Evidence · Case 08 · Science
Lemaitre’s caution to Pope Pius XII
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Sources
- Joseph R. Laracy, “The Faith and Reason of Father Georges Lemaitre,” Catholic Culture. (opens in a new tab)
Dominique Lambert, “The Atom of the Universe: The Life and Work of Georges Lemaitre,” Copernicus Center Press, 2015. - Joseph R. Laracy, “The Faith and Reason of Father Georges Lemaitre,” Catholic Culture.
Objections & responses
- The story that Lemaitre persuaded the Pope to stop is partly legend. The evidence for a direct intervention is thin, and the Pope’s later speeches simply avoided the topic.
Historians such as Dominique Lambert have shown that Lemaitre did express his discomfort through Church channels, and that the Pope’s subsequent silence is consistent with having heard it, but a dramatic personal confrontation is not documented. Lemaitre expressed his concern is the accurate phrasing; worked to persuade the Pope claims more than the record supports. The substance, that the scientist who proposed the beginning did not want it used as a proof of God, is well attested in his own words.
- Lemaitre’s own insistence that his science not be used as religious proof is an argument against this entire case, which uses the Big Bang exactly that way.
Lemaitre’s caution deserves to be taken seriously. He distinguished between physics, which describes the natural beginning, and the doctrine of creation, which concerns the world’s dependence on God and is compatible with any physics. The Big Bang is not used here as proof of God. It is used as a fact that fits theism and disconfirms one older form of naturalism, the eternal universe, which is a modest use Lemaitre might well have accepted. The line he drew is the line this case tries to stay on the right side of.