A Little Book for New Scientists

Why and How to Study Science

Josh A. Reeves, Steve Donaldson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780830893508
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion & Science

Many young Christians interested in the sciences have felt torn between two options: remaining faithful to Christ or studying science. Heated debates over the past century have created the impression that we have to choose between one or the other. The result has been a crisis of faith for many students. Josh Reeves and Steve Donaldson present a concise introduction to the study of science that explains why scientists in every age have found science congenial to their faith and how Christians in the sciences can bridge the gap between science and Christian belief and practice. If Christians are to have a beneficial dialogue with science, it will be guided by those who understand science from the inside. Consequently, this book provides both advice and encouragement for Christians entering or engaged in scientific careers because their presence in science is a vital component of the church's witness in the world.

PART ONE

WHY STUDY SCIENCE?

1

GOD AND THE BOOK OF NATURE

For the whole sensible world is like a kind of book written by the finger of God.

Hugh of St. Victor

WHY STUDY SCIENCE? One can answer this question from different angles. One can ask why you as an individual should study science. Doubtless, as a reader of this chapter you have answered that question for yourself. Perhaps the natural world has always fascinated you; maybe an influential parent or teacher inspired you; maybe you are just good at science and so you pursue it as a career to challenge yourself or support your family.

One can ask why we as a society should study science. The most obvious answer is that science has improved our lives. We live longer, healthier, more productive lives because of the technology that comes from scientific discovery. There are valid worries about science’s power to destroy human life or whether it can satisfy the human desire for happiness. But most people take an optimistic view that science has been a significantly positive development in human history.

Is it possible, however, to give Christian reasons for studying science? Are there particular reasons why Christians might be motivated to enter a scientific career? Spend time in Christian communities and you may hear worries about a scientific education. Perhaps a focus on scientific knowledge will distract you from spiritual matters, or scientific knowledge will puff up your pride, making it impossible to obtain wisdom. Or, more fundamentally, science will teach you beliefs that contradict what God teaches in Scripture. We address these worries in other places in this book, but this chapter focuses on the question, Are there positive Christian reasons for studying science?

We argue yes, and will explain why using the most common metaphor for thinking about theology and science in the history of Christianity: God has spoken in the books of nature and Scripture. For over 1500 years, Christians have used the metaphor of God’s two books to suggest the complementarity of natural and supernatural knowledge.1 The rest of this chapter will outline some theological lessons implicit in the metaphor.

GOD’S TWO BOOKS

The first implication of the two books metaphor is that some knowledge of God can be gleaned from nature. We might look at the night sky and be overwhelmed by the power and wisdom of God. We can grasp the intricacies of the cell and feel awed by the complexity of the biological machinery that sustains life. Or we might recognize the amount of time used to form creation and marvel at the patience and infinitude of God. Countless other examples could be given, ranging from intricacies of subatomic matter to the vastness of the universe. Christians affirm that the natural world is governed by the wisdom of God, and so science allows us to glimpse God’s wisdom more fully.

It is the divine page that you must listen to; it is the book of the universe that you must observe. The pages of Scripture can only be read by those who know how to read and write, while everyone, even the illiterate, can read the book of the universe.

Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 45

Spiritual knowledge that comes from reflecting on God’s creation led some early luminaries of the Scientific Revolution to argue that science is a spiritual activity. Robert Boyle, a leading figure of the Scientific Revolution and discoverer of Boyle’s law in chemistry, described scientists (who were then called natural philosophers) as “priests of nature” because they were uncovering God’s fingerprints in creation.2 He even argued that science should be seen as a form of worship, and thus an activity suitable for Sundays. Even if today we do not want to go as far as Boyle, we can acknowledge the special thrill for Christians in being able to unpack the structure of the natural world. Theological beliefs we bring to science help us to understand the significance of what is being discovered.

Another implication is that since God is the author of both books, we as readers should not expect to find discrepancies between them. If we find places where nature and Scripture disagree, then it is a mistake of the readers—we simply have not read one or both of the texts correctly. The great early-church theologian Augustine said that whenever we have a sure result of science that conflicts with the Bible, the interpreter must bring the two back into alignment.3 Thus learning about the natural world can help us interpret the Bible better. For example, until the invention of telescopes many Christians interpreted certain verses in Scripture to mean the earth was stationary. Psalm 96:10 states, “Say among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns.’ The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.” With the benefit of hindsight and scientific knowledge, Christians have no problem affirming that Christian Scripture does not teach the earth is stationary, though it may have been assumed by biblical writers. Science helped us to avoid an error in biblical interpretation.

If Christians do not recognize the value of science for interpreting the Bible, they might damage the credibility of Christianity by insisting that outdated science must be true in order to save traditional interpretations. Augustine also identified this error, writing:

Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances . . . and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture.4

Non-Christians have the God-given gifts of reason and experience, which can be used to understand the natural world. All truth is God’s truth, and so Christians should not fear what science discovers about creation.

We were made in the image of the Creator; we have the mind and reason to perfect our nature, and through them we have knowledge of God. And perceiving the beauties of nature carefully, we thereby recognize, as if through letters, God’s great providence and wisdom concerning all things.

St. Basil of Caesarea, Homily on Thanksgiving

Sometimes one hears the claim that true science should begin with Christian assumptions, thus creating a “Christian science” that differs from its secular counterpart. But Augustine argues that this strong skepticism of scientific inquiry could injure the faith: if Christians cannot be trusted on what can be empirically verified, then how can they be trusted on spiritual matters? Augustine himself left a rival religion for Christianity after he found its leader proffering bad science, saying, “It was providential that this man talked so much about scientific subjects, and got it wrong.”5 A better position is to affirm that secular scientists may not be wrong when they make empirical claims (i.e., inference drawn from reason and experience); they just fail to see the true spiritual significance of what they study. In other words, they do not comprehend the spiritual realities to which the physical realm bears witness, with the result that secular scientists are often wrong when they try to construct a worldview based on science.

The church is called in every age afresh to give a coherent account of its faith, to testify to that living truth with which it has been trusted, the gospel of Christ.

Trevor A. Hart, Faith Thinking

Though Scripture contains everything necessary for salvation, it is not an encyclopedia of all possible knowledge. Christians sometimes speak of Scripture as if it contained modern scientific theories or hidden knowledge of nature if interpreted correctly. Of course, it was possible for God, as Creator of the universe, to give us a Bible like this. But Christian theologians since almost the start of church history have recognized that God’s revelation has been accommodated to the understanding of the cultures in which it was written, which includes beliefs about the natural world. We will talk more about this principle in our chapter on biblical interpretation.

The difficulty, of course, is determining what theories in science have been empirically verified so that we may resist those who would use the authority of science to support anti-Christian conclusions. In such cases, Christians should not surrender basic beliefs in the name of “science.” Yet these worries should not undermine the basic principle: where science shows us an empirical fact that conflicts with a traditional interpretation of a biblical passage, we need to reexamine our interpretations.

LIMITS OF THE TWO BOOKS METAPHOR

Having stressed the value of the two books metaphor, we do not want to push it too far. To head off misunderstandings, we will discuss some conclusions that the metaphor cannot support.

First, some have concluded that the basic message of the two books is essentially the same, thus making one redundant. If this were the case, one could build a theology from nature alone, without need of biblical revelation. The problem with this view is that the natural world leaves out crucial theological details. There seems little way to deduce the main tenets of Christian theology—especially about God as revealed in Jesus Christ—from the study of natural objects. As Francis Bacon, the famous philosopher of the Scientific Revolution, put it almost five hundred years ago, the works of God “show the omnipotency and wisdom of the maker, but not his image.”6 Christianity is a historical faith, meaning its content depends crucially on events that happened in human history, particularly in the life of Jesus and his immediate followers. There are thus fundamental limits on what one can learn about God from the natural world. One cannot construct a theology based on nature alone; but for Christians, it is appropriate and beneficial to read both texts in coordination with each other. Followers of Christ in every age have constructed “theologies of nature,” which are attempts to articulate what we discover in the natural world in light of Christian belief.

A second caution: both books need to be interpreted in a manner appropriate to their content. One way to stress the differences between interpreting the natural world and interpreting Scripture is to say they were composed in different languages. As Galileo famously said, the universe “cannot be understood unless one first learns to understand the language and knows the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures; ...