Did Jesus Come to Save Blue-Green Bacteria?

Last updated on: January 4, 2017 at 10:49 am by Paul Louis Metzger

Did Jesus Come to Save Blue-Green Bacteria? 2017-01-04T10:49:45-08:00 Paul Louis Metzger

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Renowned paleontologist and devout Roman Catholic Prof. Peter Dodson from the University of Pennsylvania spoke to a small group of Christians on dinosaurs and paleontology last Saturday evening at a museum in the Portland area. Earlier in the day, he spoke on faith and scientific method at the conference “Church and Science: Partners for the Common Good.” Prof. Dodson made many insightful remarks at each talk. One of the most penetrating reflections to me went something like this: “If scientists create life, will that shake your faith? It won’t shake mine. Jesus did not come to save blue-green bacteria. He came to save me.”

I could not help but marvel at the piety of this noted scientist. Of course, he understands that his point on Jesus is not a a scientifically empirical claim bound up with natural science, just as he understands that those who wish to reduce everything to scientific claims offer an impoverished view of life while also imposing a metaphysics of reductionism on reality. While not empirical in the way that digging for dinosaur bones is empirical, there was something very tangible and compelling about this learned man and his faith.

If you dig below the surface of his remarks, you will find the rich soil of faith that preserves a living tradition of theologians, philosophers, and scientists who have had no difficulty affirming metaphysical and physical realities. Take for example St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), who maintained that God works through secondary causation. Aquinas had no difficulty affirming the natural domain operating according to its own inherent laws.

I wonder what Aquinas might have thought of scientists coming to the point of creating blue-green bacteria. No doubt, he would agree with fellow Catholic Dodson. It would have had no effect on his faith, since Jesus did not come to save bacteria, but people. And yet, one could even add that through the person of Christ, he came to save the whole creation–including bacteria!–from decay.

And what if science could ever create people? Even here, I suppose, Aquinas could have referred to God operating through secondary causes. After all, humans already have a role in creating life through procreation. No Christian I have ever known questioned God’s existence when a woman gives birth to a baby. If anything, it leads to worship. Like spiritual birth, physical birth is miraculous.

You don’t need to go digging for God. God sightings are everywhere for those who don’t reduce the tenets of the Christian faith to arid terrain and dry fossilized bones. As Prof. Dodson goes in search of previous life forms through bones, his lively faith tells me that those who should fear extinction like the dinosaurs are not the people of learned faith but the reductionists.

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