Science and Metaphysics

The position of science is exactly like that of a man who, by hypothesis, could grasp only two dimensions of space and who denied the third because he was incapable of imagining it ; now what one spatial dimension is to another, so is the suprasensible to the sensible, or more precisely, so is the psychical to the corporeal, the spiritual to the animic, and the Divine to the humanly spiritual. [Logic and Transcendence, p. 41].

Modern science, with its denial in practice or in principle of all that is really fundamental, and its subsequent rejection of the "one thing needful,"(1) is like a planimetry that has no notion of the other directions. It shuts itself up entirely in physical reality or unreality, and there it accumulates an enormous mass of information, while at the same time committing itself to ever more complex conjectures. Starting out from the illusion that nature will end by yielding its ultimate secret and will allow itself to be reduced to some mathematical formula or other, this Promethean science everywhere runs up against enigmas which give the lie to its postulates and which appear as unforeseen fissures in this laboriously erected system. These fissures get plastered over with fresh hypotheses and the vicious circle goes on unchecked, with all the threats we are aware of. Some of its hypotheses, such as the theory of evolution, in practice become dogmas by reason of their usefulness, if not of their plausibility; this usefulness is not only scientific, it can just as well be philosophical or even political, according to circumstances.[Logic and Transcendence, p. 67].

(1) "Scientific" atheism is affirmed indirectly by the postulate of empty space and therefore of discontinuity, which, however, cannot be maintained with complete consistency. Now, to deny plenitude and continuity, including rhythm and necessity, or the providential element, is to deny Universal Substance with all its implications of homogeneity and transcendence.

If the Bible does not specify that the earth is round, it is simply and solely because it is normal to man to see it as flat, and because collective man cannot even tolerate the notion of a spherical earth, as history has proved to satiety. (1) Science is natural to man but it is important above all else to choose between the different levels, in the light of the axiom: "My kingdom is not of this world"; all useful observation of the here below expands science, but the wisdom of the next world limits it, which amounts to saying that every science of the Relative which does not have a limit which is determined by the Absolute, and thus by the spiritual hierarchy of values, ends in supersaturation and explosion. [Logic and Transcendence, p. 135].

(1) If Galileo had been sensitive to the fundamental intention of the Christly message, there is no reason why he should not have taken cognizance of the fact that the earth turns, assuming that he would still have discovered this in such a case; but he would never have had the idea of demanding that the Church should forthwith insert this fact into theology, before it had had a chance of imposing itself upon the learned world of his time, or a fortiori upon the people. However that may be, one must neither seek to inflict on theology the movement of the molecules nor pretend to "leave God outside the laboratory"; what one must do is to prevent the molecules from becoming a religion, and science from being left outside God.

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