Deacon Neal Kay speaks to SFX students about science and God
Saint Francis Xavier (SFX) Parish’s Deacon Neal Kay spoke to SFX Catholic School middle school students last week about the intersection between science and the Catholic faith.
Kay, a retired cardiovascular clinician and University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) professor, now serves as the permanent deacon for the SFX Parish, of which SFX School is a mission.
SFX students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades gathered in the library on Tuesday, February 20 to listen to the deacon speak.
Kay began by pointing to the “Five Ways” of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The “Five Ways” are listed in Aquinas’s magnum opus, the “Summa Theologia,” and are each logical arguments for the existence of God.
“[Aquinas] was born in 1224,” Kay said. “[He] was one of the most brilliant minds that has ever lived, and he said that there are five ways we can know just by thinking that there has to be a God. Just by using our reason.”
One of Aquinas’s “Five Ways” is the argument from the “unmoved mover,” and is similar to an argument the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle made over a thousand years before his time.
“Everything in the universe that moves is moved by something else,” Kay explained. “When you think about that, if you throw a baseball, how did the baseball get moving? Because you threw it. Everything in the universe that’s moving has to be moved by something else. If that by which is moving is itself moved, then it too must be moved by something else.”
“In other words, if you throw a baseball, you’re the source of that motion, but where did you come from?” he continued. “Who moved you? So we go back on that. We say this chain can’t be infinitely long, so there must be something at the very beginning that causes motion without itself moving. This is what Thomas Aquinas would say that everyone understands … to be God.”
Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor Angelicus, with saints and angels, Andrea di Bonaiuto, 1366. Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, fresco.
Kay spent the rest of his talk discussing how modern science also points to God’s existence.
“Science can prove that there are intrinsic limits to our physical universe,” Kay said. “It can show that there is a limit to how old our universe is… Science can prove that the universe had to have a beginning. What science cannot explain is the cause of the universe. We understand the universe began, but we don’t understand why the universe began. Therefore, science cannot disprove a reality beyond what we can observe.”
According to Kay, many scientific advancements have come from the work of Catholic priests and clerics.
“The Catholic Church has always been a champion of science,” he explained. “There have been no less than 286 priests and clerics involved in the development of every branch of science.”
These Catholic scientists included Nicolaus Copernicus, who proved the sun (not the Earth) was the center of the solar system, Gregor Mendel, who is recognized as the founder of modern genetics, and Nicolas Steno, whose work on the formation of rock layers was critical in the development of today’s understanding of geology.
It also included Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic priest and professor of physics who developed the “Big Bang Theory,” the idea that the universe originated from an incredibly small, single point and continues to expand today.
Kay explained that astronomer Edwin Hubble later confirmed the idea of the expanding universe and that Lemaitre’s theory convinced renowned physicist Albert Einstein of some form of God.
Kay also discussed how mathematically improbable it is to live in a universe capable of supporting life.
“Everything in our universe is tuned to give us life,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense that this is by chance.”
Kay concluded by reminding students of the compatibility between faith, science and reason.
“Our faith is based on reason and when we use our reason we prove that there has to be a God,” he said. “Anybody who tells you that science doesn’t believe in God, they’re crazy.”
Because SFX School uses a classical Catholic curriculum, SFX scholars have the privilege of approaching the natural world with a sense of wonder inspired by and stemming from the framework passed down to us through the Catholic Intellectual Tradition.
Middle school students at SFX receive instruction in math and science every day in Mr. Daniel LaSusa’s class. They also apply logic and think critically about classic literature, world history and religion in their other classes.
Some of the middle schoolers at SFX have tested into Ms. Jeannie Walker’s advanced math class, which places them on track to take advanced math at John Carroll Catholic High School (JCCHS) upon graduation from SFX School.
Saint Francis Xavier Catholic School is an accredited classical Catholic PreK-8 school in Birmingham’s Crestline neighborhood that uses the time-tested Catholic Intellectual Tradition to form students in virtue through the pursuit of academic excellence and service toward God and neighbor.
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This article also appeared in One Voice, the magazine of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham.
