Personal or Impersonal God?

Genesis 2:7 NASB95

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

War between Science and Faith

Unfortunately, science and faith has been at war for few centuries now.

It started with Copernicus and Galileo. Geocentric vs Heliocentric

The Catholic Church believed that the earth was the center of the Solar System and the Sun revolved around the earth.

Copernicus theorized that the earth was not at the center, but rather, it was the earth that revolved around the Sun.

Galileo through his observations and calculations proved Copernican theory to be true and brought to the Church.

The Church forced Galileo to renounce his work and imprisoned in his home for the rest of his life.

There are passages such as Joshua 10:13

Joshua 10:13 NASB95

So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.

Where it states scientifically inaccurate statements.

Two million people made the exodus from Egypt with Moses.

We have a pretty good idea where the Red Sea is. With the distance between Egypt and the Red sea, if the Hebrews stood shoulder to shoulder in rows of four people, the front would have reached the Red Sea while the back wouldn’t even have left Egypt.

What are we to do with these kind of discrepancies?

Telos

Telos is the Greek word that philosophers use to discuss the topic of “end goal” or “purpose” of things, someone, and etc.

The first and foremost that the Bible communicates to us and looks to teach us is telos.

Why do we exist?

For what reason do we wake up every morning?

To what end?

Why does the universe exist?

For what reason does the universe exist?

See, the scripture isn’t concerned about how the universe came to be; whether it was by Big Bang or chance, or literal interpretation of Genesis 1. The scripture is only interested in showing us who God is, what He is like, and why we exist.

The Bible is a philosophical and theological document that discusses telos, and is utterly not interested in the science of how a flower blooms in the spring.

Then, is science useless?

Absolutely not.

I firmly believe that God gave us rational and logical minds.

He didn’t give us such an intelligence for nothing.

He wants us to show our intelligence to study His mighty wonders and be fascinated.

Scientists discovered that while the universe was coming to existence, mass five was absent.

Some Atheistic nuclear physicists look at that and claims that it’s a design flaw, thus no such thing as perfect creator.

However, the lack of unstable mass five was critical for the earth being habitable.

You see, hydrogen is converted to helium in very high temperature. Then the fusion of two or three or four helium nuclei results in atoms of mass eight or twelve or sixteen, completely skipping mass five, six, and seven. If the creation of atoms went up nuclear ladder in orderly fashion all the way up to iron, there would be no special abundance of carbon (mass twelve) and oxygen (mass sixteen), two essential building blocks of life. Meaning, skipping of mass five, six, and seven, making mass twelve and sixteen abundant, was in fact, an ingenious design by our creator.

How about the function of our body?

When we breathe in, oxygen is carried to the brain by the red blood cell. Oxygen is loosely bonded to the iron atoms in the middle of the heme complex in the blood’s hemoglobin. Oxygen is transferred into the blood through the foliate lung system and the solubility of oxygen in water and the diameter of the capillaries are fine-tuned for an efficient rate of transfer of oxygen. Not to mention, out of all metals, iron has just the right bonding strength to allow the capture and easy release of the oxygen once it reaches the brain.

Human genome

If we print out the human genome into a book, the book would be as tall as the Washington Monument. Mind you, the information in the book would be all the information found in a persons single DNA. A single DNA helix carries enough information for us to create a book that’s as tall as Washington Monument!

These kind of discoveries only makes me go, “Wow… oh my God, how wonderful are Your works..”

I absolutely believe God gave us the gift of science so we may discover his wondrous works.

So what about the discrepancies?

As I mentioned before, the Bible was never meant to be a science textbook.

Meaning, because I am not a biologist or astrophysicist, I may have conveyed few wrong scientific information today, but my the nuance of my message still stands.

So Joshua was wrong when he wrote that the Sun stood still, rather it was the earth stood still. Though science may be misinformed, the message still stands. That God is the God of the universe and cause the earth and the moon to stand still.

What if Darwin’s theory of evolution and the Big Bang turns out to be true? The message of bible still stands. That He created us for the telos of loving Him and being loved by Him. To enjoy Him enjoying us.