GOD'S SCIENCE?

WHY CHRISTIANS OUGHT NOT BE AFRAID OF SCIENCE, BUT SHOULDN'T ACCEPT EVERYTHING IT SAYS

If there's one thing we learn from watching the News, the Discovery channel, the History channel, reading Newspapers, Magazines and Blogs, it is that Christianity and Science are bitter foes. In one corner you have the extremes of the New Atheists (Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris, etc.) that constantly bring up examples like Galileo, Copernicus and other Illuminati whose ideas were not initially accepted by the Church. Add to that mix any number of Fundamentalists that loudly claim dinosaurs and humans walked together, and well, you have the proof to show that Christians are hostile to science.

On the other hand, you do have Christians that refuse to believe anything from the science world unless it is found in the pages of the Bible. Therefore, some Christians, to varying degrees, would reject medicine, because after all, the Bible tells us to pray not "take two of these and call me in the morning." Other Christians insist that the earth is only 10,000 years old. Now, one may hold to that view with no problem whatsoever; the problem comes when one says that this is the only "Christian view" as is often strongly implied by those who hold to it.

Folks, there is an axiom when it comes to science that I heard R.C. Sproul once say (I'm sure he got it from someone else) that has been helpful to me: "All truth is God's truth." Period. There is not science truth, and spiritual truth, there is just Truth. Jesus Himself said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

We need not be afraid of science, nor should we accept every theory that comes out of the scientific world. Where science does not directly contradict a claim of Scripture then we may grant its possible truthfulness. Where science does seem to contradict a claim of Scripture, we ought to look at the Scripture again and see if there is any way these two conflicting ideas can be brought together. Have we, as was the case with Galileo and Copernicus, misinterpreted Scripture to say something it wasn't actually saying? Did Scripture really ever say all the universe revolved around Earth? No, but based on long-held ideas about Man's supremacy over the created order it was assumed that it made sense for all the universe to revolve around us. When the facts came out, the Church eventually saw that indeed there was no contradiction between what science found and what Scripture spoke.

Obviously, the most hot button issue for quite some time has been the topic of Evolution. There the Church and the majority of Scientists have had great disagreement about the origins of the universe. If Science postulates something that it can never scientifically postulate (as Stephen Hawking seems to have done this last week), that the universe came into existence from No-thing, by No-thing, and continues to be governed by No-thing, than Christians obviously cannot ever agree. By our very nature as Christians we believe the universe was created from No-thing, by Some-thing, and is constantly governed by Some-thing, namely the Creator God. These two views cannot be reconciled. But you see at this point we are no longer talking science at all, we are talking about philosophy; the Scientist by making this claim has moved from the realm of what science tells us (by using the Scientific method e.g. something that can be tested), to philosophical speculation. They are now making an argument for the Philosophy of Naturalism (the idea that only what one finds in nature is real, true and existent, with no actual evidence for such a claim).

However, if a Scientist were to say, "I believe based on our evidence that the best explanation for how all of us got here was through a process of Evolution" without making the leap to saying, "therefore there is no god," than we may at least be able to look at the claims and examine them in light of Scripture. Could Scripture allow for a God guided Evolution of the species? Does Scripture allow for the universe to be older than 10,000 years old? You see now we're in dialog, rather than a fight. We are seeking Truth. We are open to the possibility that we as Church folk could have misinterpreted Scripture's teaching.

That being said, I personally believe the answer to the two questions above is a mixed bag:

1. No, I don't think Scripture allows for even a God guided evolutionary process (Adam and Eve being real people just seems to fly in the face of so much modern Evolutionary theory), but I am open to the possibility since there are a number of great Christian theologians who do hold this view (Tim Keller, Bruce Waltke, etc.) that I am missing something in my interpretation of Scripture.

2. Yes, I do think there is more than ample evidence in the Bible to support an older universe than 10,000 years old. The facts are, the only reason people ever came to that number was because they added up various genealogies in the Old Testament and right about there is what it came out to (Actually at first it was around 6,000, but that was later revised). The Bible never gives an age to the universe or tells when it was God decided to create the universe. All we read is this:

1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Now I have to say, in closing, I think there's a reason that God doesn't bother telling us dates, and time frames for His creative activity. For the scope of the message of the Bible, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't. It's fine to investigate these things, question these things, and debate these things, but if God's the Creator, than ultimately we're just arguing about details. Can God create the universe in 6 literal days? Of course He can, He's God. Can God create the universe over vast periods of time? Sure He can, He's God. The point of the story is not these issues.

The point of the story is of God's creating a perfect universe, man the pinnacle of His creation rebelling against Him and thereby ruining that perfect creation, God coming down in Jesus Christ to redeem this rebellious man, one day restoring and renewing the creation that was lost, perfecting it once again to His glory forever and ever. That's the focus folks; keep your eyes on Christ, don't be intimidated by science, but don't worry about it either. No matter which scientific theory springs to life, Jesus still rose from the dead and is coming back again. That's a fact.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Pastor Erick

RECEIVING FROM CHRIST....GROWING IN CHRIST....GOING WITH CHRIST....