On The Risk of Listening | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | June 26, 2008 | Ignatius Insight
"The 'best hypothesis'
which, to be accepted, requires that man and his reason 'give up their position
of dominance and take the risk of humbly listening.'" — Joseph Ratzinger
[1]
"To be precise, the
universe is not infinite. It is very big, but not infinite, because it has an
age: about 14 billion years, according to the most recent findings. If it has
an age, it must also have a spatial limit. The universe was born in a certain
moment, and it has been in continual expansion ever since." — José
Gabriel Funes, S. J. [2]
I.
"We live in a transparent
universe," the Director of the Vatican Observatory remarked. "We can see the
light: the light from the most distant galaxies, for example, has reached us
after 11 or 12 billion years. We must remember that light travels at 300.000
kilometers per second. And it is this very limit which confirms that the
universe we can observe today is not infinite." The universe is "transparent"
to our eyes and thus to our minds. It is not infinite. The speed of light is a
constant. If some scientist suddenly discovers that the speed of light is
really, say, 150.000 kilometers per second, that means the universe is half the
size we thought it was. On second thought, it is much less than that, for if a
diameter is half of another, the circumference of the first circle is much less
than half of the second. In any case, the 300.000 seems safe for now.
Funes thinks that the
so-called Big Bang theory is "the best explanation we have had so far of the
origin of the Universe, from the scientific point of view." He adds the usually
scientific caution: "At some time, we cannot know whether in the near or
distant future the Big Band theory may be superseded by some more complete and
comprehensive explanation of the origin of the universe. At the moment it is
the best one, it is reasonable, and it is not in contradiction to our faith."
Presumably, Funes is aware of scientific theories that may be in contradiction,
as a completely materialistic philosophy surely is. If that contradictoriness
seems to be the case, a scientist who had the faith would suspect that there is
something wrong with the theory as science. He would seek to find out why. In
that sense, it would be precisely because faith was present that a clearer
understanding of science or philosophy comes about.
Funes suggests that there
might well be other worlds and life on them. "Astronomers hold that the
universe is formed of 100 billion galaxies, each composed of 100 billion stars.
Many of these, or almost all of them, could have planets. How can we exclude
that life may have developed in other places?" One presumes, of course, that
above cited "100 billion" figures are, shall we say, "rounded-off," results of
theory not of actual counting.
"Funes suggests that there might well be other worlds and life on them. "Astronomers hold that the universe is formed of 100 billion galaxies, each composed of 100 billion stars. Many of these, or almost all of them, could have planets. How can we exclude that life may have developed in other places?""
In Introduction to Christianity, Cardinal Ratzinger at one point talks about the 'extravagance' of God, pointing out that biology is full of examples of thousands of seeds expended to create one new life.
There doesn't seem to be any theological or scientific necessity either way on the question of other life in the universe, but I am inclined to the extravagance model. And when we think about the delicate balance that enables life on this planet, (and if we forget the enviromentalists will remind us) it somewhat reduces the probabilities, from the scientific perspective, of other life. But just from our limited knowledge of God I find it not only possible but quite consistent that he might create the entire universe just for the purpose of creating one planet for man to stand upon. Why not?
Should that puff us up? On the contrary, that should humble us, particularly when we reflect on how cavalierly we treat God sometimes.
IMHO
Posted by: LJ | Friday, June 27, 2008 at 05:47 AM
Another great reflection by Fr. Schall, thank you! Stanley Jaki takes up the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Project (S.E.T.I.) in a few works, he points out that some of the underlying thought of this project stems from the failure of science to understand the origin of life on earth, and the underlying ideology of the project is inherently naturalistic and anti-theistic in origin. Rather funny that the neo-Darwinism ideology behind this project searches for the purpose of life and then denies purpose by believing we evolved by blind processes.
Also, Fr. Jaki states that life on other worlds is not as likely as science often makes it about to be because certain rare conditions need to be present for life to form, many nearby stars that appear to be surrounded by planet-type bodies have no planetary system around them and a planetary system like ours is actually a rare phenomenon. In itself, the SETI’s Project only threat to Christianity is in some of its presuppositions. Fr. Jaki stresses, as the articles does, the important thing is to be able to refute the ideologies that often lie behind projects like this with a solid realist philosophy and to affirm the beauty of the Incarnation.
Posted by: Rick | Friday, June 27, 2008 at 09:19 AM