ANALYSISA mathematician priest has won a major science award - scholars of Dawkins should take heed, writes Mgr Tom Stack
THIS YEAR'S WINNER of the richest of all international awards, the Templeton Prize, is the Polish priest and mathematical physicist, Michael Heller. The prize, worth more than €1 million, was presented to Heller yesterday by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, in a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
Heller's win highlights the importance of the search for the origin and meaning of the universe, as a joint enterprise of science and religion. It is a judgement, I dare say, that will not altogether please atheistic ideologues such as Richard Dawkins and like-minded academics.
Fr Heller's award follows in the tradition of celebrated priest scientists such as Gregor Mendel, who gave us the foundation of modern genetics, and George Lamaitre, who formulated the concept of the "Big Bang" theory.
Despite the anti-intellectualism of the Communist regime that controlled Poland for most of his life, Heller - who is a professor in the philosophy faculty at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Kracow - established himself during the 1970s and 1980s as an international figure among cosmologists and physicists generally, through his more than 30 books and some 400 scholarly papers. These covered questions such as the unification of general relativity, quantum mechanics and the philosophy and history of science.
As a Catholic priest, Michael Heller overcame the anti-religious propaganda of Polish Communist officialdom and revealed new insights for people of religious faith by enhancing the traditional Christian way of viewing the universe, within a wider cosmological setting and by providing a fresh dimension to this important inquiry in terms of the "theology of science".
In his nomination of Dr Heller for the Templeton award, Prof Carol Musiol of the Institute of Physics at the Jagillonian University of Kracow, commended this year's laureate: "His unique position as a creatively working scientist and reflective man of religion has brought to science a sense of transcendent mystery and to religion a view of the universe through the broadly open eyes of science. It is evident for him that the mathematical nature of the world and its comprehensibility by humans constitute the circumstantial evidence of the existence of God."
The choice of Dr Heller for this award is symbolic, and sends a message to scholars devoted exclusively to the pursuit of strictly empirical studies: don't be tempted by a myopic approach to science. The Templeton award committee may be hinting that the time has come to redeem the holistic mindset and to broaden the intellectual imagination to the point of acknowledging that what we experience as reality extends beyond what can be measured by technology and analysed within the confining walls of the laboratory.
The dictatorial approach that infects some scientific schools no longer serves all of the best interests of the genuinely enquiring mind.
Let us not forget that the strict and true meaning of the word "scientia" is "knowledge" or "wisdom". Too often the word has come to mean "zealotry dressed in a white coat".
Spiritual reward
The Templeton Prize honours a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works. It was established in 1972 by American-born philanthropist and Presbyterian Sir John Templeton and aims, in his words, to identify "entrepreneurs of the spirit"- outstanding individuals who have devoted their talents to those aspects of human experience that, even in an age of astonishing scientific advance, remain out of reach of scientific explanation. It is currently valued at €1.27 million, greater than amounts given by the Nobel Foundation, which awards the Nobel prizes.
Previous Templeton winners have included Mother Teresa, Cardinal Joseph Suenens, Rev Billy Graham, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Dr Inamullah Kahn, Michael Novak, and Dr John Polkingorne.
Mgr Tom Stack is parish priest at Milltown in Dublin and a commentator on religious affairs