There’s a widespread notion that says theology and science don’t mix. Either God or science. If you believe in science, you can’t believe in some supernatural deity. When you think about it, the idea of God is just not… scientific.
I agree. Well, with that last statement anyway. The existence of a higher power is indeed not scientific. Science is the study of the natural world. By definition, science finds its bounds to be within nature. If God is supernatural, meaning “outside nature”, we shouldn’t expect to be able to place Him under a microscope. After all, science is a set of intellectual disciplines. God is not.
But the dichotomy of science and theology is false on many more levels.
In order to see where science actually stands on the subject, it’s probably best to start with the world’s greatest scientists. Since men and women began studying the natural world, the vast majority of them have ascribed their subject matter to a Creator that stands outside of it.
CS Lewis said, “Men became scientific because they expected law in nature. And they expected law in nature because they believed in a law giver.”
Here is a tiny fraction of scientists you may have heard of, whom are also theists:
- Francis Bacon – creator of the scientific method
- Galileo – astronomer, physicist, engineer, mathematician
- Sir Isaac Newton – discovered gravity and laws of motion
- Johannes Kepler – astronomer of the Scientific Revolution
- Gregor Mendel – discovered the basic principles of heredity
- Lord Kelvin – inventor of the Kelvin scale of temperature
- George Washington Carver – scientist, botanist, inventor
- Louis Pasteur – chemist and microbiologist who invented pasteurization
- Francis Collins – leading scientist of Human Genome Project, Director of NIH
- Joan Roughgarden – evolutionary biologist, professor at Stanford
- Robert J. Asher – palaeontoligist, Fellow at American Museum of Natural History
- Gerhard Ertl – Nobel Prize winning chemist
- John Lennox – Oxford professor of Mathematics, philosopher of science
This list, alone, should tell us that science cannot be diametrically opposed to faith. And there are countless more theists in science than this minuscule collection. The thing to realize is that faith was never a hindrance to science; it was a motivator for its inception, and still today, faith inspires some of the most brilliant minds toward discovery.
Second, science and theology ask different questions. Science answers the question “how.” Plants can grow because they have something called chlorophyll that captures the sun’s energy and uses it to make sugar out of carbon dioxide and water.
Science also answers the question “why”, but only on a level of functionality. The ocean tide rises and falls because of a gravitational attraction to the moon.
Theology, however, answers a different “why”, a teleological “why”. God created people so they might reflect His glory and choose to partake in His eternal love. These “why” questions stand outside the reach of science. Studying particles or manipulating variables will never answer the deeper questions of “why”.
Another grave misconception fueling this false dichotomy is the idea that science is the only way to truth. Let’s look at that statement for a second: “Science is the only way to truth.” …Really? Because that statement, in itself, is a truth claim. And it’s not scientific! Do you see the problem here? A massive logical contradiction. Beware of people who make an assessment and then excuse themselves from it.
What about ethical truths? Consider this: A man walks into your workplace today and opens fire on anyone who walks by, killing dozens of innocent people. That sounds horrific, right? That man ought to be punished severely, right? Well, what does science have to say about the oughts of the world? Nothing. Yet, any sane adult with the most basic cognitive functioning will tell you the assailant was wrong. He acted immorally, to say the least. This is called objective morality, and it cannot be explained by science. What, then (or who), gives us this moral law?
Still, there is an erroneous assumption that things can either be explained by God or by science. For example, the sky is blue either because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than red light OR because God made it that way. My question is why would these be mutually exclusive? Likewise, does the automobile work because of an internal combustion engine or because Henry Ford made them that way? You see, to create an either/or situation between mechanism and mechanic is purely nonsensical.
As the great Oxford mathematician John Lennox puts it:
“I am fascinated that people could go to the beach, see the letters of their name written in the sand, and immediately postulate an intelligence behind it. And yet, people can look at the 3.5 billion letters of the human genome all in the right order, the whole thing acting like an impossible computer program, and come to the conclusion that it is only chance and necessity.”
The more we understand art, the more we can understand the genius of Rembrandt. The more we understand musical composition, the more we can understand the brilliance of Mozart. The more we understand the unmatched complexity of nature, the more we know about God. “The heavens declare His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).
Science is a fascinating set of laws. The breakthroughs and discoveries rooted in scientific investigation are innumerable. I, personally, am so amazed by science that I chose to make it my life’s work, specifically the study of human behavior in the workplace. But what’s even more amazing than this incredible set of laws is the Law Giver, Himself. Laws can do much to describe things, but a law has never created nor caused anything.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
So to claim that something (the natural world and all of its tenants) came from nothing… Well, I’ve never heard anything less scientific.
Wheat vs Chaff 