Changing History

Q: If you had the power to change any event in history, which would you choose to change, and why?

A: Angels and Demons, the sequel to Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, explores one of the 21^st century’s tragedies: the rift between the spiritual and the scientific. One character, the Hassassin, proclaims, “Medicine and airbags…those are things that protect you. God does not protect you…Who needs God? No! Science is God.”

For many, the separation between science and spirituality is total, the alienation complete. However, had just one historical event unfolded differently, the perspective of an entire culture on the role of science and the place of spirituality in society might have taken on a radically different character. It is this single event that I propose to change.

In 1633, the scientist Galileo Galilei stood trial for heresy before the Roman Catholic Church because he made scientific claims which the church perceived as contrary to Scripture. In the end, Galileo relented and recanted his assertions about a heliocentric astronomical model. This event epitomized an increasing polarization of the scientific and the spiritual. The repercussions of this polarization are so serious that if I could change one historical event, I would choose to alter the Roman Catholic Church’s response to Galileo’s scientific research.

What might these repercussions be? Science, in divorcing itself from the church, has denied itself a moral standard by which to evaluate its progress. The church, in divorcing itself from science, has encouraged scientists to create their own competing worldview of evolutionary materialism which has dominated human society for over a century. According to Angels and Demons, “The complexities of the universe have been shredded…our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed...Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power?”

More specifically, the confusion about the ethics of abortion, cloning, assisted suicide, and stem cell research, is due, in large part, to science’s rejection of the role of spirituality in providing a moral framework for decision making. One hundred years ago, nearly all scientific advances were hailed, without caveat, as “progress.” At the end of the bloodiest century in human history, we see differently. The result of science’s unilateral rejection of the spiritual, coupled with the church’s retreat from relevant social issues, has been a gross misuse of the tools with which science has supplied us. Both sides are at fault. In believing themselves to be enemies, they have injured that which it is their purpose to protect: humanity itself.

Had the church responded differently to Galileo, the scientific community might have responded differently to the church. In this lies the possibility of reconciliation between science and spirituality. My proposed touch of the finger of fate is a delicate one, for an attempt to address such a sensitive, inflamed question requires a light touch. But when one has found the right pressure point, force is unnecessary. It is the knowing hand, not the heavy one, which relieves tension and brings peace.