The Catholic Church Science: Answering the Questions, Exposing the Myths

by Benjamin Wiker

Were the Middle Ages dark for science? Did the pope say Darwin was right? From the Big Bang to Galileo, from the origins of life on Earth to the existence of life on other planets, The Catholic Church and Science clears away the fog of falsehood and misunderstanding to reveal a faith whose doctrines do not contradict the facts of science, but harmonize with them and a universe whose uncanny order and precision point not to chance assemblage by random forces, but to the purpose-built design of an intelligent creator. Author Ben Wiker (The Darwin Myth, A Meaningful World) takes on the most common errors that modern materialistic thinkers, convinced that faith and science must be mortal enemies, have foisted into popular culture. With great learning, clarity, and wit he tackles stubborn confusions many people have about the relationship between Christianity especially Catholicism and the empirical sciences, and separates truth from lies, the factual from the fanciful.

Genres: Religion, Catholic

170 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2011

About the author

Benjamin Wiker is a writer, teacher, lecturer, husband of one wife, and father of seven children. He has a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Vanderbilt University, an M.A. in Religion from Vanderbilt University, and a B.A. in Political Philosophy from Furman University. He has taught at Marquette University, St. Mary's University (MN), and Thomas Aquinas College, and is now a Professor of Political Science and Director of Human Life Studies at Franciscan University, and a Senior Fellow of Franciscan's Veritas Center.

Reviews

[Cecilia Nilsson]

I thought the author did a great job breaking down the myth that the Church is against science. He goes through 7 myths and really digs in to what was going on at the time they started and how they took root in society. There were some things I didn’t even know where myths people thought! The book did have some big words :) so some parts were confusing but that’s not enough to not read it! I would recommend it for anyone!!!

“Science, true science, cannot contradict the Faith; rather, it can only enrich it, giving us a deeper and deeper understanding of God’s magnificent wisdom as manifest through his created works.”

[Jeff Miller]

There was a lot I did like about this book and covered some areas better than other books of the type I have read.

Still, I had some serious caveats. I am prone to the views of Fr. Stanley Jaki, a physicist, and historian of science. Fr. Jaki isn't even mentioned in this book and the author takes a contrary opinion without really fleshing it out. Certainly, there is really not one view on the subject, just wish his opinion was more fully backed up other than a general statement on the matter.

The chapter regarding atomism and the later view that there have to be aliens was rather interesting as it charted the history behind this. The weakness is that he is so adamant against the possibility of aliens or regarding some theology of a second incarnation. I for one am in some agreement being against the necessity of aliens as is so popular. Mainly based on the lack of evidence we currently have. Just not so much against the possibility.

This was mainly the weakness of the whole book in that there was hardly any looking into other view or in representing them. The book is better on the false narrative on faith versus science battle.

[Ben Rowse]

Lots of great points and facts presented in this book. Not all arguments were cohesive though.

[Will]

Another series of trenchant essays devoted to showing how what Everybody Knows on the subject is wrong, including the fraud of the "war between science and theology" and the Galileo, Galileo, Galileo mantra

I was however gravely disappointed by the last section, where he lets his views on the unlikelihood of aliens color his presentation of it as somehow "the" Catholic position. Speculations by the classic Nicholas of Cusa and William of Vorilong (Thanks! Earths in the Universe didn't just dream it up out of nowhere!) or the modern Consolmagno GuyConsolmagno are dismissed as somehow suspect.... more Catholic than the Pope('s astronomer). I was surprised (as everyone else in the congregation will be) to learn that Seventh-Day Adventism and the Oneida Pefectionists are "Swedenborgian offshoots". While in his dismissed-in-a-footnote assessment of C.S. Lewis (who was presumably also lured by the "Swedenborgian" siren song, despite his own airy dismissal of Swedenborg in The Great Divorce), Wiker apparently did not even read his serious treatment of the question in "Religion and Rocketry" (The World's Last Night: And Other Essays), or even the briefer one in Miracles:

The universe may be full of happy lives that never needed redemption. It may be full of lives that have been redeemed in modes suitable to their condition, of which we can form no conception. It may be full of lives that have been redeemed in the very same mode as our own. It may be full of things quite other than life in which God is interested though we are not.

This is hardly, as Wiker claims, a flippant declaration that "the idea of aliens is folly", much less a dismissal of the Catholic thinkers mentioned above.

[Paul]

This is a disappointing book. I find it hard to believe it could have value other than in a very ad intram setting; it is quite unapologetic in the theological sense.

The second chapter, about the history of science in the Middle Ages, was as I recall the best.

The thread in the latter two-thirds of the book, that traces all modern materialism, and particularly Darwinism, back to Epicurus and Lucretius in a very direct way, is an interesting thesis.

The last chapter, about extraterrestrial life, is very up and down. As is often the case, he presents some intriguing bits of history. His attempt to sketch a continuous stream of speculation dating all the way back to Etienne Tempier regarding the likelihood--nay, the necessity!--of extraterrestrial life, and how absurd literally all those speculations were, is even more interesting than I think the author realizes; this a specific kind of fluff-ass "thinking", the pulcher ergo est argument, that has gone on among theologians and philosophers throughout history, and dismantling these specious arguments in detail would be a valuable cautionary exercise (for a very different book, of course). On the other hand, the author himself is guilty of attempting to create an argument against extraterrestrial life out of, basically, nothing; some very vague bleating about how the Incarnation would not really make any sense, would be "diluted" somehow.

His dismissal of the "many worlds" hypothesis is also empty.

In both these cases, he betrays the same kind of inability to accept ignorance that characterizes the crappy thinking he elsewhere criticizes. It's true that there is no *need* to "defend" Christian dogma against the questions raised by the existence of aliens, evidence for which is completely and utterly lacking; that does not mean it couldn't be defended if the situation were in the distant future to actually come up, nor does it mean that engaging in such speculation is valid grounds to criticize people. It's also true that the "many worlds" hypothesis, at least as held by many people, is conveniently untestable. That doesn't mean that it isn't or couldn't be true--that's actually the precise form of a garden variety empty argument against theism. Further, even if it is true, it leaves exactly zero less place for God to exist, governing the whole scheme.