Thursday, May 1, 2008

Science vs(?) Religion

I’ve written multiple times now about the assumptions that we all make in everyday conversation because they are so subtle, and so often misleading, that they can get us in a lot of trouble. We are asked a question or confronted about a topic and we don’t have a response. We feel like we can’t argue against it because we don’t know how, but in reality we don’t even agree with the premise. We engage in conversations in an attempt to defend our position (or at least we should be), but we fail because we don’t recognize that we are working on their premises without questioning them.

One of the ways this most often happens with Christians today is in the case of science. We read scientific apologetics and learn about the holes in the evolutionist argument so we can demonstrate that science is wrong, and that it’s not the ultimate authority. We construct our arguments and debate the issues without ever realizing that we are doing so according to the assumptions of our cultural, namely, that science and religion are in conflict with one another.

There is an unspoken understanding that has come mainly through the media that says that religion fills in the gaps of science. In others words, the things that we don’t understand, we assume that God made them that way. I hesitate to refer to it as a gap theory because I’ve never heard it called that, but in a sense that’s what it is. Science can explain x, y, and z and religion explains all the rest.

The result that comes from thinking like that is the idea that religion and science are somehow competing; that whoever has the best explanations will win over the most people. It also implies that as countries become more modern and developed, and can explain more by science, then religion and the need for God will slowly disappear. (This can be shown to be completely false but that another topic)

So when we argue over scientific claims and search for ways to dispute evidence, we are ultimately falling prey to this assumption. We feel threatened when science makes new discoveries about the world and how it functions because it takes away the mystery that we once attributed to God.

But the fact is that there is no conflict between science and religion, and what’s more, Christians should be the best scientist of all. God is not in competition with science, he created it! Explaining the world around us through scientific discovery does not contradict our attributing it to God, nor does it in any way lessen our view of his majesty. If anything it should increase it! When we make discoveries of how utterly complex the world is around us, we are not learning more about humans and nature as much as we are learning about the Creator!

The idea that being able to explain things rationally takes away from God at all is absurd. Let me give you an example. Some of the most recent cars that have come out have voice command systems installed in them. Imagine that I got one of those cars and I was completely amazed that I could actually talk to my car and tell it what to do. I am incapable of explaining how Mr. Ford was able to make my car do this other than pure magic. So I spend several years thinking about how great Mr. Ford is because he created this magic car until one day the technology becomes popular enough that someone actually explains to me how it works. They tell me that it’s really just a computer with voice recognition software and it’s really all very rational. Now, because I can explain the way it works, I conclude that Mr. Ford didn’t actually make the car, in fact, it’s all completely random.

That seems like a ridiculous example to us but it’s exactly the way that our culture is attempting to explain away God! They say that they can explain to you scientifically how your brain works, thus God has no part in it. If I follow this logic then I completely dismiss Mr. Ford as a superstitious magician. But, if I realize how absurd that is and look at the situation for what it really is, I come to see that, not only did he know exactly how the car worked all along, but he made it work that way. He was so much greater than the “magic” I had attributed to him all along, that my only reaction is to stand amazed at the shear genius of what he had done.

How much greater is the relationship between God and his creation? Science doesn’t take away from God, it adds to his magnificence, and if we see it for what it is, it spreads his glory.

John Stott said it like this:

Natural law is not an alternative to divine action, but a useful way of referring to it. So-called natural laws simply describe a uniformity which scientists have observed. And Christians contribute this uniformity to the constancy of God. Further, to be able to explain a process scientifically is by no means to explain God away; it is rather (in the famous words of the astronomer Kepler) to ‘think God’s thoughts after him’ and to begin understanding his ways of working.

We shouldn’t be afraid of science, but we should embrace it as a tool for displaying the glory of God. We see him in it, we are responsible to him for it, and we honor him by it.



For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Romans 1: 19-20)

No comments: