The Mind of the Universe: Understanding Science and Religion

Thu, 01 Feb 2001 00:00:00 -0500

Forty years ago, publications in the boundary regions where religious belief and natural science both claim an interest amounted to no more than a trickle. Now, for one reason or another, they make up a steady and growing stream, most of them, it would seem, written from the perspective of the Christian believer. Even a casual glance at these newer writings will discover two quite opposing attitudes towards the natural sciences.

For some writers, the sciences represent first and foremost a challenge, even a threat, to religious belief. Their first concern is to find gaps in the explanatory competence of the sciences, inadequacies of theory that cannot, in principle, be bridged without invoking God’s “special” action to supplement the natural causes to which scientific inquiry is necessarily limited. In this way, they hope directly to counter the provocative scientism of some of the most widely read representatives of the sciences, those who would claim that advances in science leave the Creator God of the Western tradition no more than an unnecessary “spare wheel,” in Daniel Dennett’s dismissive phrase.

In striking contrast are those who regard advances in natural science primarily as a deepening of insight into the wonders of God’s creation, as an opportunity, therefore, to understand better the intricacies of the natural order that allow the purposes of that creation to be realized. The first book in English by the distinguished Spanish Catholic philosopher of science Mariano Artigas leaves the reader in no doubt as to the side of this divide on which its author belongs:

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The Mind of the Universe: Understanding Science and Religion