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COSMOLOGY
& FAITH

1140L
COSMOLOGY
& FAITH

By John F. Haught
 Since the beginning of
human existence on
our planet, people have
asked questions of a
religious nature. For
example, what happens
to the dead?
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 Human beings have always wondered how things “hang together.” Our
minds spontaneously look for connections, and we remain restless
until we find them. Nothing is really intelligible unless we can relate it to
other things.

This is why science is such a satisfying adventure. Its mathematical prin-

ciples tightly unify everything that goes on in the cosmos. Every occurrence,
science tells us, is subject to the same fundamental physical laws every-
where. You can be sure, for example, that if you travel to another galaxy in
our Big Bang Universe you will find the same laws of physics and chemistry
operative there as on Earth. Although the Universe unfolds in rich diversity,
it rests upon an underlying physical and mathematical simplicity.

Before modern science came along, our ancestors were not aware of
the physical universality that ties all of nature together. Nevertheless, our
ancestors were just as interested in finding connections as we are. The
main way in which they brought coherence to their experience of things and
events was to tell stories about them. These stories often took the form of
myths about cosmic, biological, and human origins. Understanding the origin
of things apparently reduces human anxiety in the face of the unknown.

We still need stories. Big History is a good example of the human longing
for narrative coherence. We want to understand, for example, how life is tied
into physical processes and how the history of human beings on Earth is
bonded to the natural world that gave birth to us. Science now allows us to
tell a whole new story about our connection to nature. Remarkably, over
the last two centuries, the natural sciences have increasingly demonstrated
that the Universe itself has a history and that human life is a relatively new
chapter in the cosmic story. We did not float in from some other world. We
blossomed gradually from roots that extend all the way back to the Big Bang.

It is enormously satisfying now to be able to tell the story of the emergence

of atoms, stars, planets, cells, organisms, and minds.

A 1784 diagram of the Milky Way by astronomer William Herschel

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What about religion?
Science and history both try to understand how things hang together, but
religions do too. Since the beginning of human existence on our planet,
most people have asked questions of a religious nature. For example, what
happens to the dead? Are they somehow still connected to the world of the
living? In his insightful book The Broken Connection, psychiatrist Robert
Jay Lifton observes that in the scientific age the bonds our ancestors felt
between the living and dead have been weakened or completely broken.
Scientifically educated people now often question the connection that
religions professed to find between our present life and a wider world of
sacred mystery.

Nevertheless, many of us still ask religious questions. Why, for example,

does anything exist at all? Why do living beings suffer? What happens
when we die? Why do human beings have a sense of right and wrong? How
can we find a meaning for our lives? Can we ever find final release from
concerns over sickness, oppression, isolation, and guilt? Where can we find
perfection? What is really going on in the Universe?

Responses to these religious questions have usually taken the form of myths
and other kinds of narratives. To most religions, the “really real” world is
infinitely larger than the visible one available to scientific study. Religions
try to connect people to this wider world. Ever since the earliest stories
and oral traditions, most people have had an intuition that the world is large
enough to include spirits, gods, and long-departed ancestors. Religions
strive to break through the physical limits that cut human existence off from
the mysterious worlds to which their symbols and stories point. Religions
seek to mend the sense of broken connection that stems from the experience
of meaninglessness, guilt, pain, and death.

Major religious traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity,

and Islam still hold out the hope of salvation from everything that hems us in
or holds us down, including the fact that everything eventually perishes. It
is, therefore, not hard to understand why religions have been so important to
most people throughout history and around the globe.

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Each of Earth’s main religious traditions has countless tributaries and off- Many scientists, philosophers, and other skeptics wish that religious faith
shoots. Religion on Earth is so complex and diverse that it almost resembles would just go away so that only science would remain to fill our minds and
a rain forest. Since religions are so central to the history of human existence aspirations. Others, however, think that scientific discoveries, including
on our planet, they rightly attract the interest of natural scientists and not our new sense of cosmic history, still raise questions that science alone is
just of historians and theologians. Any objective survey of big history, there- powerless to address. For example, why does the Universe exist in the
fore, cannot ignore the dominant role that religions have played in shaping first place? Is anything of lasting significance working itself out in the
the consciousness of most people who have ever lived. 13.8-billion-year-old cosmic story? Is there any point to it all? What are we
supposed to be doing with our lives if we are a part of a Universe that
is still coming into being? Is there any solid reason for hope in the future?

The question of science and faith There are at least three main ways of responding to questions that science
raises for people of faith.
In the age of science, however, what are we to make of religions and their
sense of a connection between our present existence and a larger, scien-
The natural sciences and religious faith
tifically unavailable life or world? Hasn’t science made religious symbols, CONFLICT
are incompatible.
narratives, and teachings unbelievable?
Science and faith are each concerned with
CONTRAST
different kinds of questions.
For the sake of simplicity, as we address these questions let us refer to the
whole body of religious hopes, stories, doctrines, speculation, prayers, and
CONVERGENCE Science and faith inevitably interact.
rituals as “faith.” More fascinating questions arise for your consideration:

Can human minds shaped by faith traditions that stem from a prescientific
Shape your own answers, make your own connections, and find your own
era honestly take modern science seriously? Or, if you develop a sense of
way of understanding the beginning and how things “hang together.”
big history, can you still honestly accept the teachings of your faith tradition
For most people, these are questions that will not just slip quietly away.
if you have one? Does belief in God, for example, contradict science, as
many educated people now maintain? Isn’t it hard to be both a serious sci-
entist and a person of faith? Or is there a way of making a plausible connec-
tion between science and faith?

Even though it is not my task to answer such questions, it is appropriate at

least to take note of their existence, especially since humans and their
religious instincts are as much a part of nature as rocks and rivers. What
does it say about the Universe that it has recently given birth to conscious
beings who want to connect their lives to worlds that science cannot see?

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John F. Haught
John F. Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian and senior research fellow at
the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, in Washington,
D.C. He established the Georgetown Center for the Study of Science and
Religion and is the author of numerous books, including Science and Faith:
A New Introduction (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2012).

Image credits
An illustration of multiple worlds by 18th-century
mathematician Leonhard Euler
© Science Source

A 1784 diagram of the Milky Way by William Herschel

© Science Source

Young Buddhist monks praying

© Scott Stulberg/CORBIS

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