I can't see for the life of me how an attempt to understand the universe, which I believe comes from God, can alienate us from God.

The knowledge of God, the belief in God, is what I call an a-rational process. It's not rational - it doesn't proceed by scientific investigation - but it's not irrational because it doesn't contradict my reasoning process. It goes beyond it.

Neither of us can come to either a knowledge of God, or a denial of God by our scientific research.

Christianity has always had sort of an ability to absorb the developments in science. But, it's always done it very slowly.

Science is and should be seen as "completely neutral" on the issue of the theistic or atheistic implications of scientific results.

Being a scientist helps to support both my life as a Jesuit and my belief in God.

However the great successes of science - Galileo's telescopic observations, Newton's law of gravity, etc - all of this great success caused people to sort of say, what if we could establish religion on that same successful basis? What if we could have a good rational foundation for religious belief. What if religion could be sort of like science. Of course, that can't be.