Angels & Demons

I'm continuing my new appreciation for fiction, and author Dan Brown, with Angels & Demons, the first adventure of protagonist Robert Langdon which precedes the famed DaVinci Code.

The book was great. Although I had also seen the movie prior to reading the book as I had with DaVinci, the book provided much more back story and inner dialogue that deepened the experience.

Most notably, and especially in the final chapters of the book, the written version delves deeply into the main theme of religion vs. science. And although it seemed at times that Brown raises the pillar of science above that of religion, in the end he promotes both equally, reasoning that each is only a different version of the other.

The series of twist and turns that are revealed at the very end added greatly to my appreciation of the story and its meaning. Camerlengo Ventresca, the late Pope's chamberlain has saved the day, rescuing the Catholic Church from certain collapse. All assume, myself included, that he is the savior of the story.

But it is revealed in final pages that Ventresca actually killed the Pope himself, resurrecting the myth of the Illuminati - one of the Church's nemesis from centuries past - to create a fake plot against the Church. Ventresca created the illusion in a way that would allow him to save the day, invalidate the progress of science, and uphold the need for religion.

Interestingly, in a heated parley of words, the book's heroine Vittoria Vetra, reveals that Ventresca's gripe is not between science and religion. Ventresca has made the mistake of envisioning a battle between science and the church; he created the plot, killing a pope and four cardinals in the process, in a vain attempt to save the Church, not religion.

This is one of the messages I took away: The Catholic Church is not a proxy for all religion.

This greatly reminds me of what I learned during my reading of The Reformation. The Catholic Church lashed out at Luther, Calvin and the countless other "heretics" in the name of saving religion, while it was really just acting to promote the longevity of the Catholic Church.

In the final pages Camerlengo Ventresca suffers one final blow to his world view, when he learns that he is literally a child of science himself. His reason for killing the pope and unleashing his plot was his understanding that the pope loved science and that he had fathered a child. In a fabulous twist of fate, Ventresca learns that the pope had fathered Ventresca himself through artificial insemination. The Camerlengo was double-foiled: The pope had always been chaste, and Ventresca was literally born out of a new scientific procedure.

The final message to me is that religion and science are not mutually exclusive. Science will never lead to omnipotence; but it can provide glimpses of the awesomeness of God's work.