Who is the priest standing next to
Albert Einstein in the image to the left, and what is he doing next to
Einstein? He is Fr. Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest born in 1894, who,
although virtually unknown today, will probably one day rank with Copernicus,
Galileo, Newton, and Einstein in the annals of science. Fr. Lemaitre took his
doctorate in Physics at MIT, and it was his interest in Einstein’s Theory of
Relativity that led him to the idea of the nature and origins of the Universe
that now is popularly known as “The Big Bang.”
The accompanying video will give a
good introduction to the work of Fr. Lemaitre. I don’t have the ability to go
into the details here but will just say that Fr. Lemaitre came up with a
solution to a fundamental problem in Einstein’s theory. The solution was based
on Einstein’s theory but required a whole new way of looking at the universe.
Lemaitre’s solution was originally scoffed at by Einstein but eventually new
astronomical observations provided more and more confirmation of Lemaitre’s
thesis.
Basically Einstein accepted the
idea of a static universe but Lemaitre argued that the theory of Relativity
would fit better with an expanding universe. When astronomers discovered
evidence that everything in the universe was moving away from us at an
incredible speed, even Einstein had to admit that Lemaitre was correct.
Like most people I had never heard
of Fr. Lemaitre even though I had always had an interest in the history of science.
Last summer I signed up for a mini course at nearby Fairfield University
entitled “God and Modern Biology.” Fairfield University is a Jesuit institution
that has always had an interest in the local community. In this instance a
Biology professor had received a grant from the Templeton foundation to offer a
course on science and religion to members of the local Catholic community.
About fifty representatives from Catholic schools and parishes in Fairfield
County not only attended the five-week course but also participated in a number
of workshops and lectures over the fall and winter.
For myself, I feel that I only
scratched the surface when it came to subjects like astro-physics,
micro-biology, and evolution. Nevertheless, as part of the course each group
was asked to develop a program that we could bring back to our local parish or
school that might serve to introduce others to the latest in science.
In our case we decided to look
into a four part video series developed by Fr. Robert Spitzer, a Jesuit priest
who also holds a doctorate in Astro-Physics. The series is entitled, “In the
Beginning: Evidence for God from Physics.” The series is based not only on Fr.
Spitzer’s own research but also on his extensive knowledge of the latest
peer-reviewed and published scientific studies.
In the first video Fr. Spitzer
discusses Fr. Lemaitre’s “Big Bang” theory and the subsequent scientific
discoveries that confirmed his original thesis. In the second session Fr.
Spitzer discusses the implications of the Big Bang. If the Universe is
expanding and not static, it must have started or begun somewhere and sometime,
and a beginning requires a creator outside of time and space. This is not just
Jesuit theology but according to Fr. Spitzer, the conclusion reached by the
latest scientific papers. In the final two sessions Fr. Spitzer goes on to
discuss the evidence for the “fine tuning” that scientists are observing
throughout the Universe.
In this series Fr. Spitzer
concentrates more on science than on theology. He argues that the latest
scientific findings not only contradict the assertions of ill informed but
popular atheists, but also provide more significant evidence for the existence
of a super intelligent Creator than the theological and philosophical theories
of the past. Rather than science and reason being opposed to belief, he shows
their fundamental compatibility with established beliefs. ###
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