Steve Dristas
From as early as I could read, I have had a lifelong passion for science and absorbing as much knowledge about the world and universe as I could. From astronomy, to weather, to geology, and atomic physics, I would devour science books like candy through my childhood. I was raised Catholic, but my faith in the Church was non-existent; if God was out there, how could we, so small and insignificant, be so bold as to know how He runs the universe? This continued through college and early adulthood, as I stopped going to Mass, started a career as a nuclear engineer, and fostered a growing fascination with big-bang cosmology.
I returned to God through the Traditional Latin Mass at the age of 35, where I would eventually meet my wife and start my family. After attending the Latin Mass for a short time, the thousands of documented miracles in the Catholic Church (most especially those of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Fatima) provided enough evidence to win over this doubting Thomas, who needed to see before he would believe. I accepted all the dogmas of the Church without much of a struggle, but I was still all in on evolution and big-bang cosmology. Belief in the traditional chronology isn’t strictly required as part of the Church, and even our traditional priests say you can get by without believing in it…so what’s the harm?
It becomes more and more difficult to build a spiritual life when you can’t take the Bible at face value. I yearned to be ignorant of all the established scientific “truths” that required more and more mental gymnastics to be aligned with Scripture. Then I stumbled upon some Kolbe Center lectures on YouTube that not only gave some proof for a “young” earth, but more importantly punched some massive holes in the prevailing scientific theories of evolution and cosmology. One in particular entitled “Genetic Entropy” stuck with me; just the title itself was the strongest argument I’ve heard against evolution. How is genetic material growing more ordered and complex over time while the rest of the universe moves from order to disorder? I may have been lacking in my faith in Scripture, but my faith in the laws of thermodynamics was unshakeable, as they are sacred to all scientists and engineers. If I took modern evolutionary theory seriously, I should open my doors and windows in the winter to heat my house by letting heat flow from cold to hot by its own power.
This led me to the Kolbe Center and in particular the Foundations Restored video series. One by one the “facts” of modern science were shown to be made of straw and new theories fully aligned with Scripture took their place, with the traditional understanding that God made a perfect and complete world at the beginning. I have the Kolbe Center to thank for demolishing the last roadblock to fully accepting the Catholic Faith and building a deep and rich relationship with our Lord and Savior.
Steven Dristas has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.
