The Seen
Beyond Appearances
Moses’s first story is about the creation of the universe and culminates on the sixth day, when the creator creates mankind in his image and makes the famous statement regarding his work, “it is very good.” Next, Moses shares the story of mankind and the institution of marriage. And it starts with Adam, the archetype, working in a garden of paradise and naming the animals.
Today, Adam’s work would fall under various job categories which are today classified as scientific disciplines. On simple terms, he was a gardener and animal keeper, but we could easily call him a biologist and zoologist. Whatever we call it, Adam studied nature and learned to take care of the created world, including the animals whom he named. What’s interesting for us to note today, and which is still very applicable, Moses mentions how Adam’s work affects him and shapes the outcome of who he becomes – Adam’s study of nature and the animals created a deep longing for his own partner, helper, and lover. Adam’s work created a deep longing for his bride to be, the famous Eve, the mother of all living.
The work Adam did, shaped who he became. Likewise, the work we do today shapes who we become. Work molds us, shaping our character and personality. The work of warriors and poets requires different skills, of shepherds and bakers, of venture capitalists and factory workers; and the work of these various vocations shape how the workers interact with the world. And today, not unlike yesteryear, many of us might become specialized in a special type of work, but we still often remain a jack of all trades. We wear many hats. And Moses is a great example of this. Before he became one of the world’s greatest storytellers, he had a long career as a shepherd and later became a slave-liberator, lawgiver, nation-builder, storyteller, and priest. Just like Adam’s work as biologist shaped his desires and who he became, Moses’s work shaped who he became. And it was in his role as priest that Moses made the famous proclamations we discussed earlier, proclamations that would allow the birth of science thousands of years later and confirm the truth of those proclamations.
Today, in much of western society, the priesthood is lacking (or at least less visible, less influential, and even less understood). But in the ancient world, this was not so. Today, Jews no longer have priests, they have rabbis. It’s been that way since their temple was destroyed two thousand years ago, changing their way of life to this very day. While modern Jews no longer have priests but rabbis, ancient Jews had priests. Ancient Romans and Greeks had priests, too. Priests existed across the world, and still do today in the ancient religions that have survived to this day, including the Catholic religion.
While all of Christendom believes in the priesthood of all believers, only about half of Christendom – the apostolic church – believes in priests who work as priests – offering sacrifice and forgiving sin. Only the apostolic church has a career path in the priesthood, in other words, a vocation for priests. But as we mentioned, in the ancient world, priests were abundant. The Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, all had priests, and the priests had a central role in each of those societies. Julius Caesar was betrayed during a celebration presided over by priests. Plato’s great masterpiece, The Republic, was set as a dialogue amongst philosophers and friends during feasts involving sacrifices presided over by priests. And the central book of Moses’s Pentateuch, Leviticus, is entirely centered on the role of priests (called Levites) in that beloved and ancient nation and religion.
So, it’s necessary to touch briefly on the role of priests, especially as Moses would have understood it, for he not only gave the priesthood to the Jews, but also to the Christians. The Apostolic priests derive their understanding of the priesthood from Moses, beginning with the stories he wrote. We must understand the role of priests in society, even if that role is no longer as prominent as it was five hundred years ago, let alone three thousand years ago, simply because of the unique ideas Moses planted in the ancient religions long ago, carried on in the stories that Jewish rabbis and Christian priests shared with the world. We have to scratch the surface and understand what may have been the insights Moses, or even Lemaître, would have made that would allow priests to so drastically influence the scientific world, whether by making accurate predictions long ago (in the case of Moses) or proposing theories a hundred years ago (in the case of Lemaître) that sought to prove using scientific methods those ancient predictions made by Jewish and Christian religions about the world.
The main duties of a priest, according to Moses, was to guide people so that they would be in right relationship with their Creator. This included reading and interpreting the sacred writings for the people of God, and this also included performing the rituals necessary for the forgiveness of sin and communion of the faithful. In short, they were to know their Maker and make him known. And the role of priest is still the same today. The modern scientist has a similar type of role, to make the Maker’s laws known to the world. Whereas priests focus on the supernatural and eternal, scientists focus on the natural and earthly.
The modern scientist studies not the Creator but the created in order to make creation known. On the surface, scientist and priest seems so drastically different that it sounds like the opening to a joke, but as we scratch the surface they are remarkably similar and well aligned, and in fact maybe so similar in function as to be nearly interchangeable. Almost.
Hence, the rich history of Catholic priests in science. There is Gregor Mendel (called the father of genetics not because as a Catholic priest he’s often called “father” but because of his crucial role in discovering the science of genetics). Also, Nicolaus Copernicus, rumored to possibly have been a priest though he may have simply taken minor orders, was the person who placed the sun at the center of the universe rather than the earth, leading to our understanding of sun-centered “solar” systems. He was also influential in economics, giving us a theory of money, which are a unique and perplexing mixture of areas of expertise for a Catholic canon lawyer. But these innovative and influential scientists are only the tip of the iceberg, heroic Priest-scientists are the cream of a rich crop of hundreds of lesser scientists who positively and forever shaped our life and understanding of the universe in their innovative influence on our society. And beyond the priesthood, there are great lay Catholic scientists such as Galileo Galilee (astronomy), Louis Pasteur (biology and chemistry), Rene Descartes (philosophy and math), and Blaise Pascal (math and computers), to name a few, of the hugely influential Catholics in science.
In fact, as we study the religious faith of many great scientists, there are a surprising number of Catholic priests and laypeople with significant, influential, and long-lasting contributions to great science. This is such a crucial influence that it begs for further review, much like the burning bush that would not burn up. For the sake of brevity, let’s focus simply on two great innovative scientists, Nicolaus Copernicus and Louis Pasteur. Their innovative insights are particularly pertinent to Moses’s writings and Lemaître’s Big Bang theory, and they are two great examples of going beyond appearances to see things as they truly are, not being fooled by what they appear to be. Yes, let us scratch the surface and go beyond appearances.
Before we focus on Copernicus, let us note two seemingly absurd beliefs that all Catholics must maintain to be Catholic. There are two items peculiar to the Catholic religion important for the foundation of modern science and super important for the flourishing of great science. The first is the crucifix, the second is the eucharist.
Now, it’s not my place here to discuss exactly how absurd these beliefs seem to be, my goal here is simply to notice how the Catholic religion has such a unique and positive influence on creating great and innovative scientists. And that influence can be traced to two fundamental beliefs that Catholics must hold in faith according to the teaching of their savior and upheld by the church. The influence of those beliefs in shaping the scientific mind is significant. And we must understand this impact. Catholic scientists produced and proposed paradigm-shifting insights into science and our world that may not have been possible without those two crucial religious teachings. Insights with long-lasting and positive influence on how we know the world works, even despite strong ridicule from the culture. Let us understand how.
The crucifix is a peculiar sight in every Catholic church – unmistakable and open for all to see the moment they enter the church. For anyone who has ever entered a Catholic church, it’s a peculiar sight to see a man hanging dead on a tree, beaten and bruised, stabbed and nailed to two pieces of wood which form a cross in shape. It looks like a torturous execution of a criminal named Henry (or more precisely, “INRI”), an emblem of death and destruction that should be forgotten, not memorialized. And yet, every one of the great Catholic scientists mentioned would say that the peculiar sight we have just described celebrates life, not death. Peculiar indeed.
Specifically, the Catholic scientist would say that the man hanging dead on a tree was God, and he rose from the dead three days later to live and reign forever as “King of the Jews” and Lord of the universe. They would say that this God-man is the center of all the universe, and even the modern world testifies to this when we mark the passage of time in reference to his birth. Every important date, from the beginning of the universe to today, is marked by its relationship with the birth of this suffering man hanging dead on a tree. And so, the crucifix is not as it appears to be for a Catholic. In fact, the crucifix is deceiving, a piece of art that must be interpreted and explained by those who know it’s meaning, a meaning which is not what it appears to be. Even after being explained, the crucifix still retains an air of mystery and remains hard to believe, even though the facts of life and humanity possibly confirm the story.
The second peculiar belief of Catholics which defies understanding is the bread and wine they drink while they gather to worship their Savior. They claim that the body and blood of the bearded man pictured hanging beaten and dead on a tree is consumed in the form of the break and wine that they eat and drink. That the bread is his living flesh, given for the life of the world, and his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins is consumed in the wine. And so, again, for Catholics there is an air of mystery and possibly even deception. What appears as bread and wine during the liturgy of the mass, the Catholic church claims, is the flesh and blood of their Savior. Even the imaginative and great Albert Einstein was fascinated by this claim.
Again, this peculiar belief cannot be disproved. It can be disagreed with, but not disproved. It can be believed, or not believed, but it cannot be proved to be a lie or even untrue. Yes, this claim cannot be proved or disproved by science. The tools of science cannot verify this anymore than it can verify infinity. In fact, what’s troubling about this claim, especially as an atheist scientist hearing it explained, this claim is beyond the realm of science. But there are tremendously positive and perplexing perspectives for Catholic scientists to come to terms with. To understand this, we must first explain the claim that the eucharist cannot be disproved by science or any other means.
The eucharist cannot be disproved because it is a claim not about physical matter and material but about authority. Some say, of course, you can disprove the claims that the bread and wine are not body and blood, they would say you simply need to test it, subject it to a chemical analysis. But you can’t confirm the truth of that claim based on that type of test. If you did, what you would find is it would appear to be bread and wine. But the claim of body and blood is one of authority, not materials. Let us consider an example.
What would happen if we tested a piece of paper and ink with the sign “$100” and a portrait of Ben Franklin and a seal that confirms it is rightly issued by the government of the United States of America. Well, it would appear to be just that, a piece of paper and ink, and yet it is so much more. It holds a value in the world market more than the common paper and ink that makes it up. The claim of its value as a $100 bill is a claim made by an authority. That’s the same issue as the church’s claim regarding the value of their bread and wine. The issue is, the Catholic church makes the claim by their authority, trusting in the words of their savior to “do this in memory of me.” It is a claim of authority, which is beyond the realm of scientific testing.
In the case of the Catholic church, this claim from a position of authority is within the realm of its tradition, teaching and rituals of remembrance. It’s a claim based on the words of their Savior. And just like the ability to issue money is within the realm of the authority of a government, the Savior and his church have the authority to make similar claims about his body and blood. An authority can give value to something common; money proves this to be true.
And so, you can no more claim the eucharist is only bread and wine than you could claim a $100 bill is simply paper, ink and a portrait. In each case it’s both. In fact, just because what it truly is may be unappreciated or deceptive, this doesn’t negate the truth of what it is or its value. So, people may not recognize the value of a $100 bill, maybe in a far corner of the world that has never seen Ben Franklin printed in green, but it still is a $100 bill by the authority of the U.S. government. And if they ever picked it up and went to some remote market or bank, they could exchange it for something else of value. Yes, it is more than the paper and ink and what it appears to be.
So, we cannot verify whether the bread and wine are not what it is claimed to be, the body and blood, soul and divinity of the Lord, for it is claimed by an authority that is beyond scientific testing. Obviously, this is a weak example, but it shows a good point. And so, since the idea that the eucharist is not the flesh and blood, soul and divinity of the Christ cannot be disproved, it creates an interesting effect on the mind of a Catholic scientist. They are remarkably open minded to how things are, not limited by how they appear to be. Their God is one of order and mystery, keeping an important tension in the search for truth.
For a Catholic scientist, their peculiar beliefs create a certain mindset which creates a practice in seeing beyond appearances. It opens their mind to consider things differently, and not be distracted or mislead by how things appear to be. And this leads to innovative approaches in solving complex issues of science. For the Catholic scientist, the freedom to see beyond appearances comes from practice in seeing reality not only through the eyes of faith, but is also supported by truth claims from an authoritative body which is not constrained by this universe but lives beyond it, on a higher plain of higher laws, beyond the limitations of this universe.
And one example is Copernicus, who was both a ground-breaking economist and ground-breaking astronomer. Copernicus, a Catholic, created theories on money as well as proposed theories on the universe which still influence us today – hundreds of years later. Let’s consider Copernicus as an example of seeing beyond appearances.
Before Copernicus, everyone “knew” the sun revolved around the earth. It’s what we see every day. It’s how things appear to be. The sun rises in the east each and every morning as it begins its journey across our sky and sets in the west. It was simply common knowledge and that’s because it is how it appears from our perspective on earth. Copernicus changed that. He was able to go beyond appearances and see things no one else saw, and proposed a theory to make sense of all the evidence – and he taught us the truth of our sun-centered solar system.
In the time of Copernicus, many scientists knew the issues of perplexing orbits and had started noticing the flaws of how certain orbits appeared to “circle back around the earth” in a way that made it obvious they were not orbiting the earth, for they were not moving as predicted if that were the case that the earth was the center of the universe. In steps the great-minded Copernicus to explain that our universe is centered on the sun, not our earth, as previously thought. And in the last five hundred years since he made this insight – this revolutionary insight – it has become common knowledge that we teach all our school children. We say, “even though the sun appears to rise and set, it is only an illusion. What is really happening is the earth is turning as it takes a year to circle around the sun.” And every child takes it on the faith of their parents and schoolteachers, and carries that tradition with them until they understand it for themselves, and can pass it onto others. And this is the way it’s been for the last 500 years, ever since a Catholic scientist explained to us that our world revolves around the sun. And we mark the sun’s journey by counting years related to the creator’s Son.
The example of Copernicus reveals many parallels between scientist and priest, including how crucial and similar the role of Catholic priests is to that of modern scientists. Whereas Catholic priests are concerned with the mysteries of heaven, modern scientists are concerned with the mysteries of earth; whereas Catholic priests teach about the supernatural, modern scientists teach about the natural; and whereas Catholic priests contemplate and consider the infinite, modern scientists contemplate and consider the finite.
Moreover, the rituals of Catholic priests are similar to the experiments of modern scientists, performed with precision in order to understand something about life on earth. And while Catholic priests are concerned with the soul and spirit, modern scientists are concerned with the body and matter. Modern scientists compile their research and share these writings with the scientific world, Catholic priests compiled the sacred writings and shared these writings with the religious world. And while these parallels are quite simple and similar, there are many more similarities between priests and scientists, and in seeing these similarities we start to get hints as to why ancient priests like Moses was able to make such innovative scientific claims confirmed by scientists thousands of years later. For it seems, that the understanding of the supernatural was the very foundation for understanding the natural, that by contemplating the spiritual universe, we have greater insight into the physical universe. As an ancient priest wrote, “we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are unseen are eternal.” A scientist looks at the temporal; a priest looks at the eternal. And the pure in heart see God.
Now Pasteur. Pasteur is fascinating because during his lifetime there was a “theory of spontaneous generation” which Pasteur disproved. In essence, the theory accounted for things like milk curdling or iron rusting as “magic,” believing that things just randomly came into being from nothing, hence the theory of spontaneous generation. Pasteur thought the idea absurd. For he believed nothing happened without reason, that there was an underlying process yet to be understood, and the resulting work of his scientific experiments proved to the world that processes were occurring invisible to the eye. Unseen forces revealed themselves through seen aftereffects. And we recognize the greatness of Pasteur’s work by naming the process of Pasteurization in honor of him.
It’s interesting that this theory of spontaneous generation was so clearly and forcefully disproven in understanding small processes like rust and cheese and yet as a modern-day atheist I would contort the big bang theory to be a type of rebirth of this other disproved theory, believing that the big bang was a sort of magical explosion billions of years ago that created the most intricate and beautiful world and all its processes as a chaotic moment of complete randomness, with no design behind it. And yet for so many years I never saw the blatant illogic that I held to and was unaware of my own blindness. It’s interesting that learning about an old theory disproven by a Catholic would shake me out of my illogical slumbering and wake me to a more honest consistency between fact, truth, and belief.
In fact, my personal presumption (or prejudice) before embarking on biological and chemical studies which included a study into Pasteurization was that a God-fearing man like Pasteur would be more likely to propose a theory like spontaneous generation, not disprove one. He could so easily rely on his “God’s mysterious ways.” And yet, instead, it was a fervent Catholic, Louis Pasteur, a supremely religious Catholic scientist dedicated to his prayers and the eucharist and the rosary who is the person who disproves the theory of spontaneous generation. And replaces it with the truth of the process we would name after him. He believed it absurd because God’s mysterious ways were meant to be investigated and understood. He wasn’t willing to rely on an easy answer but was willing to go deeper in study, experimentation, and truth. “Great are the works of God, studied by all who delight in Him.”
Pasteur teaches us the importance of studying the process. That just because we see the final product (whether rust or cheese or the universe), doesn’t mean there wasn’t an important process to get to our final product. And the warning is just because we know the process and can explain it, doesn’t diminish the fact that all processes on heaven and earth are designed. In fact, the more intricate the design, the more incredible the designer. The more beautiful the process, the practical conclusion is, the more beautiful the creator of that process. Pasteur saw the importance of the designer as he researched the processes, and he squashed the theory of spontaneous generation forever.
Unfortunately, the theory seems to have a rebirth as people use the big bang theory proposed by a Catholic priest by ripping that theory outside of the context from which it was created, a Catholic physicist’s insights into eternal truth on this temporal world. And as we noted earlier, the theory of the Big Bang squashes itself without God as it violates laws of science, like the law of entropy. The big bang theory without God violates known laws like entropy.
Again, it’s odd that the theory of spontaneous generation was disproved in particular things, like cheese in milk or rust on iron, and yet now atheists use it under the name of “big bang” as an explanation for everything. But this is ripping the big bang theory out of the context by which it was proposed, as an explanation of how God created the universe.
The Big Bang is an explanation attempting to understand the processes behind the creation and sustaining of our whole universe. A universe that is greatly designed. Our scientific laws note that nature moves from design to chaos, not the other way around (for example, the law of entropy). It is only by an outside influence exerting itself on a system that we can move to order, that’s what science states! Science over and over offers testimony to a created being necessary to create and sustain the universe, a being we call God or gods, for lack of other terms. Yet those with ears to hear chose not to hear. Those with minds decide to remain childish in their thinking.
In fact, science does not believe that out of nothingness comes everything, but that “by faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible,” the same belief consistent with ancient Hebrews and Christians. We no longer believe that cheese randomly appears, yet atheist scientists (of whom there are quite a few) want to claim that everything randomly appears, that the whole of the universe randomly exists, with many laws, processes, and theories that we investigate to understand the order and design of the universe. We study the design and yet care not to know the designer! The illogic is dizzying, and this former atheist had to adapt his worldview and evolve it to the truth of these findings. There is no design without a designer, there is no process without a creator, there is no product without a maker, and there is no world without God. To make this leap of faith was significantly helped not only by the facts of life, but also because everywhere I look for long-lasting influence on scientists, somehow people who are Jews or Christians are involved – whether Albert Einstein, Georges Lemaître, or many other scientists mentioned here and many more not mentioned.
As we scratch the surface and go deeper and deeper into science, many great and permanently influential scientists are God-fearing, if not even God’s priests. Even the great Albert Einstein was trained in part by Catholics and himself would say, “God does not play dice with the universe” as he furthered his imaginative and great investigations into the physical laws of our universe.
Yes, as we scratch the surface, in fact, we see many influential scientists profess belief in God. More even, many, innovative scientists are a part of the ancient Christian church and Catholic religion. As absurd as Catholic beliefs may seem to be, the Catholic teachings do a wonderful job in helping create an environment of innovation and great science based on facts and yet holding onto mysteries of life and death. Catholic scientists are wonderfully focused on the tension between faith and reason, fact and mystery, truth, and reality, and helped created a culture upon which modern science could not only be founded on but also flourish in.
The result is many innovative scientists are not simply Christian but also Catholic Christians, with priests and laity alike, who offered unique and great contributions to science including the sun-centered theory of the universe, the process of pasteurization which taught the world the important fact that nothing spontaneously generates out of nothing, as well as the big bang theory which explains in scientific terms how the words “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” just might be true today.
On the surface, it seems surprising that an ancient religion like the one of the ancient Jews would be so influential on modern science, but we need to explore this particular religion a little further as we investigate its behaviors and processes so that we may more fully understand how exactly so many of its great scientists reconcile God and nature, the supernatural and the natural, faith and reason, logic and mystery, truth and reality.
The fact remains that the Catholic religion, as absurd as its dogmas and claims may seem to be, is in fact great practice in seeing through the eyes of faith while yet holding fiercely to the truth. This includes holding onto the importance of tradition and the human need to pass knowledge to the next generations. And even though the priesthood holds completely crazy divinely-revealed mysteries like the eucharist, one could argue that the Catholic religion best equips scientists (and people in general) to not judge based on surface appearances but to investigate and come and see and know truth.
What is even more fascinating is how this ancient slave-liberator, Moses, wrapped these ideas in timeless stories spread throughout the world. That Moses the Slave-Liberator chose to tell great stories and embed scientific ideas in the details of stories that would spread throughout the world. And so, when we consider Moses, the nation-builder and lawgiver, the priest and scientist, the shepherd and storyteller, we see his wisdom in planting ideas in great stories, we recognize that these stories existed long before modern science was developed and able to prove his stories true. Let us briefly consider this human art, and how stories are the best means to express truth, share values, and is truly the best vehicle for spreading ideas.