Science and Faith

For a lot of people, their doubts about the existence of God (or their sureness there is no such thing) have to do with science. By contrast, a lot of people believe science is flawed, because it contradicts what they think they know about God.

I've thought about this a lot, but over time I came to believe that believing in science and reason does not at all impact my ability to have faith, including Christian faith. I don't feel they necessarily are in opposition at all.

"But wait!" you might say. "What about evolution?"

Well, yeah, there's always that question. But even that doesn't seem insurmountable to me.

Let's start with the simple one, which is the concept in general. The idea that species do change and adapt over time, leading to speciation, is not at all incompatible with the idea that there was a guiding intelligence that kicked the process off by creating the original creatures.

But what about the theory that all life started as single-celled organisms?

Well, until and unless someone manages to replicate that, starting with a few chemicals and moving on to walking, talking people, I feel reasonably assured that it's possible scientists could be mistaken. It's not like that's never happened before. And a good scientist, at least in my books, is always open to the possibility that new facts will turn out to make it necessary to discard or revise a theory, after all. Even though that's the commonly accepted theory, it may be that someday we learn differently, or find it's not entirely possible and need to account for why. And maybe 'why' could include God, after all, however unlikely some people might find that now.

Okay, what about the theory that man evolved directly from apes?

The simple answer, of course, is that like the above theory, this one could be wrong. But most people of a scientific bent aren't going to be satisfied with that. The bulk of evidence, they will say, is there.

And maybe that's true. But I still can think of one way that accounts both for ape-to-man evolution and the story of Adam and Eve, and that's this:

Adam and Eve were, not to put too fine a point on it, apes, and the story of the Tree is allegorical for the evolution to the point of distinction between 'ape' and 'man'.

Some people, on both sides of the issue, will find this unsatisfying or a cop-out. I, on the other hand, think it's reasonable, albeit not necessarily the explanation. You, of course, may disagree. I'm not expecting anyone else to use my reasoning here, but it works for me.

See, the thing is, if one believes in a creating force, called God by most, having created every aspect of the universe, that would include the laws of science. It naturally follows from that that science and religion cannot be in opposition, but rather, are by definition in harmony. In cases where they seem to contradict themselves, it merely reflects our imperfect understanding of the world—the same world that even a scientist who is a staunch atheist would presumably be willing to concede we don't fully understand.

I always say that I think language is one of the reasons to believe in God, for instance. I realize there's a great deal of theory regarding the development of language, much of which is devoted to explaining why humans have a complex language but even our nearest relatives do not. But I don't think anyone has yet come up with a theory that has solid evidence behind it, however compelling their ideas may be; the theories I'm aware of always seem to boil down to "Since we have these different characteristics, it must be that language arises from these characteristics", which always struck me as rather circular.

I'm comfortable with believing in both science and religion. I just wish that were true for more people.