Faith vs. Science? How to Raise Children Who Understand Both
5 Ways to Help Your Kids See That Faith and Science Go Hand in Hand
According to a 2016 study by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), a significant reason young adults leave the Catholic faith is the perceived incompatibility between science and religion. The reasons for this are varied, including poor catechesis, insufficient historical knowledge, and materialist philosophical assumptions about the world.
If we do not want our own children to fall prey to these worrisome trends, we need to adopt a more assertive stance to help them recognize what has been intuitively understood for centuries: religion and science are not antagonistic but complementary. How does this look in practice? Here are five concrete tips for nurturing a wholesome integration between faith and science in our families.
1. Act As If We Take Our Religion Seriously
If we do not want our children to act as if the Bible is a mere myth, let us not treat it as if it were a mere myth. If we want our children to take Catholic theology seriously, let us take it seriously ourselves. If we believe the philosophy of nature is essential, then let us open our children’s minds to wholesome philosophy. Too often, we see Catholic parents—whose spiritual life is anemic, whose scriptural study is nominal, whose theological knowledge is non-existent—send their Catholic child off to a secular college and express dismay when their child abandons the faith.
Let us first examine our own actions and convictions. “If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:30).
2. Do Our Best To Be Scientifically Literate
For centuries, Catholic thinkers exhibited boundless curiosity about the natural world and the laws that govern it. The greatest theologians were also consummate scientists. For example, St. Albert the Great or Fr. Christopher Clavius. They viewed the natural order as a way to understand God, like seeing His fingerprints in the very structure of the created order. The Book of Wisdom says that “from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their creator” (Wis. 13:5). This should be our attitude as well. St. Basil the Great said that “All the objects in the world are an invitation to faith, not unbelief.” If we believe that, then we ourselves should resolve to study the natural sciences with the same interest as our forefathers.
Most of us will never become great scientists, of course. Still, we should at the minimum cultivate a spirit of lively curiosity about the marvelous creation that surrounds us—to rekindle, in some respect, the ancient inquisitiveness that characterized Catholic intellectual life.
3. Don’t Be Afraid of Exploring Where Faith and Science Overlap
We do not help anyone by papering over questions, even if they are difficult or complex. Merely repeating the mantra “there can be no contradiction between faith and science” will not help resolve anyone’s wavering faith if we seem unwilling to wade into the particulars. If we don’t understand how the Catholic faith overlaps with certain principles of science, we should not sweep it under the rug. Instead, we should engage the question robustly, doing our best to understand the Church’s teaching and the scientific principles at play, to smooth out any dissonance we might experience. It’s alright, from time to time, to experience dissonance when we don’t understand something.
But the point is, we should always do our due diligence to try to understand and learn. If one thing is abundantly clear from the Church’s long and fruitful relationship with science, it is that Catholic thinkers—whether theologians or scientists—were never afraid of wading into the particulars, sorting out the nitty-gritty details with attentiveness and remarkable patience. In other words, if we are going to tell people that there is no contradiction between science and religion, we need to commit to explaining how and why that is the case.
4. Understand Science vs. Scientism
We need the intellectual sophistication to distinguish between authentic science and scientism, the philosophical assumption that every aspect of reality can be reduced to scientific data. Many Catholics who lose faith over perceived problems with science do so because they have embraced scientism as their default view of reality. They have adopted a worldview based on the assumption that reality is solely what can be dissected, weighed, or put under a microscope. This is not science; this is a philosophical assumption about the world. A Catholic who has adopted this view already has one foot out the door of the Church.
Inoculating against scientism can be tricky because it is so prevalent; one can imbibe it merely through engagement with the culture at large. It is ever more critical, therefore, that we understand the difference and how unscientific scientism actually is. It is also beneficial to get a basic grounding in philosophy. Most of us don’t have the time to become philosophers. Still, familiarity with the Catholic philosophical tradition, as represented by Thomas Aquinas, is very helpful in establishing a wholesome philosophy of nature that does not confuse all of existence with what can be examined under a microscope.
5. Set The Record Straight About The Church’s Relationship to Science
The Church has nothing to apologize for and no reason to be embarrassed about its historic relationship with science. Indeed, for many centuries, the progress of science and the expansion of the Church were one and the same. Even during the alleged Dark Ages, the Church was the intellectual light of the Christian West. Historian of science J.L. Heilbron, in assessing the scientific legacy of the Church in the field of astronomy, wrote:
“The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and probably all other, institutions.”
Heilbron is speaking here specifically about astronomy, but his statement holds for scientific inquiry in general. To the degree that we are able, we should charitably correct those who errantly repeat the tired old canards about a Church hostile to science. Far from being antagonists, the Church and science have historically enjoyed a symbiotic relationship characterized by intellectual vigor and fruitful outcomes. This was expressed beautifully in a 1988 letter of Pope John Paul II to Fr. George Coyne, Director of the Vatican Observatory. Commenting on the complementarity of faith and science, the pope said: “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.”
Conclusion
Of course, another way to learn about the history of the Church and science is to obtain my book, In Pursuit of Wisdom: Catholicism and Science Through the Ages (Our Sunday Visitor, 2024). For your high school-aged children, I am teaching a course of the same name in the summer of 2026, based on the book. Why not do them both in tandem? Obtain the book and work your way through it while your children take the class. It’s an excellent way to grow together in both supernatural faith and knowledge of creation.
Also see Lisa Mladinich’s interviews of Brother Guy Consolmagno, Vatican Astronomer:
What are your thoughts on this topic? Join other homeschooling parents and me in the Homeschool Connections Facebook Group or in the HSC Community to continue the conversation.
