A Big Bang

One has messy white hair, a bushy moustache, suit jacket and tie, and looks off-camera.

The other has dark combed hair, wears glasses, is clean-shaven, clothed in clerical attire, and looks to his counterpart.

The man on the left is perhaps the most well-known scientist of all-time. The man to his right is unrecognisable to all but a few.

Our minds like contrast, and so does our world. A thing seems clearest when matched up against something else; a binary outlook, if you will.

Night and day. Black and white. Ones and zeros. Awake and asleep. Democrat and Republican. Tall and short. Rich and poor.

We can more easily understand things when they appear to be different from another, serving as a foil of sorts, highlighting the presence or lack of an element. This is often seen in our narratives concerning people, whether fictional or not.

In the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Will Turner comes across as more earnest and loyal precisely because of Captain Jack Sparrow's indifference and self-centredness.

On the tennis court, Rafael Nadal is depicted as a Spanish gladiator that will fight for every last ball, contrasting perfectly with Roger Federer's Swiss elegance and effortlessness.

New Zealand's former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was lauded for consistently urging her country to "be kind" during the COVID crisis, while her older male counterparts were depicted as sowing discord, mistrust, and confusion.

These concepts attract our attention precisely because they are different, and one of the most famous examples in our world is the juxtaposing of science and religion; pitted against one another as if they were opposites. And it's an easy view to understand at a superficial level.

On one side, science: the search for falsifiability, the analysis of data, the offering of hypotheses and competing theories.

On the other, religion: the appeal to a higher power, the claim to faith, the idea of miracles and saints.

And yet both have more in common than we tend to think. For one, the ability to admit a lack of knowledge or absolute truth. For another, the search for an understanding of how the world works. And thirdly, a way of interpreting our own experiences.

One man has been forgotten by both time and memory, despite formulating arguably the most popular scientific theory in human history: The Big Bang Theory.

Is it possible that part of the reason for his obscurity lies in the fact that this man was not only a scientist, but a Catholic priest?

The story of George Lemaitre seems ripe for an Oscar-winning biopic; almost too rich to be true. Born on July 17, 1894 in Charleroi, Belgium, Lemaitre was schooled in the Jesuit way, then served in World War One as an artilleryman. Though he originally studied civil engineering, he switched to theology and entered the seminary. While training to become a priest, he continued his scientific studies, specifically in both mathematics and physics. His academic training came at three of the most famed and prestigious universities in the world: Cambridge, Harvard, and MIT.

Studying in the 1920's, his calculations began with examining Albert Einstein's own theory of relativity, culminating in his radical proposal that the universe was not, in fact, collapsing, but expanding. His theory postulated that the universe continued to expand outward, and had been doing so from a far-distant fixed point in time, refuting the idea of an eternal universe with no beginning.

While this might seem not such a far-fetched idea in 2025, nearly a century ago it was borderline scientific suicide. Most astrophysicists believed that the universe had no beginning, and with no concrete evidence to back up his theory, Lemaitre was ignored, dismissed and disparaged by many, though not all, of his peers. Einstein himself rebutted Lemaitre's ideas, labelling his physics "abominable." Fred Hoyle actually dubbed the theory "Big Bang", in order to differentiate from his own steady-state model.

However, as time went on and technology advanced, attitudes began to shift. Edwin Hubble's (he of the telescope) work on the receding of galaxies proved that matter was indeed moving further away, and Einstein eventually came to accept Lemaitre's model. By the 1960's, after three decades of testing, probing, and critiquing, the Big Bang theory had taken its place among the scientific community as the most widely-accepted explanation for the creation of the universe.

Lemaitre did not explore a cause for the Big Bang, leaving that and many other questions on his theory to the next generation. Interestingly, he was careful not to make any explicit connection between his theory and his belief in God as a creator, particularly with reference to the Biblical account of creation as found in Genesis. We'll never know why he decided to keep his scientific theory publicly separate from his beliefs as a Catholic, but if he were alive today to see the animosity that often stains dialogue between the two "sides", maybe it would sadden him. Did he privately believe that his theory could explain a Christian view of the universe? Or was he simply using his skills in mathematics and physics to the very best of his ability, for the sheer advancement of science?

Lemaitre opened the door to what we now call modern cosmology, and all the while throughout his university studies he never found a reason to lose his faith in God, finishing his seminary training and becoming an ordained priest. He was appointed Domestic Prelate by Pope John XXIII in 1960, and served until his death six years later.

He believed that God had given people the ability to think, to question, to reason, and to understand at least some of what we often refer to as the mysteries of the universe.

I had not heard the name George Lemaitre until a few years ago, when I came upon it by chance while teaching Religious Education at a school in the United Kingdom. It was just seven years ago, in 2018, that the International Astronomical Union voted to change the name of the Hubble law to the Hubble-Lemaitre law. And while thousands of viewers watched and laughed during an episode of The Big Bang Theory, how many of them knew the origin of the actual hypothesis?

We all know Einstein, and many of us have heard of Hoyle and Hubble, but why have we never heard of their Belgian contemporary?

Is it possible that our world is uncomfortable with the idea of faith and science mixing? That it feels an awkward fit, an un-natural blend? Could it be that those in the area of physics and mathematics feel that promoting Lemaitre's work would lend credence to the belief in a God, and perhaps weaken society's leaning towards scientific materialism?

In a world where we so often strive to be right and to prove others wrong, where we applaud those who condemn immigrants and the disabled, where we fear our neighbours and those with different views to our own, maybe we need to pause and reflect.

Reflect on the example of George Lemaitre.

Lemaitre seemed happy to be both astrophysicist and believer, a position that these days some would call untenable, such is the presumed polarity between science and religion. He did not see a contradiction in finding value in both, and would likely baulk at the simplistic "reason vs faith" line that is often tossed around these days. Here is a man who spent his entire life devoted to both his Creator, but also his studies. He did not feel compelled to give up one for the other, and was able to fully dedicate himself to both God and science.

The Belgian priest is proof that to be one does not mean to scorn the other, and that may just be the lesson.

In the same way that we humans like order and answers, things that fall into the middle can be hard for us to resolve. Where do they fit? Are they on one side, both, or somewhere in between? How can we make sense of something that cannot be so easily placed into a box?

And yet, it makes sense that there is more to life than a code of ones and zeros.

Of course we have night and day, but we are also blessed with twilight to blend those two states. Yes we have black and white, but we also find grey in between. Not every Democrat voter in the United States of America agrees with all of their party's policies, and the same can be said for Republicans.

If there's anything to take away from this story, maybe it's that people and things can be more than just a single element. This is by no means a radical idea, and far less radical than the idea that an expanding universe beginning at a singular point of time was in the 1920’s, but the fact that I feel the need to state that, says it all.

It's an idea we too often forget in a world that seems to prize groupthink, identity politics, tribalism, and prejudice.

There is beauty in difference, and the world would be a far more boring place without all our uniqueness. But there is also beauty in being alike, and that is something to be cherished. Human beings are social animals after all, and celebrating what brings us together is a good thing, in the truest sense of the word.

You and I being different, even in matters of faith or belief, is not something to be feared. In an age of soundbites, tweets, threads, and captions, we've lost our ability to converse. To really discuss things that matter, without being judged or accused or threatened. To sit down and listen properly, without formulating a response to immediately rebut. To see the other as a real person, with flaws and dreams and opinions of their own.

So, here's to finding common ground.

After all, if a twentieth-century Catholic priest could walk the line between theology and science, and use that balance to come up with such a game-changing theory for the creation of the universe, imagine what we could do; if we focused on what brings us together, and not what drives us apart.