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But there is another group who couldn't deal with a personal God. They also couldn't deal with this lifeless, cold, mechanistic universe of the Darwinian viewpoint. They harked back to Baruch Spinoza, the Jewish mathematician. He said that God is the laws. God is mathematics. If you find that harmony and that beauty in the order of the universe, that is God. Einstein said Spinoza was his kind of believer.

How did the Catholic Church become involved in the discussion?

John Paul II was a university professor, so he was well versed in debates over rationalism and faith. He came into office in 1978. The next year, he holds a 100th birthday party for Einstein. He told his science people at the Vatican Observatory, "The Roman Catholic Church has the oldest science academy in history." In recognition of that, he told them to start setting up conferences to bring in major scientists. They looked for common ideas and common research methods. They celebrated Newton's birthday.

Because of the imprimatur of the Catholic Church, the religious interest in science gathered major momentum. What was lacking was enough money to do it.

In the same year the John Paul II becomes Pope, the cover of Fortune magazine carries its first picture of John Templeton, who literally managed billions of dollars of people's Wall Street investments. He was a Presbyterian layman who, in the '60s, could retire because of his wealth.

He had all these friends—unbelieving big high rollers—who looked down on religion. So he thought, "I'm going to use some of my money to upgrade religion in modernity." You do that by facing religion off with science. By the '90s he was putting $50 million a year into conferences and funding courses at universities.

Scientists who were theists now started coming out of the woodwork. That continued into the '90s when it became socially controversial. The atheists in science began to fire back.

In this battle between theists and Spinozan pantheists, how can science answer questions of faith?

The argument is that if you think God exists, scientific evidence provides a universe that looks like a God exists. Fifty years ago it was doubtful. The universe was chaotic, meaningless, and nothing was connected. It was random, except maybe the laws.

Science is looking for values or morality. Where do you get it? You can't get it out of a gene. You can't get it out of a biological system. Perhaps you need something more transcendent. Not all scientists are saying this, but they are recognizing that you need that. There's the role of belief.

American psychologist William James, probably to the day he died, struggled with doubt over whether God existed. He cut apart brains, he did studies, and he read all the philosophical works. He looked at all these religious people in the world and said, "It helps them with their life so much there must be something there."

In today's design debate, he would say: "If the scientific evidence helps you think that God exists and it helps your life, then use those arguments." Pragmatic. Use them. It's the American way. It's not an argument for absolute truth, but it's sure a good argument for belief.

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August (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47