Revelations New Scientific Discoveries Viewed As Helping Bring Science, Religion Closer Together

On a windy ridge outside Denton, Texas, James Roberts spends much of his time peering through seven immense research telescopes into a vast, velvet darkness.

A physicist at the University of North Texas, Roberts isn’t surprised by the recent Hubble telescope discoveries of two new planets and many new galaxies. He figures God has simply revealed more of his splendor.

“When you come out here when it’s dark and just look out, you contemplate the whole cosmos,” Roberts said as he adjusted a telescope lens. “We’re a grain of dust on a grain of dust on a grain of dust. And yet we have the intellect to contemplate all of this.”

But contemplation often tangles us into theological knots. The Hubble discoveries increased the estimates for the number of known galaxies from 10 billion to 50 billion, with each galaxy containing billions of stars and perhaps planetary systems.

Is there life on any of those planets? Does God watch over them, too? If humans are mere specks traveling on a cosmic speck of a planet, how important can human beings be to the Almighty?

Plenty important, according to Roberts, a Church of Christ elder who has taught physics at North Texas for 28 years. He doesn’t see a conflict between his science and his faith.

“It’s more wholesome to accept Christian theology, that a superior intellect is the master of all of this,” he said.

But a lot of other people are laboring mightily to unite two subjects that have stood in conflict for centuries. Since the 1600s, scientists have said their explanations for the workings of the universe were superior to religion’s. God and the Scriptures were mere myth, they said.

Religious leaders, in turn, declared the scientists blasphemous.

Now, with emerging discoveries in cosmology, quantum physics and biology, science and religion are meeting again.

The movement started in the early 1950s with the birth of the Chicago Center for Religion and Sciences, whose goal was to promote dialogue between the two groups. Thirty years later, the Graduate Theological Union helped establish a Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.

Three years ago, Princeton Theological Seminary established a chair dedicated to theology and science.

Last year, Australian physicist Paul Davies won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion after the publication of his book “The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World.”

“If we discover new planets and galaxies and stars, none of that has theological implications except to make us aware of how great God is and how little we know,” said Jacobus Wentzel Vrede van Huysteen, professor of theology and science at Princeton Seminary. “I would never say only science can tell us something about the world and only theology can tell us about God. I do think there is much intersection.”

Van Huysteen said the key is understanding each discipline’s role in explaining the same phenomenon.

The Genesis story, for instance, should be read as a spiritual poem that shows God’s power. The Big Bang theory, which says the universe started with a cosmic explosion, is the scientific way of describing the same creation story.

We have similar discussions when we talk about everyday miracles.

For instance, he said, a couple having trouble conceiving a child pray to God. Eventually, after much prayer and many visits to a fertility specialist, the wife becomes pregnant. In their rejoicing, the couple thank God for the miracle. They also thank their physician.

“Both science and theology can say something about that,” van Huysteen said. “The point is, we can never threaten the Christian belief because the faith viewpoint will always dominate.”

But new discoveries will stretch our minds, he said. Consider, for example, the possibility of life on some of the new planets the Hubble telescope is finding.

“If we should discover life in the human sense, then it would have serious theological implications,” he said.

That is because Christians believe they have a unique connection to God through Jesus, who Christians believe is fully God and fully human.

“What now if we have life where people never knew of Christ?” van Huysteen asked. “What I answer is, ‘Who knows what God can do?’

“I think God may be just as surprising as science. If God wanted to reach life on this planet through Christ, I think the valid question is how would God do it in other contexts.

“God may have done it in other ways. The point is, if God is beyond our conception, nothing should threaten that.”

Some theologians say they aren’t threatened by a bigger God ruling over a larger universe, but they still believe in humanity’s singular place.

“The Bible suggests that humanity is unique by virtue of possessing ‘the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him?”’

“I find myself in greater awe and mystery,” he said after a pause.

Roberts finds himself in the same place, particularly lately.

“I think you philosophize more as you get older,” he said as he walked among the small buildings on an abandoned missile silo site that houses the university’s telescopes. “You have more time. … Somewhere along the way you’ve got to make a great leap of faith. If you believe in God, you leap to God. If you believe in science, you make a leap to science. Either way, you’re still back to the same spot.”