Faith and Science

The official announcement read:

Faith and Science: A Journey Into God's Mystical Love

Reading and Talk with Robert J. Hesse, Ph.D., Galveston-Houston, Texas.

Faith and science - an interaction that can seem paradoxical and polarizing from a secular perspective. Robert Hesse is an ordained permanent Catholic deacon who serves in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and is the president of the nationwide Contemplative Network. He offers an informed and personal approach in his nonfiction book, Faith and Science: A Journey into God's Mystical Love. Hesse himself earned a doctorate in physical chemistry and worked as a management consultant before embarking on his spiritual quest and has been working with interfaith people ever since. In cooperation with Verlag Herder GmbH, Hesse will present his nonfiction book in conversation with publisher Manuel Herder on Friday, August 12 at 11 a.m. at Verlag Herder GmbH, Bibliothek, Hermann-Herder-Strasse 4.

The event will be in English.

Religion and Science is one of Red Baron's reoccurring topics (2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2022). Will Deacon Robert shed new light on the subject?

The place, the library of the Herder Publisher, packed with religious books, was chosen with care.

Here are some snippets of Robert Hesse's talk that gave me some aha experience. I added some keywords as my reminder.

Robert started by saying that men/women call exceptions from science a miracle, and continued, yes, the world itself is a miracle; God manifests himself in his creation (Keyword: Creationists?).

In Genesis 1:26, God said, Let us make man in our image, but Robert stressed that this is not reciprocal: We develop an image of God, but there is no image. (Keywords: Feuerbach's human projection, Islam's banning of Allah's image, Jewish prohibition of pronouncing Jawe's name).

Man is trapped in the universe. We live on the border between earthly and eternal life, where there is no time and space. (Keyword: Before the Big Bang, there was no time and space).

God is universal consciousness. He talks within our unconsciousness that filters through to our consciousness. (Keyword: Descartes, Cogito ergo sum). Mysticism gives a little taste of Him (Keywords: Plato's allegory of the cave, Saint Paul's letter to the Corinthians, 13-12, Hildegard von Bingen).

Can free will exist in a quantum world? Indeed, a quotation from Einstein deepens his conviction that God doesn't throw dice: "Every scientist becomes convinced that nature's laws manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men. Behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force is my religion. To that extent, I am, in point of fact, religious."

Einstein's faith rooted in Spinoza's ideas excludes a personal God. So I asked Robert in the following discussion to speak about the discrepancy between Einstein's and the Christian God we even shall call Father.

Robert did not enter into the debate but said this was rather personal and recommended I should read his book.

Indeed, I first bought his book and will study it with an emphasis on my keywords. Stay tuned for a future blog.
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