New discoveries in quantum science raise profound questions, but how does this emerging branch of research relate to the Catholic faith? That question is at the heart of a new international gathering of physicists, philosophers, and theologians taking place July 12–15 at Chapman University in Orange, California.
The university will host the inaugural meeting of the “Interface Between Quantum Science and Technology, Philosophy, and Catholic Theology” where topics will include quantum entanglement, quantum indeterminacy, hylomorphism, and electromagnetic radiation — with Catholic theology integrated into most lectures. Daily Mass will also be celebrated. All talks will be recorded and made available afterward.
Organizers include Professor Vincenzo Tamma, founding director of the Quantum Science and Technology Hub at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K., and Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer, director of the Magis Center, host of EWTN’s “Father Spitzerʼs Universe,” and a prolific writer on faith and science. Local organizers include Chapman professors Andrew Jordan and Daniele Struppa, both from Chapman’s Institute for Quantum Studies.
A ‘call’ to bring people across disciplines together
The idea for the gathering was conceived when Tamma first visited Chapman.
“I was in contact with Father Spitzer when Dr. Jordan invited me to visit the Institute of Quantum Studies at Chapman, and then I realized Father Spitzer was based very close,” Tamma told EWTN News. “So we met in person for the first time, and I shared with him my desire — what felt more like a call — to bring together people across disciplines and to build a community … to take away the false understanding that science and faith are in opposition.”
Faith, science, and technology collaborations are hardly new. Besides the work of many Catholic scientists throughout history, thousands of scientists belong today to the Society of Catholic Scientists, which recently held its annual convention at Mundelein Seminary outside of Chicago. The event at Chapman, however, is the first to focus specifically on quantum science and technology, a field only about a century old — and which some scientists say rips shreds in a purely materialistic worldview.
“At the very beginning of this field, physicists — the fathers of quantum mechanics — like Einstein were very, very interested in philosophy and what we can call ‘the ultimate questions,’” Tamma said in an interview with EWTN News. “We’ve lost, a little bit, that sense of interdisciplinary collaboration. I share in the same desire — and sense of wonder — of many other physicists, to open deeper questions.”
Tamma pointed to St. Augustine’s image of “the book of nature” and “the book of revelation,” two different ways of knowing truth that are fundamentally complementary.
“Together, they can help us understand the truth of reality and why we are here and the purpose of creation,” he said.
The gathering’s 3 goals
Organizers said the conference’s purpose is threefold: informing the public, initiating fellowship, and advancing knowledge.
“We want to inform the public that there exists an excellent intersection between faith and science,” Spitzer told EWTN News. “We want to use this conference as a starting point to form an international organization dedicated to having Ph.D. scientists, philosophers, and theologians interacting with each other in a fellowship of both faith and their academic disciplines.”
To that end, a public keynote titled “Is the Notion of God Meaningful to Scientific Culture? The Openness of Science to the Quest for Truth and Meaning” will be delivered by Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti of Rome’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross who is also an adjunct scholar at the Vatican Observatory. The lecture is free but registration is required.
Beyond that public lecture, the conference itself is invitation-only, gathering some of the world’s leading scientists, philosophers, and theologians. “This is not a lightweight group,” Jordan said.
Physics is an area of science remarkably appealing to Catholics, revealing as it does the created world’s order and intelligibility. A number of famous physicists have been deeply religious Catholics, including Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and astrophysicist who first proposed the big bang theory; Victor Hess, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering cosmic rays; and modern scientists like Cornell’s Jonathan Lunine, Vanderbilt’s Robert Scherrer, and the University of Delaware’s Stephen Barr, who will deliver a keynote at Chapman.
“By bringing together various research organizations, without losing their identity, they can contribute to the common knowledge,” Tamma said. “They can come in dialogue to really work together and the results can be a gift to society and to the Church.”
Advancing the existing body of knowledge across various disciplines through this focused collaboration is the third major goal of the event.
“Can we make further progress? Can we advance our knowledge, both about our work and our faith?” Jordan said. “I would love to see new insights come out of this meeting, such as new scientific, philosophical, and theological articles and books published. We hope to deepen our knowledge about faith and science together.”
Spitzer highlighted that many scientific fields point toward Catholic beliefs, citing the argument for “fine tuning” in the field of cosmology, the theories of emergence and convergence in biology, and the argument for a “mind-like universe” proposed in philosopher Thomas Nagel’s book “Mind and Cosmos.”
His examples reveal how many disparate scientific fields offer their own support of St. Augustine’s words: “If any man could hear [the earth and sea and air and heavens], he should hear them saying with one voice, ‘We did not make ourselves, but he made us who abides forever.’”
Quantum physics — which is foundational to scientific understanding and widely known in popular culture — lends itself particularly well to the growing faith-science dialogue. “Quantum science is foundational for the whole of physics and therefore for the rest of science,” Spitzer said, “so it’s a good place to start.”
Three decades of rapid progress in quantum physics have filtered into pop culture through science fiction, but beneath the hype, scientists say the field definitively opens the door to something greater than what science can know.
“A lot of people know about quantum mechanics, but they have a flawed understanding of what it is,” Tamma said. “There are laws of quantum mechanics that are well defined — and these laws point to questions that cannot be answered by physics alone.”
