Fr. Tacelli began by stating that there is much confusion about the relation between science and religion, and discussed the supposed antagonism which exists in being a person who both respects science and holds some religious faith. The study of any empirical science makes an enormous presupposition, that of the existence of the world. There can be no empirical science without the world's existence, because science takes data, obtained from observation of the world, and uses it to draw conclusions. But the very existence of the world raises several questions: why does the world exist? Why are there temporal limits to its existence? These questions are beyond the capacity of science as such either to ask or answer, because that answer cannot exist within the bounds of space and time. Rather, the great Unknown which these questions seek as their answer is the very realm which is proper to religion.
Further, science is unable to tell us how we ought to live. Every individual must make a choice about what is "the good." This good, if it is a reality, is not open for the realm of science to treat, for it cannot be empirically understood. When a human makes a choice to pursue the good, the individual makes himself into a being identified with that good. Thus, as Immanuel Kant understood, an individual identifies himself with the good chosen and so becomes an end to himself. But neither the agent as choosing nor the end chosen can beempirically understood.
Science deals with things considered abstractly. When dealing with a concrete entity, science will hold that entity against abstract and law-like norms. On the other hand, an individual deals largely with the concrete. How one pursues improvement or deals with shame, for example, are both experiences which one relates to as an individual. A question such as "what are the goods you wish to cherish?" is one which can only be answered for oneself, and not by anyone else. Such pursuit of the mystery of life brings one to the threshold of religious commitment. This mystery can be approached as if it were nothing, and thus ignored, or it can be pursued with reverence and devotion, in the hope of forging a relationship with it. Nevertheless, such pursuit is not an abstract empirical analysis, but is rather the most concrete decision a human being can make.
This is both the glory and the limit of science, that it does not concern itself with the individual as such. For all we know of the world, there is still mystery to it, a mystery which was made incarnate in Christ. The mystery is eternal, and it is one which we will partake of in Heaven. The pursuit of that mystery forms a road map which leads the sojourner to the love which he desires most deeply.
Afterward, in response to a question concerning creationism, Fr. Tacelli remarked that all order in the universe is order created by God, and however it works is how God intended it to function. Thus, if evolution as currently understood is in fact the truth of biological development, then that is the system fashioned by God.
We sincerely thank Fr. Tacelli for his wonderful and illuminating discussion of this matter, which is frequently at the center of modern discourse. As further reading on the subject, he suggested Pope Francis's encyclical Lumen fidei and the first chapters of Pope Benedict XVI's The Yes of Jesus Christ (written when he was still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger). Another good book to consult, detailing the relation between science and faith, would be Stephen Barr's Ancient Faith and Modern Physics.
*"Why Does God Hide?", delivered by Fr. Tacelli on January 30, 2013.
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