Angels and Demons

The conflict between science and religion is introduced as an important theme in Leonardo Vetra’s office. Robert Langdon learns from Maximilian Kohler that Vetra considered himself a “theo-physicist.” Langdon believes Vetra’s professions—a Catholic priest and a particle physicist—to be at odds with each other, revealing the societal conception of science being at odds with religious values and belief systems. Indeed, through Langdon’s work as an art historian specializing in religious history, Langdon identifies that “science and religion had been oil and water since day one […] arch-enemies […] unmixable” (44). However, Vetra believed that “God’s handwriting was visible in the natural order all around us. Through science he hoped to prove God’s existence to the doubting masses” (44). Vetra’s discovery of antimatter, which implies that something could be created from nothing, suggests that both creationism and the Big Bang Theory could be verified. These two theories—the creation theories proposed by science and Christianity—could be unified through the experiment whereby matter and antimatter were created. In proving these two beliefs are compatible, Vetra hoped to bring together science and religion under a common belief system.

Unlike Vetra, the Camerlengo believes that the Catholic Church is threatened by the rapid rate of scientific progress, which proceeds at a staggering pace “with no ethical instructions attached” (535).