory Course in Modern Physics" H. Messel. 1959.
(Compress). Page 8 ] This is wrong. There is an overwhelming abundance
of evidence to the contrary.
Early Greek Attitude
Admittedly the early Greeks were opposed to
experimentation - mechanical work of any kind was considered beneath
the dignity of a free man - and Aristotle did not believe in our modern
"Cause and Effect" but rather "Nature and effect"; for Aristotle, smoke
went up because it is of the nature of smoke to go up. It is very easy
to be wise after the event, particularly two thousand years after, but
surely we should have admiration for the Greek attitude - they were
interested in the universe as a whole, not just snippets of information
from experiment on parts of it. The interest was in the substance not
just accidental phenomena.
Science Founded by Church
There is no evidence, however, that the Church hindered
the progress of science during the early and middle ages. Indeed the
foundations of modern science were laid by the medieval Church.
However, during those times so unfairly referred to as the "Dark Ages"
the main intellectual effort was on philosophical and theological
problems, not solely on scientific problems such as our modern worry
over the Space Race and Safe Contraceptives.
Scholastic Philosophers
It was Scholastic Philosophy which led to the correlation
of occurrences with their antecedents thus making later Scientific
advances possible. It was St. Thomas Aquinas who emphasized that the
province of reason was distinct from the province of faith; it was
Aquinas who showed that Aristotelian Philosophy could be put to use in
the western world. The Christian Scholars of the middle ages were not
uninterested in scientific matters, but one could hardly expect
Scholasticism to produce the twentieth century spate of scientific
theories without a reservoir of observed facts on which to work. For
example, would Niels Bohr have produced his electron orbit theory if he
lived in the age before spectrocopists had amassed the wealth of data
on spectral lines?
Church Created Climate
The medieval church did not hinder the development of
science, indeed, it created the climate of thought necessary for the
later growth of science. Two pertinent quotations support this - one
from the avowed materialist du Bois Raymond who said, "Modern Science
owes its origin to Christianity." The other from the American physicist
Millikan, who stated: "Modern Science in its origin and development has
been largely dependent on the initiative taken by religious bodies". In
considering the slowness of the Church to allow study of Greek
Philosophy as it was brought to Christendom by the Arabs and Moors,
with its confusion of Aristotelian and neo-Platonic ideas, it should be
remembered that the only texts available for some centuries were the
very unreliable Latin translations of an Arab translation of a Syriac
translation of the original Greek, and that once a direct translation
from Greek to Latin was available in 1220, and Aristotle's had been
sorted out from the misinterpretations these works became extremely;
popular and finally the popes made the study of Aristotle's Physics and
Metaphysics obligatory for all candidates for a degree.
Abundant Evidence Exists
As to the statement, "Freedom to observe and experiment
was denied", there is abundant evidence of scientists, under the
guidance of the Church, observing and experimenting throughout the
whole of the so-called "Dark Ages". To illustrate my point, I shall
list the scientists from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries whose
names have come down to us, confining myself for sake of brevity solely
to those who were priests, and omitting those who made discoveries in
the medical sciences.
Early Priest-Scientists Within Church
Eugenius, the
Archbishop of Toledo ( 647 A.D. ) , is noted as an astronomer and
mathematician. The English Benedictine Monk, Venerable Bede (A.D. 700) wrote a
work on Natural History, including all the natural sciences. The priest
Scotus (A.D. 877)
suggested that Mars and Jupiter revolve around the sun, and went far
towards proving it (and this 700 years before the Galileo dispute). Gerbert D'Aurillac, lecturer in
Astronomy in the University of Paris and expert in his time (A.D. 1000)
on light and sound, deserves special mention because he is better known
in history as Pope Sylvester II. Just to show that the role of the woman scientist is of long standing,
one should mention St. Hlildegarde,
who as a nun had compiled a list of every known drug, in the three
categories, animal, vegetable and mineral in A.D. 1100. The formation
of the rainbow, both primary and secondary, was explained by the
Dominican priest Thierry of Freeburg
in 1293. The Franciscan priest Schwars,
if he did not invent gun-powder, at least constructed cannon which used
it, about the year 1300. Peter of
Spain, an expert on light and vision, who was the first oculist
in history, and the first medical specialist on record, became Pope
John XXI, and had a laboratory built in his palace to continue his
experiments. The Franciscan priest Roger
Bacon, an expert on refraction and reflection of light, in 1250
suggested the possibility of the telescope. This monk was in trouble
with his superiors for some of his scientific activities in the
monastery, not, it should be noted for his scientific opinions. Knowing
that Bacon's experiments involved gunpowder, we may feel a little
sympathy for his short-tempered superiors!
Other World Authorities
The chief world authority in Physics, Chemistry,
Astronomy, Mineralogy, and Zoology in the mid-thirteenth century was
the Dominican priest St. Albert the
Great. He was one of the first to tilt at Aristotelian
authority, or as he said himself : "The aim of the natural sciences is
not simply to accept the statement of others, but to investigate the
causes at work in nature." Nicholas
Oresme, Bishop of Toulouse in 1382, is famed for the arguments
he produced to show that the earth, not the sun, moved. Toscanelli's famous 277 ft. high
gnomon, or sundial, was built in the dome of the Florence Cathedral -
hardly evidence for opposition between Church and Science. Another
medieval scientist priest was Canon
Copernicus, who proposed his heliocentric theory about 1500,
without the slightest opposition from the Church. His theory, which
reduced the number of circles needed to explain stellar movements from
80 to 34, was not well received by fellow scientists, and could not
have been successful because of ignorance of elliptic orbits. Finally,
towards the end of the sixteenth century we come to Pope Gregory XIII, to whom our
present day calendar owes its origin, and two famous Jesuit
Astronomers, Clavius and Scheiner - the latter being an
expert on sun spots.
Technologists
Thus far, scientists. As for technologists, I can best quote from
Dr. A. C. Crombie, Cambridge
and London lecturer in the History and Philosophy of Science, who says:
"In the field of Technology, the Middle Ages saw the most rapid advance
since prehistoric times." * [Footnote "Augustine
to Galileo". A. Crombie. 1962 (London).]
Three points arise from this list of medieval scientists.
1. The absence of outstanding
contributions in the first ten centuries. This was due mainly to
the unsettled nature of this time for Christian Europe, with the Roman
persecutions up until the fourth century being followed by the
Barbaric, Moslem and Norse invasions, so that the unsettled society did
not have a chance to undertake serious intellectual activities till
about the eleventh century. According to the historian Hughes: "By the
end of the ninth century Western Europe presented a scene of
indescribable chaos, an immense waste with only a few islets of
security and ordered life scattered about it here and there." *
[Footnote "A Popular History of the
Catholic Church". P. Hughes. 1958 (Burns & Oates). ]
2. The contribution to the
growth of culture and learning by the monastic orders, initially
by the great Benedictine monasteries which maintained a tradition of
literacy, and then later by the Dominican and Franciscan Friars. Oxford
University owes its early successes to the Franciscan scholars, while
the Paris University became the domain of the Dominicans.
3. The relatively large number
of contributions to scientific knowledge in those early centuries.
It has been estimated that 80 per cent of the world's scientists are
alive today, and therefore in spreading the deceased 20 per cent over
the last twenty centuries one would not expect in the early stage many
names to appear, particularly in view of the "exponential" shape of the
knowledge curve.
Finally, may I present
one further piece of evidence to show that Christianity engendered
scientific advancement rather than suppressing it. This can be seen in
the failure of two great non-Christian eastern cultures, in China and
India, to produce any worthwhile scientific discoveries in the same era.
Concerning Galileo
In listing the scientific contribution of Churchmen, I
reached the seventeenth century. Here I would like to digress for a
moment and discuss another Catholic Scientist, Galileo, because, as I
mentioned earlier, most misunderstanding seems to occur with reference
to this great man. There is at present a great deal written about this
famous case for those who are sincerely interested in the truth, so I
would like to make just four points.
First: Galileo picked a very inopportune time to attack the Bible.
Second, he was publicly disrespectful and disobedient. Third, he was
wrong in his interpretation of the Bible. Fourth, he was wrong in his
Physics.
1. The inopportune time.
While not condoning in any way the action of some of the Cardinals at
this time, one can hardly blame the Church authorities for taking a dim
view of an attack on the veracity of the Bible, at a time when the
Church was being rent by major heresies as in England, Germany and
Switzerland.
2. His public disobedience.
Just as today scientific contributions to reputable journals are passed
to a panel of referees for censoring before being published, and just
as any book on religious matters published these days by a Catholic
author is submitted to his Bishop for an Imprimatur, so did Galileo
obtain permission to publish his works, as can be seen on the
frontispiece of most of his books. For his "Dialogue on Two World Systems",
published in 1632, after the first clash in 1616, Galileo had
permission to publish on two conditions: (a) that the Copernican theory
be presented as theory and not as fact; and (b) that the papal
arguments be included in the book. He failed to comply with the first
condition, and offended the authorities by placing the papal arguments
in the mouth of Simplicio, the rather slow-witted member of the three
characters in the book. It was for these reasons that he was asked to
appear before the Inquisition and made to recant his statement that the
sun was known to be stationary, and made to do penance for his
rudeness, both of which he carried out. His so-called imprisonment was
merely a curtailment of his movements about Italy. He was in receipt of
a papal pension from this time, he carried out experimental work at his
residence - discovering the small oscillations in the moon's movements
- and drew up a navigation system based upon the satellites of Jupiter.
On his deathbed he was sent a papal blessing, a rather rare and highly
prized privilege for any Catholic.
3. His wrong interpretation of
the Bible. In the fourth century, St. Augustine had counselled
his fellow Christians to read the scriptures to find spiritual truths -
not matters of natural science. Galileo should have heeded this advice
of thirteen centuries before, instead of asserting that the Bible was
in error - in particular Joshua 10.13 "Sun and Moon stood still". We
will agree with Galileo's own statement, "Holy writ is intended to
teach men how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go" just as we would
agree also with Cardinal Bellarmine's reply, "If there is contradiction
between the Bible and observed facts, let us say we have misunderstood
the Bible rather than pronounce false what is demonstrated". It was
this over-literal interpretation of the language of the Bible that
caused Galileo's trouble.
4. He was wrong in his Physics.
The Copernican theory needed the velocity of light , first measured in
1675, and Newton's Law of Gravitation, formulated in 1700, for its
proof, and obviously these were not available to Galileo in 1616. His
proof from the tides was completely wrong. Most scientists of his day
disagreed with his theory - two famous cases being Tycho Brahe and
Francis Bacon. This alone would vindicate the action of the Cardinals
who also condemned it; - (and, if it may help the present Ecumenical
movement, let it be noted that Calvin and Luther both condemned it
violently). As Huxley pointed out, "the Pope and the Cardinals had the
better of it." In America both Yale and Harvard taught the Geocentric
theory plus the Heliocentric theory until the eighteenth century.
According to Professor Bok, the first real proof of the Copernican
theory came with the discovery of the aberration of starlight in 1725,
a century after Galileo's time.
Plea for Fairness
May I make a plea for fairness. If it is necessary in a
text book of Physics to mention the rise of opposition to the authority
of Aristotle, why not quote St. Albert, 1250 A.D., instead of Galileo,
1616 A.D. If it is necessary to include a history of the experimental
approach to falling objects, why not give Stevinus (Simon Steven) his
due, and if it is necessary to discuss the opposition Galileo received
in asserting without proof that a theory was a fact, surely opposition
of scientists is of more interest than opposition of Churchmen, be they
Luther, Calvin or Cardinals. A bad case of this unfairness, occurred
last year in a Sydney Summer School where Professor Yeas said "Giodarno
Bruno, as most of you know, also believed that stars are suns like our
own, circled by planets inhabited by intelligent beings. Instead of
receiving applause and an honorarium for this, he was burned at the
stake in 1600". * [ Footnote "Light
and Life in the Universe". Butler & Messel. 1964
(Shakespeare Head Press), p. 217, p. 201.] This is wrong. Bruno was a
blatant heretic who went around preaching publicly doctrines of false
religion which would offend even Christians of today.
Not Scientific Beliefs
Whether the burning of heretics was as enlightened a
practice as the electrocution of criminals is a moot point, but as the
reasons for the condemnation of Bruno have never been published, I
would suggest it was his heresy, particularly his Pantheism, which was
responsible, not his scientific beliefs. To say that the Church is
opposed to science because of the "imprisonment" of Galileo or the
execution of Bruno, is the same as saying that the French Revolution
was opposed to science because it executed the chemist Lavoisier, or
that the American government is opposed to science because it
imprisoned nuclear-physicist Fuchs.
Keep to Science
The point I am attempting to make is that there is no
place for unnecessary history, particularly false and biased
Pseudo-History, in a text book of Science written by a scientist.
Surely a scientist should not allow personal prejudices to colour a
statement of experimental fact or a description of physical laws. In
contrast, in the most recent science history book, "A History of Science and Technology",
by Forbes and Diksterhuis, the authors specifically refuse to include
the History of the Catholic Church as an interesting digression from
the historical development of the scientific concepts they are
discussing.
In an entirely different category from a text book is a
discussion of the role of the Church in the development of Science,
such as this paper, or such as Professor Bok's address on "Galileo and the Scientific Revolution,"
delivered last year at a St. Mark's Lunch Hour Lecture in Canberra.
These are not expected to be a description of Physical phenomena in
narrative prose as one would expect to find in a Text Book of Physics.
Book on "Galileo"
I would like to quote a few passages from Professor Bok's
address on Galileo:
"He was a proud and arrogant aristocrat" . . . "a rather
unpleasant character, unnecessarily rude, and bent first on his own
aggrandizement" . . . "His trial did not affect the forward march of
science on a world-wide basis". And it is here that I would like to
disagree with the opinion of my friend Professor Bok, as he goes on to
say, "the trial . . . did much harm to the future development of
science in Italy and it can be looked upon as one of the factors which
led to the gradual shifting of the centres of learning from Italy and
Spain towards countries like England, France and other West European
nations where thought could be [more freely ] freer expressed than
under the domination of the Roman Catholic Church." Neither is
Professor Bok nor am I a historian, nor is the above a statement of
scientific principle, nor is it, in my own opinion, a statement of
observed fact.
There had always been centres of learning outside Italy, such as the
Catholic universities of Paris and Oxford; similarly a great proportion
of the great scientists up to the 20th Century were outstanding
Catholic laymen such as Pasteur, Ampere, Fizeau, Foucault, Fresnel,
Schwann, Smelweiss, Coulomb, Lavoisier and Fraunhofer. Italy was not in
any way inferior to the other nations, for it produced such great names
as Torricelli, Volta, Galvani, Fognano, Malphigi (the anatomist), and
Morgagni (the pathologist) during the same period. Even in such modern
developments as Radio and Atom bombs, the names of Marconi and Fermi
rank rather highly. And finally, to demonstrate that scientific thought
could be expressed freely well within the Catholic Church, I would like
to list the following famous scientists of the last three centuries who
were priests:
Priest-Scientists
The hydraulic engineer Castelli was abbot of a Benedictine
Monastery; the vulcanologist Kirchev was a Jesuit priest; Boyle's law
was discovered independently by Prior Mariotti; camellias are named
after the Jesuit lay brother botanist George Camel; lightning
conductors were invented by an Austrian priest Father Divetch a year
before Franklin reported them in America; the famous embryologist
Fortunatus of Spain was Superior General of his order; the geophysicist
Boscovich and the astronomer Secchi were both Jesuit priests; the
discoverer of star Ceres was the astronomer Father Piazzi; two
outstanding French priests were the entomologist Abbe Latrielle and the
crystallographer Abbe Hauy; while two very well-known scientists were
Abbots of their monasteries, Abbot Mendel (heredity and genetics) and
Abbot Mersenne (laws of sound). The list is not complete, but it serves
to show that the Catholic Church has made a significant contribution to
the advancement of science in these centuries. Catholics are free and
always have been free to express their thoughts on scientific matters.
Religious Outlook of Scientists
In looking through history books to collect this material, I was
struck by the outstanding religious outlook of all great scientists,
particularly some of the non-Roman Catholics, men such as Newton,
Kepler, Faraday, Joule, and even the evolutionists Lamark and Darwin.
To quote just one of these, Lord Kelvin: "Science positively affirms
the creative power, and makes every man feel a miracle in himself."
Perhaps the pattern has changed in this materialistic age. C. P.
Snow in his "Two Cultures"
claimed that more scientists are, in religious terms, unbelievers. This
has not been my experience in mixing with scientists, particularly
Physicists, throughout Australia. It is a very hard thing to assess,
particularly when one's contact is on the professional scientific plane
only. Scientific research does not lead away from God; as J. A.
Thompson put it, "Nor can it be said that science engenders an
irreverent spirit"; but neither does it necessarily lead to thoughts of
God, particularly if one sets a strict frame of reference within which
to work. Instead, this is one of the most satisfying aspects of
scientific work - one can select a region of interest which can be made
completely self contained, and then work in that field to produce
results that are perfectly satisfactory within that field. But this
very narrowness illustrates clearly the distinction between observed
scientific phenomena and the philosophy underlying their understanding.
Science is only one facet of knowledge - science is only one of the
ways of attaining knowledge and many of the most important realities of
this life are beyond its reach. Scientists can quite easily overlook
these more important realities, and the advice of Heisenberg is worth
noting: "Revere those things beyond science which really matter and
about which it is so difficult to speak."
Christian Theistic Philosophy
The philosophy of interpretation which I have accepted,
and which I assume most of my readers accept, is a Christian Theistic
Philosophy. I believe in a Personal, All-powerful God. I believe that
all things were created by God for a particular purpose and that all
things have God for their first principle and final end. After their
creation the physical entities which we use in science continue to
interact without any necessary direct intervention on God's part, and
from a study of these entities and their interactions, we are led to
understand more and more of God's handiwork. As the Protestant Kepler
put it so aptly: "Science consists of rethinking the thoughts of God."
True Meaning of Education
I found this same philosophy underlying the work of my
senior science colleagues, but not in the case of the majority of the
younger generation who seemed to have no underlying philosophy of life
at all. On considering this phenomenon for some time, again in
contradiction of C. P. Snow, who in England found more religious belief
in the younger generation scientist, I can see only one factor which
might explain it and that is the type of school or type of education
these scientists had enjoyed. More and more people now are entering
universities after having their secondary education at Government
schools where the education is free and secular. A true education
cannot be secular. Education in mathematics can be secular, education
in Physics can be secular, education in English can be secular, but
education itself in the true meaning of the term cannot be so.
A child is not just an animal - it is a human being with a body
and a rational spiritual soul, and the development of that soul is just
as important, even more important, than the development of intellect or
bodily skills. And that is why the Catholic Church feels that an
education without integral religious instruction is as lopsided as an
education without cultural or scientific subjects.
An Absolute Moral Standard
When people refer to scientists as being religious they
sometimes refer to the evidence of a social conscience in the attitude
of the scientist to the implications of his work. An example of this is
given in concern expressed by the first nuclear scientists as to the
use of fission as a destructive weapon of war - as pointed out in
Jungk's book, "Brighter than a
thousand Suns". This is not morality, but an extension of the
philanthropic "Do unto others or else" attitude. There is an absolute
moral standard; right and wrong do not depend upon the effects of one's
action upon one's neighbours. but upon the effects of that action upon
oneself and one's relation to God.
This is why I was so disappointed by the statement of the "Aims of Australian Education"
recently published by the Australian Teachers' Federation, which
although it stated that "education should provide opportunities for the
maximum development of moral and spiritual qualities" went on to give
the special contribution of State education systems in this matter to
be the formation of a "love of truth and the scale of sound moral
values, as an ethical guide to a pattern of behaviour which would
respect basic human rights". In other words, a social, but Godless,
education. As a scientist and a science teacher, I find this
insufficient, for it can produce only materialists. A cynic has been
defined as "one who knows the price of everything but the value of
nothing". Similarly a materialist can be defined as one who knows how
things work, but not why they work. I doubt if a materialist can be a
really great scientist, and I give as an example of an atheistic
education producing bad science, the public blasphemy of a Russian
Cosmonaut who apparently has never been taught the difference between
material and other realities, for he is quoted as saying that in 17
orbits about the earth he failed to find any trace of God. The American
astronaut's reply is fitting: "If he really wanted to meet God all he
had to do was step outside his spaceship." In similar vein was the
famous surgeon's disbelief in the existence of the human soul because
in many operations on the human body he had never seen it! And this
negation of the human soul leads me to one last topic for discussion of
the Church's attitude to Science, and that is the theory of Evolution.
Theory of Evolution
The evolution theory is not new - it was proposed by the
Greek Anaximander in 600 B.C. He suggested that living things
originated in slime, and that man was born inside a fish. After its
revival following the work of Darwin and Abbot Mendel, the theory met
with opposition from both scientists and Churchmen during the "missing
link" era, due mainly to the dishonesty of men such as Haeckel who used
the same plate to print the embryos of a man, an ape, and a dog, and
invited his readers to note the wonderful resemblances; or of Professor
Smith of London, who had a two-page picture reproduced in a newspaper
article showing the ape man, Hesperopithicus, and his wife, the whole
being based on Osborne's discovery of a tooth in Nebraska - a tooth
later declared to belong to a wild pig. The Piltdown man hoax did
nothing to enhance the extreme evolutionary theory in the eyes of the
non-expert. Similarly attacks on the Biblical Genesis version of
Creation by extremists produced the same hostility in Church
authorities as did Galileo's attack on Joshua's stationary sun.
Modern Evidence
However, in light of modern evidence, the theory of evolution has settled
down (1964) and is accepted by many scientists, but in this field there
is much misunderstanding of the Catholic Church's attitude to this
scientific theory. An example of this occurred at my own school,
Aquinas College, where a non-Catholic Biology teacher told his class
that the "next lesson would be on evolution" and that "any student who
found this offensive, opposed as it was to Catholic belief", could
absent himself from the lesson. This, of course, is incorrect.
Church Teaching
The only teaching
of the Catholic Church concerning evolution is with regard to the human
soul. The Church teaches that God creates directly and immediately the
soul of each human being. There is nothing in the theory of evolution intrinsically repugnant either to
Scripture or to Faith. Catholic scientists obviously may, and do, work
towards the establishment of this or any other scientific theory. It
was quite pleasurable for me as a scientist who does not believe that
man is just an animal, to hear Professor
Eccles, a world authority on brain functioning, in his address to the
Science Teachers' Conference in Canberra, state that he could not see
how the brain of man could have developed gradually from the brain of
any animal - the differences in function being so great.
Origin of Life
The origin of life on this planet is one facet of the
evolutionary theory - it has progressed greatly from the 1886 "beetle
from outer space" theory for origin of earth life, and the "protein
rich soupy ocean" now so popular does not seem to differ greatly from
the slime theory of Anaximander 26 centuries ago.
A modern discussion on evolution would be somewhat lacking without
mention of the Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin, whose work, the "Phenomenon of Man" has received
recently such controversial publicity. An Archaeologist of note, Father
de Chardin was a mystic as well as a scientist. The fact that this
unique contribution to evolutionary theory comes from a Jesuit Priest
illustrates my point that the Church fosters scientific development,
and the fact that Father de Chardin was forbidden by his superiors to
publish most of his non-archaeological works - far from being grist to
the anti-clerical mill, is rather an example of the Church's care for
correctness in spiritual matters. De Chardin's views on the human soul
did not seem to be in accord with official Church teaching, and as the
nature of the soul is spiritual and not in the realm of natural
science, the Jesuit superiors rightly restricted de Chardin's writings
in this non-scientific field. It is interesting to note that both de
Chardin and Galileo, no matter how disappointed they were in the ban on
their publications, accepted the authority of their Church in spiritual
matters and complied. {Webmaster's assistant's note: This is,
unfortunately not true of De Chardin's executors (even though De
Chardin had taken vows of poverty and obedience). His writings need to
be approached with the greatest of cautions.} May I stress also that
the Church has not condemned these revolutionary evolutionary ideas in
any way, even though young scholars have been advised to be careful in
attempting to interpret them.
Conclusion
I have tried to show in this paper that there are no real
grounds for any conflict between religion and science, as the physicist
Max Planck said: "Religion and science are not incompatible but they
supplement and necessitate each other." I have tried to show that the
Catholic Church has not been and is not in any way antagonistic to
scientific advancement. To quote Pope Pius X: "Religion has no fear of
Science. Christianity does not tumble before discussion but before
ignorance". I have made a plea for a more scientific attitude by
authors of science books, to prevent the continued propagation of
fictitious "Church versus Science" struggles. May I emphasize again
using the words of Lord Kelvin that "Science is not antagonistic to but
a help for religion". I would like to make a plea to my fellow science
teachers in the previously quoted words of Heisenberg: "Revere those
things beyond science about which it is so difficult to speak". And in
conclusion I put before you as the correct attitude for any enquiring
mind the words Lord Tennyson wrote on beholding a small growing flower:
"Little flower, -
but if I could understand
/what you are, root and all, and all in all
/I should know what God and man is."
* * * *
Nihil Obstat: ..BERNARD O'CONNOR, Diocesan Censor..
Imprimatur: ..JUSTIN D. SIMONDS, Archbishop of Melbourne.