Young scientists and faith: A necessary dialogue for the future of India
Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Fr Tomasz Trafny of the Pontifical Council for Culture, is coordinator of the project Science, Theology and the Ontological Quest (STOQ) promoted by some pontifical universities. On August 21 he participated as a Vatican delegate at the conference sponsored by the bishops in Pune India on "The Christian faith in a world of science and technology: challenges and opportunities".
There are different ideas and different challenges that science offers to the Church. In the context of India this means tackling new evidence, new responses and new methods of approach because our society is not only multi-religious, but also multi-cultural. It is crucial to be aware of this fact to respond to new discoveries and new achievements in scientific research. We need indeed to promote interdisciplinary research in which science and faith coexist and question one another.
What worries most is the now widespread idea of scientific research. One of the biggest problems in the world today is that the rules are dictated by economic and unethical principles. In this perspective the rapid change we are experiencing can threaten human life itself, just think about the use of stem cells and research in the area that is supported and encouraged by mere economic reasons. Institutions and companies that invest in this area want immediate results at a low cost. That is why they are urging us to research on embryonic stem cells rather than on adult cells that involve higher costs, greater difficulties and multiple testing.
We must create a new culture that unmasks this dictatorship of economic principles. We must return to thinking along the lines of ethics and not profit. Many discoveries are useful and respond to real needs, the problem is that, for economic reasons, they end up being used in a distorted way. This creates a mechanism that leads us astray, to the destruction of life, that life that the discoveries themselves aim to save.
Science covers only one aspect of our knowledge. Our life is much more complicated than what scientific theory alone can explain. Indeed, it remains somewhat a mystery. Science does not investigate the transcendent dimension of existence and this is why it is a mistake to believe that it can provide a full explanation for life and for man. To under stand and know the truth we have several options before us: science is one, but there is also the theology and philosophy. Much knowledge comes to us from art, poetry, aesthetics. There are things that can not be expressed by mathematical formulas and yet are real and we perceive them as such.
Science tries to explain these questions as phenomenon’s, using a certain type of language and a method of research; theology instead tries to answer the same questions with a vision that recognizes a place for God in which the meaning and value of life are given the possibility to exist. When this does not occur, then theology and philosophy are useless to man, and that is why today many people believe that science explains many things in life more than theology does for example. There is a risk that young people in India, as elsewhere in the world, engage in scientific research and technological development by making them become a creed which replaces faith.
We need to invest in young scientists. We must create the opportunity for young Catholics who are interested to undertake the adventure of scientific research. We need young people who look at science through the eyes of faith. It is now widely thought that faith and science are opposed and irreconcilable. Many scientists do not believe in God Many believe that the more familiar we are with natural phenomena the less we need theological explanations. But there are many basic problems which science can not answer many questions to which technology replies by offering a variety of gadgets that are not however capable of resolving the issue of faith.
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