From Hubris to Humility: My Journey of Science and Faith

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? ~ Is 40:26

Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? ~ Deut 4:23

And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: “O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ~ Is 37:15-20

Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created ~ Ps 148:1-5

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ~ Acts 17:22-34

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. ~ Eph 2:10

Sorry looks like my 1st message didn’t come 1st….

It sounds as if you initially aggressively defended what you did not truly believe in (perhaps b/c this is what you were taught to do), or you arrogantly defended what you did believe; both of which are fundamentally wrong.

At any rate, I am curious as to when your views of creation changed from literal creationism to what sounds like a form of theistic evolution… What caused this transition? Was it defending something you realized you did not really believe in.

Just b/c you once arrogantly defended creationism and now you have found others who love Christ and believe in evolution does not make creation inherently wrong and evolution right. I think you need to examine & explain what scientific and biblical facts have come to light to change your perspective on this vital issue.

I agree that open communication and not harsh judgments or vindictive speech are not what is needed.

Much can be said on the scientific end but I will leave you with a few verses that I am sure you have considered.

(previous post)

and just a couple more… sorry the order of posts didn’t go as intended.

For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. ~ Col 1:16

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being. ~ Rev 4:11

I’m very impressed with this essay.  In my own life I’ve felt anger at others for not holding Christian beliefs I’ve held and also scorn for Christians who held onto beliefs which were more “backwards” than my own.  Approaching people with gentleness and love—I wished I had learned that at as early of an age as you have. 

Thanks!

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Mr. Rizley:
I believe the Scriptures of the OT and the NT are God’s message to us, that they are divinely inspired, and that they authoritative and true. I believe Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to the Father and only through Him do we receive salvation. Jesus Christ is fully God, fully man, yet without sin. He suffered the wrath of God upon the cross for the salvation of sinners. He conquered sin and death when He rose from the grave. I believe Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and that He is coming again in glory to judge the world in His Perfect Justice. I believe what the Bible says about creation: that God created the world; that through Christ all things were created, all things have their being, and through Him all things hold together.

Merv writes:
“Sometimes the best response to arrogant and aggressive sharing of opinions (however right or wrong they may be) is not to respond in kind but to let the promoters of those opinions plow ahead in their own manner. “

Not only is creationism incorrect, it is doing active damage to our world. 

1. It promotes contempt for science at a time when we face many complex difficulties, many of which require a mature, complex interaction with both data and conclusions.  A creationist approach to these debates short-circuits the discussion by assuming conspiracy, anti-religious bias and hidden agendas.

2. It promotes ignorance - the dogmatic fervor (as demonstrated by the opening post) not only promotes ignorance, but encourages people to prevent others from learning.

3. It radicalizes people along completely unhelpful lines, sapping the creativity and energy that could go into some positive direction and wasting countless hours of time.

Sitting back and waiting for them to realize their foolishness is not only an ineffective strategy (these are the voices of the exceptions here), but to allow active harm in the hopes that someday these folks will come to their senses is to agree to the damage they are doing.

Jonathan,    I am glad you affirm the thing you do in #20718.  I wish all the writers for the Biologos website would affirm those things, but unfortunately, I have read articles on this website that encourage people to view the Bible as less than FULLY inspired, trustworthy and true—articles which assert that the Bible teaches THEOLOGICAL error.  For example, I have read Biologos writers deny that God commanded the Israelites to wage war against Canaanite cities and put the inhabitants of those cities to death.  I have read one Biologos writer deny that Christ’s death was a penal substitutionary atonement—apparently, because he does not believe God’s wrath must be propitiated.  Other writers have denied the descent of the human race from Adam, and the fact of mankind’s historical fall into sin through Adam, which Paul clearly teaches in Romans 5.  Such writers have abandoned belief in the THEOLOGICAL inerrancy of Scripture; so I would ask you to consider, Jonathan, whether their uncritical acceptance of strict naturalism as the ruling principle in God’s world has weakened their faith in the teaching authority of God’s Word.

Mr. Rizley,
  As a scientist and as a believer, I accept the testimony about God that is embedded in His creation, as a way to help me understand the Scriptures. I do not believe this has weakened my faith in the authority of the Word. I must believe in faith that what the Scriptures say about themselves are true in order that I can believe that what they say about God and me and everything else is true. And this is what is written: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. (Mat. 24:35, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33). I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Mat. 5:18)

This life - this world - is passing. Christian scientists ought to allow this truth to serve as a lens through which they can know how to posture themselves towards the created order. I believe that I can trust the created order; but does it supersede God’s Law? No, it does not. God’s Law is not passing away, but this world is. Do I perfectly understand God’s Law? No. And that is the tension of this debate.

Jonathan,  It is true that we “do not perfectly understand God’s law.”  In fact, Peter says that “some things” in Scripture are hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16); but the very fact that only “some things” are hard to understand implies that the Scriptures are not, as a general rule, difficult and obscure in their meaning, a book that only scholars can understand.  The fact that Jesus often answered His adversaries by asking them “have you not read?” implies two things:  (1) first, that He regarded the Scriptures as generally clear in their meaning and not obscure; (2)  second, that He regarded Scriptural teaching as entirely true and therefore, final (in other words, inerrant).  If the Bible is inerrant, then that means that, not only should we allow knowledge of the natural world to illuminate our understanding of Scripture; but also, that we must allow the teaching of Scripture to serve as the “lens” through which we study the natural world.  Our faith must inform our science—not just the other way around.  (continued)

It appears to me, however, that strict Darwinism (belief in ‘molecule to man evolution’) does not allow for faith to inform science, however, since it rests on an assumption about the natural world—the assumption of strict naturalism—that can by no means be demonstrated empirically, but must be assumed to be true “by faith.”  Darwinism can be regarded as a “fact” only if one first assumes that the regularity we observe in nature is absolutely invariable and that there have been no ‘interruptions’ in the seamless flow of natural processes that we observe in nature from the first moment of time until the present.    My question would be, is that assumption a Christian assumption?  Is it an assumption that is informed by or harmonious with a distinctively Christian worldview?  I would say that it is not.  And if it is not, to buy into a scientific theory which rests entirely on that assumption is to refuse to let one’s faith inform and guide one’s science.

Martin, just how should “faith inform science?”  Should we stop at “God did it?”  Will faith lead us to try different approaches to problem solving or construct better tests?  Will God give us the answers to really hard questions, so we don’t have to do the sums or look in the microscope or review the lab results?  When faith informed science, dissection was illegal, since the body was a temple.  Life-saving interventions were suspect, since God numbered our days.  When faith informs science, it seems we only end up with arbitrary limitations, based on someone’s feeling of what God opposes or where we must not look.  Though faith may motivate a scientist, it is hard to see exactly how faith might inform science.

Evolution is a fact because there is overwhelming evidence that supports it, and no evidence that disproves it.  The notion that God has intervened in the past, in undetectable ways, can’t be ruled out entirely - but since everywhere we can see, we see natural processes, we have no reason to suspect that such a thing has happened, and no reason to assume that God would need to intervene in such specific and invisible ways.

Greg Myers,  I don’t think we should stop at “God did it,”  But the fact that “God said it”—that is, the fact that He has clearly affirmed in the Bible that something took place in the past—should proscribe the limits of what conclusions we are willing to accept as true when undertake scientific and/or historical investigation.  For example, a Christian student of history knows before he ever begins his graduate studies that there are certain conclusions about what took place in the past which are “off limits” because they would contradict what God has revealed to be true in Scripture.  For example, He knows by faith that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and walked out of the tomb on the third day because that is what the Bible clearly teaches.  So if in some archaeological dig he or another researcher ran uncovered a tomb labelled “Jesus of Nazareth” and found old bones inside it, he would know before any further investigation that these most definitely are not the bones of Jesus of Nazareth.  They could not be, because such a conclusion would contradict the principle of faith in what God has said in the Bible.  (continued)

Before ever examining these bones under a microscope, he would know that there is some explanation for them other than their being the actual bones of Jesus (perhaps they were planted as a hoax by some first century enemy of Christianity); the believing archaeologist would know with full assurance that these are the bones of some other man—not Jesus.  This certain knowledge, based on God’s own testimony in Scripture, would “inform” his research into the origin of these bones, by ELIMINATING one possible interpretation of the evidence.  That’s what I mean about a distinctively Christian approach to investigative research that allows faith to inform one’s thinking.  If we are believers, we know that certain things about past history are true on the basis of God’s “say so.”  One of those things is that Jesus rose from the dead.  Another, I would add, is the fact that all human beings alive today are descendants of Adam, the first man whom God created.  Any interpretation of the scientific data that would suggest otherwise only shows that we are misinterpreting the data, based on our limited knowledge of God’s ways and works.

Greg,
Kurt Wise has published a chapter in his book Faith, Form and Time explaining how, prior to the Enlightenment, the various disciplines were all intertwined, with theology regarded as the “Queen of the Sciences”—the one discipline that tied all the others together.  All disciplines were considered with reference to God.  That led to the concept of a place the “uni-versity” as a place where diverse fields of knowledge were all united or brought together as branches of one overarching field of study—God and His world.  The influence of the Enlightenment—and the denial of any inerrant standard of truth external to man’s own reason and logic— led to the break-up of this unity, bringing about the ‘divorce’ of the disciplines and the transformation of the uni-versity into a multi-versity, where disciplines are studied in isolation from each other.  Wise writes about the need in our day to “heal this breach” between the disciplines in his chapter entitled the “Great Synthesis.”  He explains in detail what I mean about faith informing science.

Martin, when you write “...the fact that He has clearly affirmed in the Bible that something took place in the past—should proscribe the limits of what conclusions we are willing to accept as true…” I find I can’t disagree strongly enough.  To put on the willful blinders of your understanding of theology (what God means, so what can and cannot be thought) is of course, the seed of many abuses of the church.  A better path is the humility to take truth wherever it leads, confidant that a creator of the universe would not be threatened by a microscope or computer. 

Even more, your religious text is just one among many, with no way of knowing which, if any, are right.  To have the priests leaning over the shoulders of the scientists, scrubbing their results to accord with doctrinal accuracy, is a horror I hope we’ve escaped.  Even if you propose only a more modest self-censorship - this is no way to honor truth or god.

Finally, given that the history of religion, and the foundational texts themselves contain error, a secular state, in which people are free to pursue truth, seems a much better way to go.

Greg,  You seem to be saying that we are on an endless search for truth without ever being able to arrive at truth in an absolute or final sense.  But that denial of our ability to know absolute truth rests on the ASSUMPTION rests that all knowledge is a construction of the finite human mind, and that we can never know reality ‘the way it is;’ we can only know reality “the way we are,” so our knowledge is always relative, subjective, and lacking in finality.  You are simply assuming that God (if He exists) would be incapable of giving us a well-grounded assurance of absolute truth—say, for example, the absolute truth that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and walked out of the tomb on Easter Sunday, and that He is the Son of God.  We cannot know that for sure, you say, because of the inherent limitations in our knowledge, arising from our finitude.  But on what basis can you make that assertion?  On what basis can you say, “I KNOW with certainty that we can know nothing with certainty?”  That is a self-contradictory position.  You are simply leaving God out of the picture— declaring that it is impossible for Him to give us an absolute knowledge of things (continued)

—then saying we cannot know God’s perspective on things, since He has not revealed His mind to us, and we couldn’t know it, even if He did.  In other words, you are simply assuming, without argument, that the old Kantian distinction between the “phenomenal” and “neumenal” realms is true, and that we can only ‘know‘ the former, not the ‘latter.’  But that is a self-contradictory position, for to define ABSOLUTELY the limits of human knowledge is to make a statement about ABSOLUTE truth, which at the same time, you are saying we cannot know.  That position defeats itself, so I do not even need to argue against it; to do so, would be folly.  The only rational foundation for making any statement about ABSOLUTE reality (including an absolute statement about the limitations of human knowledge) is to presuppose that we have access to an infinite reference point—that is, God’s own perspective on things.  That is the very claim the Bible makes when it says that God has revealed His mind to us through general and special revelation.  By faith in God’s own testimony, we can know the truth about things, because faith gives us access to God’s divine perspective on reality.  (continued)

“BY FAITH we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).  Moreover, we can know that the things revealed in Scripture are true though the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.  His “anointing” gives us the assurance that the words of men recorded in the Bible have God as their divine Author, and are therefore true in an ABSOLUTE sense.  Consider what John says about the Spirit’s anointing:  “You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you KNOW all things.  I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because YOU DO KNOW IT, and that no lie is of the truth. . . The anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you; but as the same anointing TEACHES you concerning all things, AND IS TRUE and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him” (1 John 1:20-21, 27).  Consider what he says about God giving us His own testimony in Scripture:  (continued)

“If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son.  He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself (that is., the Holy Spirit’s internal witness); he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because He has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.  And this is the testimony; that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.“  (1 John 5:9-11).  I refuse to call God a liar; that is why I accept His testimony in Scripture as true and believe that Chistian historians, scientists, archaeologists, etc., should receive that testimony “by faith” as the starting point (the presuppositional framework) for all of their investigations into God’s world and works.
The “Great Synthesis” destroyed by the Enlightenment needs to be restored!