Science is a beloved topic in my home. My kids love this homeschool subject and enjoy reading science books on their own for fun.
My oldest often reads The Action Bible as well as the many science books we borrow from the library, and as a curious and observant child, he recently noticed a mismatch between them.
“Mom, why does the Bible say something different than my science books about how the world began?” he asked me the other day. “Does it mean one of them isn’t true?”
A great opportunity
I was so glad that he came to me with this question instead of letting it fester and bother him, so my first response was to affirm his curiosity and interest.
“I’m glad you asked me that question!” I said. “I always want you to come and tell me when something doesn’t make sense to you so I can explain it to you, or we can find the answer together.”
These kinds of questions are a great opportunity for parents to teach our children, and I always want my kids to know they can ask me anything.
I share my son’s interest in science and have read a lot about the topic, so here’s what I shared with him. I thought my response might be helpful to other parents if their kids ask similar questions.
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Affirm that science and faith go together
The main thing I wanted him to take away from the conversation was that science and faith are completely compatible.
“The first thing to know is that the Bible saying something different from your science books doesn’t mean one of them isn’t true,” I said. “God gave us the Bible, and God gave us our brains to use for exploring and understanding the world he made. When scientists discover new things about our world, they’re teaching us more about God’s amazing creation. As Catholics, we believe that science and faith can always go together.”
Put another way, the Catechism tells us the following:
… there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are. (159)
This concept that faith and reason cannot truly conflict was the most important thing I shared.
While I emphasized that scientific findings won’t conflict with faith, my son made a great point when he added, “I know that scientists can make mistakes, Mom. Science isn’t perfect.” I was impressed that intuitively he avoided falling into scientism, the belief that only science can provide truth.
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God is outside of time
The next point we discussed was that “days” are kind of a nebulous concept when it comes to God, who is outside of time. I told him it’s important not to get hung up on the description of Creation in terms of days.
“Human beings are stuck inside of time, like drawings on a piece of paper,” I said. “But God is standing outside the whole picture! He’s not on our timeline. A ‘day’ in God’s time could be a billion years to us.”
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God made the world
The point of the Bible story in Genesis, I told him, is to tell us that God made the world. We can’t expect it to be a scientific account, especially given the time when it was written.
This perspective comes directly from the writings of the pope and Catechism. Pope St. John Paul II explained this concept in the following words:
The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer (“Cosmology and Fundamental Physics,” address to the Pontifical Academy of Science, Oct. 3, 1981).
The main point of Genesis is to communicate to us God’s love, not to formulate a scientific theory. While science can tell us how the world was created, the Bible tells us why it was made.
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The existing science supports the Bible story
One of the most amazing things we talked about? The current scientific understanding of how the world began not only is consistent with the Genesis story, but actually was developed by a Catholic priest!
Georges Lemaître was a Belgian Catholic priest, physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. He proposed the idea in 1931 that the observable universe began with the explosion of a single particle at a definite point in time, a theory that nearly all astronomers accept today and that we know as “the Big Bang Theory.”
“A Catholic priest came up with the idea that the world began at one specific moment in time,” I said. “What do you think that moment was?”
My son thought for a moment, and then dramatically turned off the light next to his bed. He quickly turned it back on and said, “Let there be light! The Big Bang! Whoa, science actually is in Genesis!”
We were both happy with this conclusion to our conversation; he was satisfied with my explanation, while I was glad that he understood how the Bible and science are fully compatible.
I finished the discussion by reminding him to ask me if he had any more questions about the topic. “If I don’t know the answer myself, we can always find it out together,” I said. “There are so many people we can ask. After all, lots of the great scientists in history were Catholic, and many still are today.”
I reminded him of Br. Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory, whom he has read about, and the Catholic scientists in a book we love, Brilliant! 28 Catholic Scientists, Mathematicians, and Supersmart People.
My son wants to be a scientist when he grows up, so it’s incredibly important to me that we have these kinds of conversations early and often. I always want him to know that we can love Jesus and we can love science without any conflict between them.
And today we celebrate...