#12641 Can Catholics Believe in Young Earth Creationism? - Stacy Trasancos

0:00Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate agent. When real estate for life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic answers. Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Hello and welcome to Catholic Dance was live. I'm Cy kill at your host. I actually don't know who's responsible for today's show whether it was Edgar or Darren who did it but it's so good. It doesn't even seem right that we're starting off the week this good. Second hour, Dr. Greg Popcheck will be here with us and we're going to talk about healing, broken relationships. He's just so good at that and so hang on for that second hour. This hour, one of our favorite people in the world and I do not know what we have done wrong but we have neglected Dr. Stacey Giursanco's

1:02probably because she's become super popular all around the world but she's scientist, the theologian, a philosopher, mother of seven and today we'll do faith in science with Dr. Stacey Giursanco's. If you're new to the show or you know you haven't heard these Dr. Stacey hours call. Ask your questions about faith in science. This is a great opportunity for you to get to somebody who started out, I mean she started out as a baby but after that she went and we got a PhD in chemistry from Penn State, became a DuPont research chemist. She converted to Catholicism and now she's just one of the church's most compelling voices on faith and science and that is our topic today, 888-318-788-4. Triple 8-318-788-4. I've missed you Dr. Stacey Giursanco, so I'm glad you're back. Thank you Si, I've missed you too. It's been a while, it's good to be back. Do you prefer flying to Ireland to do your PhD work or going to Budapest to do your father

2:07Yaki work or coming on with us on the air? That's close up. It's coming on the air with you, I'm sure, I'm sure that's the case. Well it's the right answer, I don't know if it's a truthful answer but it's the right answer, 888-318-788-4. As long as I have known you, I've known one thing about you, you love atoms. I guess that's, I mean both as a scientist and as a Catholic, you love atoms because that's what a chemist studies and then you seem to just love them as the basic building block of the handiwork of God and now you're mad at atoms, why are you mad at atoms? It's a long relationship, I love atoms still but it's and you know, I thank you for knowing this about me that I love atoms. I've always been fascinated at how atoms make up the world but

3:08I studied theology and now I'm studying philosophy because I've been on this lifelong quest to understand what screwed my head up so bad when I was a young adult. As a scientist, like why did I get so off track with where I'm going in life and I really think it had a lot to do with this idea that atoms make up everything. There's a joke that chemistry students always tell why can't you trust atoms and the punchline is, oh wait, because they make up, because they go ahead. Oh, because they make up everything. Oh, yes, I should have known that. Okay, yes. But it's supposed to be a play on this fundamental truth that everybody knows but the thing I've been learning with tomistic philosophy and matter and form and final causality is they don't make up everything that they are disposed to the form that it's a top-down view of nature starting with

4:09God creating and giving things existence and matter being subsumed into higher and higher substances. And so this bottom-up view that atoms make up everything, that was what messed my head up because that was what led me to conclude there is no God and that's what led me to conclude nothing matters, there's no morality, there's nothing you know just have fun in your life and that's what really got me off track and I think the way we teach students even in Catholic schools that atoms make up everything that that's never really been corrected and so I'm on this new mission now to to write that the way that chemistry is taught because I love atoms so much but you can't trust them to make up everything. Okay so does that know so you start studying philosophy and philosophers I mean I don't think you can overcome or go I think in other words Aristotle is basically right in the causes and so I am not a good philosopher I can never remember what the

5:12four causes are but you're talking about final cause that you if you think the world is just a random kind of there's the atoms and then they snap together in all these different ways and that's what makes the universe then you miss the final cause of the universe. Yes there there is the four cause and by the way I hate philosophy I'm working on a doctorate in it because I haven't told you professors this because that's not going to go over big. I have because it's hard coming from a chemistry brain to theology and then philosophy it's like punishment but the four causes there's material efficient formal and final and what modern science did away with was the formal and final there there's no form that directs the matter and governs the matter and there's no final causality like there's no telos there's no purpose for things and all that modern science really deals with is the material cause what makes up things and the efficient cause what moves

6:18them around and a lot of philosophers have written about that that they've taken formal and final causality out and what I'm adding to that now as a philosopher is I'm putting on my chemistry hat too and I'm rewriting chemistry per the textbook with this other view with this view of a top down and you know there's no escaping that God exists when you have this other view and I know that so that's going to be an interesting discussion because I'm not I'm not trying to hide behind the fact that I believe God exists and I know that from reason and from divine revelation and faith but it's going to make a lot more sense out of chemistry and without getting into the details there's a lot of problems in chemistry research today precisely because they're unwilling to admit formal and final causality so they're actually they've got themselves stuck yeah you once suspected that that would happen at some point is that if you refuse to ask certain questions or

7:19you say this this way of thinking about reality or investigating reality is out of bounds we're only going to limit us and I didn't know this but to the first two of the four causes for for everything then eventually you'll get to a place where it's going to not work anymore you're going to just bump up against things that can't work yeah and that's the problem they're having like we're made of atoms that's what I kept saying God made atoms and we're made of atoms and it's so cool but in modern science they have a real hard problem getting from chemistry to biology to you know that dog standing in front of you like they have a real hard time they want to say everything's reducible to atoms and you can't really explain very much that way so no I'm really excited about this project I my professor said you sound like you're on a vendetta and I'm like well I kind of am but I'm older and I've raised my kids and I'm doing this because I genuinely care

8:20about atoms in chemistry and the faith so much so I can be on a vendetta and go work on a second doctorate in philosophy because I want to change the way chemistry's taught you know like that's a fine way to finish out my life well I'm sorry we've come to the end of your life in the first 10 minutes of the show but okay getting old adds not true eight eight eight three one eight seven eight eight four look any any questions having to do with faith and science there we have what we now kind of refer to as the as the mistake of the of the opposition you know people thinking that faith and science are in opposition to one other or that there's some kind of disconnect between the two if you've got it if maybe you still hold to that theory I was just reading an article today in one of the British newspapers I can't remember it it said why are people still holding on to these superstitions about God when we have science and we don't need it anymore

9:21I think boy that person needs to talk to dr. Stacey well you're welcome to talk to her eight eight eight three one eight seven eight four we'll take a quick break dr. Stacey Tresancos is our guest faith and science on catholic answers live catholic answers live Alexian brothers is a proud sponsor of catholic answers live for 800 years these catholic brothers have offered a prophetic and daring response to the gospel serving Christ in the sick the poor and the dying is God calling you to be a courageous disciple if you feel called to total self giving as a religious brother in the mission of Jesus call our vocations office at eight four seven two six four eight seven zero three that's eight four seven two six four eight seven zero three Alexian brothers dot org home school connections an online provider of courses for your catholic home school is a sponsor of catholic answers live home school connections website is home school connections dot com underwriting for catholic answers live is provided by magnificat

10:25published monthly magnificat features texts of daily mass prayers articles meditations art commentaries and more in step with the liturgical rhythm of the church on the web at magnificat dot com e w t n communicating the faith first of all i love your show that's all i listen to in the car and i have had so many answers to prayer thank you thank you so much i love all of your programs i listen to e w t n all the time in the car nothing else i think we're just so blessed to have your words and your prayers and i just can't tell you what it means because you help me get through a lot you welcome back catholic answers live oh i'm so happy to have dr stacy trisankos with us again three lines are open out of the six so if you have questions about science and faith and how they

11:31intersect and maybe there's something that in science that makes you suspicious of your faith or something in your faith that makes you suspicious of science or maybe you're just curious about a particular question whatever it is dr stacy trisankos i used to say scientist and theologian but you'll notice i open the show scientist theologian and philosopher because she did him in the wrong order you're supposed to do philosophy and then theology but she did her theology degree and now she's working on her philosophy degree you can call eight eight eight three one eight seven eight eight four kens in champagne illinois listening on the spirit catholic radio network awful glad you're here ken go ahead with your question for dr stacy trisankos here's the one to ask you about the emergence of modern science just as a background i studied the history science for about 20 years and it seems to me that when you mentioned about them about early modern science eliminating formal and final cause it seems to me that what happened

12:36in modern science was that they substituted mathematics as the formal cause and the only formal cause that could have that could explain things and got later talks about this and one of his writings about the god making the universe according to you know trying those little squares and circles and so forth so it seems to me then that this also explains the almost obsession with using mathematics to explain everything in the physical world is that true you think yes no i i mean what that's brilliant what you just said and i mean i've i can tell that you study the history of science because i've read many things along those lines as well and it's not something that i hear a lot of people talk about um but you're right it there was the trajectory was kind and you i'm sure you already know this i'm just covering it for the listeners

13:38the trajectory was there was this return to atomism per democratist so after the renaissance democratists became very popular and uh newton and de carte they they all had this idea about and there was much debated idea about atom so it was very material and then like you're saying after this mechanistic view of the universe and all matter didn't work it swung to mathematics and so it where atoms took the place of matter mathematics took the place of form it also it almost went from democratists and the materialists to platenists it went to platenism with the mathematics and what what really it's like a repeat of history right what's really true is something in the middle which is more Aristotelian in nature um and then i had to go through this why not not Aristotle why Aquinas Aquinas built on so many things that Aristotle said and clarified about form and matter and essence and existence and so really i think this it's just the stage

14:43out there is just primed and ready to hear how well atomism makes sense of modern science because it balances out matter and form it uses both for the essence yeah yeah thank you very much um if i do do i do i have an opportunity to ask go ahead Ken yeah yes please do please do well one thing i've never been able to understand is how a materialistic person in science or whether or not but a materialistic thinking person can explain for example that most of the the things in our bodies are the same as the orangutan fancy but that's the material cause but the form is completely well it's very different especially when it comes to the brain that is high rational fog chimpanzees simply don't have that

15:51and how do they explain that without some invoking some top down formal cause which would say oh there's a form for chimpanzees and there's a form for humans and even though they had largely the same material they are they're different forms yes that's when i said yet they can't and when i said in the beginning that modern science is running into all kinds of walls because of their materialist thinking that's one of them that's one wall they're running into they can't explain the difference and you ask how does a materialist thinking person account for that i lived that that rest dissonance in my own life i held my own newborn babies and looked at them and thought it's just a bag of atoms why do i love it so much you know like it i had to confront that um and that was one of the things that that honestly led me to the faith but it has taken me 20 years to get my head around how significant the philosophy is here

16:55so um thank you for what you're saying and thank you for the problems that you're pointing out um i i'm sure god will put someone in your path that needs to hear that because it's a very important message today thank you Ken i have to say i but some of what you and Ken discuss is it goes over my head but um or maybe i have to just think about it for a while to uh because it's outside of my usual pattern of thinking but uh it does seem to me that uh you see these scientists and some of them are on tv and some of them are do popular writing that really are genuinely marveling at the universe and its coherence and that it's undergirded by mathematics but don't seem to go to the next question why and seem almost alert not just not even i would say allergic to it they seem um determined uh that that why question of why is it there why does this work why does it make sense why is mathematics the language of the universe in a certain sense like why should the universe have

17:58a language at all i think um what do you make of that reluctance among scientists especially kind of the popular i don't mean everyday scientists but i mean the popularizers of science to to take the step that wonder wants to take which is why why is it like this why is it so beautiful that that's what got me i said my commitment to once i learned it was materialism i didn't know the word for it i said you know what it's keeping me from asking the biggest why of all and and to be honest i've talked about this in my own conversion and i've written a new book chapter for Ignatius Press and a book that's coming out that where i get into this it i was afraid to ask that biggest why of all because as a scientist i felt like i had a very privileged insight into the order in the universe uh-huh atoms i knew how they were i felt like i had a very privileged insight and i it was like the elephant in the laboratory that i just wasn't admitting that god exist

18:59and when i faced up to that question it was fear of admitting it because god to a scientist who created all of that it's really scary thing to admit there is a a being that did all this if it was almost like too much too close but i remember thinking that am i gonna i felt like i climbed a mountain my whole life to get to my chemistry credentials and job and all that i climbed this mountain but i was just looking down the whole time and i feel like i got to the top of that mountain and i was lonely and light it didn't deliver all the happiness it was supposed to deliver and i thought are you gonna look up or not stacey and looking up was seeing the bigger picture that you know of god as creator of all of this and that there's so much more and and when i finally did ask that biggest why of all and when i finally did look up i mean boom that's when you know the conversion happened and that's when i got on this trajectory of studying theology and

20:01philosophy i had no idea what the order was even then yeah but it's such a beautiful truth to just give into that and say okay science can't tell us everything i get it now yeah and so it but it's a weird habit to me a habit of mine that says science can tell us everything science has all the answers and then you say well you know something silly like a very basic question then well why is there something instead of nothing then well that's not a we don't ask that question well okay if you're willing to not ask questions then then yes science can answer the full universe of questions if you're willing to say i just won't ask certain questions i'll just stay away from those questions you put the blinders on you're like i'm just gonna look here i can answer everything with science well what about this well not that but that's not a question so that to me is a kind of circular thinking that is very unattractive in some of the popularizers of science i don't want to monopolize you though uh stacy toms in oklahoma uh thank you again Ken for that wonderful call tomment in oklahoma thank you so much for waiting to them go ahead with your faith and science

21:05question for scientists and theologian dr stacy trosankos and then i lost off by saying i'm not a scientist me neither something i was taught i just wanted to find out since she enjoys atoms and i'm not a scientist something i was taught i wanted to run a bi in seed with her answer was to ever was true and that is that protons naturally resist each other or repel and that you know the i remember the bible study or something and they said that they were naturally repel so the scientists can't answer about what i was told why the why atoms stay together when the fact they ship you're retelling and they were teaching that that's because god's holding it together that god just let go the whole universe would just literally come apart and so i just just something i was always taught when every came on and talked by atoms all first time i listened to the show i just thought maybe you could answer it that's true okay since me and they repel and i know god maybe what holds it together when they can't explain what's holding something together

22:08yes thank you tom okay you want me to go side yes yes yes if i go it's not going to be very good so yeah it better be you that handles this one tom thank you tom best that's such an excellent thing to call in about and your first time listener i really appreciate you calling and i'm glad you got through this kind of thing i just i hate hearing it because it's unfortunate i mean that there is a scientific explanation for the strong nuclear force there there are forces there's the electromagnetic force there's the strong nuclear force the weak nuclear force and there's gravity and those forces all that we know a lot as scientists about those forces there are experiments that have determined certain things so there is a natural explanation for why the protons stick together in the nucleus a very good one and it's it's worked well and like all theories it's subject to being amended with more data in the future but it's a good explanation and it works and the

23:16fact that we're talking right now is in large part based on those explanations about the atoms that we're even able to have digital communication but when when we're i really well i've inside knows this i've spent a lot of the last 15 years talking about this to Catholics not to be afraid of science like we don't need to do the god of the gaps argument where when something doesn't seem to make sense we just say god holds it together because a that's not really the way that we think about divine action and and creation and there are it makes us look kind of un you know unknowledgeable about science i've learned to mystic philosophy and there's a beautiful explanation that god has to be holding everything in being every moment if godless frank she'd said in one of his books if god forgot about anything for even a moment we would cease to exist and so god is present to everything every atom every proton every body every coffee cup behind sign the picture there

24:19like god is present to everything innermostly all the time and we participate the divine good so don't participate in it we participate it we we share in the divine goodness because we're part of the order of the universe so it really protects you from ever worrying about science disproving anything about god it real it liberates and i say this to young people a lot once you understand what we're talking about when we say creation and divine action it liberates you to roll your sleeves up and get out there and learn whatever you can about science because god made an intelligible world and he made us to be intelligent so that we can study this world we're told to go out and study nature and innovate and put our brains to work and make make life better for humans so um it's just such a such a much bigger story than that say and i and i but i do hear it a lot and i'm really glad really glad that you brought it up today in a certain way it's worse news than tom came with it's not that the protons would all fall

25:22fly apart is there wouldn't be no protons if god if god neglected this because they they don't have being in themselves they have being as a consequence of the creator's choice of the creator's maintenance of them in being always and it's not like in an understanding that teaching from Aquinas it protects us from thinking god just created the universe like he wound up a toy and walked away and said see y'all later god is with us in every moment suffering joy happiness beginning and the life all of it dr stacy trusset tom thank you very much for the call dr stacy trussankos is our guess we're talking faith and science eight eight eight three one eight seven eight eight four lots of people have big questions about catholicism it needs a big book of answers and now it's got one the big book of catholic answers is filled with helpful replies to more

26:26than 250 questions about the faith questions about god salvation history the creed the bible the list goes on and on order your copy of the big book of catholic answers today at shop. catholic.com or ask for it at a good catholic bookstore near you we hope that one of the things that we communicate here at catholic answers live is that our catholic faith allows us to be fully serious about all the problems we encounter in the church and in the world but it also lets us have light hearts and maybe even mix in a bit of fun and that is exactly what our good friend Joe hechmeyer does in his popular podcast shameless popery you should check it out at shameless joe.com Joe's got a deep grasp of the faith morals the teachings of the church all that but he's also got a witty conversational style he entertains and informs but you will leave equipped to better answer the most common challenges misconceptions and questions about the catholic faith he's got insightful guests he does on air debates and he takes a close look into all the things that you

27:30want to know about as a catholic living today you'll walk away knowledgeable and filled with joy look for Joe on his youtube channel check him out at shameless joe.com or wherever you get your podcast and if you like what you hear become a patron what is the catholic church everyone seems to have an opinion but the church never quite fits into the boxes people make for it in the faith unboxed author Andrew Petapran looks at some of the most common boxes people put the catholic church in and explains why they don't fit in doing so he brings us closer to what the church really is the institution founded by Christ order the faith unboxed today at shop.caflic.com or ask for it at a good catholic bookstore near you. Welcome back catholicance was live. I would like to tell you about a great I

28:31tremendous failure in Dr. Stacey Tressanker's life she tried to figure out how photosynthesis works I don't they have nobody they still don't know right it's still like wasn't that was your project at one time your scientific project was I'll explain how these leaves do this and leaves are still more complex than people can explain right yeah it was my come up it's yeah I'm trying to mean in a sore spot there Stacey no it was humbling if that's what I realized like I have to be humble but yeah no we cannot so many things in nature but yes just look at the leaves out there what they are doing right now is more sophisticated than our most sophisticated computer center AI rocket ship anything right right every tree that you look at is doing more complex chemistry than anybody who has ever lived any human being who has ever lived that amazes me every time I hear you say that eight eight eight three one eight seven eight eight four

29:35hey maybe you got an evolution question maybe you've got a chemistry question maybe a physics something that you as a matter of fact though I was I was gonna say physics it does seem to me that physicists uh they seem more open to God than a lot of a lot of the biologists and whatnot like they kind of look at the big thing and go wow uh where why is this also fine tuned why does this all work like this but then whatever your faith or science question you're welcome to call eight eight eight three one eight seven eight eight four Dan is in Louisville Kentucky that's how I'm told you're supposed to say it Louisville uh did I say it right Dan I think you got it right all right I think you're being generous you sound like you're being generous Dan but thank you well there's like seven different ways to say it now well as long as I got one of the seven you hit one of the seven okay I'm all right then go ahead with your question for Dr. Stacey Chusankos well I just was wondering I mean I love the field uh and I dug into it some of my own um and one thing you know I don't accept the atomistic kind of bottom

30:38up explanations but I do worry that you know we have a a faith where you know history is unfolding um and it seems to me that like Aristotle might provide too much of a like a top down or bottom up both of them may miss the sort of eschatological component to Judaism Christianity etc that that there's like revelation and there's expectation of a future fulfillment etc and like ancient Greeks didn't really have a belief in a beginning point as far as most of them in Aristotle I think would fit into that as well and so it's like both Christianity has this notion of a creation point but also that a coming kingdom of God I don't I found in my own studies that the the kind of Greek cosmology to be a little flat when it comes to history and the unfolding

31:39of vast ethics of time and things like that and so I'm wondering if you have any suggestions as to where to look with that um I kind of look yeah I don't know if you she's working on like her six graduate graduate degree she can't she still doesn't know the answer to that Dan no Dan Dan it's brilliant uh go ahead finish though are you done well I I mean I've like you know there's a rabbi arts and there's some people like Hans Jonas and the Jewish community have both done some things with with science and faith that I've found to be interesting John Haude in the in Catholic circles and so but they don't use Aristotle as much as they're using the more contemporary philosophers so I was just wondering if there's a place to look um you know for a good medium where eschatology and history can also fit in it so it's not just top down or bottom up but it's movement in a sense yes that this is I mean you see me just

32:47brimming I this is the joy I have finally found like in hating philosophy so much that I had to understand it it's Thomism like I wanted to be a Thomas but I didn't feel like I understood it enough to be one and what you're talking about is why Thomism is not Aristotelianism they are different um people say Aquinas baptized Aristotle and I guess you could say that because Aquinas was writing in this context of divine revelation and so he rejected certain things from Aristotle like the fact the idea that Aristotle had that the world is eternally cycling like we can't accept that in Christianity because of divine revelation that there is a beginning in time and the universe is not eternally cycling there's a beginning in time and there's an end in time um so Aquinas has what you're talking about and you're absolutely right if two bottom up two top down what's in the middle is Thomism because with when Aquinas introduced his distinction of essence and existence

33:55instead of just matter and form he he introduced to how God acts in the world and he introduced real causal autonomy of parts how parts make up holes so he was able to explain why there are holes and what the parts contribute to the whole but instead of being two top two bottom up and two top down his metaphysics is participatory uh meaning that we we participate so everything that is created has real causal powers has matter has form because God granted the essence to it and God grants the act of existence to it as well so we're participating the divine goodness like I said before and there's a whole lot of work going on even right now in contemporary to mystic metaphysics on what it means to participate but that is the middle ground I think that you're looking for and and it has it talks about the functions of the form but it's not just strictly top down it's

34:57it's more participatory um but there's such beauty in what Thomism my professor said to me if you're going to be a Thomas don't be a don't be a Thomas just because you think it's cool and you want to be part of that group you have to be a Thomas because you think he's right and I become convinced more and more every day that Aquinas is right about his metaphysics and natural philosophy what do you think Dan okay well well thank you I mean that just to give me some things to chew on and and look into so thank you very much thank you Stacy is there a I maybe there's not a book or a particular writer that you would suggest looking into if you wanted to understand this middle ground that the Catholic thought offers I'm going to tell you the name of my professor because that's one reason he is my professor while I'm studying philosophy he's great his name is Gavin Kerr G-A-V-E-N-K-E-R-R he's at St. Patrick's Pontifical University in Ireland uh Carlo Broussard also

36:01got his PhD in philosophy there with Gavin so Gavin Kerr has written some books on on uh this what I'm talking about hey you it can be a beginner question it can be an advanced question dance uh to me I'm gonna throw that in the advanced category that was pretty deep thinking Dan was doing there eight eight three one eight seven eight eight four is a number you've have a question about faith and science you're welcome here eight eight eight three one eight seven eight eight four thank you Dan for that call let's go to Billings Montana Tim in Billings Montana welcome you got a faith and science question yes I'm trying to understand how infinity goes with eternity oh let me explain that I can do that real quick I'm like kidding I can't explain that sorry Tim I'm not the guy for that explain how it fit now did you say goes with eternity Tim goes with or what doesn't go with yeah okay infinity and eternity well good question what a fit infinity usually refers to I'm

37:09gonna give you my answer it refers to quantities like numbers like when you're learning in school about uh lines and points a line can go to infinity we we talk about infinity in terms of counting you can always count one number higher so it talks about numbers eternity is more holistic eternity is more like the whole the perfect simultaneous possession of life um it's it's a mode of duration it's not just numbers does that make sense that's a good question yes it did make sense Tim yeah it doesn't make sense but it still doesn't make sense that's that's how I feel about awful on speed that's my problem I know a lesson less about more and more but I still know less and less yeah yeah yeah so I'm very frustrated and that's why I hate philosophy

38:15and I mean it and I say that lovingly but you don't really though yeah it's you know I mean yeah okay okay but it no but what yes and I think do I tell you what go and ask AI what it says oh my gosh that's the big that's the single biggest cop out we have ever had oh gathergats live Tim god bless you brother thanks for the call I will will we if God willing by the grace of God we will see Tim in eternity but that doesn't mean we'll see him in infinity so that's the difference we'll see Tim there all right we'll take a quick break right back with more questions on faith and science 888-318-788-4 let us help you with your question today on Catholic answers live a w t n helping people grow in their love and understanding of God about six years ago I was

39:20suicidal I was hospitalized twice because I wanted to tell myself really bad and I just kept listening to the 10 radio it made me get to a better place but I'm a lot happier I have a picture of mother and daughter in my apartment and a big promoter of EWTN it saved my life I just thank you WTN for everything I do EWTN live truth live Catholic who was the first Catholic in your family were they evangelized by a friend a coworker a stranger did you ever think that you could be that person that God uses to save a soul and that soul could save their family their grandchildren and generations to come at Saint Paul Street evangelization a Catholic nonprofit we train equip and mobilize Catholic disciples to do the urgent work of evangelization Catholic answers is supported in part by Saint Paul Street evangelization street evangelization dot com

40:23welcome back I have a definition for infinity the number of people who call in the fourth segment of the show thinking I got to get on now before the show ends okay now that's fine everybody can go now if you want 888 318 788 4 Edson Melbourne Florida listening on am 920 divine mercy radio glad you're here Ed go ahead with your question good evening doctor I'm wondering if you've ever spoken with or perhaps collaborated with doctor Edward Fezer and specifically perhaps read his books specifically the last superstition which speaks very much to some of the things I hear you talking about this evening oh yes I'm a huge fan of doctor Fezers I have read I think I've got a lot of his books back there on my bookshelf and even more on my Kindle I've read his books Aristotle's revenge a lot of them and he was one of the people that gave me this idea because I

41:25am aligned with everything he says but I wanted to bring my chemistry knowledge to the table so there's the philosophers in his group and you know there's not that many of them in the world that talk about this they do allude to the fact that we need to think of Adams as bodies that matter or matter in form and granted existence by God and what I'm trying to do is show philosophy through my knowledge of chemistry why this does make so much sense so I'm feeling I'm sort of picking up his suggestion and running with it as it relates to chemistry because I know chemistry and I'm trying to know philosophy so that I can explain what he's talking about so my my work would be specifically in chemistry because I'm very passionate about chemistry but it builds on what he's talking about and so yes thank you for mentioning him and I highly recommend reading his books okay I love it thank you all right thank you I thank you very much Ed on we go to

42:33Denver Colorado Nate is listening on the Catholic Answers app Nate thank you for waiting go ahead with your faith and science question for Dr. Stacy Tressenko's yeah hello um who came up with I guess it's referred to as a theory of time being somehow subject to like gravity because in my little country boy brain time is not a physical property so where does that come from what do you thought done that well Einstein with Einstein's theory of general relativity he came up with this idea of the curvature of space time that's caused by mass so he looks at you know there's three dimensions in space but time is a fourth dimension and that's the gravitational time dilation and I'm I'm getting out of chemistry into theoretical physics there so I'm getting out of the field that I know but Einstein's the one that came up with it and um in terms of how we think about time

43:39it works so that does sound like a cop out too not as bad as saying look it up on I add this is the thing and I teach students about this theory you're right and you said it you said it too theories can always be amended so I try to stress to my students and I'm really glad that you already said it and picked up on it a theory is our best explanation at this point in time with the data that we have classical physics used to be what everybody thought was true and then quantum physics changed all that drastically changed all that um I don't think gravity the theory of gravity will ever be changed but that's because I can't see how it would be um but it's also true that any theory is our human human explanation of what we observe in nature with our best scientific methods and it gets better all the time um but it's still just our human like I was saying when I tried to replicate photosynthesis ain't going to happen um there there's so much we don't know

44:45but our theories are our best explanations and they can change but Einstein is the one that you're talking about who came up with the curvature of spacetime okay Nate all right yeah he ruined everything Einstein I have everything made sense until he came home I love Einstein you would Richards and Sarah Torres excuse me Sarah Toga springs New York off of glad you're here Richard you got a faith in science question uh it's more of a point than a question okay um the point is that uh I believe I heard someone said there's no beginning uh that is provided that we have to but in my reading of the bible uh the very beginning of the bible god said let there be light and that could have been a uh the first the beginning of the whole universe that the earth is part of

45:47so you uh so okay so you're taking that as a proof that there is a beginning to creation yes and I think uh physics is still evolving and it's very possible that creation is happening continuously um and more and more uh more and more uh universes are created in this process of expansion that's occurring um but so I don't I didn't I'm not sure if Stacy I actually I'm not recalling someone saying there was no beginning but it might have been but in reference to something in particular like maybe an infinite number of of numbers but as far as the universe goes as far as creation goes I should say um you believe it has a beginning Stacy yes I was saying the Aristotle thought that and that was one of the things that Aquinas rejected he

46:52rejected the idea that the universe is eternally cycling and I think there is even stronger biblical proof of that Richard two of the books of the bible begin with the phrase in the beginning so if god starts two books of the bible telling us there's a beginning then there's definitely a beginning all right Richard right yeah and and I just wanted to say what he's talking about with the with the fiat looks uh the primordial fiat looks that that actually was said by a Pope back in the 1950s around the time when uh George Lomet was coming up with the idea of the big bang yeah Pope pious the twelfth said in a plenary session to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences he said the big bang was scientific evidence for creation that science had become witness to a fiat looks George Lomet sort of pushed back on that and said no science does approve those things it's consistent though yeah it's consistent right this idea of a big bang is consistent with the idea

47:55of a moment of creation uh right that we have to be so careful about that one though I will say like that because so many physicists will say the big bang is not the moment of creation we don't know though we cannot say equal science there that that's that's not the moment of creation but um but I see what's but it's consistent with this uh with this because before that you had a lot of scientists uh Fred Hoyle most famously saying no there's no beginning that like this was the he thought that was a religious fantasy until the science actually showed no this uh Judeo Christian idea is more consistent with how the universe is actually structured Richard uh thank you very much uh Stephanie's in rockford illinois listening on catholic spirit radio Stephanie welcome you got a faith in science question yes hi can you hear me yes okay um yes so um I am a convert from a Protestant denomination where I um was taught you um like what answers

48:58in Genesis teaches about creation that the world was created mature um and so therefore like even the premise of radio carbon dating can't be relied upon for um geological analysis and and radio you know dating and timing of things um there's the catholic church have a stance on you know new world creation like uh you know young world creationism or um you know our our how do we kind of do with that and it had come up in a bible study where we were talking about the shroud of tour and and being the um PhD chemist in the room everyone was like well can you explain carbon dating and like can we rely on it and I I didn't know how to address better touch that okay yes you are asking a huge question and it's the longest chapter in my book particles of faith uh just i'm recommending it because that's where I wrote it all down but this is a huge question about creationism and no the catholic church does not absolutely does not say we have to accept

49:59the creationist explanation of things radiometric dating uh six day creation no dinosaurs all of that stuff the church is very wise here and like sia was saying you have to be careful with the language the church allows us to conclude whatever we want from the science but we can't deny that the human is body in rational soul we can't deny that there's a beginning and time we can't deny that god created everything so a materialist interpretation of evolution is also not consistent with divine revelation and reason it's not consistent with reason either um but so there are catholics who adhere to the young earth creationism uh theory i am not one of those i actually think it does a lot of harm to the faithful i think it misrepresents the correct relationship between faith and science um creation ism was born of this fear and it it is a fear i'm using that word on purpose this fear that evolution

51:00would somehow disprove that god exists somehow disprove that god created man disprove that Adam and Eve existed disprove uh the the the fall and original sin and just demolish our catholic faith but that was never true that was never actually true and when you understand science the way i was talking about before science is the study of god's handiwork everything is held in the existence by god all the time and as catholics we roll up our sleeves and get out there and good for you PhD and chemistry we get out there and we try to understand what god has created um and nothing we ever discover with our human minds will ever be able to disprove the fact that god exists or the fact that christ the second person of the holy trinity became man and told us all these things about our salvation so uh creationism was born out of this very big damaging misunderstanding about what the church even teaches the church in her wisdom still says if you want to believe that scientific

52:05interpretation go ahead but you're not a bad catholic if you don't accept that um that's a it's a big it's controversial um but that i firmly stand on the side of nothing to fear in evolution let's see what we can learn god created everything how does that sit with you Stephanie that that's super comforting because i to be honest with you like i um had started out in biochemistry and had moved away from it because of my fear that i was learning about evolution and it would hurt my faith with god not gonna lie i love the path i've chosen and material chemistry but um yeah no that's really comforting to know that i can believe the science i read in my biology book yes right right uh and and i have to say it goes the other way too like Stephanie you didn't want to study science but there's many young people who do want to study the science and they end up losing their faith because they because someone told them if you believe that then you're abandoning

53:05the christian faith so they end up abandoning the christian faith uh stacey you just grabbed a book off the counter what's up so can i do this like Stephanie if you all get my email get my email from sign i'll send you a copy of this book one sister sign chemist to another girl i gotcha if you'll i'll send you a copy of the book uh Stephanie if you hang on and give us an email address what we'll do is we'll send that to Stephanie and she'll send you a copy of her book particles of faith a beautiful book i think that was your second book that you wrote right the father yaki book came before that and um and it's about the particles of faith i will say to anybody who's listening a wonderful book about if you especially if you have a science minded young person if you have a science minded kid teenager a young adult maybe give give them a copy of particles of faith because it's uh it's a it's a wonderful book for helping to work through all of these things uh i'm going to i gotta let you go stacey i can't believe it i'm sorry to everybody who's hung on the line uh we've

54:09got uh um uh another doc two doctors two doctors in one day uh dr gregg pop check will be with us uh the next hour and we're gonna talk about healing broken relationships stacey i'm so glad uh you came back i know you're a world traveler and uh and a and a phd i can't it but thanks for being back with us again oh we don't it's we got oh sorry we got an audio problem we got an audio oh do we have any audio with you stacey oh okay yes i just wanted to say thank you to you thank you for a great hour thank you thank you bye bye uh uh yep well between getting on airplanes given talks studying uh she's like uh she's like a jet age catholic that's what she is all right we'll be right back uh with uh healing broken relationships with our good friend dr gregg pop check the very best at what he does right here on catholic answers