Why science needs faith
by Marcus Birkenkrahe
»The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.« — G.K. Chesterton
Much of the modern conversation about science and faith begins defensively: they do not conflict. While this is true, it does not go far enough. The deeper question facing education today is not whether faith obstructs science, but whether science can flourish without the kind of human judgment that faith has long helped to cultivate.
Contemporary education is remarkably effective at teaching technique. Students learn how to calculate, how to code, how to model, how to optimize. What we are far less certain about is whether we are educating young people who know how to judge — who can ask not only how something can be done, but whether it should be done, why it matters, and for whom.
This distinction matters. A student trained only in procedure becomes a technician. A student educated in judgment becomes a scientist.
The technician’s world is efficient and narrow. He asks: What method applies here? What tool do I use? What output is expected? These are necessary questions, but they are not sufficient. The scientist — in the classical sense — asks questions that no method can answer on its own: What kind of thing am I studying? What assumptions am I making? What sort of truth is this? Where are its limits?
These are not technical questions. They are philosophical and, ultimately, moral ones.
Every scientific act rests on commitments it cannot itself prove: that the world is intelligible, that reason can grasp it, that truth is worth pursuing, and that knowledge is not merely useful but meaningful. When education neglects these commitments, students do not become neutral. They simply absorb them from elsewhere — from markets, technologies, ideologies, or cultural fashion.
There is also a quieter danger in how science is sometimes framed. When nature itself is treated as ultimate — as the final source of mystery and meaning — scientific inquiry subtly shifts its posture. Creation becomes less a gift to be contemplated and more a reservoir to be decoded, extracted, and mastered. Mystery turns into a problem to be eliminated rather than a reality to be received.
The Christian tradition insists on a different orientation. Nature is intelligible not because it is ultimate, but because it is created. Its mysteries are real, but they are not self-contained. They point beyond themselves. Creation is a sign, not a shrine. When science forgets this, it risks confusing wonder with possession and knowledge with power.
Catholic education does not treat science as a value-neutral activity to which ethics are later appended. It begins by shaping habits of thought and character — humility before reality, patience with difficulty, attentiveness to evidence, and wonder at the order of the world — without which science slowly turns into problem-solving detached from wisdom.
This is especially urgent today. Our students are growing up amid extraordinary technical power. Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and data-driven systems promise speed, scale, and efficiency, but they do not tell us what ends are worth pursuing. A student trained only to optimize will optimize whatever goal is placed before him. A student educated in judgment will ask whether the goal itself deserves pursuit.
High school is a decisive moment for this kind of education. It is often the last stage where subjects can still speak to one another — where mathematics has not yet been severed from meaning, science from philosophy, or knowledge from character. Once specialization takes over, these questions are harder to recover.
This is why Catholic education remains not only relevant, but necessary.
Faith does not compete with science for explanatory power. It helps form the kind of mind that practices science well. It teaches students that limits are not failures, that mastery over nature does not confer mastery over meaning, and that truth is something to be served, not merely used.
In this sense, science does not merely coexist with faith — it quietly depends on it. Not as a constraint, but as a source of sanity.
If we want graduates who are more than skilled operators — if we want young men and women capable of responsibility, humility, and leadership — then education must be more than the transfer of information. It must educate judgment.
That work cannot be outsourced. And it cannot be postponed.