Science and Faith
Is Science compatible with the Christian faith? I would like to think so.
Science is the observation and study of the world we live in, while faith is the belief in the God who created that world. Hence the more we understand our surroundings, the more we should be able to appreciate the God who created it.
We can even find Scientists who lived in the harmony between faith and science. They were devoted to their own professions as they were devoted to their faith. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) for example, he gets credit to what is called “the Pascal’s Wager.”? Then there’s Isaac Newton (1643-1727) who wrote down his own “Observations upon the Prophecies of Danuel and the Apocalypse of St. John.” And then there’s Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) who, by studying traits of pea, fathered modern genetics.
See List of Christian Thinkers in Science here.
Maybe science only becomes incompatible with faith when it is misused. Since science deals with the material or physical world, it would then be useless if it used as a tool to study the immaterial or spiritual world. It can’t be used to prove or disprove our faith in a God who is a spirit.
“GOD IS SPIRIT, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” Jn 4:24
Science can only deal with the physical world and so when God does something, it can only study the “print” God leaves behind. Take Adam for example, Gen 2:7-8 says:
“The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.? Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.”
God did not create Adam as a sperm, as an egg or as a fetus. It was in Day 6 when He created Adam as a fully grown man (Gen 1:26-31). If we have a time machine and we can send a physician back in time to study and to determine, scientifically, the age of Adam he would have reported that based on what he has studied, Adam was in any marrying age, ready to mate (let’s just say 18 years old).
When God created the physical world he filled it with trees, animals and birds that are already capable of reproducing (Gen 1:28). In the Day 5, God created the chicken first before the egg (Gen 1:20).
And so, science can be blind when it comes to the supernatural especially when it comes to any past events like Creation, the Flood, and the Resurrection. It can only deal with what God leaves behind and then facts become subject to interpretation. That why is why archaeology and documentary evidences play important roles in our faith. The Holy Bible is a 66-book collection of documentary evidences.
“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were EYEWITNESSES OF HIS MAJESTY.” 2 Pet 1:16
The problem arises when interpretation of God’s finger prints leans to the denial of the existence of God, it’s what the Bible calls a psuedo science:
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of SCIENCE FALSELY so called.” 1 Tim 6:20
Not that I am saying 1 Tim. 6:20 is talking about Evolution per se. I am merely saying that Atheistic Evolution in my opinion is an example of a psuedo science. Because it uses science as a tool but leaves God out of the equation.
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