Catholic scientist about science and religion: the works of Stepften Barr

This work analyses in detail the works of Stephen M. Barr, a theoretical physicist and recognized Catholic theologist, on the interrelations between science and religion. According to Barr, science deals with natural (or, according to Middle-Age scholasticism, secondary) causes of natural phenomena and has an essential importance governed by its internal principles and criteria of truth. Correspondence of a theory to these criteria points out to its possible correctness, at least until some data are obtained that contradict the theory. This determines the variable character of scientific knowledge as a developing system, in contrast to the Revelation, which is consisting of invariable truths. ‘Scientific materialism' that denies the existence of mind as a substance independent of matter is a primarily philosophical position and cannot be supported by scientific data. On the other hand, the Christian dogmas have a revealed character and cannot be neither proved nor disproved by science. However, scientific discoveries of the 20th and 21st centuries changed the scientific worldview in a radical way, though this worldview is not completed and, in some important points, is contradictory in itself. Barr demonstrates that the modern scientific worldview does not deny religious attitudes, but, in contrast, provides the believing scientist with convincing arguments towards the primacy of mind and the existence of God as a Creator and Governor of the Universe.