The best place to witness the harmony of faith and science is in the lives of Christian saints, past and present, who show us what it looks like by the lives they live. Gregor Mendel lived a faith-science life that led to one of the greatest leaps forward in our scientific understanding. Considered the world’s first geneticist, his story is told in the children’s book, Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas (by Cheryl Bardoe; illustrated by Jos. A. Smith).
Born in 1822, Mendel was the first person to apply the scientific method to a question in biology. He was interested in one of the biggest scientific questions of his time: How do mothers and fathers—whether people, plants, or animals—pass down traits to their children? Through his groundbreaking scientific experiments, Mendel learned that “animals, plants, and people, inherit and pass down traits through the same process, following the same rules.”1 His discoveries about the inheritance of traits are called Mendel’s laws.
Not only was his Christian faith not an obstacle to his interest in science, but his life as a Christian actually made his work as a scientist possible. Becoming a friar and living within a religious order afforded Mendel the opportunity to study science and conduct experiments. Contrary to the misperception that Christianity is anti-science, early Western science flourished in the church because the wealth of the church afforded friars like Mendel the time and resources to study the natural world. Mendel’s groundbreaking work was a complex, eight-year experiment involving 28,000 pea plants. His fellow friars were mathematicians, botanists, philosophers, and geologists. The library in their abbey contained 30,000 books. All of this no doubt motivated by the Bible verse found in Psalm 111:2, “Great are the works of the Lord; studied by all who delight in them.”
Explore these questions with your child: What role did Mendel’s Christian life play in his work as a scientist? What role might his faith have played in his desire to understand God’s world?
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1Bardoe, Cheryl. Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas. Published in association with the Field Museum. New York, NY: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2015.
