Aquinas and Modern Science: A New Synthesis of Faith and Reason

33 Pages·2016·0.34 MB·English

by  Gerard Verschuuren

Aquinas & Modern Science
A New Synthesis of Faith and Reason
GERARD M. VERSCHUUREN
Aquinas and
Modern Science
A New Synthesis of
Faith and Reason
Foreword by
Joseph W. Koterski, S.J.
First published in the USA and UK
by Angelico Press
© Gerard M. Verschuuren 2016
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission
For information, address: Angelico Press
4709 Briar Knoll Dr.
Kettering, OH 45429
angelicopress.com
ISBN 978-1-62138-228-7 (pbk) ISBN 978-1-62138-229-4 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-62138-230-0 (ebook)
Cover Image: Jacopo del Casentino, St. Thomas Aquinas, between circa 1325 and circa 1375,
tempera and gold on poplar wood
Cover Design: Michael Schrauzer
CONTENTS
Foreword
Preface
1. Aquinas and His Time
2. Aquinas and Metaphysics
The Need for Metaphysics
Faith and Reason
3. Aquinas and Nature’s Principles
Esse, Essence, Existence, and Substance
Matter and Form
Fivefold Causality
Primary and Secondary Cause
4. Aquinas and Epistemology
Epistemology in Crisis
Epistemology Restored
A Foundation for Science
5. Aquinas and the Sciences
Aquinas the Scientist?
The Power of Reason
6. Aquinas and Cosmology
A Beginning of the Universe?
Before the Big Bang?
A Universe Without “Gaps”
7. Aquinas and Physics
Classical Physics
Quantum Physics
8. Aquinas and Genetics
DNA’s Causa Materialis
DNA’s Causa Efficiens
DNA’s Causa Formalis
DNA’s Causa Finalis
DNA’s Causa Exemplaris
9. Aquinas and Evolutionary Biology
The Causality of Evolution
Causa Efficiens of Evolution
Causa Materialis of Evolution
Causa Finalis of Evolution
Causa Formalis of Evolution
Causa Exemplaris of Evolution
Intelligent Design?
The Path of Evolution
10. Aquinas and Neuroscience
The Mental Is Not the Neural
What Then Is the Mental If Not the Neural?
Can the Soul Exist Without the Body?
11. Aquinas and Social Sciences
Sociology
Economics
Political Sciences
12. Conclusion
Foreword
THE ETYMOLOGICAL ROOT of “school” is schole—Greek for leisure. Now,
in many respects the time of one’s formal schooling—especially at the level of
college or university—is not likely to be a place of leisure. Even if one doesn’t
have to work to pay for one’s schooling, the experience is likely to be busy
enough—tests, papers, presentations, and academic activities of all sorts. What
makes the situation worse yet is that there is little unity to most experiences of
higher education. Unless one is at that rare sort of place where the coursework
has been carefully fitted together, the experience is likely to seem busy in yet
another sense—busy with many ideas from diverse disciplines competing for
one’s attention, and often one has neither the time nor the venue for sorting it all
out. It can prove hard enough to keep one’s head above water.
The present volume by Gerard Verschuuren just might help. Aquinas and
Modern Science: A New Synthesis of Faith and Reason is designed especially for
helping to unify an undergraduate education. It cannot claim to solve the
problem of having to work to pay for one’s education or the challenge presented
by tests, papers, presentations, and other academic activities. But what it could
help to provide is the leisure of mind that comes from taking a step back, to see
how things fit together. The discipline of philosophy, especially in its classical
thinkers, has a penchant for seeing the unity amid diversity, for formulating the
principles that are operative in the practice of other disciplines, and for making
explicit what often goes unnoticed.
Yet it is not just any philosophy that Verschuuren uses for this project. He
takes up the thought of Thomas Aquinas, who undertook the projection of the
philosophical unification of the most fruitful forms of knowing in his own day
and who embodied in his own thinking the trait that is most distinctive of a wise
man: giving order to things. The need for intellectual order remains acute in our
day. If anything, the task is more urgent, for the ramifications of academic
specialization have proceeded at a furious pace, and it is ever harder to see how
things fit together and how to formulate the principles that are operative in the
practices of the contemporary academy.
Using his detailed acquaintance with a considerable range of today’s
sciences, Verschuuren here provides a thoughtful account of how the
philosophical vision of Aquinas can help us to better see the unity of reality and
to appreciate the wide range of scientific disciplines that study widely diverse
aspects of reality. The book includes well-informed discussions of such technical
issues as the indeterminacy problem in microphysics and the concept of
randomness in evolutionary biology. For each issue, Verschuuren brings to bear
the resources of the Thomistic philosophical method, clearly explained. To reach
such a book, the poor beleaguered student will still have to find time away from
working and from the other forms of academic busyness. But what it promises is
a leisure worthy of a real education, the leisure of contemplation and of
appreciation of the unity deep within the diversity of things that would otherwise
seem too busy, too scattered, too diverse to be understood.
JOSEPH W. KOTERSKI, SJ,
Associate Professor of Philosophy,
Fordham University, New York.
Preface
WE LIVE IN a paradoxical time. Science enables us to know more and more,
but it seems to be about less and less. This leads to some peculiar contradictions.
Science allows us to reach into the outer space, but we seem to understand less
about our inner space. Science enables us to create intricate machineries to direct
our lives, but we cannot control ourselves. Science shows us more and more
trees, but no longer do we seem to see the forest.
Is there a remedy for these contrasts? Yes, philosophy. Unfortunately,
Albert Einstein hit the nail right on the head when he said, “The man of science
is a poor philosopher.” Scientists tend to stare at that square inch, nanometer, or
micron that they are working on and feel comfortable with, while forgetting that
there is so much more beyond their restricted scope. As the Nobel laureate and
biophysicist Francis Crick put it, “They work so hard that they have hardly any
time left for serious thinking.”
Why philosophy? Philosophy has the power to bring clarity where
confusion sets in. Philosophy has the capacity to create coherence where
fragmentation looms. Philosophy can open vistas that no telescope or
microscope can ever reach.
Why the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas? Because his philosophy has
survived more than seven centuries. Its impact has gone up and down, but it
always came out stronger than ever. It has been classified under various names
—Thomism, Scholasticism, neo-Thomism—and has given rise to several
schools, but its core has always stayed the same. It has been a beacon of safety in
times of uncertainty, confusion, and tribulation. This should not create the
impression, though, that vigorous debate does not exist among Thomists, but in
this book I want to stay away from those discussions.
What made Aquinas’s philosophy so successful? Probably the best answer
is its timelessness. He took the best from another timeless philosopher, Aristotle.
He did this so well that the world would soon take on his ideas, concepts, and
distinctions—albeit with some, but not much, reluctance. Although he did not
consider himself a purebred philosopher, but rather a theologian, much of his
work bears upon philosophical topics, and in this sense it may be characterized
as philosophical. His philosophy gained much ground in the Catholic Church in
particular. In 1567, Aquinas was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church. In 1879,
Pope Leo XIII decreed that all Catholic seminaries and universities must teach
Thomistic philosophy. In 1998, John Paul II issued an encyclical called Fides et