Most of the world’s outlets would want us to think that Science and Theology are really in conflict, but I believe that this is a simple misunderstanding. When we talk about Science, we must talk about the most fundamental of sciences which relates back to man’s deep desire for knowledge, his desire to know the truth. This love for wisdom is simply called philosophy, and science and all its endeavors are rooted in man’s love for wisdom. Metaphysics, the study of being, must naturally come first in the order of philosophies to acknowledge and study. From this perspective, we can then move onto the other theoretical sciences such as mathematics, Natural philosophy and then eventually the Practical philosophies of politics, economics, and ethics. This is all based off of Aristotle’s organization of the sciences. ^1^
Thus, because all science stems from Philosophy, this equates to man using his God-given Rational mind, his ability to reason to come to know truths about the world, himself and most righteously, God. What we cannot come to know as truth (because we are not God), we rely on our Faith which leads us to Theology, the study of God. Theology uses Philosophy as its handmaiden to lead those to the preambles of faith and also to rationally defend the faith to those that persist against it. Theology has no quarrel with true science, quite the contrary, it uses man’s quest to know, his inner scientific nature to understand, to lead him to discover the answers to life’s biggest questions about himself, his world, and his God. The problem is that in today’s modern world, many have forgotten that science is intimately connected with this metaphysical philosophy, which in turn leads to a materialistic and superficial motivation behind it. Now people practice science for some end, as a utilitarian mission, as opposed to practicing science simply for the means of doing it because of their innate desire to know. Saint John Paul II expands on how modern day science is no longer concerned with the same inner drive that makes us human beings. In our lecture notes, we read: “Reasonable even scientific investigation has become too concerned for the pragmatic and power over nature and not enough for the truth itself. The power over nature became the touchstone for the effectiveness of science and reason and modern science has tended to reduce reason to only those things which can be controlled and observed in a laboratory.”^2^
Theology and Science go hand in hand, as Pope John Paul reminds us when saying that it is both Faith and Reason that help lift us to Heaven. Thus, they cannot be in conflict with one another. It is instead the ongoing train of science that man has taken off the narrow path to true wisdom and placed on the wide path to worldliness and utilitarianism; a path that ultimately leads us away from true joy and God.
^1^ McInerny, Ralph. _ A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas_ (University of Notre Dame Press, 1990) 42
^2^ J. Marianne Siegmund, _Lesson 14 Lecture Notes: Fides et Ratio_, (Philosophy for Theologians, Holy Apostles), 1.