Hot Topics Week 3

Faith and Science

Do you ever wonder why it seems like the Bible and science seem to be in conflict with each other?

You may have learned this tension about Faith vs Science from High school

Copernicus and Galileo - the earth revolves around the sun and not the universe revolving around the earth.

The church/Thealogians in that day held the view of Geocentrism (center of the universe is the earth)

Psalm 104:5

He established the earth on its foundations; it will never be shaken.

- The Earth is not moving, everything is moving around the earth.

Galileo was put on trial and put on house arrest. for belivimg Heliocentrism (The earth revolves around the Sun.

Again there seems to be this tension between Faith/religion and science. Can Faith and Science go together?

Centuries later - Theologians have been proven wrong, scientists have been proven right.

Understand like many things in history, Christans have been on the right side and the wrong side of many things, including Science.

God is not afraid of science and we should not be either.

Francis Bacon - Responsible for “The Scientific Method”

“There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error; first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the Creatures, which express His power.”

- James Watson - who played a crucial role in the discovery (DNA)

“religious explanations myths from the past. “Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. . . .”

- on the other side, The person who led the human genome mapping project is a christian.

How is its sometimes, scientist see Fatih as enemy, something to be discarded, and others are people of faith.

Then you have Anthony Flew (atheist) who shocked the world by Moving from Atheism to Theism.

He wrote an essay theology and falsification

- Religion or claims of Gods goodness die by a thousand qualifications.

- At the end of his life, by following the arguments, he said in hios writing There is a God How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind

“I know believe the universe was brought into existence by infinite intelligence”

Lets look at what we mean by faith and by science and look at these things together.

What is science? (Oxford English dictionary)

Science is the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.

Scence is thought of as an area of knowledge, applies to all people and is true everywhere and for everyone. It relates to physical, visible and measurable things.

Interestingly: Science comes from the Latin word, meeting knowledge and at one point, theology was considered the queen of the sciences.

What is Faith (Oxford English dictionary)

strong, believe in God, or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

We get this feeling that Science is real fact and religion is sorta non proof faith.

God is not afraid of Science and we should not be either.

So how can we relate Faith and Science?

2 Flawed options

1. Adversarial (Either/Or)

William Lane Craig (Teacher of Theology)

“ The culturally dominant view in the West—even among Christians—came to be that science and Christianity are not allies in the search for truth, but adversaries.”

2. Segregated (2 different realms)

“They say that science and religion are mutually relevant, that they represent two non-overlapping domains”

Science deals with fact and religion deals with Faith.

Are either of theses ideas correct?

Both wrong and unhelpful. You don’t have to choose one and reject the other. It is a false dichotomy.

Science is more than fact, theories and hypothesis. There is faith even in the scientific method.

A 2023 article called Faith-based beliefs are inescapable in science

“A scientist therefore must base their approach on an imponderable process that some call a hunch or an intuition. This is an intellectually guided expression of faith in how the scientist imagines the world to be. There is no way to venture into the unknown without this guiding light, and that light comes from a source that is not completely known. This is where science meets faith.”

Christianity is grounded in faith, but it is not blind faith, it is founded in truth.

Science is looking at the realities of the universe but then questions arise

- What does this mean, whats the meaning of this?

- If this is how or when, what’s the why?

This is where we step in and not push these ideas further apart but acknowledging all truth is God’s truth. And science and truth are overlapping domains.

Can you believe in science and also believe in the Christian faith?

Are the two strictly opposed to one another, one an antiquated view of the world and the other the contemporary and educated view of how things are? For some Christians this can be difficult. Over the last one hundred years, the fight over religion and science has brought about tremendous contention in our classrooms, pulpits, and workplaces. Yet many smart and scientific Christians believe in the compatibility of science and the Christian faith.

Many times peopel will say "I wanna be a follower of Jesus", and they believe some things about God. And then one day, they read an article that apparently contradicts what they thought about God. Or they attend a class where a professor says something that seems to contradict what they thought about God. Or they watch a video on YouTube, or they have friends or family members that say, "Well, you can't believe this because of this."

And suddenly, their faith starts to crumble when they hear anything that goes contrary to what they thought they believe. If one part of their belief system is shaken, their limited faith starts to crumble. And that may have happened to you or to someone that you know, and that's why the title of today's message is this, a question, "Can I believe in God and science?"

Today, I wanna try to answer the question, why does science seem to be in conflict with the Bible? Or why do people think that science is in conflict with the Bible? And I would answer the question this way, because some see the relationship between science and the Bible as competitive instead of cooperative.

Some see the relationship as an either/or, instead of something that God created both that can actually work together to help us grow closer to God.

Around 400 years or so, after the birth of Christ Saint Augustine of Hippo, who believed that science and the Bible are actually complimentary instead of competitive in nature.

And he would've said something like this, to summarize his teaching, he believed that the conflict between science and faith comes from either misunderstanding science or misinterpreting the Bible.

If there's a problem, if there's a conflict, he would've taught either, you don't really know the truth about the scientific study yet, there's a misunderstanding, or you're misinterpreting God’s Word.

And believe it or not, was the dominant view throughout history for about 1500 years until what was known as the Age of Enlightenment or the scientific boom in the 1800s

St Augustine - “All truth is Gods truth”

If science and Christianity are done right they have one thing in common. They both seek the truth.

People started to think that science explains everything. And some Christians got nervous thinking science is an attack faith.

The problem, anytime there's a competition, you have winners and you have losers. If science wins in this competition, the Bible loses. If the Bible wins, science loses.

But here's my question...

What if the relationship between science and the Bible isn't meant to be competitive? What if instead, by a good God who created all, it actually can be cooperative?

What if instead of an either/or, we could actually choose a both/and study what God created, and allow God’s Word to illuminate the goodness and glory of his creation. What if it doesn't have to be an either/or, but it can be a both/and

PB&J

In 1901, the first peanut butter and jelly sandwich recipe appeared in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics written by Julia Davis Chandler. She said to use crab-apple jelly and called the combination delicious and as far as she knew, original.

eggs and Bacon, Salt and pepper, batman and Robin

As Christians, we should embrace the both/and more than anyone else because our faith in many ways, is defined by a lot of both/ands.

- Jesus didn't say I am the alpha or the omega, but he said, I'm both/and, "I am the alpha and the omega.

- I am the first and the last

- I am the beginning and the end."

Who was Jesus? He was all God and at the very same time, He was all man. And He came from the Father, full of both grace and truth.

The authors of the Hebrews said, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith."

Instead of looking at these as competitors, why can't we look and say, "God created all." And we can learn from both and let them draw us closer to God. So both science and the Bible are really two different tools that help us understand the truth. We use different tools every day, different tools have different purposes.

Beach with a metal detector, What are you looking for? Treasures. You are looking for quarters. What else? The metal detector does not detect everything, does it? the sand, but the metal detector detects the...

We could say this about science. It's a tool. Science seeks the truth about our natural world and scripture, another tool, reveals the truth about our supernatural God. They both work together.

John Kavanaugh, a very famous ethicist who was was really searching for purpose in life so he packed up his bags, moved to Calcutta, to serve the poor with Mother Teresa.

Mother Teresa a very small woman came up to him and they had a very powerful conversation, he wrote about in his book, and Mother Teresa asked him, "how can I pray for you?" And he said,

What I need is clarity, will you pray for me for clarity?" He said, and Mother Teresa, according to his book said, "clarity is the last thing you're clinging to and must let go of."

She said, "I'm not gonna pray for you", but he looked on and said, "but you seem to have clarity. You seem to have purpose in everything you do. You have clarity. Why won't you pray for me for clarity?"

And Mother Theresa said, "I've never had clarity, what I've always had is trust. So that's what I'm gonna pray for. I'm gonna pray that you trust God."

Someone here may have been asking questions for your whole life, searching clarity, and I encourage you to keep asking questions. But at some point, what you may need, may not be clarity.

What you may need is trust, is faith. You see the challenge is whenever we think that Christianity is more about having all of the answers, when we think it's more about all of the answers, rather than faith in Jesus, we're actually building our faith on a house of cards.

And if one of our ideas about God is challenged, our entire faith system comes crumbling down. So I would suggest to you, faith people, that we may need to learn to think more scientifically about our faith. Think about this. How many of you studied the scientific method in junior high?

- The first thing you have is you have a question, I need to try to solve this question.

- The next thing you do is you draw up you're a hypothesis, here's my theory about what I think will happen, if we try this, then I think that this is gonna be the result, but I'm not sure, it's just a hypothesis.

You have a question, you have a hypothesis, and then

- You put your hypothesis to the test. And after the test comes back, you get the results.

And therefore you draw your conclusions. What I love about science is this, that in science, if your hypothesis is disproven, you don't give up on science. You just continue to take another test, and another hypothesis, why don't we do this as Christians? If we see a challenge to our ideas about God, don't give up on God.

In reality, if you wanna be sure about anything, it's gonna be tough, it's incredibly rare that we can be 100% certain about anything at all. In fact, the people who did the scientific research were certain that

- the earth was the center of the world

- the earth was flat, until scientifically it was proven that it wasn’t.

You'll rarely be 100% certain. And what I wanna promise you, is you will never have all the answers to anything, at some point, especially spiritually, it's going to take faith.

And I wanna remind you that you don't have to know every answer, to every question, to trust in Jesus. It will always take faith, without faith , it is impossible to please God, it always will take faith.

In fact, the best place to see Bible and science work together, is in the very first verse of God’s Word. Genesis 1:1, "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Why is this so powerful?

1. Look at the beginning of everything.

Because more than 3000 years ago, scripture declared what science confirmed in the last 100 years. What did science confirm in the last 100 years that scripture declared over 3000 years ago? That the universe had a beginning. And why is this so important?

Because prior to the big bang theory, most atheist scientists claimed that the universe was eternal. Why does this matter? Because if the universe had a beginning, it demanded a beginner, a cause outside of itself had to cause the world to exist. As Christians, we believe that God said, "let there be" and He caused the creation of the world.

Look at the beginning because this is a powerful example of science supporting what scripture said 3000 years ago, that in the beginning, God spoke and created the heavens and the earth. Look at the beginning.

The second thing I wanna encourage you to do is

2. Look at the design of the universe.

You talk about beautiful and complex, and practical and self sustaining. Verse two says this, "now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was all over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters", and then God started organizing everything and everything was beautiful and it all had a purpose, and it all works together.

Psalm 19:1

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Someone puts a seed in the ground and God sends rain from heaven, and the rain falls onto the ground, and the water seeps down into the soil, and the little seed takes root, and before long, the seed pushes it way through the dirt, and sprouts up and it grows into a plant, and then one day with more rain and the right amount of sun, it buds and then there's fruit, and then some of the animals might eat some of the fruit, and then some of the people might eat some of the animals, and then you grow and then things end up dying, and going back to the ground and they fertilize, and there are seasons and the world changes, and the world continues to go on, and you look at all of this and say, "it's impossible that this is the result of some random chance, boom."

It's gotta be the result of a divine designer and scientific studies, even from atheists are fascinating about this subject, that they prove that there are about 150 different astronomical constants that are perfectly designed for life to exist, 150 astronomical constants, and essentially where they prove is a billion things like this, that if the earth tilted the access a little bit more, or a little bit less, we all die.

- If the earth spins just 10% faster than it currently spins, the world floods and we all die.

- If the average distance from the earth to the sun is three tenths of 1% closer at its closest point, we all die.

Video - Young Sheldon

Atheist scientists, Sir Roger Penrose, calculated the likelihood of the universe having this precise of a design, and what he came to conclude, are you ready for this? That the odds of this happening by accident would literally be 10 billion to the 123rd power. What that means is, that means 10 billion times a one with 123 zeros behind it, it is an incalculable number, it's impossible to put down.

The odds are that you're more likely to win the lottery, 10,000 times in a row, and get struck by lightning, every time you cash that little ticket in, then you are for this to happen, and that's why, again, an atheist, the late Athiest Christopher Hitchens called this the most compelling argument for the existence of God.

Another example of science and scripture working together to show the glory of our creator and master designer.

Look at the beginning, "in the beginning, God said." Look at the design, the intricacy, the glory, the beauty, the functionality of the world that God created.

and 3 I would encourage you to look at what's known as the resurrection of Jesus.

3. Look at the resurrection of Jesus.

And what's so powerful about the resurrection of Jesus is it actually makes Christianity unique.

It's different from any other world religion. Christianity is what we'd call, "the only falsifiable religion", because it's based on the evidence of the resurrection. All you have to do is prove that Jesus didn't rise from the dead, and you disprove Christianity. Scripture even says it. First Corinthians 15:14 says this, "and if Christ has not been raised, then all of our preaching is useless and your faith is useless." If he didn't come out of that grave, then this is all a big joke.

Consider the resurrection. And there's fascinating study. There's actually more facts that I'm gonna show you. But the most basic facts are known as the six minimal facts surrounding the resurrection. And I wanna explain to you what you're about to experience.

The six minimal facts, for a fact to be on this list, the author, Gary Habermas, compared about 3,400 different sources. So you've got Christian sources, and you've got secular sources. Over 3000 sources, and for one of the facts to be on this list, they had to be on 90% of the sources, and most of them were on a hundred percent or very, very close to that number.

The six minimal facts around the resurrection.

- Number one, it is not disputed by hardly anybody alive today, that Jesus was a real person, and he died by a Roman crucifixion. You don't have to be a follower of Jesus to know he walked around, He taught, people followed Him, He hung on a Roman cross and He died. Witnesses, that's one of the minimal facts.

Number two, Jesus' followers experienced what they believed to be actual appearances of a resurrected Jesus. Whether you believe He rose again, there is enough evidence secular and otherwise, that the followers completely believe that He was dead and He wasn't dead anymore.

- Number three, because of those experiences, these followers were willing to die for their faith in Jesus' resurrection. We could stop there. Judas betrayed Jesus, there was 11 left, of those 11, John, they tried to kill when he wouldn't deny his faith, dipped him and boiling oil, and They couldn't kill him. And so they simply exiled into the Isle of Patmos. The other 10 remaining disciples would not deny their faith that Jesus had risen from the dead, and all the other ones were tortured and killed for their faith because they believe they saw the resurrected Christ.

- Number four, the Christian Church started right after Jesus was killed, right where Jesus was killed, in the city of Jerusalem. And here we are 2000 years later, and the church of Jesus Christ has spread around the world and continues to meet and continues to thrive.

- Number five, James, the biological brother of Jesus was not a Christian until after he believed he saw the resurrected Christ.

- And number six, Paul who wrote the majority of the New Testament, went from killing Christians to starting churches because he had an experience with who he believed was the risen Christ.

The Bible does not explain or detail every detail or scientific fact of the universe becuae it is not a science book. It has a much deeper purpose. But I beleve it is not at odds with science and I belive the more we discover in science (which is alwasy changing the Bibel is not) the more it proves the Bible.

Gravity

Job 26:7

He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.

“He suspends the earth over nothing”. Ironically many nations believed with great conviction the exact opposite. Nothing on this earth just floats. Everything, other than the clouds themselves, are situated on some surface. As a result, naturally, ancient peoples were confident that the earth had to be suspended on something.

Some believed the earth was sitting on the back of a turtle and that that turtle was standing on a serpent. Some believed a man was holding the earth, the great Atlas himself. Still others believed the world was flat, surrounded by a dome from which the stars were hanging on strings. These are three interpretations of many.

So, when did mankind finally understand about gravity and outer space? It began with the all too familiar story of Sir Isaac Newton and his fruit-filled revelation.

- Isaac Newton first published the Universal Law of Gravitation in 1687.

The book of Job in the Bible has been carbon-dated as the oldest book of the Bible: 3500 years old.

Water Cycle

Job 26:8

He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.

Job 36:27-28

He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind.

“Draws up drops of water” : evaporation

“Distill as rain to the streams” : precipitation

“Clouds pour down their moisture” : condensation

Well, from our perspective, no big deal right? Every fifth grader that paid even a little attention in class knows about the water cycle. However, though it’s common knowledge now, mankind didn’t come to understand about the water cycle until about 400 years ago, throughout the 1670s. And then only through extensive research and experimentation carried out by two French scientists, Pierre Perault and Edme Marriotte.

Think about it. Have you ever seen water rise from a lake to the sky? Would you look up at the sky, and interpret the clouds as gatherings of water having never been taught? It’s impossible to look at a cloud and intuitively know they’re made up of water or that rain specifically falls from clouds.

But, again, there it is in the Bible, written by a man with no profound scientific understanding.

Earth Core

Job 28: 5

The earth, from which food comes, is transformed below as by fire

Now, even if there is an argument about the visibility of the water cycle, how about the Earth’s core?

Job writes the the earth is transformed below by fire. This isn’t “it just came to me” writing.

Look at the creation, look at the divine design and look at the resurrection. And if you ask me, why do you believe Christianity is true?

And I would tell you from the bottom of my heart, it's not just because the Bible says so, and it's not just because of the scientific facts, I believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead, because He changed me.

Personal testimony - Mayim Bialik

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

The rest of the chapter in Hebrews talks about people of faith, but each of them experienced proof God through their faith.