Jennifer Wiseman on “Science as an Instrument of Worship”
February 7, 2010
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"Science and the Sacred" is pleased to feature essays from various guest voices in the science-and-religion dialogue. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. For more on what BioLogos believes, click here.
Today's entry was written by
Kathryn Applegate.
Kathryn Applegate is Program Director at The BioLogos Foundation. She received her PhD in computational cell biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. At Scripps, she developed computer vision software tools for analyzing the cell's infrastructure, the cytoskeleton.
Beginning today and each Sunday hereafter, BioLogos will have a worship-oriented blog. Today's post summarizes a just-posted BioLogos paper by astronomer Dr. Jennifer Wiseman.
In most evangelical churches today, God receives regular praise for his work in Creation. We ascribe the grandeur of the night sky or the majesty of mountains to God’s handiwork, and rightly so. But how often are recent scientific discoveries used to stir us up to worship, and to what extent do they inform our theology and stewardship? In her recent white paper, “Science as an Instrument of Worship,” Jennifer Wiseman makes a powerful case that modern science can and should be a means to these valuable ends.
First, Wiseman points out that the Church has largely failed to stay informed and make use of modern scientific knowledge. She points to four impediments the Church faces in incorporating science into worship: ignorance, distraction, controversy, and uncertainty. The first, ignorance, is not specific to believers; scientific comprehension is not a high priority in American culture today, and this gets reflected in the kinds of things we do or don’t talk about in church. Distraction is also endemic in modern culture. Packed schedules, information overload, and an entertainment-driven society do not lend themselves to quiet contemplation and learning. Controversy over science, as readers of this blog well know, arises from the many opposing voices in the public square and from the pervasive belief that accepting science means compromising one’s belief in the Bible.
Wiseman doesn’t leave us with the problems, though: she commends four specific ways in which science can magnify our worship and equip the Church in practical ways. First, from a perspective of faith, studying the details and mechanisms of nature can reveal the character of God more clearly. We can see God’s faithfulness, for instance, in considering the regularity of natural processes and the fine tuning of our universe. Second, science informs how we can be better stewards of our world and one another. Not only does scientific comprehension shape the way we live, work, and serve, but it guides our decisions about how new technologies should be used. Third, understanding the natural world gives us a profoundly expanded view of Jesus Christ as Lord, when we consider that he is Lord of all space and time—over billions of galaxies and billions of years. He is quite a King indeed! Finally, science can instruct us about what it means to be human and how we are to relate to all other living things. Research has revealed many fascinating similarities between humans and other species, and rather than threatening our uniqueness or status before God, these discoveries tell us how much God loves and cares for everything he has made. That God has entrusted us to do the same should fill us with a deep and humble sense of responsibility.
It was thrilling to hear Wiseman present this white paper last November at the BioLogos Workshop in New York City. There was a palpable sense of worshipful wonder in the room as Wiseman described star formation, the unfathomable scope of the universe, and her own research in searching for planets like ours in other solar systems. I hope you too will be driven to worship and contemplation as you read this paper. For discussion, how can we combat the ignorance, distraction, controversy, and uncertainty that impede the Church from fully embracing science? What are some practical ways the Church can make use of science as an instrument of worship?
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February 10th 2010
beaglelady,
it seems you don’t want to address my questions, so there is no dialogue between us.
You idealize “plain evolutionary theory in normal usage,” but this simply doesn’t exist.
Which evolutionary theory? Whose evolutionary theory?
You pretend that Eldridge doesn’t criticize some evolutionary theories. Evolution is ONE, not many, right?
Sometimes when you say ‘evolution’ you just mean ‘natural history’. When Daniel called you out that ‘mechanisms’ of eVo are disputed, you dodged an answer.
A few weeks ago when I asked you to ‘limit evolution’ you expressed confusion that such a question could even rationally be asked. beaglelady, it can and should be asked.
Can *universal evolutionism* be ‘an instrument of worship’? Is it churchable? Personally, I don’t think so.
Reply to this commentFebruary 12th 2010
So now BioLogos is going to remove my comments? I did answer Daniel’s question. Read this thread and you’ll see, unless you’ve had that removed also. Your questions make no sense to me. Now I have a question for you:
Is it larger than a breadbox?
Reply to this commentFebruary 12th 2010
Instead of all this (lazy) general blather, if you guys want to argue about what is really bothering the evangelical opponents of evolutionary biological science, why not get down to something completely specific (and which I venture to guess that over 99% of tenured biology professors in research universities of North America and Europe would strongly agree with as being virtually certain):
There existed in the distant past an individual mammal
(1) whom no one would take to be even remotely human, and
(2) who is a direct ancestor of every human alive today.
To those with any serious doubt about this proposition, here is some recommended reading:
Seven million years: The story of human evolution—-Douglas Palmer (2005)
The Greatest Sow on Earth—-Richard Dawkins (2009)
Breaking the Spell—-Daniel C. Dennett (2006)
Read with an open mind, the latter should disabuse your correspondent
of his silly statement that “... not all fields are scientific. Religion is one of them.”
Peter
Reply to this commentFebruary 12th 2010
Oops! The Greatest Show, not Sow, but that makes a good joke.
Peter
Reply to this commentFebruary 13th 2010
Is it possible that C.P.Snow’s Rede lectures of 1959 and subsequent little book, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution is relevant to this discussion? Years ago, he argued in his lectures in the heart of academic England at Oxford University, that humanists knew almost nothing of the sciences, and scientists knew almost nothing of the humanities. The original edition of his book can be read online and downloaded at the following website.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/snow_1959.pdf
Is it possible that what we are wrestling with here is part of that larger problem?
Reply to this commentFebruary 14th 2010
Hi John,
That’s a good point imo. But I’m afraid this is not on most people’s radars today in ‘science and religion’ discourse.
Dr. K. Giberson is more in-tune with this than many others and it would be interesting for him to address this somewhere on the BioLogos site.
The Edge or ‘Third Culture’ movement is indeed part of the ‘culture war’ in America over the meanings of ‘science, philosophy and religion’. There, people are involving humanities and philosophy, in addition to the significantly more limited dichotomy of ‘science and religion.’
The point I made re: Wiseman being ‘safer’ because she is an astronomer speaks to what you say.
Imo, the topic BioLogos is raising *badly* needs humanitarian contributions, especially because it is dealing with ‘language,’ in the sense of “The Language of God.” Is there any more central text for BioLogos? How can people understand ‘language’ *without* the ‘science’ of ‘philology’ and also the love of wisdom, philosophy?
Reply to this comment