Star struck: Matthew Pinson SJ on how science and wonder can deepen our faith

When Br Guy Consolmagno SJ, Director of the Vatican Observatory and one of the Church’s most prominent voices on the relationship between science and faith, speaks in Melbourne next month, he’ll be inviting his audience into a deeper experience of wonder—both scientific and spiritual.

Wonder is certainly something Matthew Pinson SJ associates with Br Guy. The Australian Jesuit, who has a PhD in theoretical physics, was invited in 2023 to spend time with the renowned planetary astronomer, along with other young Catholic scientists, at the Vatican Observatory Summer School. Although Matthew had only limited experience in astronomy at that point, he says the experience was ‘a really wonderful’ opportunity for him to discover how his passion for science and his vocation as a Jesuit could not only coexist but enrich each other.

Given my academic background, the Jesuits made sense ... this is where I’d find a community that understands me ... and my way of understanding and relating to God.

‘The most important part of it for me was having that experience of working with a Jesuit community of scientists,’ he explains.

‘In the Australian province, I had a lot of support from other Jesuits to maintain my connections with science ... but there aren’t many others at the moment who have gone on to a PhD in science. So I have felt a little bit on my own,’ he says, ‘whereas there, it’s a community with whom I have all of the Jesuit aspects in common and also the science aspects that I shared with colleagues and friends at universities for a lot of my life.’

That sense of being understood—both spiritually and professionally—was transformative. ‘It hadn’t struck me just how significant that would be for me,’ he says.

Raised on a small farm in Cowra, New South Wales, Matthew’s interest in physics began early. In Year 12, he represented Australia at the International Physics Olympiad in Korea, a formative experience that exposed him to young researchers who were just a few years further along in their scientific careers.

‘Right from that time,’ he says, ‘I was really pursuing a career in physics, and really loved it, and never saw any reason to turn away from that.’

That interest and aptitude eventually led him from an undergraduate degree at the Australian National University to a PhD in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. But towards the end of his PhD, as he began to think about the next step and where he might do his postdoctoral work, deeper questions began to surface—questions about meaning, purpose and what kind of life he was ultimately seeking.

We need a bigger idea of God.

As he considered what kind of community, city and university he was seeking, he began to interrogate his motivations more carefully. Was interested in prestige and professional ambition, or was he looking for something deeper for himself? It gradually became clearer that his faith was important to him ‘but I hadn’t necessarily given it that primary place in decision-making.’

This led him to deepen his prayer life and look for opportunities to be of service. Eventually, he discerned a call not just to participate in communities of faith, but to lead and support them as a priest. After visiting both a diocesan seminary and the Jesuits, the choice became clear.

‘Given my academic background, the Jesuits made sense, and I just felt a lot more at home when I visited and thought, yeah, this is where I’d find a community that understands me ... and my way of understanding and relating to God.’

Though people sometimes speak of a tension between science and religion, Matthew sees harmony. He credits his training in physics with helping him to approach theological claims with clarity and precision.

‘Being a serious scientist makes me, and makes others who are serious about science, be really serious and specific about what we are claiming when we claim belief in God,’ he says.

There are some very difficult questions, but a lot of people get stuck well and truly before that … at places we actually can move past if we’re quite clear in how we’re talking.

He’s particularly wary of simplistic ideas that cast God as a kind of ‘cosmic manipulator’.

‘We need a bigger idea of God,’ he says. ‘God’s given us a world in which things play out through physical laws … The way in which God wants us to interact with the world is one in which we can understand the world. It’s one in which we can affect the world ... It’s not God sitting up there in the sky sending [events], but giving us a world that we have to deal with—the good and the bad.’

To those who struggle to reconcile science and faith, Matthew has a simple but important suggestion: be precise. ‘It helps to be really quite specific about what our difficulties are,’ he says. Some people—both scientists and religious people—can ‘talk a bit too fuzzily and hence jump to conclusions that really aren’t there.’

Being clear and honest, he suggests, allows space for deeper dialogue—and perhaps for the kind of wonder that can deepen both our relationship with God and our quest for scientific discovery.

‘There are some very difficult questions,’ he concedes, ‘but a lot of people get stuck well and truly before that … at places we actually can move past if we’re quite clear in how we’re talking.’

Matthew sees science not as a threat to faith but as a source of awe. While his own expertise is not in the biological sciences, he regards biological complexity, particularly, as providing a window into deeper mysteries.

One thing you really get from Br Guy is his sense of wonder and also ability to lead others into wonder.

He points out that the biological intricacy we can observe in the world arises ‘just from such simple interactions between the elementary particles. And yet, those very simple interactions are enough to create systems at all sorts of scales within individual species and across species [so] that just so much complexity has arisen.

‘People who don’t have a faith perspective still might be astonished by some of these things, but [for a Christian], it’s a bit of a different perspective that says: okay, there is some kind of meaning and purpose behind this.’

This spirit of awe and joy is certainly something Matthew recognises in Br Guy Consolmagno SJ, and he hopes people in Melbourne will gain a lot from Br Guy’s knowledge and passion.

‘One thing you really get from Br Guy is his sense of wonder and also ability to lead others into wonder,’ Matthew says. ‘People have some idea of the majesty of space, but just some of the beauty, whether it be visual beauty of the pictures or our ability to start to comprehend some of these things better— the endeavour of getting more knowledge through the different telescopes, or the theoretical modelling, whatever it might be—he’s a person who can really provide a way into all of that and lead people to appreciate this beauty.’

Importantly, Br Guy also brings a human lens to the scientific story, Matthew says, helping us to appreciate ‘that the story of science is the story of people, and that it’s not enough to just notice what we’ve discovered, but [we need] to recognise who discovered it.

‘What was it about the world around them that sparked that interest? And what made them want to look at the next planet, or to look a bit further and make that bigger telescope?’ These questions help us realise ‘this isn’t just a story about what happened and about the universe,’ Matthew says. ‘It’s about the people looking at the universe as well.’

We’ve been given by God this ability to relate in a very personal way, despite the universe giving us a sense of just how beyond us God is. Bringing those two aspects of God and us together is really important to recognising the depth of God’s love for us.

Matthew’s Jesuit outlook helps him see the vast splendour of the universe as something that points both to the mystery of God and to God’s relationship with humanity.

‘The whole grandeur of the universe reflects God’s glory in some really important ways. But there is something about the ability to make a choice for God and to decide to be in relationship that … only belongs to humans.’

In this light, the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius take on new meaning.

‘We’ve been given by God this ability to relate in a very personal way, despite the universe giving us a sense of just how beyond us God is,’ he says. ‘Bringing those two aspects of God and us together is really important to recognising the depth of God’s love for us.’