Science and Religion: In Conflict or Complementary? STEVEN VETTER ‘23, DIOCESE OF BISMARCK
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uring the fall semester of 2021, I was enrolled in a seminar at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) entitled Science and Religion: A Historical Approach. The course opened up to me the complex history and relationship between science and religion. There are many in our world today who teach a false dichotomy that says science and religion are in perpetual conflict. What we discovered over the course of the semester is that they are not in conflict. Instead, they enrich each other and advance man’s search for knowledge and truth. The Catholic Church recognizes and encourages investigation into all forms of knowledge. Although each has its own field of action and inquiry, science and religion are both directed to coming to know and understand the all-good and all-loving God who created us. God created us in his image and likeness and made us part of the material universe. He gave us the capacity to seek and know the highest truth. Indeed, the nobility of human beings lies in searching for and discovering truth through the use of reason. Religion reveals to us that God is the highest truth and that ultimately, we were not created for this world, but for eternity with him. Science helps us to examine and explain the created order and beauty we see
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The Pontifical North American College
Seminarians from the Diocese of Bismark stand next to one of the telescopes in the Vatican Observatory: (from left) Joshua Hill ’23, Rev. Mr. Jacob Magnuson ’22, Steven Vetter ’23, and Rev. Mr. Grant Dvorak ’22.
around us—all of which is a partial glimpse of the beauty we will see in God. Science and religion are not in conflict; they are complementary. One of the many gifts we receive while living in Rome is the witness of the saints, and we have a wonderful example from recent times who spoke beautifully about the relationship between faith and reason. St. John Paul II is buried next door to us in St. Peter’s Basilica, and he continues to
teach us how to live a life in the pursuit of knowledge, truth, and holiness. As he wrote in his encyclical Fides et Ratio: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” n
