Science & theology.

Amid all the talk about the roles of faith and reason (John Garvey "Grounds for Disbelief?" January 12), it's important to realize that the methods by which both seek knowledge are similar: each starts with a theory that is eventually tested against empirical evidence.

Consider the tale of the two telescopes. Galileo's showed theology's theory about the sun revolving around the earth to be false, but the Hubble telescope appears to have confirmed the Big Bang. As Gerald Schroeder says in The Science of God, science could not have made a bigger concession to theology than the "concept of a beginning." Robert Jastrow also uses the Big Bang in God and the Astronomers to explain the relationship between faith and reason. "The scientist's pursuit of the past," he writes, "ends in the moment of creation."

In other words, the reach of science, though marvelous, does not extend to all of reality. Science studies how the universe has evolved since the Big Bang, while theology looks for clues about the origin, purpose, and destiny of human existence. We need both.

GEORGE E. WARD

Ann Arbor, Mich.