Science and Faith – Enemies?

Scripture: Job 38:1-11

• John’s got nothing to do with this! I take the blame and the responsibility. Nixon took the
responsibility but not the blame.
• Do you believe the Earth revolves around the Sun? That would have gotten you arrested and
kicked out of the Church, maybe even executed, 400 years ago. It happened to Galileo! Some
people used to think the Earth was flat because they thought the Bible said so. Some people still
do, (thanks, YouTube!) and they come up with truly ludicrous workarounds to explain things
like communication satellites! (Imagine invisible towers thousands of miles high… with
airplanes crashing into them. Oh, the Humanity!) I’ve had some interesting online debates with
those people.

• I’ve also had some interesting online debates recently with virulent atheists. Only a few are
truly willing to have an honest conversation (Many atheists seem terribly angry for some
reason; I think they must be angry at the God they say they don’t believe in!). The best part of
having a debate is it sharpens our thinking and causes us to re-examine our reasons for
believing what we believe. That’s one of the reasons I felt compelled to write this sermon.
Atheists often invoke logic and reason to support their belief in no God. Well, there’s plenty of
logic and reason to go around. The problem with logic is it can only get you so far, especially if
you make the wrong assumptions to start with.
Here’s a good example of getting carried away by a chain of logic: (from a TV commercial)
When you stay on hold too long, you get angry. When you get angry, you play handball to
blow off steam. When you play handball, you get hit in the eye by the ball. When you get hit
in the eye by the ball, you get an eye-patch. When you get an eye-patch, people think you’re
tough. When people think you’re tough, they want to know how tough. When they want to
know how tough, you wake up in a roadside ditch.
In the book and movie Catch 22, (set in WWII) the protagonist tries to convince his commander
he is insane in order to avoid flying dangerous combat missions. However, he finds his claim
rejected on the grounds that by claiming he is insane it actually proves he must be sane – as
only a sane man would try to claim he was mad to avoid flying the dangerous missions!

• The other reason is a video series on levitt.tv called Evidence of God (tinyurl.com/godcreates)
that explains how modern scientific discoveries actually dovetail nicely with the Truth of the
Bible. I highly recommend it though it might make you feel like your head’s going to explode,
there’s so much to take in. The nuclear physicist (Gerald Schroeder) who explains all this must
be doing something right; he’s gotten hate mail from both scientists and creationists! As
Winston Churchill said, “Do you have enemies? Good! That means you stand for something!

• Can science and faith peacefully coexist? Sure, and they should! Blind Faith is not an option for
the Christian. The Bible encourages people to use their minds. In fact, the Bible says that God
created humans and endowed them with a mind so that they would use it. The Bible teaches a
rational faith, based upon knowledge and refined through testing.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 says, (KJV) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
It’s interesting that the science films from the 1950s that I saw in school growing up used this
verse. They also said, “The more you know about creation, the closer you get to the Creator.”
That sure wouldn’t fly in today’s schools!
God said in Hosea 4:6, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
 Matthew 22:37: Jesus said to him (speaking of which is the Greatest Commandment),
“‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all
your mind.’
As an amateur scientist myself, I believe in going where the evidence takes you. If that evidence
causes you to doubt your faith, it’s OK to bring your doubts to God. Ask Him to sort it out for
you.
Mark 9:24, 25: (when a child needed healing) 23: Jesus said to him (the father), “If you
can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
24: Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help
my unbelief!”
John 20:29: Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
This verse is not talking about blind faith; it’s talking about believing based on the available
evidence. We can’t see Jesus, but we can still see plenty of evidence that He is who He says He
is.
James 1:5: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and
without reproach, and it will be given to him.
Don’t live in a permanent state of doubt, though; that does not honor God. Work through it, with
the Lord’s help.

• Blaise Pascal was not only a great scientist in the 17th Century, he was a great Christian
philosopher. He made a wager that goes something like this:
Either God is, or He is not. Reason cannot decide between the two. You must bet one way or the
other. You can’t sit this one out.
If you bet on God, and win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing.
If, on the other hand, you bet against God, and win, you win nothing; if you lose, you lose
everything. Conclusion: God is the best bet.
Psalm 14:1: The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, They
have done abominable works, There is none who does good.
Studies have actually shown that as a rule, Christians are better citizens than atheists: They
volunteer more, give more, are more compassionate, and more law-abiding than atheists.
...But you don’t need to pretend you have all the answers; none of us do. If someone asks you,
“Oh, you’re a Christian? So, you think the Earth is only 6,000 years old?!” The best answer, the
only honest answer is, “I don’t know, and neither do you.”
I remember the first time I saw the Grand canyon. I was a Christian then, and my first thought
was, “God sure has plenty of time!” Well, of course He does; He created it!
Such questions are not important enough to split churches over. The age of the Earth is about as
important in the grand scheme of things (spiritually speaking) as Moses' sandal size. Only two
things from the creation account are really important:

Genesis 1:1: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.
Genesis 1:27: So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
All the rest is mere details.
 How Science can help faith
Science has helped bring some to faith by giving us Evidence that the world was Designed:
Fine-tuning of physical laws (to the tune of 1 part in 10100), DNA a blueprint for life, even the
apparent size of the sun and moon!
Psalm 19:1: The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His
handiwork.

I once speculated that maybe God created the universe using a tiny bit of His own Essence – the
equivalent of a fingernail clipping. When I ran this idea past Tony, he said, “no, not a fingernail
clipping; I think He used a piece of His heart!” Wow. Just speculation, but what a picture! God
is Love, and He created us out of love, so maybe there’s some truth there.

Science is slowly coming to the conclusion that what we call the material Universe is composed
of… Almost nothing! It’s 99.999% empty space! How can this be?
Colossians 1:17: He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. (NLT)
C.S. Lewis, in the book “The Great Divorce” imagined the eternal world as being much more
solid, more real than ordinary matter. I think he may have been way ahead of his time.

What Science can’t do

• 3 Things Science can’t explain (And probably never will):

1. Why is there something instead of nothing? Or, Why did the universe come into being?
Science has concluded it had a beginning, which has driven some atheists up the wall!
Many scriptures talk about God “Stretching out the Heavens,” which sounds exactly like an
astronomer’s description of the Creation:
Isaiah 42:5: Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people
on it, And spirit to those who walk on it:
Isaiah 44:24: Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, And He who formed you from the
womb: “I am the LORD, who makes all things, Who stretches out the heavens all alone,
Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;
Isaiah 45:12: I have made the earth, And created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out
the heavens, And all their host I have commanded.
Jeremiah 10:12 He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His
wisdom, And has stretched out the heavens at His discretion.
I find it interesting that an alternate translation, from the original Hebrew Bible, of Genesis 1:1
is, “With Wisdom, God created the Heavens and the Earth.”
2. Why is there life, and how did it come to be? Despite almost 100 years of trying, science
cannot make even a single-celled organism from scratch. A cell is a tiny microscopic factory,
performing hundreds of complex operations every second. Think about that. There are about 37
trillion cells in your body, each one performing all these complex functions – every second of
every day! How do they know what to do and when to do it?
Genesis 2:7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (KJV)
3. Where does the mind reside? The human brain has been completely mapped, and there is no
place where anyone can say, “There is where the mind resides.” God has a mind; He made Man
in His image – That’s why we have a mind. Our brain is just the interface between our mind and
the outside world.
 1 Corinthians 2:16: For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct
Him?” The verse goes on to say “But we have the mind of Christ,” speaking of Believers.
I love a quote from a book I read on the subject of Divine Design: “Science has painfully
clawed it’s way up the mountain of Truth, only to arrive, bloody and bruised, at the top and find
an air-conditioned bus-load of theologians who’ve been there for centuries, saying, ‘what took
you so long?’”

• A teacher is using the "scientific method" to educate indoctrinate the class...

TEACHER: Tommy do you see the tree outside?
TOMMY: Yes.
TEACHER: Tommy, do you see the grass outside?
TOMMY: Yes.
TEACHER: Go outside and look up and see if you can see the sky.
TOMMY: Okay. (He returned a few minutes later) Yes, I saw the sky.
TEACHER: Did you see God?
TOMMY: No.
TEACHER: That's my point. We can't see God because he isn't there. He doesn't exist.
A little girl spoke up and wanted to ask the boy some questions. The teacher agreed and the little girl questioned
the boy.
LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the tree outside?
TOMMY: Yes.
LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the grass outside?
TOMMY: Yessssss (getting tired of the questions this time).
LITTLE GIRL: Did you see the sky?
TOMMY: Yessssss.
LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the teacher?
TOMMY: Yes
LITTLE GIRL: Do you see the teacher's mind?
TOMMY: No.
LITTLE GIRL: Then according to what we were taught today in school, she must not have one!

• Science gives us facts. Scripture gives us Truth. There is a difference.

Science can only deal with that which is observable by our senses and measurable.
John 14:6: Jesus said to him, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me.”
Indiana Jones (in the Last Crusade) had it right: “This class (archaeology) deals with facts. If
you’re looking for truth, you’re in the wrong class; Philosophy is down the hall.”
Science changes; Truth does not. Getting dogmatic about a scientific theory is very dangerous.
Charles Darwin wrote his book “The Origin Of Species” when little was known about biology,
yet some people still cling to Darwin’s theory the way Conservatives cling to their guns and
Bibles!
Albert Einstein clung to the idea of an eternal, static universe for far too long, going so far as to
introduce a “fudge factor” into his own equations, because otherwise the math would lead
inexorably to the conclusion there was a beginning to everything. That, in turn, would have led
to the conclusion that the universe was created by God, an idea he wasn’t willing to accept. He
later said that that fudge factor was the biggest mistake of his life.

• Getting hung up on a particular interpretation of the Bible can be just as dangerous. Recall what
I said about Galileo and the flat Earth. The Church of our time should not make similar
mistakes.
• No matter how much scientific evidence there is, science can never prove God exists. To do so
would eliminate faith and free will from the equation. It’s just that there is so much evidence of
the complexity and order in the universe and in life, that God is actually the simplest, most
logical, explanation.
Hebrews 11:6: But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God
must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
This even works both ways; Some have diligently sought to disprove God, and found Him (or,
been found by Him) anyway!

• Bottom line: While some people have abandoned their faith because they’ve been convinced it’s
not valid in the face of science, many more have actually been dragged into God’s kingdom
kicking and screaming, because they followed where the discoveries led, saw the incredible
complexity and order of nature, and were forced to admit at least a possibility of a Chief
Designer, Prime Mover, or Supreme Being – God by any other name.
Romans 1:20: For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have
been made. So they are without excuse.
Most of the perceived conflict between science and faith would be resolved if both sides would
just be honest enough to admit they don’t know all the answers. It’s just that we, as Christians,
know the most important answers, and we should be sharing them with the world.

• Don’t worry about next week’s, or next year’s, new discovery. If we ever find alien life, which
some have said would destroy religion, no it won’t! That’ll just be a new mission field!
Mark 16:15:(HCSB) Then He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel
to the whole creation.”