"Hasn't Science Disproved Christianity?"

Once upon a time in a college science class.

I remember as an 19 -year old college student in 1989, attending a Zoology class at Missouri Southern University, where on the first day of class, the Professor made the announcement: “I know that some of you believe in creation. I will state upfront that I will not be teaching that. It has no place in this classroom.” That was my first experience with a clash of thought between science and faith.

Such feelings as the professor expressed presuppose that science and the Christian faith cannot coexist. Cambridge professor of experimental physics Russell Cowburn states:

“Understanding more of science doesn’t make God smaller. It allows us to see His creative activity in more detail.” (McGlaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 110).

Let us consider the many places in Scripture that science and observation of nature tip towards belief in the existence of God. And that science affirms the Christian faith in a Creator God, as stated in the first line of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” First of all...

Science testifies that we are small, yet privileged.

The study of science and nature reminds us just how small we are and yet also how blessed and wonderfully designed we are. And that Someone has engineered the universe and the world in which we live.

Take for instance Psalm 8:1-9 states:

Psalm 8:1–9 (ESV)

1 O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,

you have established strength...

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

As humans, we have the ability to observe the stars, as well as the birth of babies. In both, God has put forth His majesty and He invokes worship from us!

Rebecca McGlaughlin states that “...belief in a rational Creator God provides the first and best foundation for the scientific enterprise.” (McGlaughlin, 110).

Have there ever been Christian scientists? The answer is yes, just as you will find Christian engineers, Christian teachers and Christian accountants. In fact, McGlaughlin states that it was Christians who invented science out of their devotion to God and a desire to understand His creativity better.

Take for instance Robert Boyle who died in 1691. Boyle’s law (which has to do with a gas’ mass and volume) is named after him. He was

“...a devout Christian, heavily invested in evangelism and Bible translation. He considered becoming a minister but decided he could serve Jesus better as a scientist.” (McGlaughlin, 111).

Proverbs 6:6-8 states:

Proverbs 6:6–8 (ESV)

6 Go to the ant, O sluggard;

consider her ways, and be wise.

7 Without having any chief,

officer, or ruler,

8 she prepares her bread in summer

and gathers her food in harvest.

It is Biblical to draw lessons from nature and science, about God and our lives.

Finally, Lord Kelvin, who died in 1907, and whose name went on to designate a unit of temperature. He was one of the first to calculate the age of the earth in millions rather than thousands of years. In a speech to the Christian Evidence Society, he stated:

“I have long felt that there was a general impression in the non-scientific world, that the scientific world believes Science has discovered ways of explaining all the facts of Nature without adopting any definite belief in a Creator. I have never doubted that the impression was utterly groundless.” (McGlaughlin, 115).

Certainly there is more is there than meets the eye! Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.”

As followers of Jesus, we need not be suspicious of science or the study of nature, for many scientists are believers in Christ. Our own Dr. Drake Williams majored in Chemistry and History at the University of Delaware!

And so let us believe that we are small, yet privileged, and that the study of God’s creation leads to a deeper devotion to Him.

Again and again, the Bible directs us to see God as our Creator who is ever engaged in our world and ever engaged in your life.

So let us not separate Genesis 1 from the rest of the Bible. And do not be tempted to chuck Scripture aside because your idea of science does not have room for a Creator. Rather, more science speaks of a creator than you think!

For instance, Dr. A Cressy Morrison, past president of the New York Academy of Sciences stated:

“So many essential conditions are necessary for life to exist on our earth that it is mathematically impossible that all of them could exist in proper relationship by chance on any one earth at one time.”[1]

Isaiah 40:25–29 (ESV)

25 To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:

who created these?

He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name;

by the greatness of his might

and because he is strong in power,

not one is missing.

27 Why do you say, O Jacob,

and speak, O Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord,

and my right is disregarded by my God”?

28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

29 He gives power to the faint,

and to him who has no might he increases strength.

Lee Strobel, in his documentary, The Case for the Creator, reveals that there are many indicators that our universe has a design. Take for instance, Physics where the force of gravity is at such a setting that all things hold together. If it were moved even slightly, then all things would cease to exist.

Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

Or the cosmological constant, which states that the expansion speed of the universe is one part to 100 million, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion. If it were not so fined tuned, material objects could not form. It is so fine-tuned that it has been compared to if you were to travel hundreds of miles into space and throw a dart to the earth and it were to hit a bullseye the width of an atom.

Or the nuclear force that binds atoms together. If this were off just slightly, then Hydrogen would be the only element and life would cease to exist.

Or Richard Leakey, the World’s Foremost Paleoanthropologist, in a 1990 PBS documentary, stated:

“If pressed about man’s ancestry, I would have to unequivocally say that all we have is a huge question mark. To date, there has been nothing found to truthfully purport as a transitional specie to man… if further pressed, I would have to state that there is more evidence to suggest an abrupt arrival of man rather than a gradual process of evolving.”[2]

Where does the study of creation lead? To the knowledge of the majesty of God! Among scientists there is a spiritual predisposition in operation. Some believe in the existence of God; some do not. The problem is when some scientist feel that their field of study argues against the existence of God. That, in my opinion, uncovers more about that scientist’s lack of faith, rather than the proficiency of his studies.

I say this because Scripture testifies that there has always been those who do not believe in God and attempt to suppress the truth with their words and actions. Paul stated in Romans 1:18-20...

Romans 1:18–20 ESV

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Science and Christianity have a longer history of relationship than science and atheism. You can go back to Lord Kelvin, or Galileo, or Blaise Pascal, or others and see that there were those that loved science because they loved God.

Christianity Today stated: “Galileo Galilei, though famous for his scientific achievements in astronomy, mathematics, and physics, and infamous for his controversy with the church was, in fact, a devout Christian who saw not a divorce of religion and science but only a healthy marriage: "God is known by nature in his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word." (https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/scholarsandscientists/galileo-galilei.html)

The real question is what is the motivation of the heart? Does a given scientist hate God and therefore suppresses the truth? Or does he love God and sees science as a way of discovering deeper things about God’s creativity? Asa Gray was Charles Darwin‘s assistant. Gray was a devoted Christian and called Darwin to reconsider his findings in light of who God is.

There are many Christian scientists in the world today. It is not a given that a scientist is an agnostic or an atheist whatsoever. In fact, a recent study found that well over 1/3 of professors of science at many universities believed in God. That’s hardly a statistic to claim that it’s a given that all scientists are atheists or agnostics.

Who has the heart? Does the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that’s working in the sons of disobedience? Or does God have the heart? The Holy Spirit affecting the affections and the devotion and the love of the scientist?

Blaise Pascal lived in the 17th century and died at the young age of just 39, was one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator, was a devoted Christian. Pascal once said: “Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” And, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”

So your prayer should be: “God, give me a heart that loves you and loves the truth. Let me see your majesty in everything.”

CONCLUSION

There is a story about Napoleon, the French military genius, who was aboard a ship in the Mediterranean one clear, starry night. He was on deck and was walking past a small group of officers who were mocking the idea of a Supreme Being. “God of creation, what a joke!” He stopped, stared at them, and then was sweeping his hands across the stars of the sky and said: “Gentlemen, you must get rid of those first!”

Robert Jastrow, in his book God and the Astronomers, states:

“At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

[1] Answers to Evolution (Torrance, CA: Rose Publishing, 2004). [2]Ibid.