Years ago a couple of confirmation students came to the church in the middle of the week to ask me questions about science and the Bible. These students were quite interested in science and recently began a course in biology. They told me how they did believe in God, and wanted to continue, but they were also finding the science in their biology classes to be very compelling. Somehow these high school students saw the God-science discussion as a dilemma (Did they get this from their parents, their teacher, a former pastor?). This is of course a false dilemma, yet some people get caught in it.
As the conversation developed I offered a pathway to integrate the knowledge of God with the knowledge of science. We talked of several integrative options they had, and they left the church saying they still loved God. Moreover, now their growing love for science could continue to grow together with their love for God. We should not think God OR science, but rather, God AND science.
In my own personal experience, there are plenty of Christians in the evangelical world that teach the either/or on this subject. Whole ministries and at least a few Christian Universities labor to force the dilemma on millions of people throughout the world. Moreover, I have found some atheist/agnostics also parroting this false dilemma.
The last group mentioned, sometimes use science as a guard against God. It is as if they think they can hide behind the wall of scientific enlightenment and leave that God stuff in the past. Sometimes when a person says, “I believe in science” it is meant to make a point that they are not given to religious belief.
Spending some time in a philosophy class will easily help put to death the idea that science offers an answer against God. How can a discipline that examines the physical world afford people an immunity from a non-physical God? How can a tool that constantly examines contingent reality determine necessary reality?
There is no contradiction between God and science. They can live together in holy matrimony.
Pastor Isaac
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