What I’m Reading: Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?

I learned many things from reading the excellent nonfiction book Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? For instance, I learned that the Vatican has its own astronomical observatory, which is run, in part, by the authors, Guy Consolmagno and Paul Mueller. Both men are also Jesuits. (The current Pope, Francis, is also a Jesuit—that’s another thing I learned).

Now, I was raised Catholic, and I thought a knew a thing or two about the religion. But not only did I learn from this book that the Vatican has its own observatory, but that it  has had one for hundreds of years. In fact, I was so taken by this discovery that I Googled “Vatican observatory” and, to my amazement, found that the Vatican also runs an observatory in Tucson, Arizona.

Talk about synchronicity! When I was twenty-two years old, I went off to attend grad school at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, and I distinctly remember the first night I spent there. I impressed by the size of the city—much larger than my little hometown of Gainesville, Florida—but also by how beautiful the desert sky was. Even in the downtown area, the stars were clearly visible. This was no accident; the city, I was told, purposely kept the streets relatively dark, in deference to the many astronomical observatories that surround the valley, which could not function if too much light pollution bled from the metro area.

Apparently, the Vatican’s observatory is one of them.

As you may have guessed, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? is not an easy book to categorize. Is it a science book? Yes. Is it a religious book? Yes. But perhaps the most surprising thing about it is its tone. With lots of nerdy humor and good cheer, Consolmagno and Mueller make a powerful argument that the science-versus-religion divide is a fiction, a false choice that has, alas, come to dominate the discourse of both science and religion.

Note that I chose my words carefully here. I state that the authors use “humor” and “good cheer.” These are not to be confused with sentimentality or fatuous optimism (shortcoming which both scientists and people of faith are often guilty of). Consolmagno and Mueller are scientists, tackling some tough questions such as the nature of reality, the future of universe, and what rule God plays in it all. The fact that they do so with a clear eye does not diminish the power of their book. It enhances it.

Take this bald statement: “The dirty historical secret is that many religious doctrines came to be via…messy, political processes.”

Or this one:

Augustine’s point is this: Since humans are capable of gaining true knowledge about the world by doing science, science must be taken into account when interpreting Scripture. If there’s a passage of Scripture that seems to contradict what we know from science, then that passage should not be interpreted literally—it should be interpreted figuratively.

That two Catholic practitioners (one of whom, Consolmagno, is an actual priest) would nakedly avow that the bible should not be interpreted literally might seem shocking to some (especially to hard-core atheists who seem to believe that all religious people are still living in the Bronze Age). But the authors not only state this, they explain that it could not be otherwise.

Consolmagno and Mueller remind us that, long ago, the cosmology of St. Augustine—with its rotating spheres and “wandering stars”—was cutting edge theory, as was the language that described it. As the writers put it:

Christianity is a big social structure that has no choice but to depend on and make use of the language and concepts of science and other sources to give expression to what’s important to it. It has no alternative; there is no other language to use.

The authors’ point is clear: religion and science not only coexist; they cannot function without one another. Throughout history, God has always been understood in the scientific context of the time. Science gives us the language and conceptual framework to (re)imagine God, and God gives us the sense of wonder and emotion that drive us to explore science.

The authors spend entire chapters recounting crucial moments of the history of astronomy, from Copernicus to Galileo to Edwin Hubble, taking care to note how each of these moments have intersected with (and, ultimately, informed) religious practice and belief.

In short, the metaphors of religion evolve with those of science, and it has always been thus.

In fact, the overarching theme of this book how difficult—but necessary—it can be to strike a balance between “skepticism and credulity.” This is true in both science and religion, in equal measure. As such, the book pivots on a single anecdote—the time when Consolmagno was asked by a journalist whether he would baptize and extraterrestrial. I won’t spoil anything by revealing his answer, except to say that it was perfect, and totally rational.

Not to mention rather uplifting. I felt as if the entire book were a confirmation of St. Ignatius’s instruction to “find God in all things.”

(Author’s Note: this post originally appeared on my old blog, Bakhtin’s Cigarettes.)