- Book chapter
- 8 pages
- Level: all audiences
A chapter by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J. (Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006) in International Symposium on Astrophysics Research and Science Education a book published by the Vatican Observatory in 1999. Fr. Coyne writes:
In our age, perhaps more than at any other time, the scientific view of the world has been the principal spur to a more unified view of the world. It has opened our minds to the vast richness of the universe which cannot be appropriated by any one discipline alone. Science invites us to that vision. It also cautions us not to absolutize scientific results. We must beware of a serious temptation of the cosmologists. Within their culture God is essentially, if not exclusively, seen as an explanation and not as a person. God is the ideal mathematical structure, the theory of everything. God is Mind. It must remain a firm tenet of the reflecting religious person that God is more than that and that God’s revelation of himself in time is more than a communication of information. Even if we discover the “Mind of God,” the religious person may still claim that we will not have thereby necessarily found God. Dialogue requires that we accept these diverse ways of viewing our experiences.
Click here for the full text of this chapter from NASA ADS.
