Stacy Trasancos - Science was born of Christianity: the teaching of Father Stanley L. Jaki

The research for this book was compiled for a masters thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut. I would like to thank my research advisers, Dr. Alan Roy Vincelette, Ph.D., who is an Associate Professor at St. Johns Seminary in Camarillo, California, and Dr. Donald DeMarco Ph.D., who is a Senior Fellow of Human Life International and Professor Emeritus at St. Jeromes University in Waterloo, Ontario. Both professors provided guidance in the compilation and presentation, softened a claim here and added another section there, all while allowing me the freedom to write with my own voice.

I am grateful to Dr. Sebastian Mahfood, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Vice-President of Administration, Director of Distance Learning, and Director of Assessment, for the organization and execution of the distance learning program at Holy Apostles. The program has matured in the three years I attended (from the comfort of my home and with babies in my lap), and he is undoubtedly committed to furthering the excellence of the college.

I thank my husband, Jose Trasancos, for his love, support, and patience during the time I devote to studies. We both share an admiration for Fr. Jaki, this priest and physicist we never met. My husband indulges the continuance of my education and the building of my personal library, a patron if ever there was one.

I thank the people who read and edited this book. Mr. Antonio Giovanni Colombo read several drafts to provide feedback on consistency with Fr. Jakis work since he was a friend of Fr. Jakis and manages the collection of Jakis work at Real View Books. Mr. Colombo also provided help with the accuracy of the sources and references.

I thank my friend, prayer partner, and fellow scientist, Dr. Walter Bruning, for his continual straightforward feedback on the tone of my writing and for his encouragement in my faith and intellectual pursuits.

I thank Dr. Jeff McLeod, an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychology at St. Mary's University of Minnesota and faculty member at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he teaches at the St. Paul Seminary in the Archbishop Harry J. Flynn Catechetical Institute. He encouraged me to keep writing and to view the questions of science and religion in a broader context. I do not think Dr. McLeod ever had a word of criticism, but his feedback demonstrated that he always understood what I was thinking, which is wonderful feedback for a writer.

I thank Associate Professor Emeritus of Theology at Christendom College, Dr. John Janaro, for graciously offering to read my draft with an editorial eye and for discussing the meaning of science according to Fr. Jaki. Dr. Janaro knew Fr. Jaki and worked with him to publish his work during his lifetime.

I thank Mr. John Darrouzet, a Hollywood screenwriter and accomplished lawyer, who gave me enthusiastic feedback on this book from a laymans perspective. He understands my passion for communication in plain language.

I also thank Mrs. Cynthia Trainque, a friend and fellow theology student, for her guidance on writing the introduction.

Royalties from this book go to a friend, a United States military veteran and single mother, beginning on its publishing date, December 6, 2013, the Feast Day of St. Nicholas, and extending for as long as she accepts the gift.

Finally, I thank you, the reader, for giving me a chance to explain why I admire the work of the shepherd Fr. Stanley L. Jaki.

Contents

Foreword

I warmly recommend this book written by Stacy Trasancos on the Christian basis and inspiration for the birth of modern science according to Fr. Stanley Jaki OSB, the great philosopher of science and theologian, member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Templeton prize-winner. The author has made a great effort and has succeeded in making Fr. Jakis ideas available to a larger public. Her goal is to inform more people about what Fr. Jaki actually meant by this claim that Christianity stimulated the birth of science because it is significant for people (young adults especially) to understand that faith and science are not opposed, and are indeed complementary. Also Stacy realizes that it is necessary to set the record straight, because so many people, even Catholics, misrepresent what Fr. Jaki actually concluded about the birth of science.

In a world swirling with relativist and materialist notions concerning the origins of the cosmos and of the human person, Stanley Jaki has offered scientists, philosophers and seekers alike a way out of this morass. He explains how the idea of the beginning of the cosmos, which is so much part of Christian tradition, stands in sharp contrast to the scene outside of Christianity where many world religions and world-pictures had great difficulty in maintaining that the world actually began. Even for many people today, the world is eternal in the sense that it simply is. The world was often regarded as eternal in seven principal ancient cultures: Chinese, Hindu, Meso-American, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Arabic. From the cosmic imprisonment represented by all these world pictures, Christianity was to bring liberation. All ancient cultures held a cyclic view of the world, and this was one of the beliefs that hindered the development of science. This cyclic pessimism was decisively broken by the belief in the unique Incarnation of Christ; thereafter time and history were seen as linear, with a beginning and an end.