Over a decade ago, on July 14, 2010, Dr. Craig Venter gave an interview to Veja magazine , in which he stated that “it is very difficult to be a real scientist and believe in God. If a researcher assumes that something occurred through divine intervention, he stops asking the right questions. Without the right questions, without questioning, there is no science.” Historical records, however, reveal a very different reality, as most “real scientists,” recognized as such by humanity, believed in God. Instead of recalling the names of illustrious theistic scientists, let's go directly to the central argument of Venter's statement: the idea that belief in God prevents researchers from asking the “right questions.”
There's a rather popular joke in academic circles that Saint Augustine was confronted with the question: "What was God doing before creating the universe?" The answer: "He was preparing hell for whoever asked such a question." Like all anecdotes, this one also has a grain of truth. In fact, as can be read in his most famous book, *Confessions *, Saint Augustine confronted this question, but, contrary to what the joke suggests, he took it quite seriously. And, surprisingly, in the 4th century, he concluded that time was created simultaneously with the universe.
The answer is admirable because, only in the 20th century, the physicist and priest Georges Lemaître, when proposing the Big Bang theory, suggested the same solution. Both were Catholic and shared the same conception of God-Logos, that is, reason. For both, God had created the universe following strictly rational principles, and therefore knowable and intelligible.
existence of God
Saint Anselm, in the 11th century, also faced two challenging questions: Does God exist? If so, how can we prove his existence? Most scientists today, declared atheists, have never wasted two seconds on such a question. For them, “God does not exist” is a dogma, and consequently, they have never even dared to question it.
However, if God is logos, then it must be possible to prove his existence using reason. And Saint Anselm courageously rose to the challenge, proposing a demonstration now known as the ontological argument for the existence of God. We will not go into the details of the demonstration (although in its original form it is quite easy to understand). Suffice it to say that several “real scientists” have pored over it, always trying to improve it or find some fatal logical flaw.
René Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz are two who studied this ontological argument. However, more recently, the greatest logical mind of the 20th century, and perhaps of all time, Kurt Gödel, also became interested in the logical problem and, to his own surprise, demonstrated that God is a logical NECESSITY, as can be read in his Collected Works . Unlike Descartes and Leibniz, who were publicly Christian, Gödel preferred to keep his religious beliefs strictly private, although he affirmed his belief in the existence of God, not so much out of religious conviction, but mainly to avoid a logical contradiction.
Finally, we must agree with Venter that asking the right questions is vital to the advancement of science. However, we disagree that belief in God, specifically the Christian God, prevents scientists from asking them and, more importantly, from finding true answers. Belief in a God-Logos is ultimately the origin of Western science as we know it. Without belief that the universe is knowable and intelligible, there would be no science.
It's true that we don't need to believe in God to have such a conviction, but in this case, the question arises: what gave rise to a universe that possesses such a property? This seems to us a pertinent question… Before putting a final point, we want to clarify that the title of this article is not a “profession of faith” on our part. To the astonishment of many, the one who claimed to be a “theist and evolutionist” was Theodosius Dobzhansky, and, ironically, in the same article whose title is a true mantra for atheist scientists: “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,” published in 1973. In a time when some claim it is not possible to be an evolutionist and a theist at the same time, it is worth reading the entire article , which can be easily accessed on the internet. Needless to say, Dobzhansky was a “real scientist.”
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
