In an earlier piece I wrote, I explained how the scientific community is neither on a quest to find proof for the existence of a God, nor on a mission to do the opposite. Scientists do not bother with either, for that activity is outside their remit. The reason is simple: science does not care for that which is not verifiable via empirical methodology, which is the most successful method to explain the natural world - and the natural world is what science deals with. Science is not going to bother trying to prove a claim purposefully placed outside its remit; the burden of proof lies on the proponent of that claim.

It is a matter perfectly captured by Bertrand Russell’s teapot analogy. If someone were to declare that there is a teapot orbiting the sun between our planet and Mars, they should hardly expect to be believed on the mere basis that their assertion cannot be disproved. They made that claim, so the onus to provide convincing proof is on them.

Now, positing the existence of an entity, deity or otherwise, which by construction or definition - and that is the core point - lies outside empirical verification, is not going to elicit an effort on the part of the scientist to understand or characterise it, much less to prove or disprove it.

So why should a scientist even bother to respond to an article that deals with the existence of God, I hear you asking? The motivations for that are several.

Every scientist is disturbed when arguments for the existence of a deity invoke quotations by scientists made in a certain (scientific) context and are then deliberately both changed and taken out of that context. As an example, in his response to my piece, Mgr Joseph Farrugia says that “science, it has been said, takes up every human activity, from physics to stamp collecting” and uses that to argue that so wide is science’s breadth of scope, that by extension, philosophy, history and theology are also sciences. Focusing my attention here on theology, that is wrong on at least two counts.

Firstly, scientists do not use the word science in the sense of it being simply a body of knowledge. They use it in the sense I already described - hypothesising, making predictions, proceeding to confirm or reject said predictions via observational and experimental investigation, and finally keeping, modifying or downright refusing the initial hypothesis. Does theology employ that mode of investigation?

Secondly, what had actually been said of science is often quoted as follows: “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” That phrase was uttered by physicist Ernest Rutherford, and is commonly interpreted as a strict understanding of what characterises a “real” science. Quite the opposite, then, of what those words were used to imply by Farrugia.

Theology can either be a science, in which case it has to obey the rules of science, or it cannot be

Clutching to a sparse number of statements about faith by scientists (or astronauts) is no way to proceed in such discussions, be they leading scientists or not. For every scientist who happens to be a believer, one could produce countless others who are not. I could list a number of prominent figures in - even founders of - modern physics who were/are atheists: Paul Dirac, Richard Feynman, Fred Hoyle, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Eugene Wigner - the list goes on.

However, that does not mean anything beyond what I tried to convey: merely that most scientists ignore altogether extraordinary claims (such as those made by religion) that are constructed not to be verifiable empirically. Otherwise, a scientist would have to bother with any number of ridiculous claims (e.g. there are invisible fairies in the garden) whose only justification on the part of their proponents is that, by construction, they lie outside the scope of science anyway.

Then, there is one last and crucial point.

It is one thing to posit the existence of a deity that does not interfere with nature. Quite another to suggest a God that violates the laws of nature at his whim. To my knowledge, Catholicism does not reject claims of miracles. And what are miracles, if not a violation of the normal proceeding of the laws of nature? By way of example, what is a virgin birth, if not a violation of the laws of nature?

What is rising from the dead, if not a violation of the laws of nature? Can anyone fault scientists for recoiling at the idea of such contrived events, when the universe they are able to characterise so well obeys patterns that are perfectly predictable and repeatable in nature?

If someone, then, were to tell a scientist that there is a God who has tweaked nature’s laws in such a way that, for example, upon releasing an object it would shoot upwards instead of fall downwards, that scientist would rightly demand evidence for that assertion.

Similarly, if anything were to violate the laws of nature so overtly as to lead to any number of miracles - which in themselves, by definition, impinge upon the natural world, which is the remit of the scientist - then the scientist would rightly demand hard evidence.

As it happens, Catholicism, at its core, does make a number of such claims. And those claims stop lying solely in the province of faith, for they are claims about the natural world. This is yet another reason why many scientists do not accept the notion that there is no clash between faith and science: faith often makes claims that impinge upon the natural world.

No scientist will “proclaim the non-existence of God on the basis of empiricism” for, if anything, the burden of proof lies with the believer (even though a believer will maintain they only need believe). Now, if only did faith “return the favour” by not making claims that trespassed on the natural world, asserting violation of physical laws. Alas, this aspect is too entrenched in most, if not all, religions - and that includes Catholicism.

Early on in his piece, Farrugia said that “faith of belief in God is extraneous to scientific procedure”. Yet, later he classifies theology as a science. Why the wrong insistence on the latter? Is it because science, by virtue of its method, has amassed a robust reputation which theology would aspire to? In which case, I am afraid that one simply cannot both have the cake and eat it: theology can either be a science, in which case it has to obey the rules of science, or it cannot be.

Joseph Caruana is a researcher in astrophysics and lecturer at the Department of Physics and Institute of Space Sciences & Astronomy at the University of Malta.

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