Institute of Quantum Studies presents:
IQS Public Talk: Is the Notion of God Meaningful to Scientific Culture? The Openness of Science to the Quest for Truth and Meaning."

Sunday, July 12, 2026 | 3:00 p.m.
 

The Lecture examines whether the notion of God retains meaning within contemporary scientific culture, and whether the practice of science itself remains open to questions of truth and meaning that transcend purely empirical analysis. Rather than discussing the confrontation between science and belief, the Lecture proposes a more nuanced inquiry: what could modern science, in its methods and discoveries, implicitly say about the foundation of the whole of reality? Or, in other words, could science offer a glimpse of God?

A widespread assumption shared by scientific culture is that science, by progressively explaining natural phenomena, renders the idea of God unnecessary or meaningless. Statements by influential scientists illustrate the tension between a self-explanatory universe and the persistent human intuition that reality points beyond itself. The question is not whether science can “prove” or “disprove” God, but whether scientific knowledge exhausts all that can be meaningfully said about reality.

A central theme is the distinction between: a) explaining how the world works; and b) giving reason of that the world exists and is intelligible at all. Drawing on reflections by philosophers and scientists, such as Wittgenstein and Einstein, the

Lecture highlights what has often been called the “miracle of intelligibility”: the surprising correspondence between the mathematical structures of the human mind and the deep order of the natural world. Scientific laws are not mere classifications imposed from outside, but reveal a rational structure that appears to precede human understanding.

Scientific rationality lies upon foundations which transcend scientific method, while making that method possible. Scientific rationality is consistent with “openings” which point to meanings and contents that, while unable to be expressed within the formal language of science, are nonetheless significant for those who work in science.

The logical and ontological foundations of scientific knowledge, the rationality and information present in physical reality, and finally the meanings that physical reality contains and expresses, make it possible to introduce the notion of a transcendent logos. Starting from this notion, philosophy and theology can develop a discourse on God, one intelligible also to those who work in science and share a scientific culture.

In the context of scientific culture, the natural world continues to be, and manifest itself, as a “mystery.” It is reasonable, then, to ask whether the world has an explanation. The search for this ultimate explanation points to an intelligible area of meaning which justifies the possibility of a discourse on God, one meaningful also for the world of science.