Meeting with Scientists and Students (15 November 1980)

On 15 November 1980, the Holy Father met with scientists and students in the Cathedral of Cologne. In his Address, the Pope spoke of Saint Albert's “middle way” between defense of the Christian tradition against science and a scientism that discounts the Christian Faith.  

Venerable brothers in the episcopate,
beloved brothers and sisters,
kind ladies and gentlemen!

1. With joy and gratitude I greet you, women and men of science from the Federal Republic of Germany, male and female students of German universities, you who have exercised such a lasting influence on the history of science in Europe. You have also gathered here as representatives of the many researchers, professors, collaborators and scholars of the various universities, academies and research institutions. You also represent the numerous collaborators who, by promoting scientific research at the state and non-state level, exert a considerable influence on the development of science and technology and consequently bear a special responsibility towards mankind.

2. Today's meeting must be understood as a sign of willingness to dialogue between science and the Church. Today's anniversary itself, as well as the place where we are, give this meeting a particular importance. Seven hundred years ago, like today, died in a Dominican convent, not far from this cathedral (at the foundation of which he himself had been present), Albert "the German", as his contemporaries called him, and to whom, the only learned, posterity gave the nickname of "Great".

Albert exercised in his time a multiple activity as religious and preacher, as religious superior, as Bishop and peace broker in his own city of Cologne. But he conquered greatness in the face of world history as a researcher and scientist who knew how to master the knowledge of his time very well, reorganizing it into a new powerful vital synthesis. His contemporaries already recognized him as the "auctor", the initiator and promoter of science. Posterity called him the "doctor universalis". The Church refers to him - she who lists him among her saints - as one of her "doctors", and honors him under this title in the liturgy.

However, our memory of Albert the Great must not be just an act of due mercy. More important is to re-enact the essential meaning of his work, to which we must recognize a fundamental and perennial importance. Let us briefly take a look at the historical-cultural situation of Albert's time. It is marked by the growing rediscovery of Aristotelian literature and Arab science. Until then, the Christian West had kept alive and scientifically developed the tradition of Christian antiquity. Now it is encountered in an overall vision of the non-Christian world, founded solely on a profane rationality. Many Christian thinkers, some of them renowned, saw above all a danger in this fact. They felt they had to defend the historical identity of the Christian tradition against it. There were also radical individuals and groups who, perceiving an insoluble antagonism between this scientific rationality and the truth of faith, decided in favor of this "scientificity."

Between these two extremes Alberto travels the middle road: the instance of truth of a rationally founded science is recognized; on the contrary, it is accepted in its contents, completed, corrected and developed in its intrinsic need for rationality. And precisely in this way it is made a heritage of the Christian world. The latter in turn sees his own understanding of the world enormously enriched, without thereby denying any essential element of his own tradition and above all none of the foundations of his own faith. In fact, no conflict can arise between a reason which, in accordance with its own nature which comes from God, is ordered to the truth and is enabled to know the truth, and a faith which refers to the same divine source of all truth. basically. Indeed, faith confirms the proper rights of natural reason. It presupposes them.

In fact, its acceptance presupposes that freedom which is proper only to a rational being. With this, however, it also appears that faith and science belong to two different orders of knowledge, which are not superimposable. This also reveals that reason cannot do everything by itself; it's over.

It must take the form of a multiplicity of partial knowledge, it is expressed in a plurality of single sciences. It can grasp the unity that binds the world and truth to their origin only within partial modes of knowledge. Even philosophy and theology are, as sciences, limited attempts that can grasp the complex unity of truth only in diversity, that is, within an intertwining of open and complementary knowledge.

We repeat it: Albert recognizes the articulation of rational science in a complex order of different knowledge, where it finds confirmation of its peculiar nature and at the same time discovers itself oriented towards the goals of faith. In this way Alberto made concrete the statute of a Christian intellectuality, whose fundamental principles are still to be considered valid today. Nor do we diminish the importance of this contribution when we state: from a content point of view, Alberto's work is linked to its own time and therefore belongs to history. Indeed, the "synthesis" he developed has an exemplary character, so we do well to recall its fundamental principles to memory whenever we want to address today's questions posed by science, faith and the Church.

3. Many identify the core of these questions in the relationship between the Church and the modern natural sciences, and they still feel the weight of those famous conflicts which arose due to the interference of religious authorities in the process of development of scientific knowledge. The Church remembers this with regret, as today we realize the errors and deficiencies of these ways of proceeding. We can say today that they have been overcome: thanks to the persuasive power of science, thanks above all to the work of a scientific theology, which by deepening the understanding of the faith has freed it from the conditionings of the time. The ecclesiastical magisterium, since the First Vatican Council, and recently in explicit form in the Second Vatican Council (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 36), repeatedly recalled those principles, which can already be traced in the work of Albert the Great. He explicitly affirmed the distinction of the orders of knowledge between faith and reason, recognized the autonomy and independence of the sciences and took a position in favor of the freedom of research. We do not fear, indeed we exclude, that a science, which is based on rational motives and proceeds with methodological seriousness, reaches knowledge that conflicts with the truth of faith. This can happen only when the distinction of the orders of knowledge is neglected or denied.

This examination, which should be carried out by scientists, could help to overcome the historical weight of the relationship between the Church and science and foster a dialogue on an equal footing, which already often occurs in practice. Moreover, it is not just a matter of overcoming the past, but of new problems, which derive from the role of the sciences in today's universal culture.

Scientific knowledge has led to a radical transformation of human technology. As a result, the conditions of human life on this earth have changed enormously and also vastly improved. The progress of scientific knowledge has become the engine of general cultural progress. The transformation of the world on a technical level has appeared to many as the meaning and purpose of science. In the meantime it has happened that the progress of civilization does not always mark the improvement of living conditions. There are unintended and unforeseen consequences, which can become dangerous and harmful. I only mention the ecological problem, which arose following the progress of technical-scientific industrialisation. Thus serious doubts are born about the capacity of progress, as a whole, to serve man. These doubts have repercussions on science, understood in the technical sense. Its meaning, its goal, its human significance are questioned.

This question acquires particular weight in the face of the use of scientific thought in relation to man. The so-called human sciences have certainly provided important and progressive knowledge of human activity and behavior. However, in a culture determined by technology, they run the risk of being used to manipulate man, for purposes of economic and political domination.

If science is understood essentially as "a technical fact", then it can be conceived as a search for those processes that lead to technical success. Therefore, what leads to success has value as "knowledge". The world, at the level of scientific data, becomes a simple complex of manipulable phenomena, the object of science a functional connection, which is analyzed only in reference to its functionality. Such a science can only be conceived as a pure function. The concept of truth therefore becomes superfluous, indeed it is sometimes explicitly rejected. Ultimately, reason itself appears as a simple function or as an instrument of a being who finds the meaning of his existence outside knowledge and science, in the best of cases only in life.

Our culture, in all its sectors, is imbued with a science which proceeds in a largely functionalistic way. This also applies to the sector of values ​​and norms, of spiritual orientations in general. This is where science hits its limits. There is talk of a crisis of legitimation of science, indeed of a crisis of orientation of our entire scientific culture.

What is its essence? Science alone is not able to give a complete answer to the problem of meanings, which puts it in crisis. Scientific claims are always particular. They are justified only in view of a specific starting point, are located in a process of development and can be corrected and overcome in it. But above all: how could something that first of all justifies this starting point and which therefore must already be presupposed by it constitute the result of a scientific starting point?

Science alone is unable to answer the problem of meanings, indeed it cannot even place it within its starting point. And on the other hand, this problem of meanings cannot bear having the answer postponed indefinitely. If a widespread belief in science is disappointed, then the mood easily changes to hatred against science. Ideologies suddenly burst into this empty space. Sometimes they give themselves the air of "scientificity", in reality they draw their persuasive strength from the pressing need for an answer to the problem of meanings and the interest of social or political change. Purely functional science, devoid of value and truth, can be completely enslaved by these ideologies. Finally, there are still new manifestations of superstition,

These false paths can be detected and avoided by faith. But the common crisis also concerns the believing scientist. He is called to ask himself with what spirit, with what orientation he cultivates his science. He must undertake the task, immediately or indirectly, of examining, in a constantly renewed form, the process and the goal of science under the aspect of the problem of meanings. We are co-responsible for this culture and we are encouraged to cooperate in overcoming the crisis.

4. In this situation the Church advises not prudence and restraint, but courage and decision.

There is no reason not to take a stand for the truth or to be afraid of it. The truth and all that is true represent a great good to which we must turn with love and joy.

Science is also a road to truth; since in it the gift of God is developed in reason, which according to its nature is destined not to error, but to the truth of knowledge.

This can also be true for science oriented in the technical-functional sense. It is simplistic to understand knowledge only as a "method for success", while it is, on the contrary, legitimate to judge the outcome that follows from it as proof of knowledge. We cannot look at the man-made technical world as a realm completely alienated from the truth. Likewise, this world is far from meaningless: it is true instead that it has decisively improved living conditions; and the difficulties deriving from negative effects in the development of technical civilization do not justify forgetting the benefits that this same progress has brought.

There is no reason to conceive technical-scientific culture in opposition to the world of God's creation. It is clear beyond any doubt that technical knowledge can be used for good as well as for evil. Those who investigate the effects of poisons can use this knowledge to heal as well as to kill. But there can be no doubts about the direction in which to look in order to distinguish right from wrong.

Technical science, aimed at transforming the world, is justified on the basis of the service it renders to man and humanity.

It cannot be said that progress has gone beyond its limits as long as many men, indeed entire peoples, still live in conditions of oppression and oppression of human dignity, conditions which could be improved with the help of technical-scientific knowledge.

Huge tasks still lie ahead of us, which we cannot shirk. Their fulfillment represents a fraternal service for our neighbor, to whom we owe this commitment, just as the work of charity is due to the needy, which comes to the rescue of his need.

We offer our neighbor a fraternal service, because we recognize in him that dignity proper to a moral being; let's talk about personal dignity. Faith teaches us that man's fundamental prerogative consists in being the image of God. Christian tradition adds that man has value in himself, and is not a means to some other end. Therefore the personal dignity of man represents the instance on which every cultural use of technical-scientific knowledge must be judged. This acquires particular importance in a time when man is increasingly becoming a subject of research and the object of human techniques. It is not yet in itself an illicit way of proceeding, because man is also "nature". Evidently dangers and problems arise here, which, due to the planetary effects of technical civilization, already today present the majority of peoples with completely new tasks. These dangers and problems have long been the subject of international discussions. This demonstrates the high degree of awareness and responsibility of today's science, which takes charge of these fundamental problems and is concerned with solving them through scientific means.

The human and social sciences, but also the cultural sciences, not least philosophy and theology, have in many ways stimulated modern man's reflection on himself and on his existence in a world dominated by science and technology. The spirit of modern science, which encourages the development of today's sciences, has also set itself the scientific analysis of man and his vital world, at a social and cultural level, as its goal. Furthermore, an almost incalculable wealth of knowledge was brought to light, which has repercussions on both public and private life.

The social system of today's states, the health and educational organization, the economic processes and cultural activities are all realities in different ways marked by the influence of these sciences. But it is essential that science does not enslave man. Even in the culture of technology, man, in conformity with his dignity, must remain free; on the contrary, the sense of this culture must tend to guarantee man ever greater freedom.

It is not only faith that offers the perception of man's personal dignity and its decisive importance. Even natural reason can intuit it, as it knows how to distinguish the true from the false, the good from the bad and also knows how to recognize freedom as a fundamental condition of human existence. It is an encouraging sign, which is spreading internationally. The concept of human rights means nothing else, and even those who, with their de facto actions, oppose it cannot escape it.

The voices of those who do not want to be satisfied with the immanent limitation of the sciences and who ask questions about a total truth where human life finds its fulfillment are also increasing.

It is as if knowledge and scientific research stretched out towards infinity, and precisely for this reason they folded back again unsatisfied towards their own origins: the ancient problem of the link between science and faith does not appear to have been overcome following the development of modern sciences on the contrary, it manifests its full vital importance in a world increasingly steeped in science.

5. Up to now we have spoken mainly of science which is at the service of culture and consequently of man. However, it would be too little to limit ourselves to this aspect. Precisely in the face of the crisis we must remember that science is not only a service for other ends. The knowledge of truth makes sense in itself. It is an implementation of a human and personal nature, a human good of the first order. Pure "theory" is itself a modality of human "practice", and the believer is waiting for a supreme "practice", which unites him forever with God: that "practice" which is vision, and therefore also "theory" ”.

We have spoken of the “legitimation crisis of science”. Of course, science has its meaning and its justification when it is recognized as capable of knowing the truth and when the truth is recognized as a human good. Then the need for the freedom of science is also justified; in fact, how could a human good be realized, if not through freedom? Science must also be free in the sense that its implementation is not determined by immediate ends, by social needs or by economic interests. However, this does not mean that in principle it should be separated from "practice". Only that, in order to be able to effectively influence praxis, it must receive its initial determination from truth, and therefore be free for truth.

A free science is enslaved solely to the truth and cannot be reduced to the model of functionalism or anything else of the kind which limits the cognitive scope of scientific rationality. Science must be open, indeed even multifaceted, without therefore having to fear the loss of a unitary orientation. This is given by the trinomial of personal reason, freedom and truth, in which the multiplicity of concrete implementations is founded and confirmed.

I have no hesitation at all in placing even the science of faith within the horizon of a rationality thus understood.

The Church hopes for autonomous theological research, which is not identified with the ecclesiastical magisterium, but which knows itself committed to it in the common service to the truth of the faith and to the People of God. It cannot be ruled out that tensions and even conflicts may arise. But this can never be excluded even with regard to the relationship between the Church and science. The reason must be sought in the finiteness of our reason, limited in its extension and therefore exposed to error. Nonetheless we can always hope for a solution of reconciliation, if we base ourselves precisely on the ability of this same reason to reach the truth.

In a bygone era, certain forerunners of modern science fought against the Church by hoisting the banners of reason, freedom and progress. Today, faced with the crisis of the meaning of science, the multiple threats that undermine its freedom, and the problematic nature of progress, the fronts of struggle have reversed. Today it is the Church that takes the defence:

- of reason and science, recognizing their ability to reach the truth, which legitimizes it as the implementation of the human;

- the freedom of science, for which it has the dignity of a human and personal good;

- of progress at the service of a humanity, which needs it for the safety of its life and dignity.

By carrying out this task, the Church and all Christians find themselves immersed in the debate of our time. An adequate solution of the pressing questions on the meaning of human existence, on the norms of acting, and on the prospects for a long-term hope, is only possible in the renewed connection between scientific thought and the strength of faith of the man who seeks truth. The search for a new humanism on which the future of the third millennium can be based can only be successful on condition that scientific knowledge once again enters into a living relationship with the truth revealed to man as a gift from God. a great tool for understanding and structuring the world. However, in order to implement the entire wealth of human possibilities, it requires

At the beginning I said that our meeting today had to be a sign of the willingness to dialogue between science and the Church. From these reflections has it not clearly emerged how urgent this dialogue is? Both sides must pursue it with realism, listening to each other, and with perseverance. We need each other.

In this cathedral the bones of the magi are kept and venerated, who at the dawn of the new era, opened with the incarnation of God, set out to pay homage to the true Lord of the world. These "domains" in which the knowledge of their time was summarized, therefore become the model of every man who seeks the truth. Science, which reason conquers, finds its fulfillment in the adoration of divine truth. Man who journeys towards this truth suffers no loss of his freedom: on the contrary, in trusting dedication to the Spirit who has been promised to us through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, he is led to total freedom and a fullness of authentically human existence.

To the men of science, to the university students and to all of you gathered here today, I address an urgent invitation and I ask you to always have before your eyes, in your aspirations towards scientific knowledge, the ultimate goal of your work and of your entire life . To this end, I particularly recommend to you the virtue of fortitude, which defends science in a world marked by doubt, by the emptiness of truth and the need for meanings, and of humility, by which we recognize the finiteness of reason in the face of the truth which transcends it. These are the virtues of Albert the Great.

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