Authors: Prof. Univ. Adrian Restian (UMF „Carol Davila” București), Prof. Univ. Leon Zăgrean (UMF „Carol Davila” București), Drd. Cezar Ivan Coliță (Școala Doctorală „Dumitru Stăniloae”, Facultatea de Teologie Ortodoxă „Justinian Patriarhul” a Universității din București)
Keywords: Science, progress, secularization, religion, spirituality, faith
Abstract:
This work shows how the great advances of science have gradually turned man away from God. This turning away had its seeds or roots beginning with the Scientific Revolution (16th and 17th centuries), when scientists (among whom many were from the Romano-catholic Church, even clerics) tried to put together the Christian world vision with the scientific one, hoping to achieve some kind of reconciliation between the new scientific discoveries and classical biblical and/or ancient science. Though this new world vision did not separate man from God completely, it had catastrophic consequences. The new science succumbed into a new religion: in order to discover truths or analyse things that cannot be proved with the help of reason or experience, that science had ultimately based its “discoveries” on intuition or faith. An interesting issue in science and religion is that of the stages of brain development, which has shifted from the magical thinking to the faith in God and the way in which the advances of science have brought man from theism to deism. Then the article shows the way it passed from deism to naturalism and nihilism and, finally, to an inexplicable confidence in man’s powers, with the help of which he intends to replace God. In conclusion, it shows how some scientists can return to the Christian faith, without which nothing significant is possible.
Pages: 158-180