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By Michael Swan
There’s a line that connects the lichens below us with the stars above. It’s difficult to see, hard to understand, but a marvellous gift for two Jesuit scientists who spend their days immersed in the search for new truths that bring them and all of us closer to God. For them, there is no contest between science and faith, as both are ways to seek the truth and be amazed by the world.
Rooted in Science and Faith
“I count my blessings every day, to be honest,” said Fr. John McCarthy, who has been a Jesuit for 44 years and has a newly discovered species of lichen named after him (Acarospora maccarthyi).
Growing up, McCarthy tramped the trails and riverbanks of Newfoundland’s interior with his fisherman father and spent his school days reading whatever he could about ecological succession and similar topics. “I was a real geek,” he said.
As a young Jesuit who had entered the Society at 25, just after completing a master’s in soil science and setting aside for the moment a doctorate, Fr. McCarthy could hardly believe his luck when just after ordination his provincial superior missioned him to finally get that PhD.
Today, he glories in his continued good fortune as he takes up a new assignment this year as a research lichenologist at the Archives and Collections Department of The Rooms Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador (Provincial Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador). “I love field work. I love field research. I haven’t got to the point where I just can’t wait to retire. For me it’s just a passion,” said the lichenologist.
His work also relates to the ecological crisis, which is, according to him, “a rupture of our intimate, loving relationship with God and the Creation of God. My belief is that only through an intimate encounter with the Creator Trinity in the depths of our heart and our action will the world be free to reveal its magnificence and beauty.”
“We’re all seeking truth.” – Fr. John McCarthy, SJ
Looking Above for God and Data
Fr. Adam Hincks researches the cosmic microwave background — remnants of energy released by the Big Bang at the dawn of our universe. He is part of a community of scientists who find themselves suddenly navigating new and uncharted seas of data streaming in from brand new observatories and telescopes in the Atacama Desert of Chile.
“There’s two-and-a-half terabytes of data per day,” explains the Jesuit astronomer. “In my own field, we’re asking really, really big questions. What was the universe like in the first split second? Did it inflate? What is dark energy? What is the mass of a neutrino? — something we don’t yet know from the lab.”
Like most University of Toronto professors, about 40 percent of Hincks’s job is teaching, and the rest of his life given over to research and service. He is also doing pastoral work, an important part of his life, he says. The difference is the breadth of his teaching. He teaches both in the Astronomy Department of the University of Toronto Faculty of Science and in the Christianity and Culture program at St. Michael’s College.
The Astronomy 101 introductory course sees him lecturing in Convocation Hall to as many as 1,500 students while his more intimate Christianity and Culture courses, such as The Bible and the Big Bang, give him the opportunity to guide students to a new encounter with the universe. “That Ignatian motto really resonates with me, finding God in all things,” he said. “I really believe that’s true.”
Finding God in All Things
Where others have seen and obsessed over a supposed dichotomy between science and faith, Fr. McCarthy, the author of Do Monkeys Go to Heaven: Finding God in All Creation, just doesn’t see it. “What do you mean? We’re all seeking truth,” he said. For McCarthy, the joy of being a scientist is the shared project of open, honest, methodical enquiry. “I love being in that world where you can have a conversation, assuming the good will of the other person,” he said.
“There’s a version of science that’s reductive and says that all of the questions worth asking can be answered by science,” said Hincks. “I don’t subscribe to that.” The cartoon scientist — a cold, emotionless man who dictates truth from the lofty heights of his laboratory — is losing his hold on the culture. Hincks observes among his students and colleagues at University of Toronto that the old science-versus-faith polarization has reached a dead end.
“It’s atypical in an environment like this to find someone who has that kind of cultural scepticism (of science),” he said. Science is not theistic or atheistic. It’s just science. “There’s work to be done to recognize what is proper to science,” Hincks said, “and then what are some Enlightenment accretions onto science that really aren’t part of the scientific endeavour.”
Like McCarthy, Hincks knows he’s lucky. “I’m in the enviable position of being an astronomer. Astronomy is one of the least political of the sciences, which is a huge strength,” said Fr. Hincks. “People love astronomy… We’ve all had personal experience of it if we connect with the sky. For that reason, it can be a breath of fresh air in the cultural discourse. It’s not traditional. It’s not progressive. It’s something human that connects us to the cosmos.”
“It’s one world — that’s how I see it,” said McCarthy. “It’s one world, and we pose different questions at different levels of meaning. Scientifically or religiously or ethically, they’re all part of one initiative. We seek what is true, what makes sense.”
