Is my faith anti-science?

Christianity is committed to truth and is not afraid of what science may find. But many Christians are wary of science thinking that it is forever locked in battle with religious faith. Such people reduce faith to something that science cannot explain. They believe in a God who is confined to the gaps in our scientific knowledge. The mysterious, the supernatural, and the unexplained are attributed to God. But when scientific knowledge progresses and what could not be explained is now out in the open, the space of God shrinks. Such a God therefore becomes smaller and smaller as scientific discovery expands.

I was brought up with the thought that if I go too much into science, I may lose my faith. When it comes to matters of faith, I must not ask anything or have any doubt. I must simply believe like a child. To even think or rationalize seemed evil. I must not use my brain too much. I must give my heart fully to God and everything will be OK. Such infantile belief is still pervasive in our society. So, atheists often call Christianity as a thing for the simpleton and the feebleminded. And Christians think that they have to defend their faith against scientists and intellectuals in a hostile world.

But Christians who have such anti-science views are often people who know very little about the nature of science. They do not care to know the details. It is enough to believe that science says that God did not create the universe and we came from monkeys. They read the Bible the same way: say a prayer; open to a random page, put finger to a verse, and believe that God has given them that verse for the moment. Forget about the verses and chapters that precede or follow; forget whether it is a psalm, a parable, or history; forget the context in which it was written; and what the passage meant to whom it was originally written. The Bible to them is a collection of stand-alone verses of timeless truths. They think that what they believe is universally true for all Christians or others are not Christians at all.

At the other extreme are militant atheists who are at war with religious faith. They think that religious faith is superstitious and dangerous. Faith they say is blind to reason and evidence. Fanatics indoctrinated by religious beliefs kill other people in the name of religion. Through the use of Reason and scientific technology, they believe they can bring world peace. They think science is on their side and with its progress, religion will/need to lose relevance. But the shrill voice of those atheists doesn’t mean that most scientists think like they do. Those scientists who have anti-religious views attack religion not on the basis of their scientific knowledge but on their a priori belief that they bring to their scientific study. Science and atheism are not conjoined twins as they would believe. There is a substantial gap between the two and scientists like Richard Dawkins are said to connect the two not by evidence but by mere rhetoric. Majority of the scientists on the other hand think that the God question or religious faith cannot be settled in scientific ground. On the existence of God, a scientist remarked, ‘we neither affirm nor deny it. We simply can’t comment on it as scientists’. Those scientists who deny the existence of God or attack religious faith do so not on the basis of their study, but only when they jump (a faith exercise, if you like) to a totally different realm.

Many Christians have come to peace with science, I being one of them. As a Christian, I believe science is the study of the works of God. God is not threatened that through science man may someday sort him out and do away with him. Instead, it blesses the heart of God. ‘Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who take pleasure in them’ (Psalm 3:2). This verse is said to be inscribed at the entrance to the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge where pioneering breakthroughs in nuclear physics were made. Till 2011, 29 Cavendish researchers have won the Nobel Prize. Driven by the passion to study God’s Book of Nature, modern science grew out of the works of people from Judeo-Christian tradition rather than the traditions of the East (Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, etc). Like the scientist who commented that scientific study does not affirm or deny the existence of God, scientists are well aware of the strengths but also the limits of scientific study. Science is what science does. It has its premise and methods of study and its findings are what they are. But it does not give value judgments on things such as ‘this landscape is beautiful’, ‘I know I can trust you’, etc. To use an illustration of John Polkinghorne, science can explain the phenomena of water boiling in a kettle, but it cannot and does not try to explain the purpose why I’m boiling water in the kettle, which is to make tea because I love drinking tea. But because I cannot use science to explain why I’m boiling water or why I love tea, it doesn’t mean that what science explains about water boiling in a kettle (its temperature, amount of water, metal of kettle, etc) is wrong. Neither can I conclude from my scientific study that there is ‘nothing but’ water boiling in the kettle. That I love tea is also true and is not without evidence.

I believe that the Bible is the Word of God and whatever it asserts to be true is true. But Bible is not a science textbook. It has a very different purpose. If there are passages which are in harmony or contradictory with scientific facts, the purpose/intend of the Bible is still not to show scientific facts. Therefore it is important to know what the Bible is trying to say lest we draw inferences which the Bible doesn’t intend to say. It is important to know what type of writing it is. For example, when we read a satire, we don’t interpret it like a clinical research paper. The Bible has different types of writings. Also when we read any writing, it is important to know the context, the date, the people to whom it was written, their culture, what it meant to them, etc. These are not to divert the reader from the text, but to help the reader understand the text better. Application of such rigor especially to texts like the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 can perhaps throw light especially in regard to the notorious creation-evolution debate. Evolution is a prickly topic and before I get myself into trouble, let’s hear what the Evangelist Billy Graham has to say,

I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God.

Salvation of a person does not hang on the view of science vis-à-vis faith that one holds. It comes from believing in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. On the interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2, Saint Augustine has this advice:

In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received.  In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.

And Faith is not blind as some atheists think. The definition of Faith is summed up well in W. H. Griffith-Thomas’ words:

[Faith] affects the whole of man’s nature. It commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate evidence; it continues in the confidence of the heart or emotions based on conviction, and it is crowned in the consent of the will, by means of which the conviction and confidence are expressed in conduct.

Science is a gift of God and it is liberating to know that instead of conflict, science and faith can be complimentary. Especially for those who are in Biology, Astronomy, Geology, etc. they don’t need to live with the contradiction that their discipline is opposed to their religious faith. Rather, in pursuit of scientific knowledge, the fingerprints and the character of the Creator may perhaps be discerned, ultimately leading one to bow down in worship, ‘How great are your works, O Lord’.