How Can I Believe In God And Science? Series

How Can I Believe in God and Science?

Series: How Can I Believe?

Brad Bailey – May 20, 2018

Intro

We are continuing in our series entitled: How Can I Believe? We are engaging the questions that can arise in the process of believing in Christ.

So in the recent past weeks we have engaged the questions of How can I believe in God…in the Bible…in the historical Jesus… in there being any distinct truth… in the nature of a good God amidst a world in which there is suffering. And today we are going to engage the question:

How Can I Believe in God and Science?

Or perhaps more accurately…

How Can I Reconcile Biblical Faith with Scientific Discovery?

I want to clearly note that I have no expertise in any of the many disciplines of the sciences. Over the past week I have been engaging lots of thoughts by others…and so I come today feeling very stupid.

The relationship between Biblical revelation and scientific discovery is a rather interesting one. For most would agree that it was Biblical revelation becoming available to the masses that created a foundation for understanding that the world was created with intent and order. To those who had perceived a world run by capricious gods or whom the world was perhaps a playground for their vanities…to discover that there was one true living God who had made the world with order…for the purpose of loving… gave a new perspective to everything. Superstition gave way to exploring rational understanding and order. This affirmed the exploration of the nature of the cosmos and the human body.

All the greatest minds and discoveries were led by those for whom God was the center of life. [1a]

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1627) whom many consider the father of science… was a philosopher who is known for establishing the scientific method of inquiry based on experimentation and inductive reasoning. He saw where a separation between such science and the larger reality could take place. The observer could lose their sense of depth.

"It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate, and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." - Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1627)

Shortly before him was a man named Nicholas Copernicus.

Copernicus was the Polish astronomer who put forward the first mathematically based system of planets going around the sun. His works were further implored by the younger Galileo… in the mid 1500s.

Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)

“To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power, to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful working of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance cannot be more gratifying than knowledge.”

The tragedy is that the Catholic Church felt challenged by ideas that did not fit what it’s earth centered ideas…and as a result…a conflict began. And the conflict was not rooted in any essential difference…but in holding on to misguided ideas.

This would arise at various points…and most notably around the issue of origins ….who and how was the world created.

As Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution gained notoriety… it seemed to challenge the very foundation of Biblical revelation… as it described a process the was long…and followed “natural laws.”

And a culture war between those who felt they were defending God…and those who felt they were defending facts.

There lies the great deception: that what is at hand is a matter of faith verses facts.

And so today many see the medical and technological advances achieved through science and are grateful for them. Many may be drawn to many things about the Christian faith, but, they say, “I don’t see how I can believe the Bible if that means I have to reject science.”

We may assume…these are two forces that pull in different directions.

However, there are many who see something quite false in this separation. [1b]

One of those is…

John Polkinghorne - famous as a physicist at Cambridge University for his work in explaining the existence of quarks and gluons, the world’s smallest known particles. He had won heaps of awards in his 27 years there, including membership in Britain’s Royal Society, one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a scientist. He said….“When you say that you’re a scientist and a Christian, people sometimes give you a funny look, as if you’d said, ‘I’m a vegetarian butcher.’

But Polkinghorne…was re-taking the wide space in which faith and science once shared.