Be a Better Christian... through Science!
go4tli
planted in its cheek.
Once again, the question's come up: Why do I think science should be
important for Christians? Here's an attempt to reduce it to bullet
points:
+ Scripture tells us that creation tells us things about God (Romans
1:20; Psalm 19:1-6). We claim to love God. Shouldn't we be
interested in learning everything we can about Him through any means
He chooses to reveal Himself through?
+ Humans are much better at generating ideas than at determining
which ideas are good ones. (In other words, people are easy to
fool.) Where applicable, we need a systematic way to keep the good
ideas and weed out the bad ones. Science forces us to be responsible
to the empirical data at our disposal whenever possible so that some
errors can be efficiently eliminated, and in a repeatable way at that.
+ Science forces us to remain honest. We claim to worship the God of
the Universe, and it speaks badly to our message when we show
ourselves ignorant or deluded about that creation. (Think of someone
who claimed to know Monet really well and who invited you to come on a
fascinating journey of discovery about the man, but who couldn't name
a single art work he had produced, and couldn't really say with
confidence whether he was a painter or a composer -- but the one thing
he *did* know was that Monet was the greatest artist Japan had ever
produced. This is *precisely* the sort of difficulty those who have
bothered to learn something about nature have in conversing with many
Christians who claim to love the Creator God.)
+ Science causes us to glorify God in a way that few other
disciplines can. I don't have to go to the Grand Canyon to be struck
by the power, intricacy, passion, drama, and depth of our Creator; I
can see that in the way light reflects off various surfaces in my
bathroom. I think it honors God when we do what we can to adopt a
spirit of perpetual thankfulness and praise, and I think Scripture
agrees (Romans 1:21; Philippians 4:6; Colossians 3:17; 1 Thessalonians
5:18; Luke 17:11-19; James 1:16-17; Ephesians 5:20). I'd really like
to go off on this, because I *really* think ingratitude is a big
problem American Christians have, and studying scientific thought in
depth *really does* change the way you look at *everything*, but I'm
trying to stick with bullet points.
+ Paul urges Christians to follow the spirit of science in 1
Thessalonians 5:21-22 ("But examine everything carefully; hold fast to
that which is good; abstain from every form of evil"); in fact, if one
applies this verse to the sphere of our understanding, that's about as
compact a definition of science as one could ask for.
+ Scripture calls those who pursue the truth critically and carefully
"noble" (Acts 17:10-12).
+ Our dismissal of the legitimacy of science as a way to generate and
test knowledge is alienating to people who attempt to be careful about
the ideas they accept. (I speak from firsthand experience here. It
also saddens me that the people most likely to be exhilarated by the
surprising truths revealed in a systematic approach to understanding
are not frequently Christians. I can more frequently discuss
scientific subjects openly with my neo-pagan, atheist, or agnostic
friends than I can with my Christian friends. Which, given our
professed relationship to God Himself, is a travesty.)
+ Attempting to understand God's creation is a way to worship God.
Those who seek to be loved also, in some measure, seek to be
understood; and trying to understand something that exists *outside
the human ability to interpret it* allows us to exercise our humility
before the Creator.
+ God Himself praises His own creation -- calling it "good" in
Genesis(1), and going on for an awful long stretch at the end of Job.
I think He put this in Scripture in part to encourage us to join in
with Him. Science gives us the means to know what isn't true about
that creation; it seems that it would be better to praise God for His
creation out of understanding than out of error.
+ Science gives us unparalleled efficacy in helping people. A
*single* chemical procedure -- the Haber Process -- makes it possible
to generate the fertilizer we need to grow the food that currently
feeds *two and a half billion people on the planet*. This does not
include people helped by other disciplines, e.g., the creation of
better medicines or more effective production techniques. Scripture
makes it clear that helping people is one of the things most dear to
God's heart. He has given us a tool allowing us to decisively act on
something He deems important; I believe that we disparage it or ignore
its findings at our peril.
+ The Barna Research Group (an Evangelical Christian polling
organization) attempted to find out why people are currently leaving
Evangelical Christian churches in droves. They found that one in
four(!) people feel that Christianity is "anti-science"(2). We have
puffed up our own claims of knowledge to the point of irrelevance to
honest thinkers, especially since we're surrounded in our
technological society by evidence of the capability of science.
http://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/528-six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church
Science isn't perfect. I know that. But neither has any other means
of getting to know God been. (Hence the need for periodic
reformations.) If one is patient, science is effective at eliminating
error with confidence in a way that no other discipline offers.
Science doesn't address every area of knowledge. I know that. But
there are many things it *does* address, and we Christians have a long
and shameful history of ignoring some of them whenever it suits us or
threatens our preferred theological preconceptions.
People don't take the time to appreciate how science comes to the
conclusions it does and don't bother to analyze their assumptions
about it. I know that. But history shows us countless examples of
people treating their ideas about Christ and God the same way. This
is not an indictment of following Christ or of urging others to do the
same.
The fact is that science can inform our theological thinking and vice
versa. If we ignore God's revelation, in Scripture or in the natural
world, because we find it uncomfortable or unpleasant or difficult, we
run the risk of worshipping the God we prefer rather than the God Who
has revealed Himself. That's practically the definition of idolatry.
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(1) This alone represents a remarkable difference between Genesis and
other ancient creation accounts -- whereas other ancient faiths had
the creation praising the creator god(s) as they were made, the
Genesis account shows God praising *His creation* as it is made. Any
act of creation is ultimately an act of love, and I believe God
*genuinely loves* what He has made.
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(2) To that end: people also ask that if getting people to recognize
the glory of God, or helping people stay in church, or whatever other
goal is so important, why don't I direct my efforts elsewhere?
Well, honestly, I have yet to see *any* cause so powerfully important
that no one, anywhere, can come up with a single suggestion for a
different battle to fight with the justification that theirs is "more
important" for some reason. But the whole idea is misguided from the
offset. You fight the fight near you, the fight you have resources to
fight, the fight that tugs at your heart and mind and soul. My
interests, inclination, and education simply make me more suited to
this than many other pursuits. For those who really understand the
depth of human suffering, and how few people are willing to try to do
anything *at all* about it, that ought to be enough.
And, incidentally, I'd be one of those one in four, if we define
"Christianity" as "Evangelical Christianity as it is taught by the
parachurch leaders we elect with our dollars, as well as many of the
laypeople", and "science" as "science". Sure, the powers that be give
a lot of lip service to how Christianity has nothing to fear from the
scientific quest, and how wonderful God's creation is, but when the
rubber meets the road, they have very little patience or tolerance for
it.