Contact between science and faith

I am a nerd. Give me a book about galaxies, black holes, or alien life, and chances are my plans for that evening can go in the trash. Not because I expect a spaceship to land in my garden tomorrow, but because it continues to fascinate me how incredibly vast and mysterious the universe is. The mere realization that we live on a small speck in an almost unimaginable cosmos fills me with wonder every time.

Perhaps that is also why Carl Sagan's Contact has been one of my favorite novels for years. Recently, I re-watched the film and then re-read the book. That yielded something I hadn't expected. I didn't get stuck on the question of whether extraterrestrial life exists, but on a completely different thought.

For those unfamiliar with the story: scientist Ellie Arroway receives a message from space. Based on this, a gigantic machine is built with which she makes a journey that changes her life forever. At least, according to her. When she returns, barely a second appears to have passed for all bystanders. There are no images of her journey. No measurement data confirming her story. To the outside world, it seems as if nothing at all happened.

As the credits rolled, I found myself with an unexpected thought.

Why don't they just build that machine again?

At first glance, that seems like a detail. But the longer I thought about it, the more I realized that this question actually says a lot about how I myself view truth.

Why not a second experiment?

Carl Sagan was not only a novelist but also a brilliant scientist. Afterwards, I read that with this ending, he deliberately wanted to hold up a mirror.

Throughout the film, Ellie asks for proof from others. She is not satisfied with stories or beliefs alone. And precisely she ends up in the position where believers often find themselves at the end. She has to say: ‘I cannot prove it, but I know what I experienced.’

I find that a brilliant literary discovery. It invites humility. Even a scientist can end up in a situation where a personal experience is real but not transferable.

Yet I noticed that my thoughts went in a different direction than those of the film.

Why should we stop here? Why shouldn't we try again? Not because I don't believe Ellie, but because truth, if it is truly true, does not have to be afraid of a second experiment.

Two windows on the same reality

That brought me to something I have written about more and more often in recent years.

It is often said that science and faith each have their own domain. Science would be about facts. Faith about meaning. That sounds nice, but to me, it feels as if reality is thereby artificially split. I look at it differently: for me, science and faith are two windows that look out onto the same reality.

Ultimately, there is only one truth. If God is the Creator of the universe, then honest science cannot ultimately contradict Him. And if God truly reveals Himself, then that revelation also does not have to be afraid of honest inquiry. If there seems to be tension between the two, then in my opinion, that is usually a sign that we do not yet fully understand something, not that truth contradicts itself.

This, of course, does not mean that science and faith work in the same way. A telescope is different from a prayer. A laboratory experiment is different from a spiritual experience. But both start from the same conviction that reality is worth investigating.

I know this can quickly sound abstract, so let me make it concrete.

Many astrophysicists today suggest that the universe could have originated without the need for a Creator — via quantum fluctuations or one of the many multiverse theories. This poses no threat to my faith. Such theories describe a mechanism: they try to explain how something happens. They do not answer the question of why anything exists at all, or why the laws of nature are exactly as they are.

The same applies to evolution. If science convincingly demonstrates that life has evolved over billions of billions of years, then I see no threat to my faith in that. On the contrary: then science tells me something about how God created, not about whether He created.

But then I started to question my own comparison

As I pondered this, I suddenly realized that my comparison might have been too simple. My original question was: why don't they just rebuild the machine? But even if it were rebuilt ten times, that would fundamentally change nothing.

After all, the machine in Contact does not work like a telescope. A telescope produces data that anyone can verify: another astronomer can look at the same stars with their own instrument and perform the same measurements. The machine does not do that. It ultimately only provides a personal experience. Even a second, third, or tenth journey would still amount to the same for the outside world: someone who comes back and says, 'Believe me, I've been there.' That is fundamentally different from science.

And yet that thought brought me back to faith. Prayer, after all, seems much less like building a telescope than stepping into that machine. The core of such an experience remains personal — no one else can directly observe it.

But the story doesn't end there. Because faith doesn't ask: 'Believe me because I experienced something.' It invites you to embark on your own journey.

That is perhaps one of the most underestimated characteristics of religion. For thousands of years, believers have been talking about personal experiences, but at the same time, they invite others to pray themselves, to seek themselves, and to investigate themselves. Not to blindly adopt their experience, but to discover for themselves if there is something to be found.

Of course, that is not the same as a physics experiment. The outcome is not publicly measurable like a spectrum analysis of a star. And I don't want to make an easy leap here either. Throughout history, millions of people, from completely different times, cultures, and religious traditions, after a sincere search, have reported something strikingly similar: a feeling of peace, of not being alone, of a reality greater than themselves. But these same people often draw contradictoryconclusions. One calls it Allah, another the One, yet another a universal consciousness, and I call it the Holy Spirit testifying of God the Father and Jesus Christ.

I cannot gloss over that difference. If the experience itself is universal, but the doctrine in which it is cast differs according to the culture in which one grows up, then that similarity in itself does not prove that every doctrine is correct — let alone mine. What it does prove is something more modest, but no less important: that the quest itself, seriously undertaken, apparently always yields something. That there is apparently something to be found, even if people differ about what exactly they have found and how they name it.

For me, that is not a theoretical thought. Over the years, I have consciously made that search through various doctrines and religious traditions, without excluding any beforehand. And precisely that search has, not on a whim but after a long and sober process, led me to my choice for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That is precisely why I dare to recommend that method to everyone, regardless of where it ultimately leads. Not because I expect everyone to arrive at the same conclusion as I do, but because an honest search, however it ends, always yields more than no search.

That is not proof in the scientific sense of the word. It does not settle which doctrine comes closest to the truth. But it is also not nothing: it at least refutes the idea that, outside ourselves, there is simply nothing to be found.

Perhaps faith and science are more alike than we think

Afterward, I had to smile at my own reaction to the film. My first instinct was not to take sides — not to say that Ellie was right or that her opponents were wrong. My first instinct was: let's try again. Perhaps that says something about how I also view faith.

For me, a testimony is not an endpoint where all questions cease. It is the beginning of a lifelong quest. You pray again. You read again. You think again. You try to understand again. Not because truth must constantly be questioned, but because truth does not need to defend itself against honest questions.

In that, a good scientist and a sincere believer might be more alike than we often think: both realize that the quest is never truly over.

The question behind the question

Eventually, I realized that my annoyance with that machine was never actually about the machine. It was about a deeper conviction.

I believe that truth is one. Therefore, I also believe that it cannot be confined to one method or one way of looking. Science helps us understand reality. Faith helps us see that same reality in a larger perspective. Not as competitors, but as allies, each opening a different window to the same truth.

Perhaps that is why Contact continues to fascinate me after all these years. Not because it provides all the answers, but because it continues to invite me to ask the same question with which the film ended for me.

Why should we stop searching?

Because whether it's about science or faith, ultimately every true quest begins with the same invitation:

Investigate it yourself.

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This theme — how science and faith relate to each other, and why I ultimately started investigating myself — is discussed in more detail in my book Reasonably religious, which will be released on September 15th. More info at www.redelijkgelovig.be.