Transcript Science and Christianity: Friends or Foes?

Science and Christianity:
Friends or Foes?
by Ard Louis
Dept. of Chemistry
Cambridge University
www-louis.ch.cam.ac.uk/urbana/
What does the Bible say ?
“In the beginning, God created the
heavens and the earth”
Gen 1:1
 “For by him all things were created …
and in him all things hold together”
Col 1:16,17
 “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory
… sustaining all things by his powerful
word” Heb 1:3

God sustains the universe
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Psalm 104 (praising God’s creation)
– “ He makes springs pour water into
ravines; it flows between the mountains;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst’’ v10,11
– “Natural” processes are described both as
divine and non-divine actions
– 2 perspectives on the same natural world
Science studies the
”Customs of the Creator”

If God were to stop “sustaining all things” the
world would stop existing
– Donald MacKay, The Clockwork Image, IVP

“An act of God is so marvelous that only the
daily doing takes off the admiration”
– John Donne (Eighty Sermons, #22 published in 1640)

“Miracles” are not God “intervening in the
laws of nature”: they are God working in less
customary ways
Science/Religion and the
conflict metaphor?
“Science and religion cannot be
reconciled ... Religion has failed, and its
failures should be exposed. Science,
with its currently successful pursuit of
universal competence … should be
acknowledged the king”
--Prof Peter Atkins, Oxford U, in 1995
Science/Religion and the
conflict metaphor?
“I don’t know any historian of science, of any
religious persuasion or none, who would hold
to the theory that conflict is the name of the
game between science and religion, it simply
isn’t true.”
--Prof Colin Russell, Open University, UK
Science/Religion and the
conflict metaphor?

Pervasive myth (Emperor has no clothes)
 Scientists are about as religious as the
general population
 Galileo example far more complex
– Really about Aristotle/Greek cosmology
– “Galilieo Connection”, Prof Charles Hummel, IVP
(1986)
Christian origins of science

Science has deeply Christian roots.
– Uniformity
– Rationality
– Intelligibility
– See e.g. books by Stanley Jaki; R.
Hooykaas; e.g. China

Royal Society, the word’s first scientific
society. Founded in London July 15,
1662, many were Puritans
Founders of Royal Society
“This most beautiful
system of the sun,
planets and comets
could only proceed
from the counsel
and dominion of an
intelligent being.”
 Sir Isaac Newton

Founders of Royal Society


Wrote “The Wisdom of
God Manifested in
Works of Creation”,
governor of the
“Corporation for the
Spread of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ in New
England
Sir Robert Boyle(16271691)
Mechanism v.s. Meaning
Conflating mechanism and meaning is
origin of most conflict
 “Nothing Buttery”
 Scientism

– “The cosmos is all there is or ever was or
ever will be” Carl Sagan
 “The most important questions in life are not
susceptible to solution by the scientific
method” Prof. Bill Newsome, Stanford U.
God of the gaps

“When we come to the scientifically
unknown, our correct policy is not to
rejoice because we have found God; it
is to become better scientists”
Prof. Charles Coulson, Oxford U
Fine Tuning and the
Anthropic Principle
“The universe is the way it is, because
we are here” – Prof. Stephen Hawking,
Cambridge U
 If the [fine structure constant] were
changed by 1%, the sun would
immediately explode Prof. Max
Tegmark, U. Penn

We are made of Stardust
He
C via a resonance

Sir Fred Hoyle,
Cambridge U
“A common sense
interpretation of the
facts suggests that a
superintellect has
monkeyed with
physics .. and biology”
 His atheism was
“deeply shaken”

Fine Tuning and the
Anthropic Principle
Fine tuning is not a proof of God, but
seems more consistent with theism than
atheism
 Note the difference with “God of the
gaps”

Engaging with Science

Do your homework
 Focus on meaning, not mechanism;
Fine tuning, not God of the gaps
 Fight evolutionism: Who does speak for
science?
 Amongst Christians, some emotive issues
– But on details, we should be allowed to disagree

Current revolution in Biology will throw up
many questions which Christians are
uniquely qualified and called to evaluate
Engaging with Scientists
I.m.h.e. more open than arts/humanities
students
 Often looking for a higher cause to
which to dedicate their lives; idealists
 Receptive to truth
 Still rarely become Christians through
intellectual argument alone

Science as a calling ?

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Good Scientific praxis resonates well with
Christian principles
Called not driven; makes better scientists
in Christian community
Science and its derivatives will,through
globalisation, have an increasingly large
influence on thinking in the 2/3 world. Impact
on missions.
Christians are needed
Summary
Science and Christianity are not in
conflict
 Mechanism versus meaning
 But watch out for God of the Gaps
 Fine tuning is cool
 Do your homework
 Could you be called to Science?

Recommended Books, see also:
www-louis.ch.cam.ac.uk/urbana/

Science and Christianity: Conflict or
Coherence?, Henry F. Schaefer, III (Apollos,
2003)
 Quarks, Chaos and Christianity, John
Polkinghorne (Triangle, 1994)
 Science & Its Limits, Del Ratzsch (IVP 2000)
 Rebuilding the Matrix, Denis Alexander (Lion
2001)
Recommended Books, see also:
www-louis.ch.cam.ac.uk/urbana/
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,
Mark Noll (IVP, 1994)
 Battle for the Beginnings, Del Ratzsch
(IVP, 1996)
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