You Don't Have to Punt God for Science

One of the greatest challenges for the modern Christian is to reconcile the relationship between their faith and science. Certainly, this difficulty is not only felt by Christians, but any religion that has an authority that they view as superior to the natural order. Conflict arises when the data seems to be telling us one thing, while our religion tells us that another thing has occurred. In Christianity, this is most obvious in things like the resurrection of the dead, the age of the earth, and miraculous healings, and the fore-telling of the future.

Here is how the conflict generally begins. For example, let us take the idea of the age of the earth as our example. If we take Moses seriously in Genesis chapter one, then God created this universe in the span of six days. He wrote, "And God said, "Let there be light" and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were day one" (Gen. 1:3-5). He put in evening and morning, and he called it day one. Pretty hard not to follow Moses' thinking.

It is scientifically ridiculous to believe that this is possible. This act of creation cannot be duplicated, it cannot be verified as to how it happened, and everything in science indicates that the universe must be billions or trillions of years old, not mere thousands as the Genesis account seems to indicate. If the universe were only thousands of years old, we wouldn't be able to see the stars because the light wouldn't have even reached earth yet! So how is the Christian to reconcile these things.

One thing to do is to punt Genesis One as allegory or poetry. The problem is that everyone knows that this is cheating. Genesis one wasn't written as allegory and it doesn't conform to Hebrew poetry. Moses was writing simple prose, and he was quite serious. Punting is an option for a Christian, but it isn't a very brave or thoughtful one. Much of what the Christian faith teaches is just as scientifically absurd as creation ex nihilo, not least of all the idea that Jesus is fully God, fully man, and that he died, stayed dead for three days, and then resurrected himself. Oh yes, and Jesus did all of this 2,000 years ago in order to save people from the eternal consequences that adultery brings. So really, Christians shouldn't wuss out on Genesis One because they haven't thought through their authority structures with regard to truth, too much is at stake.

If a Christian does go ahead and own Genesis one, then the modern world will look at them incredulously. They seem to be denying the obvious: the universe is 'old', not new. This is, in the end, an appeal to authority, and science is a good authority. It is observable, and it is testable, and it works. It works almost every time.

We can use science to fight disease, determine age, and make a multitude of discoveries about the universe and everything in it. But something God does something unusual, like instantly eradicating cancer, raising someone from the dead, or create an entire universe out of nothing. This is where science will fail. It simply cannot be used to test the veracity of a miracle; it cannot prove a miracle has occurred.

Herein lies the dilemma of the scientist or naturalistic man. The religious man has to decide if he wants to punt on Genesis for the sake of science. The naturalist has to decide if he wants to punt miracles, and ultimately the existence of God, so that science can be his supreme authority.

I do not write about these things merely to convince the naturalist to believe the Bible. I write these things so that both Christians and scientists can understand what is at stake when they discuss these things. This is about miracles, God, and science. The Christian can live with all three. The naturalist cannot.

Science Cannot Be God for Us

My good buddy Alvin sent me an interesting link on Facebook the other day. You can check it out here. It's an interesting interview with Sam Harris, one of the "new atheists" as a promotion for his new book The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.

Let me give the positive spin first. I am glad that Sam Harris wants there to be absolute truth. I am glad that he thinks moral relativism is untenable for sanity. I agree to all of these things.

However, there are some things that I do not like very much at all. I find this quotation, from an interview on the John Stewart show I think, very amusing. He says:

We have a problem. The only people on the planet at this moment who think that there are truly right answers to moral questions are religious demagogues who think the universe is 6,000 years old. Everyone else seems to think that there’s something suspect about the concept of moral truth.

Yes indeed. We have a problem! Luddites, like myself of course, are the only people who think there are real answers to moral questions. I suppose the problem is that morality has been left to imbeciles and this needs correcting. There is a great post on Sam Harris over here at the First Things blog by Tom Gilson.

Insults aside, the real reason why I find this so frustrating is the seemingly obvious error being made by Harris. That is, you simply cannot construct morality from science. Science is about fact finding. You can determine, scientifically, that a child has life at conception. However, can you then use science to say whether or not the child has an equal right to life as an adult?

Gilson puts it like this, "There is, after all, a reason most people don’t think science can deliver us moral truth: it can’t. Not unless Harris has come up with something utterly earthshaking in the history of philosophical reflection." That's an amen comment for me. By that, I mean the problem is that we are scientifically smart these days, but we are philosohically dumb. I do not doubt that Harris is a stellar scientist, but he is certainly no philosopher. Think about this: why is it that science is mandated for primary and high schools and philosophy isn't? It used to be that philosophy was an essential component to an education. Isn't learning to use reason and logic as important as knowing the innards of an earthworm?

Science cannot answer everything. It can only give us facts, or at least, it can tell us how things look. But to reason from facts to morality is the job of philosophy, and dare I say it, theology.

Centaurs and Werewolves

I cannot even begin to think of the theological implications of this research. Is it only a matter of time?