Introduction
After many years in relative obscurity, Georges Lemaître, Belgian Jesuit and the founding father of modern Big Bang theory, is finally beginning to get the credit he deserves both in scientific circles and scholarly publications. A good example is the fact that the International Astronomical Union recently voted to rename the Hubble Law as the Lemaître-Hubble Law (Tipler 2018) in recognition of his pioneering role in the understanding of an expanding universe.
However, Lemaître’s position and/or contributions to the dialogue between science and faith are often not well known or mischaracterized, partly because most of his writings and lectures were done in French and hence relatively unavailable in the English language. Lemaître faced initial skepticism towards his scientific contributions from leading scientists of his day because they suspected him of concordism (Lambert 2012), which attempts to find specific points of agreement between science and religion. Although he started out in his early years with concordism, Lemaître’s views evolved to reject it (Lambert 2012). Because of his later insistence that faith and science are separate spheres of study and two different ways of seeking truth, he is sometimes mischaracterized as having advocated for a two-spheres view, with its implied complete separation or even conflict between faith and science. However, a closer look at the life and times of Lemaître suggests a much more nuanced approach to science and faith. While his approach was definitely non-concordism in important aspects, his contributions to the dialogue between faith and science are much more robust and expansible than a purely two-spheres view would allow. There are two documented instances in which Lemaître shared in some detail his own views on science and faith in his own words: an interview he granted The New York Times during a 1933 trip to the United States (Aikman 1933) and a lecture he gave at the Catholic Congress of the Malines in 1936, which has now been translated and made available in the English language in its entirety (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015). Additionally, there are accounts of Lemaître’s interaction with two representative figures of his time, Pope Pius XII (Coyne 2012), representative of the faith dialogue, and Albert Einstein, representative of the science dialogue. These interactions further illustrate Lemaître’s dynamic and complex approach to science and faith.
Therefore, this article draws from the two texts in which Lemaître details his own views on science and faith to show that his was a rich and somewhat complicated approach and demonstrate why his views may not be accurately characterized as involving a complete and disconnected separation between science and faith. Additionally, his interactions with Pope Pius XII and Einstein on matters of faith and science, respectively, are discussed to show that Lemaître’s views on science and faith dialogue were bold, distinct, and collaborative. Finally, some personal reflections and lessons on Georges Lemaître’s contributions to the science and faith dialogue are offered.
Georges Lemaître’s Views on Science and Faith, in His Own Words
Most of Lemaître’s writings and speeches were done in French, with few translations and reprints in the English language. The result is that English-speaking audiences have very little direct access to his thoughts, for example on science and faith. Fortunately, Pablo De Felipe, Pierre Bourdon, and Eduardo Riaza have provided an English translation of an important lecture Lemaître gave on faith and science at the 1936 Catholic Congress of the Malines (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015). Since this lecture was given during the years when Lemaître’s views on the interrelationship between science and faith had already matured, it provides an important context and substance in understanding his views on the science and faith dialogue. In addition, during his seminar tours in the United States, he granted an interview to The New York Times in 1933. Together, these written sources provide a more accurate picture of his views on the science and faith dialogue.
Historical Context
To better understand Lemaître’s lecture of 1936 and The New York Times interview of 1933, a historical context is important. As others elsewhere have already noted, different historical periods/contexts shaped the development of Lemaître’s science and faith views (Coyne 2012), but the focus in this article is on the role played by two important forces, namely, anticlericalism and the Catholic Church’s growing emphasis on science.
Anticlericalism in Europe in the Nineteenth Century
Anticlerical sentiments, especially against the secular influence of the Roman Catholic Church, ran deep in Europe in the late nineteenth century and played a major role in several political developments, from Germany 1871–87 and beyond to Spain in 1873, and the Netherlands and Belgium during the 1880s and 1890s (Britannica, n.d.). For example, anticlericalism was an important factor in French politics starting with the French Revolution of 1789 and provided a crucial stimulus for the Radical Party (1902–6) and beyond.
These anticlerical forces and the mistrust of the Catholic Church’s scientists influenced the developing relationship between science and religion. In fact, as Sabino Maffeo (2001) makes clear in his history of the Vatican Observatory on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, the founding of the observatory in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII was mainly motivated by the need to combat such anticlericalism. In his Motu Proprio establishing the observatory, Pope Leo XIII stated:
So that they might display their disdain and hatred for the mystical Spouse of Christ, who is the true light, those borne of darkness are accustomed to calumniate her to unlearned people and they call her the friend of obscurantism, one who nurtures ignorance, an enemy of science and progress . . .
[I]n taking up this work we have become involved not only in helping to promote a very noble science, which more than any other human discipline, raises the spirit of mortals to the contemplation of heavenly events, but we have in the first place put before ourselves the plan . . . that everyone might see that the Church and its Pastors are not opposed to true and solid science, whether human or divine, but that they embrace it, encourage it, and promote it with the fullest possible dedication. (Coyne 2012)
Furthermore, the Catholic congresses at Malines, pioneered mainly by the “Liberal Catholics” of Belgium, came into effect partly to counter some of the negative effects of anticlericalism and situate the Catholic Church in a post-revolutionary nineteenth-century Western Europe (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015). The rise of the Liberal Party in 1957 and its adoption of anticlerical inclinations at the expense of the Catholic Church led to an even greater rise in secularist forces in Belgium. It was under this type of anticlerical environment that the Malines congresses were convened, the first of which held in 1863. There were four other Malines congresses held in 1864, 1867, 1891, and 1909. The sixth Malines congress, during which Lemaître delivered his paper on science and faith, was organized by Cardinal Van Roey and held September 10 through 13, 1936, with a telling theme, Catholicism and the New Age. Similar secularist forces within Belgum and the rest of Europe formed the backdrop to the sixth congress as well (Gestel and Carpenter 1936). For example, as fascist sentiments grew through the efforts of the Rexism movement (Belgian fascist party at the time), the Catholic Church became fearful of being ousted from the 1935 coalition government between Catholics, Liberals, and Socialists of the Labor Party. In fact, the 1935 government, led by Prime Minister Paul Guillaume Van Zeeland, resigned in the spring of 1936 due to agitations from the fascist party. Although the Labor Party later returned to power through the general election of May 1936 without the Catholics as part of the government, the Rexist Party received 11.5% of the votes cast, a clear indication of the growing fascist forces across Europe (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015). In fact, by 1936, the Spanish Civil War had already begun (“Editorial,” 1936). Anticlericalism was an important issue in Spain as well, as the Catholic Church was largely seen as hostile to the Republican regime of 1931–39.
It was within this historical environment that the Malines congress of 1936 framed its urgent need to discuss the role of the Catholic Church in an increasingly fascist and anticlerical environment within Belgium and the rest of Europe. Lemaître’s lecture on the relationship between science and religion was presented under such historical and political contexts.
Roman Catholic’s Growing Emphasis on Science
There is yet another historical fact that must be taken into account when discussing Lemaître’s views on science and faith, namely, the growing emphasis the Catholic Church gave to science within the first six decades of the twentieth century. This period falls within the crucial rule of Pope Pius XII, a man of rich culture who was acquainted with astronomy even as a young man through his association with Giuseppe Lais, an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory from 1890 to 1921. It was well known that Pope Pius XII had excellent college-level knowledge of astronomy and that he frequently discussed astronomical research with Daniel O’Connell, the then director of the Vatican Observatory (Coyne 2012). Little wonder then that the role of science was elevated within the Catholic Church.
One difficult aspect of this new awakening to science was the fact that Pope Pius XII’s understanding of the scientific discussions and developments concerning the origins of the universe (including Lemaître’s primordial atom hypothesis) leaned towards concordism (Lambert 2012). As an example, this concordist inclination became apparent during his address, Un’Ora, delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 22 November 1951 (Haffner 1986), in which he attempted to examine the scientific results from which arguments for the existence of God the Creator might proceed.
Although he had entertained concordist views earlier in his life, Lemaître had become deeply wary of any attempt to use scientific results to support the existence of God as creator or any other form of concordism for that matter (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015). Lemaître’s reaction to Pope Pius XII’s address is discussed shortly but suffice it to note at this point that Lemaître was deeply troubled by this rationalist inclination and the concordism it tended to breed within the Catholic Church. Even before he had a chance to make his objections known to Pope Pius XII years later, Lemaître’s lecture at the Malines congress was given with the recognition that the dangers of rationalistic concordism lurks alongside the new appreciation for scientific endeavors.
So, then, a careful reading of Lemaître’s interview in The New York Times (Aikman 1933) and his address at the Malines congress of 1936 reveal important aspects of his views on the dialogue between science and faith as discussed here. From this point on, NYT33 refers to The New York Times interview, while CCM36 refers to his speech at the Catholic congress at Malines in 1936.
Two Paths to Truth
Lemaître’s approach was to view science and religion as two separate paths to truth. During his NYT33 interview, he recounted how he had decided at an early age of about nine years old to pursue both science and religious truth. It was clear to him that science and faith were two paths to truth, and he resolved to follow both paths at the same time:
What is more significant, he continues, is that exactly at the same time, actually in the same month as I remember it, I made up my mind to become a priest. I was interested in the truth from the standpoint of salvation, you see, as well as in truth from the standpoint of scientific certainty. There are two ways of arriving at the truth. I decided to follow them both. Nothing in my working life, nothing that I have ever learned in my studies of either science or religion, has ever caused me to change that opinion. I have no conflict to reconcile. Science has not shaken my faith in religion, and religion has never caused me to question the conclusions I reached by strictly scientific methods. (Aikman 1933)
It is not surprising then that in the very first sections of his speech at the Malines congress of 1936, he began his lecture with this very fact and left no doubt about how he felt. For him, the pursuit of truth is so important that it must be achieved through both avenues of science and faith, natural and supernatural truth, as he framed it:
The pursuit of truth is the highest human activity. It is reason that separates us from animals and our specific activity is to grasp truth under its every guise.
The supernatural truth has been made accessible to us by Christ and his Church. We could never have reached it by ourselves and it had to come down to us. The natural truth, on the contrary, is precisely proportioned to the faculties of our intellective nature. It is humanity’s task to understand and value creation that surrounds it and to which it belongs, to perceive in it a reflection of the divine intelligence, by marveling at being surrounded by intelligible matter. (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015)
Rejection of the Conflict Hypothesis and Complete Separation
The fact that Lemaître shared strong non-concordism views and two-truths sentiments as noted in his own words might lead some to the mistaken notion that he advocated a strict form of nonoverlapping magisteria, originally put forward by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. While it is correct that Lemaître was a strong proponent of two-truth domains occupied separately by science and religion, he rejected the notion of nonoverlapping dialogue and interaction between both domains. He believed that both truths must be independently pursued without interference from the other. Fortunately, there is now a rich tapestry of words and actions that illustrates a much more sophisticated intellectual frame and punctures blanket categorization of Lemaître’s views.
Mutual Respect and Unity without Confusion or Separation
After carefully analyzing this important Malines lecture given by Lemaître, Dominique Lambert (Lambert et al. 2015) proposed that Lemaître’s views may be understood in the form of two principles: the principle of mutual respect and the principle of unity without confusion or separation. Lemaître aptly concluded his Milanes address with this important point (paragraph 30): “Thus, Faith and Reason, unite in human activity without improper mixing or improper conflict.”
Principle of Mutual Respect
It was Lemaître’s view that science and faith must exercise mutual respect. Two paths to truth implies that each path has something to learn from the other. Thus, during his Malines speech (paragraph 3, CCM36), Lemaître contends that:
[e]ven if science is the highest human activity, it is not the most vital, and thus generally does not hold the foremost position it should in man’s ordinary concerns. Man is also an animal, and the pressing demands of his bodily nature often absorb his activity. And man is also God’s child, in whom the fulfilment of divine grace has nothing to do with the degree of his intellectual development.
So, he cautions (paragraph 5, CCM36) against exaggerated importance or minimization from either science or faith against the other.
These principles are sometimes forgotten, either by exaggeration, when Science is put forth as the only thing that matters, or on the contrary, and because of a fairer vision of the scale of human values, when it is not granted the consideration that scientific activity deserves.
The Principle of Unity (Without Confusion or Separation)
No Conflict, No Confusion
The principle of unity alludes to Lemaître’s rejection of the conflict hypothesis. In his view, there are no conflicts between science and religion, as the first paragraph of his NYT33 interview makes clear:
There is no conflict between religion and science, the Abbe Lemaitre has been telling audiences over and over again in this country and then proving it by explaining his view is interesting and important, not because he is a Catholic priest, not because he is one of the leading mathematical physicists of our time, but because he is both. Here is a man who believes firmly in the Bible as a revelation from on high, but who develops a theory of the universe without the slightest regard for the teachings of revealed religion on genesis. And there is no conflict! (Aikman 1933)
In his view, any perceived conflict is due to misunderstanding of the role of the Bible. The Bible teaches the way of salvation, not science, as Lemaître made clear during the NYT33 interview:
Do you know where the heart of the misunderstanding lies? he asks. It is really a joke on the scientists. They are a literal-minded lot. Hundreds of professional and amateur scientists actually believe that the Bible pretends to teach science. This is a good deal like assuming there must be authentic religious dogma in binomial theorem. Nevertheless a lot of otherwise intelligent and well-educated men do go on to believing or at least acting on such a belief. When they find the Bible’s scientific reference wrong, as they often are, they repudiate it utterly. Should a priest reject relativity because it contains no authoritative exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity? (Aikman 1933)
Mutual Respect But Not Complete Separation
Lemaître was insistent on not only mutual respect but some form of unity between science and faith in dialogue, without confusion of each domain’s roles or complete separation and disengagement. He was careful in his own work to distinguish between the “beginning” and the “creation” of the world. Contrary to Friedman who had more clear marks of concordism on his work, Lemaître took great pains not to discuss the initial state of the universe in terms of “creation,” which would have been closely associated with religious motives (Luminet 2011). In fact, in his original typeset manuscript of the famous letter he sent to Nature to put forth is primordial atom hypothesis, Lemaître crossed out the very last sentence:
I think everyone who believes in a supreme being supporting every being and every acting, believes also that God is essentially hidden and may be glad to see how present physics provides a veil hiding creation. (Luminet 2011)
Apparently aware of suspicions from the scientific community at the time that he was trying to reconcile relativistic cosmology with religious belief, Lemaître wisely removed this last sentence from the final manuscript that was submitted and published. But it clearly shows that he personally does not believe in nonoverlapping dialogue between science and faith. This allusion to a supreme and hidden God is really at the core of his belief and affected his work as a scientist.
In advocating for separate domains of truth, Lemaître was careful to avoid the extreme ends of concordism as well as the extreme end of complete irreconcilable separation. His view might be consistent with what some have termed a partial realms view (Bishop 2018). In fact, in his Malines lecture, Lemaître warns against both extremes and suggested a more centric approach (paragraph 25, CCM36):
How should the Christian researcher reconcile his religious convictions to the technical demands of his chosen scientific field? It would seem, as in many other cases, that he should keep the middle ground between two extremes. One is considering these aspects as two completely disconnected compartments from which he would in turn, according to circumstances, draw either his science or his faith. The other is, rashly and irreverently, mixing and confusing what must remain separate. (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015)
Furthermore, in paragraph 27 (CCM36), Lemaître posits that the Christian scientist may even have advantage of sorts over their unbelieving colleagues. He states that while both scientists are striving to solve nature’s multiple enigmas, the believer has the advantage of already knowing there is a solution to the enigma, since the underlying logic is that these are the works of an intelligent being who wants the truth behind creation to be discovered in proportion to growing human intellectual ability. In his view
[t]his knowledge might not provide him with new investigation resources, but it will help him maintain a healthy optimism without which a sustained effort cannot long endure. (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015)
In fact, as De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riza (2015) note, it is entirely conceivable that this idea of a comprehensible universe made by an intelligent being who wants nature to be discovered and has endowed humans with the intellectual ability to do so might have underpinned his choice for a finite but borderless universe, a concept of the universe with which Lemaître stuck till his death.
Finally, after encouraging the Christian researcher to aim for excellent scientific work for its sake without prejudice of any sort from religion, Lemaître in paragraph 29 (CCM36) of his lecture contends that for the Christian scientists, their faith adds a “supernatural” touch to their work. They are God’s children when doing research as when in prayerful devotion:
But the Christian researcher knows that his faith supernaturalizes both the highest and lowest of his activities! He remains God’s child when he peers through his microscope and, in his morning prayers, he puts every daily activity under his Heavenly Father’s protection. Reflecting on the truths of faith, he realizes that his knowledge of microbes, atoms or stars will never help or impede him from adhering to the inaccessible light, and that, like any fellow human, he will still have to achieve the heart of a little child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015)
Taken together, the NYT33 and CCM36 lecture show that Lemaître’s views on the relationship between science and faith were much more robust and complicated than any single label might confer. While it was clear that he rejected concordism as a mature scientist and insisted on separation of scientific and religious paths to truth, he also rejected the extreme end of complete disconnection between science and faith.
Interactions with Pope Pius XII and Einstein
I now turn to discuss the interactions Lemaître had with Pope Pius XII (representing faith) and Albert Einstein (representing science) and suggest that these interactions paint a portrait of the lived and experiential path Lemaître walked when it came to science and faith dialogue.
Interaction with Albert Einstein
There are two instances in which Einstein differed sharply with Lemaître’s position on science: an expanding universe and the cosmological constant. In both cases, Lemaître’s disposition and eventual vindication gives a practical indication of his views and attitudes regarding science and faith engagement.
The first instance was regarding the correct model of the universe, either static or expanding. Lemaître’s proposal for an expanding universe was initially met with resistance from Einstein and other eminent physicists of the time who favored a static steady-state model of the universe. In fact, during the 1927 Solvay Conference, Lemaître met Einstein for the first time, showed Einstein his work, and tried hard to convince him about this (Luminet 2011). As it was reported, after listening and reviewing Lemaître’s work, Einstein concluded to the effect that Lemaître’s solution was “correct calculation, abominable physics” (Rovelli 2018).
However, after Hubble collected and published detailed experimental data on spectral redshifts of extragalactic nebulae, which confirmed the same linear velocity–distance relationship Lemaître had already calculated two years earlier (Kragh and Smith 2003), the scientific community finally warmed up to the idea of an expanding universe. Afterwards, Einstein, to his credit, came around to embrace Lemaître’s idea of an expanding universe and embarked on a lecture tour across the United States with Lemaître.
The second instance had to do with the importance of the cosmological constant in the general relativity equation. Einstein’s theory of relativity played a central role in Lemaître’s professional development (Lambert et al. 2015). Here is the equation of general relativity and a crude general-purpose description, since it forms the basis of understanding the importance of the cosmological constant and why it became a point of contention between Einstein and Lemaître.
An important concept from the general theory of relativity is that spacetime curves. An oversimplification, perhaps, but sufficient for the purpose of this article. Using Reimann’s curvature, R, Einstein relates R to be proportional to mass-energy (which includes both matter and photons). In other words, spacetime curves more where there is more mass-energy. The bigger the mass-energy, the greater the curvature. Spacetime may then be understood in terms of gravitational field, a kind of fabric in which we are immersed. Therefore, “space” is no longer an empty void, a “nonthing.” Consequently, mass-energy may then be understood to be made up of particles and spacetime (fields) (Rovelli 2018).
Another important implication of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that the universe can be both finite and borderless at the same time, just like the Earth is finite but borderless. In three-dimensional space as envisioned in the theory of relativity, space can be curved. Space or even the universe can be understood as a 3-sphere. If you take a space flight and journey always in the same direction, you will eventually arrive back on Earth where you started. Start from one point on the Earth itself, go only in the same direction, and you will eventually arrive at exactly the same spot you started. This is a 3-sphere, a curved space. For a clearer layperson’s description and understanding of Einstein’s theory of relativity (special relativity and general relativity), see Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity (Rovelli 2018).
Interestingly, when Einstein first proposed this theory in 1915, it did not have the cosmological constant (highlighted in grey, Figure 1). Einstein introduced the cosmological constant two years later in a vain attempt to make the equation more compatible with a static universe. So, when Einstein and others abandoned the idea of a static universe and embraced the notion of an expanding universe, he turned against the cosmological constant, calling it his “biggest blunder” (Holder and Mitton 2012).
Einstein’s general relativity equation. Rµᵥ depends on Riemann’s curvature; gµᵥ represents the spacetime metric; together, Rµᵥ and ½R gµᵥ represent curvature of spacetime; Tµᵥ stands for energy of matter; G stands for gravitational constant; c is the speed of light in vacuum; Λ stands for cosmological constant, which was added two years later (in 1917) by Einstein.
Again, it was Lemaître who dared to go against Einstein on this count, confident in his calculations. While working on solutions to Einstein’s field equations of relativity, assuming a positively curved space, nonzero cosmological constant, time-varying matter density and pressure, he had obtained a model of the universe with an expanding universe, which also showed that while the cosmological constant is not necessary for a static universe, it is nevertheless important at large cosmological scales. Lemaître tried to convince Einstein and others that the cosmological constant was indeed important, but again, Einstein resisted (Holder and Mitton 2012).
Today, however, physicists increasingly agree that the cosmological constant can produce an acceleration of the expansion of the universe. In short, the cosmological constant is a leading candidate for the universe’s force of expansion, as gravity is the universe’s force of contraction. Put another way, the cosmological constant could help account for the counteracting effect of gravity, which then leads to expansion.
Here again Lemaître was right. His singular approach to follow science wherever it leads has vindicated him. The courage to oppose Einstein on science, twice, shows something about Lemaître’s practical views on science and faith interrelationship. Specifically, Lemaître’s quiet resolve and confidence in his science, even when scientific leaders of his time questioned his science and motivation, give an indication of his view as to how a Christian scientist ought to engage with science and faith communities in dialogue. In paragraph 26 and 28 of CCM36 (De Felipe, Bourdon, and Riaza 2015), he noted:
The Christian researcher should master, and astutely apply, the proper technique for his problem. His means of investigations are the same as those of his unbelieving colleague. So, is his freedom of mind, but only if his idea of religious truth measures up to his scientific education.
In a way, the researcher leaves his faith aside in his research, not because it could hamper him, but because it has no immediate bearing on his scientific activity. Thus would a Christian walk, run or swim no different from an unbeliever.
As far as Lemaître was concerned, the Christian and non-Christian scientist have the same tools to work with and the same kind of problems to solve. As in his life and work, he strongly advocated for excellence in scientific endeavor. There is no “Christian” science as opposed to a “non-Christian” science. Great science will hold up to scrutiny whether done by a Christian or not. So, confident in his ideas and respectful of more prominent colleagues like Einstein, Lemaître held firm until he was exonerated scientifically.
Interaction with Pope Pius XII
If Lemaître’s interaction with Einstein is somewhat representative of what the Christian scientist’s approach should be in their dialogue with science and the scientific community at large, then Lemaître’s encounter with Pope Pius XII holds some clues about such interaction with the religious community.
As the idea began to be accepted that the universe may have emerged from the Big Bang, Pope Pius XII declared in a public address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on November 22, 1951 (Luminet 2011) that the Big Bang theory confirmed the creation account given in Genesis:
[C]ontemporary science with one sweep back across the centuries has succeeded in bearing witness to the august instant of the primordial Fiat Lux, when along with matter there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation . . . Thus, with that concreteness which is characteristic of physical proofs, modern science has confirmed the contingency of the Universe and also the well-founded deduction to the epoch when the world came forth from the hands of the Creator. (Coyne 2012)
Instead of feeling flattered by such papal attention to his work, Lemaître reacted with significant alarm at the news. Aware that the scientific community already viewed his proposal with suspicion of concordism, Lemaître insisted that the primeval atom hypotheses be viewed only as a physical hypothesis and that religious matters should be kept separate. Pope Pius XII had based his public assertions on Lemaître’s publication on the primeval atom hypothesis. But Lemaître knew the hypothesis was still unfolding and could be modified as time went on. Science is a dynamic discipline. Theoretical frameworks get modified as new data and better interpretations emerge. Lemaître recognized the danger of using science to validate faith. Therefore, he encouraged the church to view the Big Bang theory solely as a physical theory that must be kept distinct from theology.
Therefore, as preparation was underway for another address Pope Pius XII was planning to give to the Eighth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union to be held in Rome in September 7, 1952, Lemaître took action. It has been reported that on his way to a scientific congress in Cape Town, South Africa, Lemaître stopped in Rome to consult with Daniel O’Connell SJ, President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, concerning the pope’s pending address (Coyne 2012). While details of that meeting are not available, it appears Lemaître’s appeal to Pope Pius XII (either directly or through Daniel O’Connell SJ) must have been successful (Holder and Mitton 2012), because although Pope Pius XII referenced many advances in astrophysics in the 1952 address (Coyne 2012), he made no specific mention of the Big Bang hypothesis, and from then on refrained from attributing any philosophical or religious implications to the Bing Bang theory (Lambert et al. 2015).
While the Big Bang Theory is now the dominant theory of origins in cosmology, it has undergone important revisions from Lemaître’s primeval atom hypothesis. In fact, new fields in string theory and quantum gravity are now exploring what might have happened just before the Big Bang, with some hypothesizing that the contracted phase of the universe (Lemaître’s primeval atom) that gave birth to the current universe through the Big Bang might have been the quantum rebound of a previously expanding universe that was then contracting. This is why some now speak of the Big Bounce instead of the Big Bang (Rovelli 2018). While some of these competing theories are controversial and in the very early stages of development, they nevertheless highlight the difficulty in flippant appropriation of scientific data to support theology.
On this note, Lemaître’s approach again was vindicated. While many Christians do not see the Big Bang theory as inconsistent with the God-initiated creation, many would easily caution against making the Big Bang theory a scientific underpinning of a Genesis-based intelligent design, as well as make a careful distinction in the study of natural beginnings versus creation origins.
Reflections
Having outlined Lemaître’s views on science and faith both from his own words and from his dealings with Einstein (scientific community) and Pope Pius XII (religious group), it is fitting now to draw some practical reflections and lessons from this scientist-priest. How does a Christian scientist maintain a healthy dialogue with both science and faith?
The Role of Personal Faith
An active faith in Jesus Christ was very important to Lemaître. On a personal level, he was a devout Roman Catholic and unapologetically a man of faith. Although he chose the path of secular priesthood to focus on his scientific pursuits, he remained a committed member of a community of priests called the “Friends of Jesus” that was marked by a deep spirituality for about forty-six years, from 1920 to 1966 (Lambert 2012).
Therefore, Lemaître did not see himself as merely a Christian doing science nor as a scientist who happened to be a Christian. Instead, he viewed himself as both a Christian and a scientist at the same time. Within the competitive academic culture in which science is done, marked by the professional advancement needs required by tenure and promotional trajectories, there might be a tendency for a scientist to view a life of faith itself as incidental or merely tangential to a life of scientific pursuits—as though he or she is a scientist first and foremost who also happens to be a Christian. Lemaître rejected this false choice between science and faith. As he noted during his Malines address (paragraph 29, CCM36), the Christian researcher “remains God’s child when he peers through his microscope and, in his morning prayers, he puts every daily activity under his Heavenly Father’s protection.”
“Touching Both Extremes at Once and Every Point in Between”
Lemaître shatters this false dilemma, this false choice between committed Christian life and science. He stands on the unquestionable pinnacle of science and sends a clear message across the annals of history that a Christian may do great science and still be a devoted Christian, even a committed worker in the church.
Sure, someone may counter with the following words attributed to C. S. Lewis many years ago, that “the modern idea of a Great Man is one who stands at the lonely extremity of some single line of development.” However, the whole point Lewis was making is that although that quote seems to represent a modern idea of what constitutes or leads to greatness, he was really advocating taking a “centrist” position that mediates both extremes. For Lewis and for Lemaître (based on his life and work), a more appropriate mantra would be the following quote by Pascal, “One does not achieve greatness by being at an extreme, but by touching both extremes at once and every point in between” (Lewis 2017).
Here is how Michael Ward summarized this:
It is instructive to see how often Lewis arrives at his ethical conclusions by seeking out a “centrist” position that can mediate between extremes and maintain balance. “Goodness is a middle point for Alfred no less than for Aristotle,” as he puts it in The Allegory of Love (1936), p44. “The modern idea of a Great Man is one who stands at the lonely extremity of some single line of development,—one either as pacific as Tolstoi or as military as Napoleon, either as clotted as Wagner or as angelic as Mozart,”—so says Lewis in A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942, pp. 7–8).
In identifying this as a characteristically modern problem, he is echoing Yeat’s famous lines from the “The Second Coming” (1919), “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” Lewis would rather follow Pascal (whom he quotes in his Preface, p. 8): “One does not achieve greatness by being at an extreme, but by touching both extremes at once and every point in between.”(Lewis 2017, 159–60)
Lemaître did not acknowledge a choice between doing good science and being a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. He chose greatness by “touching both extremes at once and every point in between.” His successes as a scientist suggest it is possible to touch both “extremes” of faith and science and every point in between with success. Of course, there is a most important place for focus and prioritization, for carefully choosing a vocation and fully committing one’s effort and time to it. After all, Lemaître himself chose the path of secular priesthood to focus on his work as a faculty member, scholar, mathematician, and cosmologist. So, yes, sharpening one’s focus and choosing vocational priorities are indispensable for success in any endeavor, especially in science. After all, a Christian life dedicated to scientific pursuit is by itself a life in holy order of reading and interpreting the book of nature that reveals the Creator. Yet, the life of Lemaître as a priest and scientist cautions against one extreme over another.
It is said that a picture speaks louder than a thousand words. Perhaps nothing speaks more loudly about Lemaître’s decision to touch both “extremes” of science and faith than the image in Figure 2. There, he stands among the luminaries of science and intellectual fame, Robert Andrews Millikan (left) and Einstein (right), in well-deserved recognition of his own important contributions to science, yet visibly and stoically dressed in his priestly collar. His decision to wear his priestly collar to this all-important lecture in 1933 and all other scientific meetings and conferences, more than anything else, says something about the man: firm and resolute in his personal conviction and faith, yet a person with an open mind so big that he dared propose groundbreaking new theories such as the expansion of the universe and the Big Bang theory.
Georges Lemaître (middle) poses for a picture with Robert Andrews Millikan (left) and Albert Einstein (right) after Lemaître’s lecture at the California Institute of Technology, January 1933. Source: https://www.gliscritti.it/gallery3/index.php/Georges-douard-Lema-tre-il-prete-che-per-primo-ipotizz-il-Big-Bang-negli-anni-1927-1931/Lemaitre_Einstein.
Dialogue with Science
We turn now to the question of how a Christian scientist, and the church as a whole, dialogues with the scientific community. What role do philosophy and ideology play in the interpretation of scientific data?
Einstein, Arthur Eddington, and Fred Hoyle, among others, were some of the biggest names in cosmological studies in Lemaître’s time. And yet, as noted, their initial resistance to the Big Bang theory, though having some genuine basis in science, might have been arguably influenced by their personal philosophies as well. For instance, Einstein and Eddington obtained similar results from their calculations as Lemaître. Yet, it seemed their philosophy and general resistance to the idea of a beginning for the current universe affected their interpretation of empirical data. To be clear, this was not always a matter of religious belief but more of personal philosophy and ideology.
A specific example here will be helpful. Although Eddington was a committed Christian and a Quaker, he rejected the idea of a beginning to the current order of nature due to personal philosophy, although he had almost come to the same conclusion about a singularity, as evidenced from his address in The Mathematical Gazette and his 1931 Nature article titled “The End of the World (From the Standpoint of Mathematical Physics)” (Eddington 1931):
Following time backwards we find that more and more organization in the world. If we are stopped earlier we must come to a time when the matter and energy of the world had maximum organization. To go back further is impossible. We have come to an abrupt end of space-time—only we generally call it the “beginning.” I have no philosophical axe to grind in this discussion. Philosophically the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me. I am simply stating the dilemma to which our present fundamental conception of physical law leads us.
Eddington captured the core issue rather succinctly: “[P]hilosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me.” Philosophy as used by Eddington here clearly is not a fundamental search for truth but a worldview, a philosophy of life and science, or an outlook on life. It seems Eddington was suggesting that there is something about his personal philosophy of life (perhaps the need to maintain a clear and sharp separation between religious and metaphysical considerations and science) that makes “the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature repugnant” to him. In other words, it is a tacit admission, as all scientists know too well, that scientific knowledge is mediated by persons who have certain philosophies, which may in turn affect their interpretation of scientific data (Bishop 2018).
In his own correspondence titled The Beginning of the World from the Point of View of Quantum Theory, which was a response to Eddington’s paper, Lemaître (1931) courageously began by directly referencing this philosophical admission by Eddington:
Sir Arthur Eddington states that, philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to him. I would rather be inclined to think that the present state of quantum theory suggests a beginning of the world very different from the present order of Nature.
There are certain implications of this understanding of the role of philosophy in interpretation of science for the Christian scientist who seeks a balanced dialogue between faith and science.
First, care must be exercised against a rush to accept willy-nilly every interpretation given by scientists to emerging scientific discoveries. For sure, it is important to be at the center of cutting-edge science, to be educated about the newest discoveries in science, even those around the edges of cosmological and biological origins. But it must not be forgotten that philosophy still affects how scientific data may be interpreted. The key word here is interpreted. If interpretation of science is expectedly impacted by philosophical considerations, then the church ought not to be hasty in revising theology just to show a skeptical world that the church (and its Christian scholars) is progressive and open to science. Lemaître’s life warns us against haste to reinterpret theology to be compatible with the latest cutting-edge science. This does not mean a stubborn refusal to modify our interpretation or explanation of certain aspects of theology in line with exploding knowledge in science. Instead, a careful, deliberate, and consultative science-engaged theological approach is helpful. As Harrison (2021) summarized:
It is particularly encouraging to see references to the new boldness of theology in a series of articles that seek to rethink the intersection between theological and scientific questions in ways that are not incipiently scientistic. Science-engaged theology, as essayed here, involves steering a challenging course that avoids three common pitfalls: a pattern of subservience in which science always trumps theology; an anti-science agenda that either rejects the legitimacy of science or denies that it has anything useful to offer theologians; an assertion of the total independence of the science and theology that disavows any significant points of contact.
Therefore, Harrison (2021) advocates for a kind of science–religion dialogue in which individual sciences provide relevant resources for critical theological reflections “instead of a one-way relation that amounts largely to making defensive theological revisions in light of the findings of ‘science.’”
At any rate, the history of science itself cautions against such exaggerated, unquestioned acceptance of the supremacy of science and its interpretation in all matters on one hand and the danger of reducing religion to theology on the other. For example, while evolution itself may be unquestioned scientific fact, a neo-Darwinian reading of evolution, with its philosophical underpinnings of atheism and eugenics, does not have to go unchallenged. In fact, Andrew G. Gosler, professor of ethno-ornithology at the University of Oxford, has spoken and written quite freely about how the unease he felt with the neo-Darwinian framing of evolution pioneered by Richard Dawkins eventually led him to faith. He recently noted in an essay:
Furthermore, as a scientist, I came to reject Dawkins’s strident, unquestioning belief (unwavering even in the face of contrary evidence) that only the peculiarly masculinist, neo-Darwinian framing of evolution could possibly yield adaptive change in living organisms over time. This was the same neo-Darwinism that spawned eugenics and thence the Holocaust: a post-Darwinian legacy that left deep scars across my own family in the Netherlands from 1942 onwards. For a young naturalist evolving a career path out of a love of nature in general, and birds in particular, I sensed a deep hurt in being told by a distinguished academic through the authority of a book that, while it’s unfortunate if you find these truths distasteful, that’s the way of the world, so grow up and deal with it . . . With its scoffing rejection—based on the crudest of experiments—of Lamarckian evolutionary processes (contrary to Darwin himself who accepted them) and the assumption that adaptation could only result from directed selection operating on randomly generated genetic variation, the neo-Darwinian framing of evolution is profoundly flawed. Through science, we now know that these things are not true. (Alexander and McGrath 2023, 108–98)
The second implication stems from Lemaître’s courage to take opposite stands from prevailing scientific notions of his time. His proposal for a dynamic universe was in sharp contrast to eminent scientists of his time. When he met Millikan, Lemaître would have been in the presence of as much a defender of a steady-state model as William Duncan MacMillan, who was the first person to propose a steady-state model to explain redshifts as far back as 1918 (Bishop 2018). Interestingly, both MacMillan and Millikan were Christians, which further underscored how well the steady-state model was entrenched within scientific circles in Lemaître’s time and the audacity of his opposition. While different scientists had good scientific reasons to support the steady-state model, for others such as Fred Hoyle, there might have been philosophical reasons as well. Irrespective of the reason behind their support, the steady-state model was entrenched within Lemaître’s sphere of scientific vocation. A person of faith in science ought to have the courage and confidence in their own work to go against the grain when need be. Lemaître went toe-to-toe against prominent scientists of his time on the issues listed here, and each time, he was vindicated. This was possible, of course, because of his commitment to a life of excellent scientific vocation. Even at the risk of being ridiculed—after all, he was an ordained Catholic priest—he stayed true to the scientific data and facts before him. He might have been a lonely figure among those luminaries, holding on to an unpopular scientific position, still, he had the courage to stay with valid science and take it wherever it led.
Finally, the scientist-Christian is not only a scientist but also a Christian. So, the Christian scientist is invited to be the whole person they are even during science. Their faith and its underlying ethical implications need not be a burden. They can and should see beauty or the hand of God at work behind the marvelous work of creation. But that is personal. That appreciation of beauty or order is a result of the scientist’s worldview, a personal faith, a philosophy that accepts a creator. This is the right of all scientists, Christian or not. For example, some scientists describe some synthetic processes in organic chemistry as elegant. “Elegant,” then, is a part of the intrinsic response and appreciation of a scientist to the workings of nature as it is being unfolded in complex organic structures. In this context, it has nothing to do with a belief in God or otherwise. Therefore, any scientist, Christian or not, has a right to experience and express their appreciation of the dynamic nature of science in whatever form they choose based on their philosophy of life. Christian scientists are certainly entitled to experience and/or share such joys or pleasures of science with their students and colleagues. Philosophy in science need not be evil or suspect. Ethics and justice, for example, are very important principles to many scientists, and even more so for many Christian scientists whose faith further strengthens such positions.
References
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