Why is our world comprehensible? This question seems so trivial that few people have dared to ask it. In A Comprehensible Universe: The Interplay of Science and Theology, George Coyne and Michael Heller explore the deep roots of the mystery of rationality. The new book emphasizes the need for rational argument in all attempts to understand our world. George Coyne is a Jesuit priest, astronomer, and former director of the Vatican Observatory. Michael Heller, winner of the 2008 Templeton Prize, is a cosmologist, Catholic priest and philosopher.
A Comprehensible Universe is not a scholarly work in the proper meaning, i.e. an exhaustive monographic study of all aspects of the problem. It had its origin in a series of university lectures delivered by Michael Heller to students of mathematics, physics and other natural sciences who were not yet initiated into philosophical matters but who possessed the natural curiosity typical of their future professions. In this spirit, Heller and Coyne have written the book, preserving its introductory character. It aims to open up broader, deeper vistas - to the very roots of rationality.
George V. Coyne was born in 1933 in Baltimore, USA. He joined the Vatican Observatory as an astronomer in 1969 and became its director in 1978, retiring from this position in 2006. He continues as adjunct professor in the University of Arizona Astronomy Department.
Michael Heller was born in 1936 in Tarnow, Poland. He is Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Cracow, Poland. He is the winner of the 2008 Templeton Prize, which awards grants to encourage scientific discoveries on the "big questions" in science and philosophy. It is the world's richest prize made to an individual.
George V. Coyne, Michael Heller
A Comprehensible Universe: The Interplay of Science and Theology
2008. 160 p. Hardcover. €39.95, $59.95, £30.50
ISBN 978-3-540-77624-6
Review copies are available to journalists.