The Church has a Science Problem

How do we approach science properly speaking and not just its devolution into cult?

(Image: Zoltan Tasi/Unsplash.com)

It has become fairly common in these post-Covid times to distinguish very carefully between science and scientism, or between science and The ScienceTM. The distinction generally goes something like this: Science is a method for gaining objective, observable knowledge about the world through devising experiments with repeatable results, accruing over time, and supposed to be self-correcting as our knowledge and understanding of the observable world grows more detailed.

Scientism, or The ScienceTM, on the other hand is more like a cult: one blindly follows what one is told is true, one may not question the narrative of the leaders (the lab-coat wearers), and one must even have some kind of an outward signifier of participation (in the case of Covid: masks, vaccination cards, and boosters).

To be sure, scientism is dangerous and can devolve into the absurd, such as when Anthony Fauci declared that attacks on himself were attacks on science (one wonders what the reaction would be if any pontiff proclaimed that to attack himself would be to attack God), and it is good and fair that these distinctions be articulated, and criticisms of the cult-like actions of those that claim to follow The ScienceTM are being made. There is, however, a subtler problem, one with which we as a Church have been dealing for at least the past three centuries and one which I think has yet to be resolved. That is, how do we approach science properly speaking and not just its devolution into cult?

Knowledge without understanding

Much of the commentary I have read over the past two years critical of the way we have been handling this pandemic has been prefaced with something along the lines of “I am vaccinated, but…” or “I believe the science, however…”; that is to say, there is always some deference paid to the reigning scientific regime—a regime, I might add, may have unleashed this pandemic on the world in the first place. But this kind of offering at the altar of science before any attempt to criticize pre-existed Covid. Any theoretical, philosophical, or theological criticism of science as a method seems as if it must also be accompanied by a qualification along the lines of the author acknowledging that he quite enjoys his car, or artificial light, or the benefits of modern medicine. The toll has to be paid before moving ahead.

This kind of obligation needs to stop. Living in an order shaped by modern science and the technology that has resulted therefrom does not mean we cannot criticize or even outright condemn that very order. The deference showed to the modern scientific and resulting technological regime betrays a much deeper problem that I believe infects the entire world. But I will limit myself here to the Church: we have ceded judgment about reality to the modern scientific method, and in so doing imply that we do not actually or fully believe what the Church has to say about reality.

Criticisms of the modern scientific method have more or less been co-terminus with its existence. Goethe is notable as one who saw with great insight that isolating a part in order to know more about the whole will always produce a distorted understanding of both, thus his emphasis in studying wholes in nature.1 There was already resistance to Descartes’s splitting of the world into res cogitans and res extensa even as he proposed it. But in the West in particular, Enlightenment ideas of what it means to know something took over what it means to know anything at all. And such that knowledge effectively became what it means to make something perform a certain action, whether that meant melting down celluloid to produce what we now call plastic, capturing nitrogen to put into our soil so that we can grow things, or knowing which inputs will get the desired output from human immune systems so that we can fend off disease.

This shift from knowledge as understanding to knowledge as making has been traced and analyzed with great insight many times (not least in Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity). Indeed, on some level, we know the problem with the radical shift that takes place in the Enlightenment and therefore of what it means to know something: the isolation of anything apart from its greater environment may convey a certain kind of mechanical knowledge about that thing to me, but apart from its community I do not actually know that much about the thing.

For example: it is true that if we artificially isolate nitrogen and introduce it into our soil that our plants will likely grow more fully and rapidly—under laboratory conditions. But it is also true that if we introduce nitrogen into our soil year after year in the form of fertilizer, our crops grow weaker—their roots do not go down as far in search of the nutrients they need, and so we end up producing weaker crops that are more dependent on human intervention and thus a bad cycle of intervention-dependent fragile crops feeds into itself (and, handily, into the coffers of companies such as Monsanto). It is in a lab that we figured out nitrogen is a key component for healthy crops, but the necessary spatio- and temporal isolation in that same lab prevents us from seeing the full picture, which would include the fact that plants grow in an environment rather than simply as a result of human inputs.

The issue, put somewhat oversimply, is that the modern scientific method has no other way of understanding the world than through the lens of human input and therefore necessarily cannot see the larger whole, which of course includes the fact that there is always much more outside of human control than inside of it. This then becomes a problem that we must solve through technology: we try to place more and more of the world under our control, so we can predict the outputs. This a losing game, and always will be, as should now be evident to anyone paying attention for, apparently, in trying to “get ahead” of the next pandemic in a lab in Wuhan, we actually unleashed it on the world.

Again, a good deal of this has already been articulated by others more insightful than I am. But notice what I just outlined above is not a result of scientism, but rather of what we call science. Science and technology as we know them change the whole world into what Heidegger called “standing reserve”: material there for human input and desired output, with no intrinsic order or nature of its own—no “self” for humans to know and come to understand, rather just “stuff” for humans to use. And because there is no intrinsic order, because there is no whole in which man participates (perhaps in a particularly wonderful way, but in which he participates nonetheless), man then has no choice but to try and order (read: control) the chaos in which he thinks he finds himself.

A narrow and distorted worldview

This is the vision of reality the modern scientific method bestows on us, and it is to this vision we give deference every time we pay tribute to the regime of science by tempering our critiques with choruses of “but I am not criticizing the lightbulb.” Maybe I am indeed criticizing the lightbulb, as it has reordered our vision of reality such that we no longer pay heed to the sun, and therefore to natural human rhythms, and has allowed us to believe that second and third shifts are perfectly normal, and therefore induced many of our fellow human beings to work long hours in factories or fulfillment warehouses at night, and led us to thinking this is not only normal but right. Perhaps the lightbulb was a mistake: we should be able to discuss this freely in order to understand just how distorted our worldview has become, rather than being constantly afraid of not being taken seriously by a worldview that does not in fact take the given world and order in which we live seriously.

This does seem to be what is at the root of the tribute-making—the desire to be taken seriously. We think that in order to be a part of adult conversations about the world and what goes on in it that we must tip our hat, so to speak, in one way or another to the techno-scientific paradigm dictating for so long what it means to have so-called adult conversations. Sure, we can have our metaphysical and theological conversations, but when we get down to brass tacks—if we want people to pay attention to what we have to say—we must at least lay down some coin on the altar of the Enlightenment vision of the world, at the very least to say how much we enjoy the products of that narrow and distorted worldview.

The problem, of course, is that it is a worldview. Science as we understand it today is not a neutral method by which to observe the world (as it is so often painted), but rather most fundamentally a way of seeing and understanding the world and its order (or lack thereof) that then determines our actions. Make no mistake: what we understand something to be determines how we act on or toward it. If the whole world really is standing reserve for us to do with as we will, then there are no natural guides or limits on what we should do to or with anything in it—indeed, there really is no such thing as the natural at all, for the word “nature” indicates an order which precedes and exceeds man (natura: the character or constitution of thing, from the Latin natus: born).

If we, however, do understand that nature—that is, a given order—exists, then the implicit directive in that knowledge is we must pay attention and give heed to that order precisely because it precedes and exceeds us. Again, to put this somewhat oversimply, there are two competing worldviews here: man controls everything because there is no order in the world unless and until he wills it, or man stands and participates in an already given order which he ignores at his peril.

Stopping the erosion of nature

What, the reader may ask, does this have to do with the Church? What I have just laid out above shows that what we are dealing with is not a method of study of the world that at times happens to produce some unexpectedly poor results, but rather an entirely different vision of reality than the one the Church holds and knows to be true. Many of the Enlightenment thinkers were in large part self-conscious about this: they wanted to break with tradition (Tradition) and conceive an entirely new way of looking at and dealing with the world—one in which man gives and controls its order. But the Church holds that the world is given by God and therefore the order of nature is not something to be made but an infinitely fruitful gift that man has been given to know, understand, and, yes, have dominion over—but this last directive only in and through the first two.

The Christian worldview is not the only one to recognize that nature has an order which we must know and understand before we are able to work with its ends for our benefit. But it is the worldview that recognizes this truth most radically, since the Church recognizes the source of the natural order: God himself. And it seems the Church may also be the last and strongest groyne preventing the complete erosion of nature by the techno-scientific paradigm.

I am not arguing that the Church and all who wish to think with and in her move to some kind of Amish-like existence, foregoing anything that results from the techno-scientific worldview (though perhaps we might at least seriously consider the wisdom in rejecting any product of such a worldview). For it seems to me she is never called simply to remove herself from the world—this we have been taught since her birth, and has been affirmed throughout the Tradition.

What I am arguing, however, is that the Church cease engaging uncritically with this alternative worldview and all that has resulted therefrom, and certainly to stop being embarrassed about her critique. Yes, we need to deal with in and in the world, for the Church was born for the world’s salvation. But we need not be embarrassed by what the Church knows to be true.

Criticism and confidence

Any time that tribute, as I have been calling it, is paid to the techno-scientific worldview, it subtly undermines the vision of reality the Church has been given. It is not simply scientism or The ScienceTM that we must criticize, but science itself—that is, this method of obtaining information about the world that allows us to think things with natures are just parts for our disposal. Because it is science that has recast our vision of the world as something that can be picked apart, toyed with, and reassembled at our will. This is, to repeat, antithetical to the Christian vision of reality as an order given by God for man to work with and in order ultimately come to know God himself (Rom. 1:20).

Most of all we need, I think, not just to be critical of this vision of the world and recognize it as such, but what is more necessary as a Church is for us to remember and be confident in the knowledge that the Church indeed does have final and fullest word on reality precisely because it has been bestowed on her by her Bridegroom. This does not, of course, mean that the Lord has given his Bride instructions for the best agricultural practices in every climate on earth. Rather, the Church has been given the certain knowledge that everything in the physical world has a metaphysical nature created by God himself and is therefore something which we must respect and to which we must pay attention in order to know the world at all (and in so doing, we can then figure out the best agricultural practices for each climate).

This means that while engaging in critiques of science or its products to remember that it is not necessary to justify the Church’s full understanding of reality—a reality she knows is made up of more than just the immediately visible and otherwise sensible, a reality that is saturated with the metaphysical, which both grounds and bears upon the physical—to the incomplete techno-scientific model of reality.

The framework for reality on which modern science relies is far too narrow—far too small for what reality actually is—and the Church is probably one of the only places (and persons) left on earth that knows this and carries it in living memory. As such, it is her duty to speak this truth, not by reducing what she knows to fit into an insufficient framework (for this is what we do when we attempt to make arguments, e.g., about the inviolability of life based only on biology), but by proclaiming and arguing it based on her full vision of reality.

I am always struck, when I read Church Fathers, such as St. Athanasius: he did not try to fit the Incarnation and Resurrection into the framework of his time. Rather, he showed that the framework of the time was totally insufficient to reality itself; he showed that reality is far more than we thought it was—that indeed the physical world could not just come into contact with, but welcome what is truly divine—and that is what was and continues to be compelling.

Conclusion

The Church has a science a problem—and that is not what she gives too little heed to modern science, but perhaps that she pays it too much. Of course it is her duty to engage with and understand the world better than it knows itself, which includes understanding modern science from within—indeed in some sense the Church must become the “expert” on modern science precisely because she “sees more” (to quote from Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Epilogue) than modern science. She can see behind and beyond the modern scientific method and its judgments about reality, and she understand it better than it understands itself because she sees the whole that it, by its very nature, cannot.

The Church has a duty to show the world the truth of reality, which is always much more than our ideas about it, or our attempts to control it. And her duty, it seems to me, includes the full proclamation and confidence that her vision and understanding of reality as a gift from the Creator, in its full metaphysical and theological depth, is the final judgment on what is right and just, not the scientific and medical experts.

Science is not a neutral method of observing reality, but rather a way of viewing the world, and as such, like any worldview, it can easily slide into believing it and only it sees the world truly. It is vulnerable, like any other worldview, to its own ism-ification. Only the Church is immune to this (and only because she is born from the side of Christ). We cede too much ground if and when we try to fit the Church’s vision of reality into an insufficient framework in order to be taken seriously.

We do not ever need to justify ourselves or our understanding to the techno-scientific model of reality, rather we need to justify our knowledge to reality itself—that is the only measure by which knowledge and understanding can be judged, and the Church first and foremost performs this judgment best because it is she who sees the whole.

Endnotes:

1 Goethe is also worth mentioning because his thought has generated a way of observing nature—which we may call science—that has continued to this day, though has been significantly outpaced by more Darwinian-influenced strains of observation and theory. For more on a Goethean-inspired science of wholes, see the work of the brilliant biologists at The Nature Institute in Ghent, NY.


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About Rachel M. Coleman 2 Articles
Rachel M. Coleman is an Assistant Professor of Theology at Assumption University in Worcester, MA. In addition to her PhD in Theology, she holds a BS in Biology and BA in Philosophy. She researches primarily in the area of metaphysics, and often writes on the intersection of philosophy, theology, and science.

66 Comments

  1. In a letter to his friend Solovine, written four years before his own death, Albert Einstein explained:

    “It cannot be helped . . .The strange thing is that we have to be satisfied with recognizing the ‘miracle’ without having any legitimate way of getting any further [rejection of metaphysics?]. I have to add the last point explicitly, in case you think that I am so weakened by age that I have fallen into the hands of the priests” (Letter of March 30, 1952, cited in Stanley L. Jaki, “The Absolute Beneath the Relative, and Other Essays,” Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1988).

    Einstein believed in God, but not a personal God.

    My sense is that (theologically speaking) he was a Monist, thinking finally that the miracle of an ever-more rational physical universe, and God, are one and the same “thing.” How, then, to re-establish what the Church means when we say in (one of the four forms of) the Mass: “in all things, AND above all things?” That the ultimate reality of God is not another “thing” at all.

    Perhaps one link is by pointing to the “miracle” of the historical and absolutely unique Incarnation, which is not replicable as needed under the experimental scientific method (only a “method”)? While the best of modern science can never actually prove the authenticity of the image on the Shroud, following its own method of negation, the scientific method cannot disprove the event of Christ, either.

    Christ in the consecrated host, “fallen into the hands of the priests!”

    • I’ve commented previously on my conversion from a young pro-life atheist and physicist to a man of faith, however flawed. It is hard to honestly examine the physical universe and not discover majestic intelligence in its order. God rest the soul of the great Monsignor William Smith and his great apologetics for pro-life values on popular TV talk shows decades ago, which began my process of considering that there were Catholics with coherent arguments. The third part of my conversion was meeting my future wife, whose kindheartedness reinforced my understanding that truth flows from a purity of heart, not the many corruptions of intellect.

      Everyone is a sinner, and every sinner resists what God is trying to tell us from time to time, well, maybe frequently. Not to pick on one of my scientific idols, but Einstein was no different. Not that I assume my being a better man, but when I detect order in nature, it suggests to me the likelihood of a personal God. A perfect intelligence would also have to be personal.
      We often turn to abstraction and seek to remain in abstraction to avoid the personal. We avoid the personal to avoid shame, often struggling to sustain this avoidance. We have a need to avoid shame because we earned our shame and have no way out of it without taking the final step to the personal God we spend so much effort in life keeping lonely and imposing the same on ourselves in the process.

  2. Great article that reminded me of Augusto Del Noce’s The Age of Secularization. I am not sure about Rachel’s definition of “scientism,” though, which I think is too narrow. I believe the accepted meaning of scientism would include her separate analysis of science.

  3. JRR Tolkien from Gandalf:

    “And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”

    Tolkien, J. R. R.. The Lord of the Rings (p. 259). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

  4. A brilliant essay. Let’s have more entries from this thinker.

    The final paragraph spells out the truth clearly. “We do not ever need to justify ourselves or our understanding to the techno-scientific model of reality, rather we need to justify our knowledge to reality itself—that is the only measure by which knowledge and understanding can be judged, and the Church first and foremost performs this judgment best because it is she who sees the whole.”

    Now, please, send this essay off to Pontiff Francis as he clearly was in the dark about Covid and its salvific vaccines.

  5. One recent thinker and writer of note who challenges the autonomy of the scientific method is Walker Percy. Trained as a medical doctor and widely read in philosophy and semiotics, he, like Dr. Coleman, made the distinction between science and scientism. The former is the real deal; the latter is a tendentious, ideologically driven perversion of it. See, for example, Percy’s “Culture: The Antinomy of the Scientific Method” in The Message in the Bottle and “The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind,” in Signposts in a Stange Land.

    The Church has no problem with science. We all, however, have a problem with scientism.

  6. Your article brings needed attention to science vs “the science” and especially the conundrum facing Church leadership. However, you risk the credibility of the entire article when you wandered away from your expertise. The comments on the nitrogen cycle as related to plant use is not accurate and reference to Monsanto shows you have swallowed the entire false narrative of the greeenies. Tom Koranek Certified Professional Agronomist with 50 years of practical hands on field experience.

  7. I am sorry, but while I agree with most of what has been written, I believe that the Church has a bigger problem. That is cowardice. The Church hierarchy has decided that all decisions must flow from one central authority, and that authority, the Pope, lacks the courage to stand up for religious principles. The Vatican is not run by stupid people, and most know exactly what the scientific method requires. They know that the secular governments that closed down churches and trampled over the rights of individuals had nothing to support the claims that the jabs (note that the mRNA jabs did not fit the definition of vaccine, so it was changed by the CDC) were needed or wise.

    Perhaps Catholics need to read Michael Bulgakov or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. As Bulgakov writes in his great book, The Master and Margarita, truth does matter, and cowardice is the greatest sin.

  8. Science; is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. So, evolution theory relates to the physical and is testable. Science in its original sense was a word for a type of knowledge rather than a specialized word for the pursuit of such knowledge.

    Man is more than a physical being; he possesses a soul. The soul is not part of evolution, rather it is the unchanging image of God, born anew in each newly created individual and possesses a divine spark, waiting to be ignited by the Holy Spirit (Truth). We are all born with the ability to discern the good or bad within our own life-given situations.

    Recently I posted a post under the link below that relates to what the ancients including the early Greeks and Egyptians understood of the soul/divine spark in relation to dreams and visions. Here is some further information that conveys an understanding of *Cerberus who in Greek Mythology is a monstrous watchdog with three (or in some accounts fifty) heads, which guarded the entrance to Hade. Whom I had interpreted as The Otra (signifying other or others) in my post vi the link below which should be read before continuing.

    https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/08/02/on-musk-markets-and-man/#comment-325730

    On another site, Timothy Fries says “I do remember flying dreams as a young man when I was starting graduate school, in particular,

    Dream Structure (DS) holds the consciousness in place within a dream. In young adults, this structure has not been fully formed although in reality it is never fully formed as the consciousness/soul is motile within DS.

    Flying dreams occur when DS structure is being breached and relates to a release of ‘adrenalin which is a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands, especially in conditions of stress or possibly ‘in this case one of flying an increase in the ‘alertness (Arousal) of the mind creating a gentle pleasurable surge. I say this because this occurs when one consciously participates in a dream.

    While similar occurrences originate from being aroused in relation to the Male and Female sexual function as in erections or orgasms by creating adrenalin that is reflected in a feeling of flying (Of different intensity) with given imagery relating to our own perception of flying in the physical world. While the Otra attempts to still/quieten one’s consciousness within the dream state, often to no avail as one would normally awaken rather than continue within the dream as ‘in this case ‘ The Otra knowingly accepts that it can no longer maintain this allusion within a gradually awakening (Increasing alertness of mind). So flying dreams appear to be driven by arousal.

    A comparable dream that many have, relates to fear as in one of trying to control a runaway car, bike, horse, etc, usually on a straight road, pathway etc, often with a downward incline with barriers to either side as in Walls, fences, houses, trees etc.

    When the brakes don’t work or pulling on the reins has no effect etc, anxiety then drives fear which in turn increases levels of adrenaline creating an impression of increasing speed within the dream. (In a structured/controlled dream, the brakes and reins would have an effect.) The Otra has to regain control but in this instance, it is most difficult to achieve nevertheless the Otra via a subservient (Lesser) entity creates an obstacle at the bottom end of the road, a house, level crossing gates, wall etc; just as the dreamer is about to hit the obstacle another twined conjoined subservient entity (Known as *Cerberus* in Greek Mythology-) unseen by the dreamer creates an unrealistic opportunistic opening (Road, etc), for the Dreamer to turn into.

    In this given instance he does so and in doing so creates three possible outcomes that interrelate with the dreamer’s unseen body position and his action and personal perception within the dream. If he hits the barrier (Hot spot) full on so to say he will awaken with a very sharp jolt accompanied by a feeling /state of Shock.
    Alternatively, the dreamer will lose control of the ‘vehicle’ which will create a tumbling effect in his consciousness while his adrenaline level will lessen slightly but not sufficiently to avoid contact with the Barrier HS which will be reflected in the intensity of the awakening jolt.

    In the third scenario, The Dreamer turns skids while almost over turning but not quite this reduces the adrenaline giving the Otra the time to create a dampener as in shrubbery/bushes which will decrease the moving vehicle (Car/Horse) reflecting a lowering level of adrenaline, and at some point, the dreamer will return to the normal confines of DS in REM sleep or awaken gently while probably drifting back into the dream state (Not REM sleep although this may shortly follow)

    This Jolt can be seen at times when we observe someone falling into stage two sleep while sitting in a chair but this Jolt is not related to a stressful/adrenalin-increasing situation rather the sleeper has touched a Hot Spot (Awakening spot) these HS relate to body position and cannot be seen by a by the dreamer, but they can be discerned by a conscience mind within a dream as body position can be deduced before awakening.

    *In Greek mythology, *Cerberus* is often referred to as the hound of Hades and is often (But not always) depicted as a three-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving.

    kevin your brother
    In Christ

      • Thank you for your comment ‘anonymous but legion’

        ‘Scientism tends to deeply depreciate the belief that knowledge can come from moral, aesthetic, and religious experience/insight and sources’
        Which I have attempted to demonstrate otherwise. While the article gave me the opportunity to now complete my original post, given via the link in my post above.

        kevin your brother
        In Christ

      • Good observation. Maybe the main point can be found in one of the links to other posts on other websites that contain posts with links to other posts with additional links and so on in an endless maze of confusion. It’s best not to look for clarity in the midst of deep confusion. It won’t be found there.

    • Kevin, I’ll need to read your in-depth post a few times to really appreciate it. What a wonderful contributor you are to CWR. Bless you always.

      • Thank you, once again Eileen, for your supportive comment for which I am most grateful because as you have previously said ‘we’ ‘have to remain strong’ (Trust in the lord) always

        “Jesus, I trust in Thee”

        Sincerely
        kevin your brother
        In Christ

    • My brother:

      You have more than one jump! The lord has given you intellect and desire to know Him.

      The subject matter is somewhat out of my purview so I didn’t want to comment, never the less, reply to someone else’s comments. God always puts matters into perspective:

      Psalm 111:2 Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.

      Job 38:4-30 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, …

      Ecclesiastes 8:17 Then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.

      Isaiah 40:12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

      Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

      Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

      Hebrews 3:4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)

      Psalm 104:5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.

      Proverbs 14:15 The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.

      Blessings and the peace that passes all understanding.

      Brian

      • Thank you, Brian, my brother, for your scriptural blessings while saying You have more than one ‘jump’! The Lord has given you intellect and desire to know Him.

        In other words, more than one (As in ongoing) ontological ‘leap’,” as described by Peter D. Beaulieu in his post below on August 26, 2022, @ 5:44 PM

        In dank glen deep in wooded dell, sits
        The dinking, tinker ling, sweet blue bell
        Moist rock, sodden moss,
        Decaying leaf and soft acorn
        This is my bed in cool May morn
        The morning mist conceals not my form
        As my small head rings in the dawn
        The church bells ring, high above the Glen
        Echoing on mountain side rolling as the morning tide
        Bringing all that’s fresh and new

        ‘Again, we have the spray and morning dew’

        Hurriedly we make our way some to sing and some to pray
        The ground-clad mist coat of the morn
        Recedes in flight the coming of the morning light
        The trees stand tall in the great wooded hall
        Holding back the dawning light
        The gentle breeze flutters the leaves
        Showers of quivering light
        Flickering foliage of every sight
        We feel the touch of the morning bell
        And again, we dwell in the wooded dell
        The high roof cannot hide the view
        As we sing and contemplate anew
        The birds, greet the morning in
        Can you feel the blue bell sing
        It is not a tinkling sound or shouting bell
        But can you hear me deep in the dell
        The choir sings in sweet accord
        As we feel the touch of the risen Lord

        Sincerely
        kevin your brother
        In Christ

  9. It’s been a while but what I remember from the agriculture-related classes I attended is that plants don’t really care where their nitrogen comes from as long as it’s present & accessible. Soil types, soil compaction, PH, organic material, & bacteria matter though. And plant roots need oxygen more than anything else.
    And what’s really cool is that lightning storms release nitrogen in a plant usable form:
    “Plants absorb nitrates in the soil and when we eat plants, we get the nitrogen in a form that our bodies can use. Plants also cannot make use of the nitrogen in the atmosphere so fertilizer is one way to add nitrogen to the soil.

    Lightning is another natural way. Nitrogen in the atmosphere can be transformed into a plant-usable form, a process called nitrogen fixation, by lightning.

    Each bolt of lightning carries electrical energy that is powerful enough to break the strong bonds of the nitrogen molecule in the atmosphere. Once split, the nitrogen atoms quickly bond to oxygen in the atmosphere, forming nitrogen dioxide.

    Along with the lightning in the cloud are cloud droplets and raindrops. Nitrogen dioxide dissolves in water, creating nitric acid, which forms nitrates. The nitrates fall to the ground in raindrops and seep into the soil in a form that can be absorbed by plants.

    Lightning does add nitrogen to the soil, as nitrates dissolve in precipitation. This helps plants, but microorganisms in the soil do the vast majority of nitrogen fixation.”
    https://wxguys.ssec.wisc.edu/2018/07/09/lightning/

  10. “Scientism is dangerous and can devolve into the absurd, such as when Anthony Fauci declared that attacks on himself were attacks on science”(R Coleman). The essayist theorizes we need to perceive a worldview that is reality itself. Depending on what we wish to convey, crafts our world view. Science and The Science are an antagonism of pure statistical data and adherence to the data. Fauci in a sense was correct, that [as he frequently reminded] we rely on the data available, and with a new field of study [Covid] there are incoming variables we discover en route. Mistakes and adjustments are necessary in advancing our scientific ability to best respond. In that sense he was right. Persons who criticized him actually assumed the mindset of Scientism, that all had to be perfect and adhered to absent of the learning curve.
    A world view of reality is complex. Physical science provides info that would modify religious views as did Galileo for the Church. Man as the center of the universe consequently did not hinge on Earth being the center of the cosmos, rather more emphatically man being created in God’s image.
    Religion and science collide at times Einstein Flummoxed by simultaneity of causal effect of two events [many] light years distant. Scary, he said. A realistic, relevant worldview would mesh both physical science and theological science. Unpredictable events were likely Einstein’s rationale for belief in an amorphous divinity. Galileo, who opened the mind to scientific research and discovery, was very religious.

    • “Man as the center of the universe consequently did not hinge on Earth being the center of the cosmos…”But, now we find, under the post-Copernican Theory of Relativity, that any point (!) in the cosmos (including the earth!) can be the center of an inertial frame of reference. Ptolemy was right!

      And, culturally, every narcissist and de-spiritualized cranial mechanism can then decide that it, and it alone, is the center of the cosmos…Hence, the immortalized words of Ayatollah Anthony Kennedy in the Supreme Court ruling, Casey v Ferguson (1992): “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence [!], of meaning [!], of the universe [!], and of the mystery of human life [!].”

      But, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization has at least removed the Constitutional veneer from this modern and narcissist mass hysteria. (Noting that in physics, “mass” is a quantitative measure of inertia, a fundamental property of all mere matter.)

    • Perhaps a best first premise, as a start for a realistic worldview would be what John Paul II had hoped would be developed, a Christian anthropology.

  11. Scientism, Albert Einstein, “I’d like to think the moon was there even when I wasn’t looking at it”, V.S., Science, Neils Bohr, “It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties.”

    Did you know that decades ago, any science major college student, had to take a Scientism course on the philosophy of Albert Einstein, which taught that the universe still exists when man is not looking at it? Talk about teaching the exact opposite of what science is meant to be.

    The debate between, Scientism Albert Einstein and Science Neils Bohr, has led to the most fierce, greatest, scientific research, experimentation and discussion ever, over the past century. Please watch the following Space Time PBS video on Albert Einstein V.S Niels Bohr. According to Space Time PBS, Niels Bohr, with his ‘Peek A Boo Universe’ a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it, has pretty much obliterated Albert Einstein’s Scientism philosophical hopes that the universe does continue to exist when man is not looking at it.

    https://youtu.be/tafGL02EUOA

    As of 2019, MIT has accomplished dual realities in the lab. This scientific accomplishment mimics God’s, Miracle of the Sun, in which 60,000 people in Fatima experienced one reality, while the rest of the world experienced a different reality.

    https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/12/136684/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4IbOzuNlmE

    Science itself shows us that our reality is more like tv picture, with God holding the remote control. God can show two different people, two different realities, or all the people on earth a unique reality all their own, using the same subatomic particles of the universe. Differing realities only collapse into one common reality, when observers (people) discuss with one another what they are experiencing. Wow!

    For Christian Creationists, science telling us that the universe and conscious man cannot exist separately from one another, means that there is no universe before Adam opened his eyes to experience our universe. With the exception of God performing a six day miracle on the week Adam opened His eyes.

    In the ‘double slit’ experiment, subatomic particles go back in physical time to create the past, present and future, which an observer will experience. If the observer is looking at a star billions of light years into our past, then subatomic particles, even billions of lightyears into our past, at that moment, make that past which becomes the observer’s reality. When a star is no longer being observed, then it, along with its past, no longer exists. Again, two, or many, different observers can observe two, or many, different, billions of years in our pasts, realities, using the same subatomic particles. Wow!

    So how did subatomic particles ‘evolve’ to know how to do all this? They didn’t! Scientists are looking at the Omnificent Power of God when they observe the capabilities of subatomic particles in our realities.

    Go Niels Bohr! Thank you for your persistence in simply accepting what the scientific data tells you. A big win for the world over the Cult who worships the Scientism philosophy of Albert Einstein.

    Go God! Our Glorious, Magnificent Creator of all that Exists! Hallelujah! Thank you God, for our existence.

    • What if “there is no universe before Adam opened his eyes to experience our universe?”

      Not a (coherent) “universe,” but only aggregates of subatomic and sightless stuff? When Adam discovered his very self, apart from what was “other” than himself, he wondered about both the mystery of the “other” in Eve, and in The Other. Such pre-lapsarian innocence!

      An “ontological leap,” at that moment, often mistranslated from St. John Paul II as no more than an evolutionary leap. The profoundly accurate term “ontological leap” appears in St. John Paul II, “Message on Evolution to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,” (October 23, 1996) where he explicitly agrees that “the theory of evolution is more than a hypothesis” (n. 4). But, also proposes the ontological leap as “a moment [!] of transition to the spiritual” and as a discontinuity—which is neither reducible to nor incompatible with the “physical continuity which seems to be the main thread of research into evolution in the field of physics and chemistry” (n. 6).

      Of the scientific method, he writes: “The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection, while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator’s plans” (n. 6).

      • Hello Peter,
        When God originally Created all of Creation, and placed Adam into the Garden of Eden, there was no woman or animals with Adam. God and Adam worked together to find a solution to Adam’s loneliness. Creating the animals did not work. Finally God and Adam came up with a wonderful solution. God recreated man, as man and woman. God put Adam into a deep sleep, meaning “conscious man’ was no longer observing the universe, and thus the universe no longer existed, in the Niels Bohr interpretation. God then separated man into two sexes, who would then become one being again, through Holy Matrimony. When unconscious Adam regained consciousness, and opened his eyes again, there was Eve with him. Adam really, really likes God’s re-Creation solution, where God switched to a new Reality for Adamkind with woman in it, even until today!

        So Peter, have you ever heard scientists talking about “The Multiverse”? Where they are getting this from, is that every subatomic particle in the universe carries with it, all possible, past, present and future, of physical time, Realities. Neils Bohr, “It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties.”

        As wild and as crazy a, past, present and future, reality you can imagine, God has the Omni-Power, and Omni-Presence to switch the whole of physical time, past, present and future, to an alternate Reality at any moment. Subatomic particles are all set up to do just such a, past, present and future, switch to a different, alternate, Reality.

        Originally, upon God’s Seven Days of Creation, there were no animals or women, as a part of that, past, present and future, Reality. Upon God and Adam’s work, in bringing woman, and the animals, into existence in an alternate Reality, our presently selected by God, Reality, past, present and future of physical time, is a Reality with woman and man, along with the animals in it. We are no longer running on the original Seven Days of Creation, past, present and future, of physical time, Reality. God reCreated our Reality, to now be a Reality with man, woman, and the animals, in our, past, present and future, present Reality.

        Do you understand how, what scientists refer to as “The Multiverse” works, and how God can, at any moment, switch our past, present and future, Reality, at any time? Our past, even a star, billions of lightyears away and billions of years into our past, only comes into physical existence when a conscious man is looking at it. When a conscious man is not looking at our past, it no longer exists. There would have had to have been a conscious observer present in our present Realities’ past, for our past to ever have physically existed.

        In other words, just because in the present day we find dinosaur bone fossils, does not mean that dinosaurs actually physically roamed the earth. There would have had to have been a conscious observer, observing the dinosaurs, back in the days of the dinosaurs, to cause subatomic particle ‘wave collapse’, for subatomic particles to switch to become physical particles, making up a living dinosaur. Nothing in the past of our present Reality beyond Adam, of our present Reality, ever had ‘wave collapse’. It takes a conscious observer present, back in the day, to cause wave collapse, in which subatomic particles switch to become physical particles, to make up a physical universe. Without a conscious observer, Adamkind, present to observe dinosaurs, subatomic particles did not switch to become physical particles, making up a living dinosaur, or anything else, before Adamkind looked at it. With the exception of a possible six days of Creation miracle from God.

        Genesis 2:18
        The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him. So the LORD God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each living creature was then its name. The man gave names to all the tame animals, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be a helper suited to the man. So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The LORD God then built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman. When he brought her to the man, the man said:
        “This one, at last, is bone of my bones
        and flesh of my flesh;
        This one shall be called ‘woman,’
        for out of man this one has been taken.”
        That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.

        • God created (past tense)? Catholic theology divides the single action of creation into past tense, and into the pure act of “sustaining in existence.” Is this duality a mental construct?

          If these are the same action, the point about a Prime Mover is about the absolute difference between existence and non-existence. Not about how existing stuff changes, and regardless of whether particles alternate with waves, or vice versa, under human observation.

          The metaphysical question, as with Leibniz, is: “why anything, rather than nothing?”And, for that matter, what is this elementary “thing” called a particle, if not a mental idea overlooking other kinds of leptons, and lesser quarks?
          Maybe Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer (!), is closer to the truth about stuff as being more fractal than measurable: “I believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties; that no matter how much we learn, whatever is left, however small it may seem, is just as infinitely complex as the whole was to start with [!]. That, I think, is the secret of the Universe” (Attributed to Isaac Asimov in book reviews by Stratford Caldicott (ed.), Second Spring, XIII, 2011).

          When a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, is there any noise? Likewise, when a bunch of stuff falls together but is not seen by men, does the stuff still exist—but maybe not for us as a coherent “universe” or even “multiverse”? Yes, says the totally spiritual and self-subsistent God and Father—the creator ex nihilo!—from outside of the physical or even subatomic, the so-called First Mover: “in all things, AND above all things.”

          And then, in the fulness of time, the Logos as Incarnation (a real and non-replicable event)! More than any merely scientific or even philosophical idea: “the Word was made flesh” (John 1:14). Perhaps the point in Genesis is that he did not create anything, but only named them, and that as a creature he did NOT presume to name God.

    • That the universe may by observation of measurable data be scientifically reduced to packets of energy says no more than what the data represents. As Steven Merten postulates that what moves subatomic particles to become greater entities can only be answered by a First Principle of all things who is God. Insofar as Niels Bohr’s premise it neglects the teleology of things ordained by the First Principle.
      Beaulieu’s quote of John Paul II comments of an ontological leap from the physical to the spiritual correctly posits that the physical cannot explain itself. As incontrovertible fact the physical could not exist except for a First Principle who is entirely spiritual, although who entered the realm of the physical in the miracle of the incarnation of the eternal Word. Analogous to Tolkien’s Return of the King [both incarnation and second coming comprise this reclamation].

      • Hello Fr. Peter,
        I am not sure I understand your point on God being the Prime Mover. Do we agree that subatomic particles react to the simple act of mankind looking at them? In the following youtube link, you can see scientists playing games with electrons. The electrons never get outsmarted by scientists, no matter how hard scientists try to fool them. Electrons always know when man, the conscious observer, is going to look at them in the future, and thus switch to become physical particles, in the past of physical time, for man to observe in their future.

        Obviously, God the ‘Prime Mover’, is also present in the game. Still, it is only when man looks at subatomic particles that they switch from non-physical waveforms, to become physical particles, for man to observe. Physical particles make up everything that is seen and experienced by man in the universe. Other than God ‘the Prime Mover’ setting up electrons to switch between non-physical waveform, into physical particles when man looks at them, God’s observing subatomic particles as ‘Prime Mover’ has no effect on subatomic particles switching in and out of being physical particles.

        How the Quantum Eraser Rewrites the Past | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ORLN_KwAgs

        • Steven, whether the particle movements are triggered by human vision it requires a First Principle which cannot be a human action. The act and effect itself is ordained by God. Any occurrence, operation in the universe cannot be its own cause. It appears you retrogress spiritual causality to physical causality. For example, even the human will is moved by God, which does not replace Man’s free will. That is why we understand God [and call him God] as the necessary First Principle of all things.
          God causes all events in the universe including free will, accidents, physical calamities, good and bad all possessing their own independence. That is why we ascertain God is incomprehensible.

          • As a ‘side effect’ comment on Edward J Baker’s belief in a personal God, he’s absolutely correct. Which is why God in his essence is essentially and radically different from the God of Islam, and from Conservative Judaism.
            All the virtues, all that is good in the created universe, including the depth and vital reality of intimacy as understood by Man, inclusive of the most intimate act between Man and Woman is far exceeded in the divine essence.
            With God’s merciful grace, we will have a far greater intimacy with God in the beatific vision. A primary purpose of the incarnation was to reveal to Man God’s profound love of Man, called to an intimate moral correspondence revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

          • Hello Fr. Peter,
            I do not understand where you think I am denying God as Creator of all that exists. Our Awesome, Omni-Powerful, Prime Mover, God Created me, mankind, the universe, and all that exists. We, free-willed man, unlike all other things in the universe, were Created by God with the full capability to love God. We love God through free-willed choices to obey God. Love for God, from free-willed man, is by far the most important thing to God than anything else in Creation. It is our intimate relationship of love to God and from God that is why all Creation was put into motion by our Prime Mover God.

            Through discoveries in the quantum realm, we see a far closer, intimate relationship between man and God, than can be seen at the world level. At the quantum level, everything is a miracle from our Prime Mover, God. When man looks at a star 10 billion light years into our past, an entangled particle here on earth which hits our eye, causes its entangled particle 10 billion light years into our past, to have ‘wave collapse’ which causes infinite subatomic particles in, wave state, to switch into physical particles to build a star, for man to look at. This shows the tremendous Power of our Almighty Prime Mover, God, and His unique relationship with us. It is not a duck, cow or gorilla causing wave collapse, but man. Our loving Prime Mover Creator God, Created our universe this way. So, are we to think that man is the creator of stars, simply by looking at them? NO! Man is simply using the gifts God gave him, to hopefully choose to love God in return.

        • Steven [Merten]. First, I admire your knowledge of physics. Although, I question the premise that the universe doesn’t exist until viewed at the [past] moment subatomic particles reconfigure.
          Things have mass, whether we see them or not. Example, two object travelling in space [let us say two unmanned spacecraft] collide without visual knowledge known only when debris falls to earth. Anomaly? Varied colored particles from one another are found on debris of each. Explain.

          • Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.

            https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/12/136684/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/

            Hello Fr. Peter,
            In “The Miracle of the Sun In Fatima (October 13, 1917)”, 60,000 people witnessed the sun give off many different colors. The sun was also much dimmer and had a disk shape. The sun proceeded to dance in the sky. At one point the sun was quickly moving toward earth, which frightened many people and they thought they were going to die.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4IbOzuNlmE

            The answer to your question is, the color of the particles in the collision, are whatever color our Omni-Powerful, Prime Mover, wants them to be, and different observers can see different Realities from God, with conflicting Realities of colors.

            I am always totally amazed at the tremendous Power and Flexibility it Gives our Prime Mover, God, by God making our Realities only come into existence, via subatomic particle wave collapse, at the moment we are looking, tasting, touching, smelling, or hearing, our personal Reality with our Prime Mover, God. According to the scientifically proven laws of nature, when one observer discusses their Reality with another observer’s Reality, any two conflicting Realities collapse into one common Reality. This is why it was so difficult for the scientists to accomplish dual Realities in the lab. For our Prime Mover, God, performing dual Realities, The Miracle of the Sun, Reality, and the rest of the world seeing the sun in its regular, our usual common Reality, is easy peasy.

            Now let us switch the game of dual Realities up a couple notches. Let us say that one observer sees all the stars flying back and forth, from one end of the universe to the other, while another observer sees the stars in our, regular, common Reality. What makes it so difficult is that light from those stars has to travel 13 billion light years to reach the eyes of both observers. In the old Einstein view of 13.8 billion years of universe evolution, dual Realities, which science has just accomplished in the lab in 2019, could not occur. In the Neils Bohr interpretation, that the universe does not exist until you go to look at it, dual Realities, even billions of years into our pasts, is easy, peasy.

            So, when God switched our multiverse universe, from the Reality of no woman in our past, to our present Reality with women in our archeological past, those women never existed. It is only our present Reality which switched. There is only one time-line in existence and that is our time-line. Our time-line, the only timeline, has a history that God Created Adam and then, later, God switched our Reality to a Reality with woman in it. ‘Many Worlds’ scientists have it wrong. There are not infinite universes out there running infinite timelines. God simply switches our timeline from one multiverse universe to another universe, but the actual history of man on earth remains on our one timeline, which switches from one past, present and future Reality universe to another past, present and future Reality universe.

            Neils Bohr, “It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties.”

            In the Niels Bohr definition of Reality, there were never any living, breathing Dinosaurs in our past, but only our Reality of having dinosaurs in our past . It takes a conscious observer to cause wave collapse and have Reality actually take place in the universe. There were no conscious observers before Adam opened his eyes on the Sixth Day of Creation, thus there was no existence of a universe before conscious observer Adam opened his eyes. So, our present common Reality has a very long past, but the actual history of an existing physical universe taking place, only goes back to our first conscious observer Adam. With the exception of God performing a six day miracle of Creation.

            Sorry, I got a little long winded in my explanation on particle colors.

            Peace in Christ
            Steven

          • Steven Merten, with your Miracle of the Sun at Fatima scientific diagram, what with dancing, prancing, collapsing, inverting subatomic particles moved at God’s command [the rest of the planet unknowing observing the sun as always] you’ve convinced me [not said to disparage the merit of your explanation since it is reasonable] that God is the greatest magician this world has ever known
            But then, what about miracles, say, miraculous healings at Lourdes, when disintegrated bones that were absent are suddenly present? Does God have to go through the same tiresome [now you see it now you don’t] process of rearranging hyperactive subatomic particles? Or, could he just make it happen ex nihilo, as Peter Beaulieu is fond of citing [and correctly so] regarding the Creation? Coming to mind here is the resurrection from the dead. Does God require our disintegrated body’s very subatomic particles to restore our bodies? Does he require these particles at all?

      • Hello Fr. Peter,
        I am not sure I understand your point on God being the Prime Mover. Do we agree that subatomic particles react to the simple act of mankind looking at them? In the following youtube link, you can see scientists playing games with electrons. The electrons never get outsmarted by scientists, no matter how hard scientists try to fool them. Electrons always know when man, the conscious observer, is going to look at them in the future, and thus switch to become physical particles, in the past of physical time, for man to observe in their future.

        Obviously, God the ‘Prime Mover’, is also present in the game. Still, it is only when man looks at subatomic particles that they switch from non-physical waveforms, to become physical particles, for man to observe. Physical particles make up everything that is seen and experienced by man in the universe. Other than God ‘the Prime Mover’ setting up electrons to switch between non-physical waveform, into physical particles when man looks at them, God’s observing subatomic particles as ‘Prime Mover’, in the utube video link, has no effect on subatomic particles switching in and out of being physical particles.

        How the Quantum Eraser Rewrites the Past | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ORLN_KwAgs

        • Additionally Steven, God doesn’t observe subatomic particles, rather as First Principle he arranges and rearranges. God as pure act does not act in sequence, or in separate acts, imperfections requiring completion, and multiplicity. With God sequence and time are irrelevant, though most relevant in the created universe. All exists as a presence for him. That explains his omniscience. As pure act he is supremely dynamic. Human concepts such as an immovable diagram are anthropomorphic, whereas his dynamic nature [essence] doesn’t change as with the imperfection of sequence [a current controversy in moral theology]. Our human intellect must be understood as limited in its purview, particularly with the intellectual knowledge of God.

          • And, going without saying, God not only “arranges and rearranges” but also creates ex nihilo…

            But, about everything being a direct “miracle,” it is within Islam and among some modern scientist-Muslims, when hydrogen and oxygen combine into water, that this event is always a direct miracle. To discover/construct “laws of nature” as in the West is a blasphemy against the singular autonomy of Allah: ““…that when you bring hydrogen and oxygen together then by the will of Allah water was created” (Dennis Overbye, “How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science,” New York Times, Oct. 30, 2001, Section D5).

            It was the coming of Christ that de-mythologized pagan nature. But, in a distinctly mystical tone, however, the 19th-century St. John Henry Cardinal Newman still saw angels active in the physical world: “Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of their garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God” (Sermon of 1831, cited in Blehl, ed., “The Essential Newman,” 1963).

            Any hypothetical convergence of Christianity with Islam (“fraternity”?) might be more a topic for anthropologists or poets than for theologians. In Western culture, the margin/domain acknowledged for operative laws of nature—and for the behavior of atoms—is no small thing.

    • I’m glad you brought up some religious implications of Quantum Physics, although I contend you go overboard in suggesting infinite realities through unlimited perceptions. That’s not quite how it works, least we encourage not discourage false analogies of unlimited reality for purposes of moral caprice. Scientism does not merely abuse science for agnostic pride, it misapplies science as a basis for making value judgments. There are innate qualities of being human for which interpretive pseudo-science can easily be corrupt.

      Quantum Theory actually provides at least a partial scientific explanation of how miracles can exist and still be miracles without ultimately violating the laws of physics as we’ve discovered and measured them. Not that this would displace owing God our faith. God created a portal of unique perceptions of physical phenomena for His purposes, not for purposes of our runaway imagination, which must always be cognizant that while God placed limitations on our intelligence, He placed no limitations on our foolishness. There are probably more “cultists” among Quantum enthusiasts than those who recognize its limitations.

      Thus, a physicist like me, who accepts Quantum theory, but not all the silly runaway speculations, can go to Lourdes, as I have, and find solace for my wounds in life, and celebrate, as a pro-lifer, my special devotion to the revelation of the Immaculate Conception, where Our Lady emphasized God’s inviolable plan for our lives in this world begins at our conception, and know that Bernadette saw her vision, even though the assembly of sinners, not privileged, did not. It is the proper order of faith seeking understanding although I never obsessed over it. Just as I don’t obsess whether dark matter might have a connection to the actual physical properties of the heaven that is hidden from us.

      Why does God progressively allow us to grow in a deeper understanding of science that reveals more of His mysteries that people of faith did not have access to in the past? It isn’t entirely true that Einstein rejected a personal God. He struggled with the idea. He, like those of us with faith, who too often forget, noted that God is always subtle and knows how and when to give us encouragement, including greater discipline for our minds. God is actively involved in history.

      That an electron can be a vibrating wave or appear as a particle illustrates God’s creative ability and intentions as a continuous fluid act, as refutations to Darwinian absolutism are proving, and for which the anthropic principle in honest science has also been clarifying to illustrate God’s simultaneous design for structural changelessness. Relativity is a part of structure due to the physical variables in the universe, but only childish minds apply relativism to morality.

      Regrettably, our Church has been fumbling its missionary witness to the world. The post-war era should have embarrassed the Christian world from its complicit moral shame into a commitment of renewed moral clarity. Instead such things as timebombs were planted, as Phillip Lawler has called them, in the mostly good language of Vatican II documents to justify later junk moral theology of cultural and moral relativism. And after decades of not addressing the problem, a relativist pontificate has taken hold and accelerated the decline.

      Yet, divinity is always where you least expect it. I dislike Francis using his God of surprises phrase because I believe he intends it as a bludgeon to accept his corrupting influence on the Church. Nonetheless there is truth to it, and God allows many current and former atheists from science to continuously turn up surprises as a counter to the wimpiness of our clergy.

      • Hello Edward,
        There are many things I actually like about Albert Einstein. Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein were best of friends. Neils Bohr simply accepted what the scientific data indicated and moved on. Albert Einstein’s evil human pride made him fight the scientific fact that the universe does not exist when man is not looking at it. Here Einstein was, the greatest scientific mind in the world, writing scientific formulas across ten chalkboards, and then, when he is not looking, the universe doesn’t even exist any more. That has to hurt Einstein’s human pride! What is even the sense of Einstein spending all this time developing all these scientific formulas on the cosmos, if none of that stuff even took place without a conscious observer, before Adam opened his eyes, there to trip subatomic particles into switching into a physical universe?

        So Albert Einstein, as I read, spent a great deal of his later life fighting the scientific proof that the universe does not exist when man is not looking at it. Einstein switched to pridefully saying that, with his Theory of Relativity he had dislodged the great Sir Isaac Newton, so we will just go with the thought that someone smarter than he, Einstein, will come along in the future to show us how the universe does still exist when man is not looking at it. Einstein switched away from going with what the scientific data indicates, to a Scientism philosophy that we will just assume that the universe still exists when man is not looking at it, rather than start teaching college kids the scientific facts that the universe does not exist when man is not looking at it. Bohr and myself see this as an ethical violation to all that the scientific research stands on.

        Neils Bohr felt bad that Einstein died having never repented of violating the secular code of science, and wasting his later life fighting what the scientific data indicated. To top it off, now Einstein is being seen as wrong, and Bohr, who did accept what the scientific data indicated, as right, on this big issue Einstein consumed his later years fighting. The scientists who accepted, and worked with the weirdness of the quantum world, went to bank with inventions like the computer, x ray machine, and now quantum computers and working on teleportation and the like. Neils Bohr was very sad for his dear friend Albert Einstein.

        Where I, as a Christian, am most disappointed in Albert Einstein’s actions, is that electrons going back in physical time, even billions of years into our past, to switch into becoming a physical star, when man looks at them; now that is the Power of God causing that to happen! Albert Einstein’s insistence that once the ‘Big Bang’ went off, and now that Einstein and atheist scientists have the mass of one septillion stars to work with, Albert Einstein, and atheist scientists can take it from there with all their massive calculations, without God’s help. Now, with 100 years of massive scientific research and experimentation, we now know that God can switch, from one past, present and future universe to another, God can give multiple Realities to multiple people, and even a unique, past, present and future to everyone on earth, if God chooses to do so, and a number of other capabilities that the Big Bang mass of one septillion stars, evolving over 13.8 billion years, just plain cannot deliver!

        • No, No, No. And you don’t have to talk down to me. I know what speculators have to say about the implications of Quantum THEORY, and I’ve actually participated in related scientific experiments. You’ve taken what the speculators have said too literally and reduced God to a subordinate to personal willfulness in the process. God can not lie nor deceive.

          The fact that a beam of electrons act in one way when observed and another way when not observed is a mystery no one fully understands. But many theorists have gone off the deep end to extend all sorts of baseless speculations of what this might imply about reality, and almost all of it is hogwash. The fact that atoms might have two lives, in a sense, does not mean they have infinite lives. There is one reality for everyone.
          Sociopaths, and very foolish Jesuits might believe in “different truths” for different people, but they are lying to themselves. There is only one reality, and truth, all truth is a reflection of the perfect mind of God. We create no truth ourselves. We create no reality ourselves.

          It is true that God can temporarily alter the appearance of reality for His purposes by utilizing the properties of the ONE universe He created, but this is rare, VERY VERY VERY RARE, not an endless mass of overlapping subjectivities as you would have it. GOD DOES NOT LIE TO US. Nor does God give us false points of reference.

          I’m sorry to see you’ve bought into all of the speculative nonsense. Human pride, Charles Manson level human pride, is involved in believing separate realities for different people. Obviously there is a transcendent spiritual world. But there is a physicality to it as well that God desires that we accept and understand. We are not Gnostics. Scripture tells us that in heaven God renews all things. And the authentic visions of supernatural beings, as distinct from the majority of phony visions, have a basis in physical reality. Our Holy Mother appearing to Bernadette was not only real, she was beautiful and adorned with golden roses. God’s purposes were realized.

      • Hello Edward:

        We seem to have encountered a rough start! Was it something I said?

        Physical science is a very difficult subject, physics being the king of information and discipline within our realm.
        It is logic driven and desires to find truth. Of course you know this far better than I.

        In life, emotion will cause us to set aside the the rational and cling to an impassioned belief. It affects us all to one extent or another!

        Quote “special devotion to the revelation of the Immaculate Conception, where Our Lady emphasized God’s inviolable plan for our lives in this world begins at our conception” unquote.

        We ask ourselves, where we find this weighty topic in scripture? You or someone else who is knowledgeable, will want to elucidate on this question, that some others also subscribe!

        We might ask ourselves if Anne also had an immaculate conception and so it goes! We wonder if God would have considered having humanity conceived in the same way, if you will forgive the irony? Why did Jesus die on the cross then?

        Hebrews 9:22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

        Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

        Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

        Hebrews 10:1- For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; …

        1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

        Yours in Christ,

        Brian

    • I wanted to add my most favorite video of all time. Dr. Quantum Double Slit Experiment.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1YqgPAtzho

      The Dr. Quantum’s video makes it clear that subatomic particles, are simply a soup, or wave, of “all possible properties”, when unobserved by conscious man. Scientists see “all possible properties” existing at one time, because “all possible properties” are bouncing off one another, through the double slit, to cause the wave pattern. This is similar to a wave of water, which has many water particles bouncing off one another, when flowing through a double slit. It is the simple act of a conscious man observing the wave of “all possible properties”, which causes the collapse of the wave of “all possible properties” into, a now only one, God chosen, now physical particle. Then God builds infinite particles, into atoms, molecules, and then planets, to make up all our physical universe, of our, God chosen, Reality. Wow!

      And subatomic particles, go back in physical time, in order to put themselves together into the physical world we see, smell, touch, hear, and taste. Subatomic particles even instantaneously go back billions of years into our past, to build stars for us to look at. Then, when we are no longer looking at the star, the star no longer exists. Wow! Subatomic particles do all this to give us what we sense as our Reality. Wow!

      After a century of intensive, scientific research, experimentation and debate. Neils Bohr and his, ‘Peek A Boo’ universe, a universe which does not exist when man is not looking at it, is the big winner! The scientism cult followers of Albert Einstein’s, “I’d like to think the moon was there even when I wasn’t looking at it.” is now pretty much defeated.

      Neils Bohr, “It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties.”

      All this came about through the double slit experiment, which fires electrons through a double slit. Last I heard, scientists were up to shooting 800 atom molecules through a double slit. Even 800 atom molecules are simply, “a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties.”, while they are flying through the double slit, unobserved by man. Wow!

    • Fr Peter Morello, PhD
      AUGUST 31, 2022 AT 2:58 PM
      “Steven Merten, with your Miracle of the Sun at Fatima scientific diagram, what with dancing, prancing, collapsing, inverting subatomic particles moved at God’s command [the rest of the planet unknowing observing the sun as always] you’ve convinced me [not said to disparage the merit of your explanation since it is reasonable] that God is the greatest magician this world has ever known
      But then, what about miracles, say, miraculous healings at Lourdes, when disintegrated bones that were absent are suddenly present? Does God have to go through the same tiresome [now you see it now you don’t] process of rearranging hyperactive subatomic particles? Or, could he just make it happen ex nihilo, as Peter Beaulieu is fond of citing [and correctly so] regarding the Creation? Coming to mind here is the resurrection from the dead. Does God require our disintegrated body’s very subatomic particles to restore our bodies? Does he require these particles at all?”
      (The system did not let me respond, so I reposted)

      Hello Fr. Peter,
      At the quantum level is where God works all His miracles, even the ongoing miracle of Creation.

      Pop Quiz!
      Solve for time since ‘Big Bang’ Creation.

      All of earth’s brightest cosmologists have been invited as guest speakers at a Creation convention, 13.8 billion light years from earth. Earth’s starships are fast and can get to the convention in six days. Earth’s brightest cosmologists start out their presentation by explaining that Creation happened 13.8 billion years ago. All the Aliens are laughing! Earth’s cosmologists call their colleagues back on earth for backup advice. The woman answering the phone explains to them that their colleagues do not work there anymore, and that, sorrowfully, their colleagues had died 13.8 billion years ago.

      How many years from ‘Big Bang’ Creation is it now?

      Atheist Stephen Hawking, in the 1980s, put out a three DVD set titled, “The Cosmos”. I was watching it. It was a beautiful presentation on God’s Creation, and I was delighted! All of a sudden Atheist Stephen Hawking goes heretic Christian theologian! Atheist Stephen Hawking is filmed at the Vatican showing Pope John Paul II a rock that is billions of years old and demanding that Pope John Paul II state that the ‘Big Bang’ is what Pope John Paul II sees as ‘Creation’.

      This was a set up by Stephen Hawking, because later in the film Hawking will go into his, bag of magic tricks, and pull out his magical hypothesis of “What came before the “Big Bang’. In this way Stephen Hawking will have subdued our Omnipotent God, our God Who Creates from Nothing, and make Atheist Stephen Hawking himself god. Hawking talked about strings and quarks, much smaller than subatomic particles, evolving to become subatomic particles, without any need for God, in ‘what Pope John Paul II sees as Creation’. Thank goodness Pope John Paul II did not fall for Atheist Stephen Hawking’s bag of magic tricks.

      Really?! Subatomic particles, which have the capability to become multiple Realities to two different human observers?! And Atheist scientist Stephen Hawking says that subatomic particles evolved on their own to do this, without God?

      “Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.”
      https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/12/136684/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/

      Really?! Subatomic Particles, which switch from a wave of all possibilities to become only one specific, chosen, physical particle, when man looks at it, and then back to a wave of all possible properties, when man is not looking at it. Atheist scientist Stephen Hawking says that subatomic particles evolved on their own, without God’s help, to do this?!

      Neils Bohr, “It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties.”

      Really?! Subatomic particles, which know when man is going to look at and thus go back in physical time to switch from a wave of all possible properties, into only one selected physical particle, of a specific property, in a specific place in space, simply evolved to have this capability, without God?!

      How the Quantum Eraser Rewrites the Past | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ORLN_KwAgs

      Really?! Using entangled particles, subatomic particles know man is looking at them from a point ten billion years into their future, and thus have wave collapse, to construct themselves into a star, even ten billion years into a conscious observer’s past, to make a physical star for man to look at. Then, when man is no longer looking at the star, the star, and its past, no longer exists. And Atheist Stephen Hawking says subatomic particles evolved to do all this without God’s help?!

      https://youtu.be/tafGL02EUOA

      This is some pretty powerful stuff Atheist Stephen Hawking is pulling out of his, magic bag of tricks. Stephen Hawking’s, Scientism, hypothesis of philosophical science without any proven scientific fact, imaginary hallucinations. Through his imagination, Stephen Hawking made himself into one powerful, imaginary, god.

      Stephen Hawking, gone heretic Christian theologian, then started hammering the Church on Galileo and many other things. Then you see Stephen Hawking sitting in his wheelchair with the light coming through some bars of a Vatican window, making the shadows on Hawking look like he was imprisoned at the Vatican.

      Earth is the clock that both God and scientists use to gauge elapsing physical time during the Seven Days of Creation. God Created earth first, then God said, “Let There Be Light!”, and the mass of one septillion stars popped into existence, from nothing. What is going to happen to the mass of earth when the mass of one septillion stars pops into existence? God had built Himself a planet earth accelerator. God only puts earth into our solar system on the Fourth Day of Creation. What we Christians see as God building billions of years of star formation around earth, is really God putting earth, which is His clock on Creation, at near the speed of light. Billions of years of star formation can occur in six days, if God puts His clock at near the speed of light.

      So, Why does God put fossils into the past of our present, multiverse selected, universe? Multiverse, universe number three. Original Creation universe, universe number two, with woman in our past, and now, original sin universe number three. There was no death in multiverse one and two. Now there is death, and God places that death into our past, present and future, present universe, through fossils. Note: Remember, there is only one timeline, recorded by God, as mankind’s history.

      Multiverse one and two, could have had Christmas tree lights pushed into a piece of cardboard as stars, and a light bulb rotating around our earth as the sun. Adam and Eve had not eaten from the tree of knowledge yet. They would have never known the difference. Adam and Eve decided to choose to accept death, to gain knowledge. Albert Einstein would have been pretty upset to find only some Christmas tree lights and cardboard, and nothing more, when he used mankind’s ill gotten gift of tremendous knowledge, to look at the universe.

      In multiverse three, not only did mankind gain understanding and learning, but knowledge itself flowed out into, past, present and future, re-Creation as well. After all, man paid for this knowledge with his life.

      Albert Einstein was always trying to catch God off guard. When I first read scriptures about ‘The Kingdom of God’, where God had it ‘hidden’ until Jesus came, I contemplated as to why God would ever hide the Kingdom of God from us. Then, years later, I realized, it was man hiding the Kingdom of God from man himself. In our universe, which does not exist when man is not looking at it, why would God allow Himself to be ‘caught off guard’ in the Double Slit experiment? The double slit experiment is not God getting caught off guard. The double slit experiment is God opening a line of communication with mankind. When you look at all the miraculous actions which occur at the quantum level, you are seeing the God behind the curtain. What do atheist scientists do when God reveals His Omni-Powerful Creating Hand? Atheist scientists turn to Sientism and start physics 101 courses to teach young science majors that the universe still exists when man is not looking at it.

      Matthew 13:35 The Use of Parables.
      All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation [of the world].”

      • Thanks Steven for an interesting tour de force, seeking to correspond creation theory to scripture. “Earth is the clock that both God and scientists use to gauge elapsing physical time during the Seven Days of Creation. God Created earth first, then God said, ‘Let There Be Light!’”.
        A gauge is a measure. Whether we isolate Earth, or the universe itself we cannot measure in time the Creation. No pre existing coordinates to measure God’s creative act are possible [unless we buy into Hawking’s sad self revelatory idiocy of pre existing somethings when cornered by the truth] to ‘gauge’ with. We cannot point to God who is pure eternal act who doesn’t act in sequence [the basis for measurable time that is relevant only with another time frame, as Earth is within its cosmos].
        Aquinas struggled with this, and the question whether the entire universe is eternal, or not eternal [since its axiom can’t be determined by measure]. Theoretically you can say both.
        When the universe was created is actually irrelevant, a false proposition, a presumption that it can be measured. The best, that is, the most accurate and true proposition is to say the universe was created. Time begins with multiplicity and coordinates. If the universe were an immediate created reality the same rule holds – the absence of a preexisting coordinate. Seven days I hope you realize is allegory.

        • Hello Fr. Peter,
          Thank you for your kind response.

          Scientifically, the quantum world tells us that there is no physical universe when man is not looking at it, but only a soup of all possibilities. So, scientifically, there is no universe before Adam opened his eyes to look, touch, smell, hear, taste, and experience his Reality of their being a universe.

          Neils Bohr, “It is meaningless to assign Reality to the universe in the absence of observation; in the intervals between measurement, quantum systems truly exist as a fuzzy mixture of all possible properties.”

          So the question a Christian scientific mind would have to ask is, How many days before Adam opened his eyes, did the soup of all possibilities exist? The second question a Christian scientific mind would have to ask is, Did God perform a miracle, to override the natural law of nature, which requires a conscious observer Adamkind, to cause wave collapse and an actual physical, even partially Created universe, to come into physical existence, before Adam opened his eyes? The biblical Seven Days of Creation are a part of our Reality, whether or not there were physical Days of Creation before Adam opened his eyes, is a good theological question to discuss.

          Scientists are up to sending 800 atom molecules through the double slit experiment. There is an 800 molecule coming out of the particle gun, but then there is only a fuzzy mixture of all possibilities going through the double slit, provided man is not looking at it, and then the 800 atom molecule is back to being a physical 800 atom molecule when hitting the screen and observed by man. Wow!

          So what proven science is telling us, is that Adamkind is at the center of all that physically exists, and that God can select from all possible Realities, what an individual human being will experience as their Reality. Talk about having a personal relationship with our God! Wow!

          Not only does God know our every thought, hear our every prayer, know our soul, but our individual universe is completely controlled by God. When two people have different, individual Realities, the two Realities collapse into one, common Reality, when they discuss with one another their Realities. Unless, of course, this natural law is overridden by God. Wow!

          When a subatomic particle is in wave form, it possesses all possible properties, which can be chosen from, to become all possible outcomes. All of these, all possible outcomes, are bouncing off one another to produce the wave effect, when traveling through the double slit. When man goes to experience his individual Reality, only one, of all possible outcomes, is chosen by God to become a specific, physical particle in a specific place, and the rest of the potential outcomes no longer exist. In the case of a star, infinite subatomic particles make the wave collapse simultaneously, with all particles taking their specific property, in their specific place, in their specific atom, in their specific molecule, in their specific star. Then when man is no longer looking at the star, all the infinite subatomic particles immediately return back to being a soup of all possibilities again. Wow! It is only God Who has the Power to do something like this! It is God’s miraculous, great Power selecting the property, and position that all, infinite, subatomic particles will transition into, from their wave state of all possible properties, when man looks at a star and triggers wave collapse. Wow! Wow! Wow! And when a man looks at a star, he is usually looking at a sky full of stars!

          There is no way a universe which only exists when man is looking at it, can come in and out of existence, without the miraculous power of God making it so! I believe the reason God allowed mankind to see His miraculous work at the quantum level, is God waving at atheist scientists, the world, and we His Church on earth. The atheist scientists are doing everything in their power, especially through Scientism, to silence our God’s miraculous Presence at the quantum level. I feel, we, the Church, especially our leaders like you, a priest, need to encourage our Christian scientists and theologians to communicate with God and contemplate His miraculous actions at the quantum level.

          The actual scientific data at the quantum level, is on the side of the Christian Believer.

          • Well, yes, man looks at the molecules and the molecules (or whatever) don’t look back. Likewise, the sightless stars and galaxies and even the dinosaurs. But, then, this (?): “There is no way a universe which only exists when man is looking at it, can come in and out of existence, without the miraculous power of God making it so!”

            What do we mean by imposing the presumption of a coherent “universe?” It’s almost as if each seeing human person is first a universe, but that these multi-universes cannot exist in our abortion culture except that they become so only by our saying yea or nay.

            Perhaps this is the most perceptive way of understanding our abysmal abortion culture—our diabolical power of making ourselves God? An unborn (or even a partially born or later!) child is not a baby until I say it is so. The absolute non-universe of narcissism. Still, the aborted child-universe exists/existed despite our willful not-seeing “making it so,” or not so (Bohr’s “fuzzy mixture of all possible probabilities”?). Likewise, the physical universe, or even the 800 quantum particle/waves which, absent our detection systems, do not really exist as a “universe” or “particles” or “waves” at all.

            Can we agree that in our multi-dimensional way of seeing that we are to find God working within (!), but that we are not to conclude that we ourselves, as a “fuzzy mixture,” include “the miraculous power of God”?

  12. Great article. I’ll only add that the reason for much of this is fear of human respect. The desire to be respectable undermines Catholicism as surely as it kills conservatism.

  13. Modern history has witnessed the replacement of religious dogma with scientific dogma. This is what many people have bought into so as to conform to the notion that one must be modern and scientifically minded in order to contribute towards human progress. Now scientific dogma needs an ideology to support it. Today that ideological term is called scientific anti realism. Scientific anti realism means that reality is anything that the scientist says it is based strictly on their experimental findings, models and theories. The world therefore becomes an object of scientific reduction and study to be known and understood strictly in scientific terms devised by the scientist. This way the thought loop of scientific anti realism is complete and scientific dogma is vindicated by it’s own interior logic. To be modern is to be scientific and to be scientific is to be modern! Congratulations you have now been scientifically dogmatized!

  14. The scientific method in its most basic method is comprised of collection of data, a formulation of hypothesis, the testing of that hypothesis, and if that hypothesis fails it then needs to be refined or abandoned.

    It’s a methodology that can be applied to any field of human inquiry and is certainly not limited to science. It is called the scientific method only because science embraced it first and made it the fundamental basis of its practice.

    Science makes progress by accepting and learning from mistakes in it body of knowledge caused by either incorrect data or incomplete data. This became quite apparent to the public during the pandemic as new evidence was being accumulated medical scientists changed their advice. The most notable in this regard was the initial advice that masks weren’t necessary (as was the case in the SARS 2003 outbreak) but when evidence was accumulated that spread could occur asymptomatically then the advice to the public changed. While many people viewed this as great weakness in the science, I viewed it as evidence that science was working, and looking at the growing body of knowledge.

    Dr. Fauci made recommendations based upon the best science he, and the CDC, had at that time. It wasn’t that he wanted people to mask, or wanted people to get vaccinated, it’s that the science showed that these actions worked. But people attacked him personally. In a way it’s no different than people attacking Darwin for evolution.

    Also I’m puzzled by your use of the expression TheScienceTM. Does that mean something that I’m missing?

  15. John Paul II, writing in CROSSING THE THRESHOLD OF HOPE, pointed out that the men of the Enlightenment followed the philosophy of thought, while turning their backs on the philosophy of existence (metaphysics) of Aquinas.

    Great quote from Tolkien.

    Great article. Thank you, Rachael.

    Darwin stated that you would have to “shake the entire framework of the globe” in order for entire genera of fauna from the Pleistocene (Mammoth) age to have been destroyed. Yet he was beholden to the geologist gradualists, who could not concede that the Great Deluge actually destroyed the Mammoth age fauna, as a number of skilled paleontologists believed. Thus, Darwin could not explain what happened to the range of Pleistocene fauna that were destroyed. He probably didn’t want to be assigned to another voyage on the “Beagle.”

    So we only hear of “climate change,” while Lev. 26.3-6 is relegated to the irrelevant. (Good agricultural weather is dependent on keeping the eternal covenant with God.) The “calming of the storm” has been turned into an almost mythological event by modern science.

    The Shroud of Turin has the same blood stains on the head, and the same AB+ blood type as appear on the Sudarium of Oviedo, Spain. Even so, when articles appear concerning the question of the authenticity of the Shroud, this information is left out. Science?

  16. I meant to type “geologic gradualists.”

    The Mammoths discovered in northern Siberia were usually buried in gravel and loam — some in an apparent swimming position — and then very quickly frozen. (As reported by Sir Henry Howorth, in THE MAMMOTH AND THE FLOOD.) A hypothetical (as explained by Sir Henry in two volumes) ice age did not destroy the Pleistocene fauna. (And then, as he noted, spare the hummingbirds and orchids of Brazil.)

  17. Science is a method based upon the assumption of cause and effect. From observations, theories are developed to explain how things observed happen. Observations are limited so all theories are tentative and subject to revision or discarded with collection of additional observations (data). There are no absolute answers using the scientific method. And in quantum theory even cause and effect become questionable. Does this come about due to lack of adequate observations or as a result of random events? Could we predict which radioactive particle will decay if we had enough knowledge? Perhaps, maybe not, and who really knows?

  18. This essay is weirdly unfocused.
    Science was born of Christian belief in a real, ordered world subject to its Creator.
    Almost any sane scientist knows that the science of 100 years hence May little resemble the science of today…. It is a slowly evolving discovery of the wonders God had made.
    The author mistakenly points to light bulbs and nitrogen as problematic….absurdity…the tactical use of lighting and fertilizer may be evaluated but the immense good of each is patently obvious.
    The problem today is Lysenkoism … the political corruption of science to serve corrupt ends.
    That our suffering Church is fully given over to scientism in the papacy of Bergoglio is a true tragedy and a rejection of God’s good will for us. He made the mountains of coal; He made the oceans of oil; He made atomic power; He made Nitrogen and He made the miraculous carbon atom.
    Since the Fall of Man, it is our job to slowly labor in Discovery of the Glories God has provided for us and to correct our mistakes and misconceptions as we every day uncover his infinite mysteries. Science is a matter of Faith. Scientism is a matter of cunning deceit.

  19. “No scientist, no lab in the world can create even a blade of grass [not even one of its numerous cells] from raw material, a proof for the existence of an intelligent power greater than human. Given this, it is only natural that through the centuries many great scientists such as Kopernik, Newton, Lomonosov, Pasteur and Einstein believed in God.” – Humber College ‘Rosary Prayer Group,’ Toronto and Knights of Columbus, Mississauga. Robert Jastrow, a former NASA scientist, explains: “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.”

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