Harmony between faith and science, one of the main challenges of evangelization
The traditional position of the Catholic Church on the relationship between science and faith is that there is not only no opposition but complementarity and, therefore, there must be a good relationship. Indeed, there is only one truth about every existing being and event, which are, moreover, reflections of the one God. We approach this truth gradually and cooperatively due to the historical, solidarity and limited nature of the human being. To know this truth, the two fundamental instruments that God has granted us are faith and reason, both of which have their objects and methods. They cannot contradict each other, because both come from the same author and bring us closer to the same and unique truth of beings and events. To think that they are opposed or, simply, indifferent to each other would be to declare a failure in their origin (God), in their agent (man), or their object (reality). Science, as a form of reason (experimental reason), is not opposed to faith, just as scientific reason does not exhaust reason, as philosophy and theology demonstrate.
This does not mean that science (or philosophy or theology) and faith are interchangeable, that one can replace the other. The Catholic position defends a legitimate autonomy or respect for the method and specificity of each, following the Christological maxim of the Council of Chalcedon (451): two distinct realities, unmistakable but inseparable. In this harmonious development, faith has primacy over reason because it is the greatest of human powers, the most universal (it is within everyone’s reach, unlike experimental science), and the one that best clarifies the truth of what exists because it is received directly from God. Therefore, the more true science develops, in harmony with other forms of reason, the more faith will deepen. And the more we radicalize the life of faith – the more we go to its root – the more we will contribute to scientific progress.
Foto galaxia
“Theology is the deepest physics of the universe, with which all other sciences and human activities must be coordinated».
D. Tomás Malagón
The development of experimental science has its foundations in the Christian theological-philosophical principles of the Middle Ages which, in turn, had them in faith. How was it then that Catholic culture, a promoter of science in healthy harmony with theological knowledge, was displaced from the center of the scientific world, coming to be accused of being its worst – and even violent – enemy and, consequently, deprived of its right to continue contributing to its development? The most widespread explanation – the black legend of which the most widespread version of the “Galileo case” is the epitome – is that scientific evolution itself showed its incompatibility with Catholic “dogmas” of theological root and, therefore, was condemned by the Church. This is a false explanation. The Church has never separated itself from science, even if it wants to hide it, as demonstrated by the silencing of the scientific contributions of the School of Salamanca in the 16th century or the expulsion of the Jesuits in the 18th century when they were at the head of science at the time.
The drift, on the other hand, was initiated by a serious theological error. Luther and his followers believed that faith is more authentic if it is blind and, therefore, without links (of any kind) with reason, thus giving rise to a theological, epistemological, and existential dualism known as the “principle of double truth”. This false principle holds that there can be two different and even contradictory truths about the same thing or event, one dictated by faith (which would be subjective and relative) and the other affirmed by science (which, they say, is objective). This principle was very useful to the new capitalist imperialism that emerged from the sixteenth century since it offered a way to counteract the Catholic Church, which for theological and moral reasons was opposed to lending with interest and to the logic of capitalist accumulation.
Protestant dualism and the capitalism that made it profitable spread to almost all nations, eventually permeating Catholic ones as well.
On April 16, 1995, Pakistani boy Iqbal Masih was murdered by hitmen hired by the entrepreneurs who exploit child slavery to make our «cheap carpets.» Iqbal, a child slave freed by a workers’ organization, had decided to fight for the liberation of his fellow slaves. He knew the danger he was in, but, as a baptized person and a friend of Jesus, he knew how to put his words into practice: «Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.» (Jn 15:13)
The error of the Lutheran theologians led later – especially during the Enlightenment – to scientism, the belief that truth can only be achieved using the scientific method and, with it, the abandonment of faith (paradoxically, also of the Lutheran faith). It was a logical consequence: faith and reason are mutually implicated and without one the other is orphaned and sooner or later loses its footing; although faith was the first to fall, science has also been affected in its intelligibility. Nevertheless, the Church has continued its scientific contributions throughout history despite the black legend.
For all these reasons, there is no doubt that one of the greatest challenges for evangelization is to break with this dualistic and scientistic model rooted in Protestantism, capitalism, and the Enlightenment, and to creatively restore harmony between faith and science, with all its difficulties and consequences.
