Science and faith, and Christmas!

By Fio Mascarenhas , SJ

Science tells us reliably that our cosmos began to exist from the time of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.  In the words of the Bible, God said, “Let there be light!” (Gen 1:3) and our cosmos began to exist. Human life (homo sapiens) appeared on earth about 4.5 billion years ago, when God said, “Let us make man in our image…” – (Gen 1:26). The scientific findings of modern times were, of course, unknown to the writers of the books of the Old Testament, whose earliest chapters were written down on scrolls only about 1700 BC, during the reign of King Solomon.

Therefore, Dei Verbum, a very important 1965 document of the Second Vatican Council, teaches that the earliest Jewish accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 are not “historical” but are to be labeled as “pre-history.” They are a theological and symbolic account of faith, based on the common understanding of the times.

Therefore today (2024 CE/AD), we must re-think and also teach our “modern” children what the Faith really is. This, of course, also calls for an updating of our Catechism. But already in 1988, Pope St John Paul II had declared, “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world in which both can flourish.” (Letter to the Director of the Vatican Observatory, 1 June 1988).

Whatever we may think about the popular Nativity Gospels of Mathew and Luke, the fact of Jesus being born a human being is not in doubt.

John Paul II had also insisted in his famous Encyclical, ‘Faith and Science’ that Christian faith must be open to genuine findings of modern science: “I must also address a word to scientists, whose research offers an ever greater knowledge of the universe as a whole, and of the incredibly rich array of its component parts, animate and inanimate, with their complex atomic and molecular structures. So far as has science come, especially in this 20^th century, that its achievements never cease to amaze us! In expressing my admiration and in offering encouragement to these brave pioneers of scientific research, to whom humanity owes so much of its current development, I would urge them to continue their efforts, without ever abandoning the horizon within which scientific and technological achievements are wedded to the philosophical and ethical values which are the distinctive and indelible mark of the human person.” (n.106)

What then, does this do to the traditional teaching about Adam and Eve, their ‘fall from grace’, etc., etc? John Paul II, in his integrated vision of the human person which he taught during the 129 Wednesday audiences (delivered between 1979 and 1984), and now popularly known as the “Theology of the Body,” indicates that Adam and Eve are not proper names of two individual first parents but symbolic common nouns, etc.

So in a letter to the Director of the Vatican Observatory (1 June 1988), Pope St John Paul II asked theologians to study how “an evolutionary perspective can throw light on theological anthropology.”  Sadly, theologians have not responded till today. We continue to wait with hope. Maybe we may have to wait till Vatican III!

Christmas is still very relevant, notwithstanding all the new evidence posed by biological evolution. Let us celebrate the great feast with new fervor and thanksgiving!

But what has all this to do with Christmas? Whatever we may think about the popular Nativity Gospels of Mathew and Luke, the fact of Jesus being born a human being is not in doubt, even if we now have to revise the time of his birth. We now know that he was born about 6 Before Christ! Herod died in 4 BC, and he ordered the soldiers to kill all male babies up to the age of 2, hence the new date 6 BC.

Moreover, whatever be our conclusion about “original sin” (explained by some as ‘original selfishness of our species’) and about Jesus being sent to ‘redeem/ransom’ us, we can confidently conclude that Jesus did come to “bring us abundant life” (John 10:10) through his death and resurrection. This means not only “new life” on earth, but even after our passing from this world; and most importantly, Jesus came to teach us “to love each other” (Jn 13:34) with an altruistic, self-sacrificing love, in the power of God’s Holy Spirit, just as he did by his terrible death and glorious resurrection. So Christmas is still very relevant, and to be celebrated, notwithstanding all the new evidence posed by biological evolution. Science and Faith are not only compatible, they are necessary for us to “broaden the horizons of our minds.” Let us all, then, join in with a loud ‘Amen’ and celebrate the great feast with new fervor and thanksgiving! And may the Jubilee Year of 2025 bring us new blessings of grace, through advances in science and theology!

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