The movie "Angels and Demons," the sequel to Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," is another box-office hit. The story is again set in Vatican City and centers on the Roman Catholic Church, but this adaptation of Brown's novel is not as theologically confrontational as its predecessor.

Tom Hanks returns as the fictional Harvard University symbologist, Professor Robert Langdon, who this time sets out to uncover clues of a secret society called the Illuminati, which has a centuries-long conflict with the Roman Catholic Church and seeks to avenge some of its members.

The film's underlying theme revolves around the philosophical tension between science and religion. The story alludes to the widespread belief that Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic Church when he posited the heliocentric concept of the solar system over the more popular geocentric view of his time.

Galileo's theory of a moving earth was believed, at the time, to contradict biblical passages and thus his science was considered heresy and he was put on trial. Critics use this as proof that the Catholic Church in particular and Christians in general, have a history of opposing science, but this of course is not the case.

As in all matters, there are extremists who are completely opposed to science and see it as the antithesis of faith, but by and large people of faith are not opposed to scientific research. Most theists believe that God gave human beings the ability to make life-changing discoveries and thus science is itself a gift from God. However, because man by nature is sinful, anything left under his control has the potential to be misused, and hence there are instances when scientists go too far. Generally, theists only object to research when it appears as though man is attempting to create or destroy life, a role, in my opinion, which is best left to God.

In the movie Langdon is asked if he believes in God. His response: "I am an academic, and my mind tells me I will never understand God ... [My heart] tells me I'm not meant to. Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive." Belief in God does require faith because there are aspects of God and the Bible that defy human reason; for the things that man cannot explain, he must rely on faith. Over the years I have come to conclude that many people reject faith simply because they have a need to be the final arbiter of all things and do not want to be subject to anyone's authority, least of all an invisible God.

Many scientists have found that their research deepens their faith. Isaac Newton's study of gravity and its impact on how we view the universe led him to conclude: "This most beautiful system [the Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."

Francis Collins, the former director of the human genome project and an atheist turned Christian is quoted as saying, "When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration ... but it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along."

The movie's conclusion reaffirms that faith and science can co-exist; the two need not be mutually exclusive.