The Laws of Nature and Purpose in the Universe: An Historical Overview

  • Article (PDF)
  • 13 pages
  • Level: university

Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: “Purpose inevitably implies religious connotations. The laws of nature are the fruit of scientific discovery. The great intellectual and spiritual currents of religion and of science run through our civilization from its very beginning. Sometimes they have seemed to be in opposition. More often they have worked together as inseparable elements of a common human quest for understanding. Their mutual relationships have at times been very conspicuous, at other times obscure, but never absent. Some of them, in so far as they have to do with the laws of nature and purpose, are presented here.”

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