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Faith and the Artistry of Creation

by Tom Jones 

Pope Benedict this week praised the 13th century St. Albert the Great, German theologian, natural scientist, and mentor of St. Thomas Aquinas. Albert, who studied theology in Paris and later taught in Cologne, served as bishop of Regensburg and was advisor to several popes. A life-long student of the natural sciences, including arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, he reconciled the tenets of the Greek philosopher Aristotle with Christian teaching.

In his March 24 audience, Pope Benedict noted that Albert’s acceptance of Aristotle’s pre-Christian work “was an authentic cultural revolution” at a time when many Christians feared such “pagan” philosophy. Indeed, the ancient Greek’s comprehensive explanations of the natural world had been interpreted by some to appear “entirely irreconcilable with Christian faith.”

Thus Aristotle’s works created a dilemma: Are faith and reason in conflict with one another or not? Albert’s rigorous study of Aristotle, said Pope Benedict, convinced him that “anything that is truly reasonable is compatible with faith as revealed in Sacred Scripture.”

St. Albert’s great contribution was to show that “there is no opposition between faith and science.” In fact, the Pope remarked, Albert’s work “reminds us that there is friendship between science and faith, and that scientists can, through their vocation to study nature, follow an authentic and absorbing path of sanctity."

As an astronaut, I felt the same combination of rigorous intellectual pursuit and awe at the complexity and subtlety of our natural world. If I had one regret while gazing down at our planet, it was that I would never live long enough to visit the thousands of arresting wonders that array this Earth.

But that limitation should not prevent one from trying. This week I absorbed some of the beauty of New Zealand’s South Island, whose Fjordland National Park harbors some of the world’s most spectacular landscapes. A lush, temperate rainforest cloaks the mountains surrounding Doubtful Sound, a glacier-carved canyon now half-submerged by the dark blue waters of the Tasman Sea. For the last two million years, successive waves of climate change have repeatedly buried these valleys under nearly a kilometer of ice, then freed them during warm periods to bloom with a huge variety of plant and animal species. The last glaciers receded about 12,000 years ago, leaving behind mountains wreathed by waterfalls and cloaked by moss-draped forests of beech. These emerald slopes plunge nearly vertically into waters teeming with life: dolphins, corals, fur seals, kelp, and salmon.

Pope Benedict reminded his audience that the Bible “speaks to us of creation as the first language through which God ... reveals to us something of himself.” Referring to the Book of Wisdom in particular, he said that the “phenomena of nature, endowed with greatness and beauty” are “like the works of an artist, through whom, by analogy, we can know the Author of creation.”

As humans, we see overwhelming, unspoiled beauty, which cannot help but inspire us.  If St. Albert, who in his own century studied botany, physics, chemistry, and zoology, had visited Doubtful Sound, he too would marvel at – and study – this landscape, seeing in its complexity and beauty an expression of God Himself.

Tom Jones is a planetary scientist and four-time shuttle astronaut. His latest book is Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System (with Ellen Stofan). See www.AstronautTomJones.com

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)