Buff: I'm a practicing Catholic whose initial faith formation – grammar school religious ed and two years of Catholic high school – was enough to teach me the basics though without a lot of understanding. I had this view that if I was generally good to others, that was enough. Then my faith changed and deepened dramatically starting in the summer 1994 when I picked up my father-in-law's copy of C.S. Lewis's "The Problem of Pain." Reading that was extraordinary, and started a search that continues today. After reading Peter Kreeft's "Making Sense Out of Suffering," I saw that he was teaching at BC. Since I was working in eastern Connecticut, I was able to take Kreeft's night course, "The Three Greatest Men Who Lived: Socrates, Buddha and Jesus." For me, nothing has been the same since. Themes and questions that Lewis and Kreeft discuss, about the seeming incompatibility of a loving, all powerful God with widespread and horrific suffering, and what that means God wants from us, are raised in "The Soul of the Matter" series.
CNA: What does this have to say about the relation between faith and reason, and religion and science?
Buff: That science, properly understood, points clearly to God's existence and our spiritual nature, that rather than being an exception, the supernatural is all around us. Consequently, faith and reason, religion and science, based on a good understanding of God will agree. Now of course there can appear to be significant differences between religion and science, such as the Biblical description of the origin of both the universe and humanity. I think there are good answers to this and other apparent differences but I'll leave that to others to discuss.
CNA: Who do you hope to reach with this novel?
Buff: Anyone who likes thought-provoking thrillers. Beyond that, I want to reach people open to the idea that God exists. For those who share my Judeo-Christian beliefs, I hope my book helps strengthens some aspect of their thinking about science and faith. For others, I'd like them to understand that every moment of their life is their soul in action, that we are here by intent, and that God's apparent, but not actual, absence means some important things about Him and His expectations for us that are worth further exploration.
CNA: How did you develop the science behind the book?