The search for truth: there is but one truth, parts of which are being discovered by scientists and parts of which are being described by theologians; and the quest for truth, whether through science or religion, can only lead to God.

It takes a very cold winter night, somewhere far away from the lights of a city, to truly make the spectacle of the universe visible to the naked eye. It is the kind of cold that threatens to freeze the lungs and promises frostbite to those who tempt fate with bare skin. But to the brave and the hardy, the cold turns the air to crystal, and a glance upward reveals the cosmos in its unmitigated splendor. On such nights with the world turned silent, starlight from millions of stars is reflected from freshly fallen snow in tiny sparkles of blue and silver and sometimes, it seems, in yellow. These nights are a time of imponderable magic and mystery, when the power of the full miracle of creation overwhelms the imagination. On such nights the transcendent becomes immanent, and mortal man, if he is wise, marvels that he has a place in this vast, imponderable tapestry.

And marvel he very well should! Why, in this colossal cosmos, should man--in his petty thoughts and feelings, in his pointless cares and worries--be here? Why should this creature, this world, even be allowed to exist? Indeed, in the vast reaches of time and space, it seems as if the Earth, its inhabitants, and mankind itself, are of no consequence whatsoever, that these things, collectively, are no more than a mote of dust, circling endlessly, unnoticed by an uncaring universe.

And yet, just the opposite seems true. Despite a prolonged effort to discover some sign of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, no such life has been found. Despite probes to other planets in the neighborhood, no living being, nor sign of any formerly living being, has been found. This flies in the face of that school of thought that suggests, given an infinity of worlds, life, and probably intelligent life, must exist somewhere else. But on the other hand, perhaps it does not. Life on Earth is spectacularly improbable. "Only rather special planets could harbor life," writes physicist Martin Rees. "Gravity must pull strongly enough to prevent their atmosphere from evaporating into space.... For water to exist on their surfaces, planets must be neither too hot nor too cold, and therefore the right distance from a long-lived and stable star. Their orbits must be stable."

Though other planets like this may very well exist, life must still be borne upon them, and this is something that, even on our own planet teeming with life, we cannot explain. "We still don't know how or where life got started," Rees writes. "Nor do we know what the odds were against it happening here on Earth--whether life's emergence is 'natural,' or whether it involves a chain of accidents so improbable that nothing remotely like it has happened on another planet anywhere else in our galaxy." Not only is life improbable on our own little planet, but as Rees points out, the conditions in the universe that permit it to exist at all are the result of an incredibly precise mathematical "recipe" that, were it to be altered in even the slightest manner, would result in a universe vastly different, a universe that could not support life.

Nevertheless, despite the incredibly, ridiculously, unbelievably immense odds against the existence of man and the rest of creation, man is here nonetheless. And so, across the immeasurable distances of time and space, man is here, on Earth and able to look into the night sky and ponder the truth of his existence. And he is able to ask in the unforgiving cold, as the snow silently reflects the light of the stars and the mantle of heaven stretches on above him, why he is here; what final, ultimate truth underlies this mystery and the miracle of creation?

The Genesis of Science

Since time immemorial, man has sought this truth. The search in its most effective form has been both guided by and conducted through faith. Religion, or more properly theology, begins with God, the ultimate source of Truth. As creator, the truth that is God permeates creation and can be discovered by man, whose capacity for reason was based on and is in some very restricted sense a model of God's own. Understanding this, man came eventually to conclude that this God-given ability to reason and to examine creation could serve a useful purpose in the discovery of truth. And so science was born.

This offspring of religion eventually ran amok, turning for a time, it seemed, on its parent and, thinking itself triumphant in its relatively youthful vigor, called even for the death of the parent, for the end of religion. The fact has remained, however, that there is but one, singular, unified Truth, and, inevitably, science is finding itself allied once again with that faith that gave it birth. Indeed, mankind is finding that science and religion are but two aspects of the same noble effort to understand creation and find a path to truth and to God.

Writing in his book The Mind of God, physicist Paul Davies points out that the Scientific Revolution that began in the late medieval period ended up having, collectively, a corrosive effect on man and his religious view of himself. "The revolution begun by Copernicus and finished by Darwin had the effect of marginalizing, even trivializing, human beings," Davies wrote. This appeared dangerous, inasmuch as human beings were created in the image of God. To marginalize them, then, would be, in a sense, to marginalize God.

This, however, was not the intent of those who, beginning in the late medieval period, began to investigate nature in a scientific way. They began this work, Davies explains, because they believed in a rational God who created a rational cosmos. "Nature's rational order, which itself derived from God, was manifested in definite laws." Therefore, the cosmos was rational, and man, through proper application of the powers of reason given him by God, could understand the cosmos and so come to a greater understanding of God.

It was in the discipline of physics that this understanding first began to bear fruit. Driven by faith and a desire to understand more fully the miracle of creation, early scientists and philosophers during the medieval period began to question the knowledge they had received from the ancients. Why did God make the world as He did? How, really, do the heavens above behave, and why do they behave this way? Can man begin, in some small way, to understand this marvel of creation? These were the questions that motivated the early scientists. "The early astronomers such as Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, in deducing the laws of planetary motion, believed that in studying the orderly processes of nature, they were uncovering God's rational design," physicist Paul Davies noted. "In Renaissance Europe the justification for what we today call the scientific approach to inquiry was the belief in a rational God whose created order could be discerned from a careful study of nature."

That rational study began much earlier than the Renaissance and, in fact, was often pursued by high-ranking church officials who also encouraged others to do the same. Indeed, the universities that began to sprout up around Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries were operated under ecclesiastical auspices. Yet, as historian Will Durant notes, "The Church ... allowed considerable latitude of doctrine to professors, and in many cases encouraged scientific pursuits." In fact, many of the pioneers of medieval science were themselves churchmen. William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, who died in 1249, "promoted scientific investigation, and ridiculed those who were ready to see the direct action of God in any unusual event," writes Durant.

A greater scientist, perhaps, was Robert Grosseteste, who became chancellor of Oxford University in about 1221 and moved on before his death in 1253 to become Bishop of Lincoln. Grosseteste was an influential philosopher and theologian whose range of knowledge and interests were truly broad. His scientific investigations, to name a few, extended to optics, meteorology, light, color, and mathematics. No less a contemporary than the great thinker Roger Bacon stated, "No one really knew the sciences, except the Lord Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, by reason of his length of life and experience, as well as of his studiousness and zeal. He knew mathematics and perspective, and there was nothing which he was unable to know, and at the same time he was sufficiently acquainted with languages to be able to understand the saints and the philosophers and the wise men of antiquity."

Another of the great early scientists was Albertus Magnus. One of the great medieval theologians and a Catholic Saint, Albertus Magnus was a pioneer in the sciences. He largely rejected the idea that natural phenomena were directly caused by God, but believed that such phenomena occurred in accordance with the laws laid down by God to govern Creation. "In studying nature," Albertus Magnus wrote, "we have not to inquire how God the Creator may, as He freely wills, use His creatures to work miracles and thereby show forth His power: we have rather to inquire what Nature with its immanent causes can naturally bring to pass."

The greatest of the medieval scientists, though, was that same Roger Bacon who so zealously admired Robert Grosseteste. It is impossible here to list all of the inquiries into various matters this Franciscan made during the course of his life. It is enough to say that he was generally accepted during his time as the most learned of men in nearly all fields. Moreover, his learning was religiously motivated. In his Opus maius or Larger Work, as Durant notes, "he pleads for science as revealing the Creator in the creation, and as enabling Christians to convert heathens immune to Scripture."

The flowering of science in the medieval period cannot be separated from the religious milieu that gave it birth. And in the centuries that came after, scientists continued to investigate nature, both for reasons of innate curiosity and for religious zeal. Even Isaac Newton, arguably the greatest scientist up to his day, labored at science as much for (admittedly unorthodox) religious reasons as for purely scientific curiosity.

Creatio Ex Nihilo 

Despite the fact that science began as an offshoot of religion, its findings shook the prevailing religious worldview. The low ebb came when Darwin published On the Origin of the Species. The book held that the diversification of species occurred gradually over time as various traits providing competitive advantage accumulated through natural selection. Thus, several species may have a common ancestor from which they diverged. And Darwin pointed out that this applied to humans as well as to the other creatures. This was a direct blow against the Judeo-Christian belief, rooted in Scripture, that man was created in the image of God. It appeared to be the final straw in the alienation of science from religion, and secularists applauded it as such.

They applauded too soon. If in biology Darwin had seemed to have excised God from creation, in physics certain discoveries soon had scientists wondering if God hadn't been banished a bit prematurely.

In the wake of Newton, it was generally accepted that the universe was infinite in age and extent, that it was unchanging and immortal. Such a conception did not accord with the Judeo-Christian theology of creation, in which God, as Augustine pointed out, "created something, and that something out of nothing. You made heaven and earth, not out of yourself, for then they would have been equal to your Only-begotten, and through this equal also to you."

In fact, the infinite universe theory not only did not accord with theology, but it did not accord either with accepted scientific principles. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, formulated in the 19th century, specifies that in a closed system, order must either stay constant or decrease. The simplest illustration of the Second Law is that of a hot cup of coffee. Left to its own devices, the hot coffee will cool as heat flows from the cup to the cooler areas around it. So too with the universe at large. Consequently, the universe could not be infinite, as the Second Law demands that it reach a state of maximum entropy or, as it is more prosaically called, heat death. "The fact that the universe has not yet so died--that is, it is still in a state of less-than-maximum entropy--implies that it cannot have endured for all eternity," writes physicist Paul Davies in his book The Mind of God.

The universe, therefore, must have had a beginning. That this was true appeared to be confirmed by theory and observation in the 20th century as astronomers observed that the universe was expanding. Along with this observation, theoretical work primarily by Einstein and elaborated upon by others indicated that the expansion seemed to be the result of some primeval outburst of colossal energy that gave birth to space-time.

This "big-bang" hypothesis has since become the standard model of the universe, and it seemed to confirm Christian Theism's account of creation. As every event must have a cause, then the big bang likewise must have had its cause or mover. Moreover, as the big bang brought about the creation of time and space, it was by definition the first event. Therefore its cause must have been the Prime Mover, God. This was a disturbing revelation to many scientists, said astronomer Robert Jastrow. "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak: as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Underlying Truths

Further refinement of" the standard model by physicists, especially James Hartle and Stephen Hawking, have again brought into question to a degree the notion that the universe was created in an instant. Hawking has, for instance, pointed out that it is possible that the universe is completely serf-contained with time simply limited in the past. As such, the universe did not originate in a singular instant (see diagram at right). As one cannot find a discrete starting point on the surface of a sphere, in the Hartle-Hawking model, there is no point of creation and this seems to obviate the need for a creator. As Hawking himself concluded in his famous book A Brief History of Time, "So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe were completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?"

Hawking is the master of the suggestive, rhetorical question. This last implies that he believes there is no need for a creator as a result of his work on the Hattie-Hawking model. But the situation is not so clear-cut, as he implies elsewhere. His equations have made it seem that the universe does not need a creator, but he asks, "What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?"

Whether Hartle and Hawking are right in arguing that the universe did not originate in a singular instant is not nearly as important as the more fundamental consideration that the universe exists and that it is governed by certain fundamental laws that point to a Master Builder. It is here where the false dichotomy between science and religion breaks down. There is not a diversity of truths, there is but one truth, parts of which are being discovered by scientists and parts of which are being described by theologians. The parts discovered and described are but portions of that Truth that is grounded in God and forms the underlying foundation of Creation.

That these truths are somehow transcendent was illustrated by the philosopher and historian Will Durant. In The Story of Philosophy, Durant cogently observed, "Behind the surface phenomena and particulars which greet our senses, are generalizations, regularities, and directions of development, unperceived by sensation but conceived by reason and thought. These ideas, laws and ideals are more permanent--and therefore more 'real'--than the sense-perceived particular things through which we perceive and deduce them.... A circle is born with the movement of my pencil and dies under the attrition of my eraser but the conception Circle goes on forever."

For some scientists, this is particularly suggestive. John Polkinghorne as a scientist is a physicist of some renown. He is, for instance, a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is also a theologian of immense repute, being Canon Theologian of Liverpool Cathedral. He is just one of several scientists who have pointed out that the laws that govern nature, in particular those described by mathematics, seem utterly to transcend creation.

In his book Belief in God in an Age of Science, Polkinghorne notes that mathematician Gregor Cantor "took the Platonic view that mathematics is the exploration of an existing noetic (i.e., intellectual) realm." Like the concept of the circle, mathematical truths appear to exist independent of mankind. That simplest of mathematical formulations, that 2+2=4, is incontestably true in all times and places. Indeed, as Durant pointed out regarding the concept of the circle, the concept 2+2=4 goes on forever, or, in other words, is not bounded in and of itself by space-time.

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The great Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose is the most eloquent defender of this essentially Platonic understanding of the transcendence of mathematical truths. "Mathematical truth is something that goes beyond mere formalism," Penrose has written. "There often does appear to be some profound reality about these mathematical concepts, going quite beyond the deliberations of any particular mathematician. It is as though human thought is, instead, being guided toward some external truth--a truth which has a reality of its own, and which is revealed only partially to any one of us." Or, as he said in shorter, more pithy form, "There is something absolute and 'God given' about mathematical truth."

Evolution in Biology and Epistemology

In the "big ideas" world of physics and cosmology, leading thinkers and researchers, finally, have had to come face-to-face with the fact that their science is pointing to and asking questions about the same concepts and subjects regarding ultimate origins as those asked by and considered by theologians. In a real and exciting sense, the disciplines of theoretical physics and theology are almost beginning to blend, as can be seen in the theological musings of men like Polkinghorne, Davies, Penrose, and many others. This is not true to anything nearing the same degree in the more insulated and provincial realm of biology. In a sense, biology is the last refuge of scoundrels, peopled by individuals like evolutionist Richard Dawkins, who is marked more by his dogmatic atheism than by the open-minded, inquisitive nature of the scientist. Consequently, it is in biology that those most resistant to religion have built their bulwarks and ramparts, and these are built on the foundation of Darwinian evolution.

To a degree, the theological/biological controversy of evolution and its implications is a blind alley. Those on both sides err in assuming that if evolution occurs it obviates the need for God. This is not necessarily true from a theological standpoint. Most theologians shy away from the Deist view that, after God created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing), He then stood back and let it run as it may. Instead, the prevailing theist view is that in addition to the ex nihilo creation, there is a continuing creation, creatio continua, in which God's creative, salvific, and redemptive work continues unabated within creation.

It continues as well, if St. Thomas is to be followed, in the natural order of creation. In the Summa Theologica, Thomas writes, "in these first days God created all things in their origin or causes, and from this work He subsequently rested. Yet afterwards, by governing His creatures, in the work of propagation, 'He worketh until now.'"

Thomas Aquinas was not a Darwinian. Yet the doctrine of creatio continua does not necessarily rule out the action of evolution within the created order. Nevertheless, critics of evolution are correct in their objections. There are significant problems in evolution as currently posited. A major problem described ably by biochemist Michael Behe is that of irreducible complexity. This is the idea that evolution can only work with already existing structures. Yet there are many examples of biological structures that can't exist in any form that is simpler than themselves, meaning that they cannot have been the product of evolutionary change from an earlier form. Cilia, tiny, cellular hair-like structures that are involved in motility, are a case in point. Cilia are composed of several components, all of which must be in existence in order for cilia to function. If any component is missing, then cilia, as a cellular structure, are impossible. Therefore, as Behe points out in his valuable book, Darwin's Black Box, cilia cannot have evolved. Like cilia, there are many, many other examples of irreducible complexity within biological systems. Then there is the essential irreducible complexity of life itself. No one has ever seen life evolve from non-life because life in the end is itself irreducibly complex. To state that life evolved from non-life is to make a statement of faith.

Darwin notwithstanding, the clash between science and religion has revealed the need for an evolution in the prevailing approach to epistemology or, in other words, the nature of knowledge. For far too long the world has suffered the existence of two competing epistemologies, one spiritual and one materialist. But there cannot be a spiritual truth and a material truth. There can only be one Truth. We need to recover the old liberal-arts understanding that all knowledge is interrelated, as each bit of knowledge is part of the created whole that finds its ground in the Creator. As Polkinghorne writes in the preface to his Belief in God in an Age of Science, "If reality is generously and adequately construed, then knowledge will be seen to be one; if rationality is generously and adequately construed, then science and theology will be seen as partners in a common quest for understanding."