Christianity vs science?

Listening to the outspoken atheists of our days is not a pleasant experience. Of course, as a Christian myself, hearing their misrepresentations and belittling of God, whom I know and love, is never going to be a jolly occasion. But that's ok, I have to accept that as part of life. What I want to talk about in this post is, however, a trend I noticed in their arguments against religion. The atheists seem to be creating a false dichotomy between science and religion. They force people to choose between science and a belief in God. To narrow my argument (because there are in fact many religions, and I am not going to defend any religion other than Christianity), they force their hearers to choose between science and Christianity. I think this pitting of science and Christianity against each other is not a very recent innovation, but must have been going on for some time, because people seem to assume it. The recent atheists are using that false presumption as their advantage and enforcing it further.

I think it would be helpful to remember that, as Christians, we are not against science. Science, as a method of exploring and the accumulated-but-nevertheless-transient knowledge about the natural world is just what it is, science. A Christian can do science, a hindu can do science, a muslim can do science, just as an atheist can do science. They just have to do science when they do science. When someone comes along and says to you that you can't believe in God and be a scientist at the same time, don't believe him. He's either trying to trick you, or he hasn't thought it through well enough.

It's important to remember what the real two opponents are. It's atheism (not science) and Christianity. It's the belief or a wilful commitment to the idea that there is no God vs. believing God as revealed in Jesus and trusting Him as we live out our lives.

Atheists often protest: well, you can't prove God exists, so why should I believe in God? When there's no proof for existence of something, it's only rational not to believe that it exists.

Well, I can't prove God exists, at least the way atheists want me to. Nor should you try to prove God exists in the way atheists want you to, because that's always bound to fail. The problem is, most (if not all) atheists I've come across would accept only the scientific proof. They will not accept God that cannot be seen through the telescope or microscope. They will not accept God that cannot be predicted  in some kind of a mathematical paragraph and proven through observations. In other words, they are requiring a naturalistic proof for something supernatural. Of course, having committed to the rejection of the supernatural, they're trying to find a God who is natural, not supernatural, and so, ironically, they are right in affirming there is no God (who is natural).

Again, it's helpful to remember (and remind your atheist friends) that the two opposing sides are not science vs. Christianity, but atheism vs. Christianity. It's a naturalistic worldview vs. supernatural worldview. And, if you think about it, you can have a supernatural worldview and work on something that requires you to focus only on the naturalistic phenomenon and causes, namely, science. So you can be a Christian and be quite good at science. Yet, if you have a naturalistic worldview, you cannot (or would not) have a legitimate method of thinking about and explaining the supernatural because, well, you've excluded it yourself. So for example, an atheist cannot be a theologian. You can be a scientist, but you have removed from yourself a right to comment on anything supernatural. The atheists still do make supernatural claims though by saying that there is no God.

Now, I cannot scientifically prove God's existence, but that does not mean that there is no evidence. God has left His mark both in creation, in history, and in human nature, so there are plenty of evidence for Him. In Psalm 19:1 it says: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaim his handiwork." (also see Psalm 50:6 and Rom 1:20) There have been and still are powerful arguments for God's existence on the basis of what we see in the world (eg. the cosmological arguments and teleological arguments). And you also mustn't ignore Jesus who came into our world (John 1:14), yes, the natural world, and lived, died, resurrected, and ascended (Try John or Mark if you haven't read the gospels before). You can investigate into history to find strong evidence for Jesus and the credibility and reasonableness of Christian faith. There are other arguments for God's existence as well, such as the moral arguments, which basically says, since we all believe in the reality of an objective morality, God must exist. There are multitudes of evidence, or clues, if you like, and many powerful arguments for God's existence, especially if you are seeking evidence for God of Christianity. Only, make sure you are not wholly committed to naturalistic worldview but more open. Atheists like saying science is more open than religion because when new evidence comes in, they are happy to review their current theory and make adjustments. But they are only talking about naturalistic or scientific evidence, and rightly so, since they are talking about science. You and I must be more open than that, however, when investigating the claims of Christianity. More open than atheists by being open to the possibility of something supernatural when you look around you and ponder on the implications of all sorts of evidence and theories of the world. When you do that, with God's grace, you will see how reasonable Christianity really is.

Can science prove naturalism is true?

It is only more recently in history that this 'pragmatic naturalism' has expanded to become an (unjustified) absolute. For Christian reasons, science began by talking about natural causes only, for science was just that - a method for investigating natural causes. In recent years, however, this has been turned on its head so as to claim that science therefore proves that natural causes are the only causes. This is a rather bizarre twist of logic, and only a little examination will show it to be unreasonable. Whether or not naturalism is true, it cannot be proved true by the very activity that pragmatically chooses not to discuss the alternative. The scientific method (as practised by the scientific community) will never 'discover' supernatural causes, since it does not look for them and by definition cannot accept them. This may or may not be a useful way to investigate the universe, but on its current constitution that is how science investigates the universe. A theory that incorporates supernatural intervention is, on current widely-accepted understanding not a scientific theory.
 - p40, Unnatural Enemies by Kirsten Birkett (italics original)

That modern science came from Christians intending to discover the natural laws that God had woven into the world is indisputable. In order to discover the natural laws, they had to take on a pragmatic naturalism, that is, to leave out the discussion of all supernatural or spiritual explanations outside the labs in order to to focus on the natural causes, not implying that natural causes are the only causes in this universe.


Take heart scientists who are Christians, excel at what you do, for you are not and never will be discovering something that will explain away God's truth or His own existence. Only, remember to be steadfast and resist temptations to bend truths somehow to prove or support what you believe about God.

Gospel and the reference point

If wisdom, which is perfected in the gospel, is to have any impact in the world, it must be seen as the implication of that gospel. Far from removing the wisdom literature of the Old Testament from the concern of Christians, the gospel completes and interprets it. With the total perspective of Old and New Testaments we have the basis for understanding the fear of the Lord and how it brings us to a comprehensive view of reality. The nature of the unity of all things and the proper distinction between them are obscured once we have rejected the ultimate points of reference. The Christian mind begins with the being of God as Trinity. It is not just vaguely theistic in some unspecified way. To say, 'I believe in God' is not good enough unless it is the God of the Bible we are referring to. The secular mind has rejected this most significant reference point and has consequently cast a cloud of ignorance and folly over every area of its knowledge. Humanism defeats its own goal of the good of man. It cannot know what is the ultimate good of man since it has rejected the possibility of the God of the Bible existing. New gods have taken the place of the true God, and technology has been turned into a particularly tenacious twentieth-century idol. It is a very powerful god since it is the diversion of something that was at the centre of God's purposes for good.
-pp.547 Gospel and Wisdom (Goldsworthy Trilogy)

You can get your copy of Goldsworthy Trilogy from Koorong, Bookdepository, or Amazon.

Science and Christian faith

It was hard, but finished reading Gospel and Wisdom. I'll be posting a couple of quotes from the ending part of the book.

Because science and technology are expressions of the cultural mandate they must be affirmed and welcomed by Christians. Indeed, the Christian view of man and creation provides the scientist and technologist with a perspective of their pursuits which not only made them possible, but which should have prevented them from creating the monster. When the cultural mandate is accepted on the basis of revelation, the proper distinctions between God, man (scientists) and the world can be maintained. But when it ceases to be seen as mandate, that is, as task authorized by a superior it comes to be regarded as the natural extension of the autonomous man. Removed from its benign relationship to the order of the universe, it is adopted as the power base for all kinds of domination. The domination of man was intended to reflect the gracious shepherd rule of God, but it became corrupted into self-seeking power play. Wisdom urges us to go on struggling to translate the fear of the Lord as the beginning of the knowledge into the means of living by faith in the world. Its base in the doctrine of creation, and its emphasis on the practicalities of life here and now, provide a check against the wrongful use of an orientation towards the future life to our responsibilities in the present. Wisdom reminds us that the resurrection life will be reached by means of our pilgrimage through this life in this world.

- pp546-547 Gospel and Wisdom (Goldsworthy Trilogy)

Book Review: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

I think one could brush this book off as a mere collection of weird stories.
The fact that they are grounded in real clinical cases may cause some others to ponder on the stories a little bit longer.
For others, these real life cases and the deeply thoughtful and sometimes even hopeful analysis of them would provide a rich source of extraordinary human lives, from which humanists may glean much that supports their ideals.

As a Christian, I saw much brokenness in all of the cases, even though some may protest against such labelling. I hope they don't misunderstand me. I think Dr. Sacks himself would understand me saying that all people in the book, Dr. Sacks included, are one way or another "broken" beings. When one acknowledges his brokenness, a Christian redemption can be explained in a way that is especially charged with hope. In this view, I think I can recommend this book to all.

You can buy this book from Borders or Amazon.

On Richard Dawkins

If you have some friends who are "new atheists" or being influenced by them, this may be helpful. All the same though, if you are a militant or dare I say, ignorant(?!) type of creationist (not all creationists are like that), you may need to be careful here too, and hear what Ruse says about Dawkins and learn to have "intellectual integrity." In other words, be a humble truth seeker.

The trouble with Richard Dawkins from CPX on Vimeo.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Double Slit Experiment

Very interesting (to the nerd inside me anyways...)

Galileo Galilei myth: the untold story

An excellent article about Galileo and some lessons from it at the evangelical outpost.

For scientists it shows that if you are in agreement with most of your colleagues, you will most likely be forgotten while history remembers some crank. For advocates of Intelligent Design theory it teaches that claiming your theory is correct is no substitute for backing it up with experiments and data (even if you are right). For aggressively self-confident people the lesson is that sometimes being persistent and believing in yourself will just get you into trouble. For Catholics it provides an example of why you shouldn't insult the Pope.

(HT: Justin Taylor)