Researchers seek answers to universal questions

Why are we compelled to ponder the nature of the universe through mathematics? What kind of worldview does it take to be married to God in the Christian sense? Here, we look at faith not just as a strictly religious compulsion, but as a source of peace, in just a few of its infinite interpretations.

The faith, commitment and solidarity Sister Delores finds at the Benedictine Sanctuary is not only specific to clergy. Indeed, faith is not limited to religiosity at all.

Many life-long academics have happily spent much of their careers in the meditative vaults of libraries and laboratories.

Often, when the answers have been exhausted, scholars are left with "gut feelings" as pungent as any material evidence. This is when phrases such as "faith in the unknown" and words like "belief" enter academic dialogue.

Hal Larson, UA professor of planetary sciences, said he finds more that he doesn't know every day.

"What was unknown 10 years ago is now known, and even the 'old questions' resurface every day," Larson said.

Conflicting theories leave room for each scientist to make up his or her own mind, he said.

"You don't know (whose theory) to believe, and I emphasize the word 'believe' because that is what it comes down to," he said.

Belief and faith are as elusive as it gets: hard to define, and harder still to understand. Faith finds its way into science, sometimes through exasperation.

"Most experiments fail," Larson said. "(But) you have to have faith in the solution."

He is quick to recognize the gray areas.

"Some things may never be explained with science," he said. "That is faith - some things aren't resolvable."

When things are resolvable, though, it is a rare delight.

Art historians have the opportunity to resolve hitherto unknown objects into meaningful sculpture.

For doctoral candidate Sandra Barr, faith and perseverance guided her master's thesis, which involved identifying a Greek urn now resting in the University of Arizona Museum of Art's collection.

"I had a broken ankle, and my mother-in-law and I brought home huge stacks of books and journals (from the library) and spread them out on the floor," she said. "I was looking for stuff that matches, this handle to that handle, from similar urns. (Research) is an act of faith."

Sometimes historical data is overshadowed by dogma, but it has no less significance.

"An object can be factually real, or spiritually real," Barr said.

Research often strives to give validity and significance to forgotten objects, and demands an amount of faith from the researcher.

"One has to have faith that one can animate," said associate art professor Paul Ivey, who writes about religious architecture in America. "You try and compel things back to life."

Art and science ask some of the same questions, and the answers are elusive.

"In a secular democracy, art serves a spiritual function," said Ann-Marie Russell, adjunct art history instructor. "The questions are, as Gauguin said, 'Who are we?' 'Where did we come from?' 'Where are we going?'"