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“‘Yes, there is a war between science and religion,’” declares Jerry Coyne, professor emeritus of ecology and evolution, University of Chicago. The use of the war metaphor or conflict thesis to describe the relationship between religion (specifically Christianity) and science is entrenched in culture. The conflict, whether perceived or real, results in various types of barriers making the religious skeptical of going into STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) fields or causing scientists to be dismissive of religious knowledge and skeptical of participating in a church community.”
Those were the words of George R. Haraksin II and Krista Bontrager who wrote the introduction to a book titled “Revealing God in Science.”Given the view held by all three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity & Islam) that God is the Creator, it’s difficult to understand how true believers in those religions could perceive that truthful scientific findings are incompatible with the material world of Creator God. Since our secular educational institutions have increasingly taught that science disproves the existence of God, a growing number of people in the West, especially younger people under the age of 30 say they have no religious faith. And because of that we are seeing an increasingly chaotic world in which there are no rights or wrongs. I have no doubt that is the main reason the western world is on the verge of collapse.
As it turns out, the notion that science dispels the creation model of Jews and Christians is a relatively new belief. Driven by various incentives explained in the book, two 19th century intellectuals were responsible for manufacturing the so-called “war between science and religion.” They were John Williams Draper, a chemistry professor at the University of New York and Andrew Dickson White, a historian and founding president of Cornell University, an institution that set itself apart with its secular orientation.
Up until the time of Draper and White there was no significant ongoing belief that God and science were at odds. But according to historian Timothy Larson, “Draper and White were not simply describing an ongoing war between theology and science, but rather they were endeavoring to induce people into imagining that there was one.” One way of invoking this image of conflict in peoples minds was to concoct the story that the Catholic church opposed several new scientific breakthroughs and developments.
One such story was that the historic Christian church had maintained that the earth was flat. That was patently false. For millennia, people have known the earth was round. The Church fathers said the earth was round. Christians in the Middle Ages knew it was round. The renowned church doctors from St. Augustine to St. Thomas spoke of the earth’s sphericity.
“Revealing God in Science” has 13 chapters, each of which is written by a top STEMM professional. Here are the chapters in the book that summarize in the future as I have had time to read and digest them:
A Match Made in Heaven by Jeff Zweerink, astrophysicist.
Finding Answers in Christ by Balajied Nongrum, lead consultant of Research at Reasons to Believe Asia.
Testing Science, Faith, and Spiritual Experience by Francisco Delgado, M.D. infectious diseases.
An Obstetrician’s Reflections on Life and Suffering by Christina A. Cirucci, MD OB-GYN.
How Could a Jew Believe in Jesus? by David L. Block, astronomer.
Seeing the Designer in the Lab by Fazale “Fuz” Rana, biochemist.
A Vision for Archaeology and Faith by John A. Bloom, archaeologist.
Why Science Was Stifled in China by Cynthia Cheung, scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Reflections from a “Rocket Girl” by Leslie Wickman, scientist - NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope Project.
Is There Compatibility Between the Big Bang and the Bible? by Michael G. Strauss, physicist.
Mission Accomplished by David Rogstad, Cal-Tech physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena.
God’s ‘Two Books” Still Speak by Hugh Ross, Cal-Tech astrophysicist, founder of Reasons to Believe (RTB).
Conclusion: “An Invitation to the Journey” by Krista Bontrager and George R. Haraksin II, both RTB Scholars.
Chapter 10 is the chapter I’m looking most forward to reading. “Is there compatibility between the Big Bang and the Bible?” Having read many other books on this topic, I believe the Bible in its entirety, when read with understanding of its various literary characteristics is completely compatible with science. Moreover, the more scientific discoveries are made, the more confirmation those discoveries give to the Biblical creation model.
Astrophysicists can observe the age of this universe by observing the speed at which the heavenly bodies are moving apart from one another in a perfect order that guarantees this enormous system of unbelievable size all holds together.
To think the universe is not intelligently designed and therefore has no intelligent designer makes no sense. Take for example the human body. Medical Professor Richard Swenson, M.D. and author of a book titled “Hurtling Toward Oblivion” used to tell his medical students in orientation class at the University of Wisconsin the following: “There are 1027 atoms in the body, ninety percent of which turn over every year. In each human body, one trillion trillion atoms turnover and become new atoms every hour. We each have sixty thousand miles of blood vessels. We make ten million red blood cells every second. The number of non linear differential equations that the retina of the eye must solve in one-third of second would take a Cray supercomputer one hundred years to solve. The truth is, the human body is staggeringly incomprehensible.”
It has been some forty years since Dr. Swenson spoke those words to his students. Since then computers have become exponentially more powerful such that robots can do a few simple human tasks. Perhaps one day robots can be created with retinal like devices capable of solving non linear differential equations in one third of a second that enable those robots to a 100 MPH Major League curve ball thrown from another Major League robot. I have my doubts, but perhaps even if a robot could be designed to hit all manner of major league quality pitches, from where did the mathematics come from that enabled humans to design such robotic programs? Or to launch rockets to other planets? Or to build bridges and skyscrapers, etc.?
As recently noted by Catholic Bishop Robert Barron, Physicist Eugene Wigner, a younger contemporary of Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr asked exactly that same question when he wrote a paper titled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Physical Sciences.” He noted that you can’t do physics without mathematics and lots of it. Wigner noted that the deeper you go into physical reality the more complex the mathematics becomes. He wondered why should that be the case? Very often in the article he uses the words “miracle” or “miraculous” to describe the reliability of math connected to the physical order.
As Bishop Barron noted, “What you have to ask yourself is this: Why is there so much math in matter unless the inventor of matter is a mathematician? Is it just dumb chance that the physical world is marked by incredible mathematical complexity. Or, is a much more reasonable explanation that there is so much math in matter because the one who invented matter, the Creator of the World is a mathematician?
Christians believe the latter and point to biblical passages in like John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
And Psalm 19: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Over the past several generations, it has become increasingly unpopular to believe in a transcendent being that created the universe and all that is in. I personally believe it is more logical to believe in Creator God than not. But either way, whether a society believes or not, has much to do with whether its citizens live as free or enslaved people. As G.K. Chesterton pointed out generations ago “It is only by believing in God that we can ever criticize the Government. Once abolished…God, and the Government becomes the God. That fact is written all across human history….The truth is that Irreligion is the opium of the people. Wherever the people do not believe in something beyond the world, they will worship the world. But, above all, they will worship the strongest thing in the world.”
During the 20th century, dictators of both extreme left and extreme right murdered millions upon millions of people because those dictators essentially assigned deity to themselves and would not allow opinions to be voiced other then their own. And over the past eight years, that has been increasingly the case in the so called “free world.” Whether it was a communist like Stalin on the left or fascist like Hitler on the right, the one thing they had in common was that they did not permit freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
The bottom line is that Science can’t prove the existence of God. But it most certainly cannot disprove God’s existence either. A host of highly qualified scientists from various disciplines at Reasons to Believe as well as scientists from other organizations suggest that ongoing scientific discoveries point toward,not away from the God of the Bible.
Time permitting I hope to read through the various chapters contained in Revealing God in Science and report to you accordingly.
Best wishes,
Jay Taylor
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