Do you think there is a conflict between science and faith? I have heard it discussed as though the two fields were opposites, and we must choose one or the other. You can be a science-person or a faith-person, but you cannot be both. However, many of the greatest minds of science do NOT believe science and faith to be mutually exclusive. The two fields can co-exist.
Can you be a scientist and a Christian? Absolutely.
Albert Einstein said the two fields of study must work together: “Religion and science go together. Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind. They are interdependent and share a common goal—the search for truth … the soul given to each of us is moved by the same spirit that moves the universe.”
Speaking of the ‘spirit that moves the universe,’ Isaac Newton wrote that “gravity explains the movement of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion.”
For centuries men observed the seemingly unpredictable, random acts of nature and assumed there was a random, unpredictable god or gods causing the tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and more. Then Christian thinkers like Sir Francis Bacon became convinced God was not a god of chaos but of order. These brilliant minds began with the premise that because God is a god of order, his creation is probably governed by laws, and we should be able to discover and prove the existence of those laws through experimentation.
“God is not a god of chaos but of order,” 1 Corinthians 14:33.
There is not a conflict between science and faith. Yes, you can be a Christian and a scientist. My father was a physicist. He absolutely LOVED physics! But he loved Jesus too and read the Bible every day. The same is true of my brother who is a physician. If you believe true science and true faith to be in conflict, you may not have a deep enough understanding of either.
Science owes its creation to men of faith.
Are there tricky questions, areas where science and faith appear to conflict, such as evolution? Yes. Christians who work in science will have to wrestle with a few challenges. But there is not some fundamental division between faith and science. The two are not in conflict.
I recently saw a bulletin board in the science wing of a Christian school. In huge letters, the board highlighted “THE RESEARCH SCIENTIST PSALM” and in frames it displayed the words of Psalm 111.
“The works of the Lord are great, they are studied by those who delight in them” Psalm 111:2.
That is the essence of science: the study of the works of the Lord. What are the works of the Lord? His creation: nature, astronomy, geology, forestry, oceanography, biology, anatomy, zoology, physics.
To the Christian, I would say: NEVER BE AFRAID OF SCIENCE.
To the scientist: NEVER BE AFRAID OF FAITH.
As Einstein said, the two belong together.
Read Psalm 111.
ΑΩ
P.S. It is a mistake to believe that Einstein followed any organized religion. He was born Jewish, he once described himself as agnostic, and later wrote “I believe in Spinoza’s god,” an impersonal god who reveals himself through nature. He also wrote that he believed in a “lawgiver” who created the laws of nature. I quote Einstein not as an endorsement of the Christian faith, but as an endorsement of faith itself. This brilliant man of physics had the insight to recognize there is more to the universe than can be observed in nature.
Household Words: 