INTRODUCTION
In the year 2009, many celebrated “Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and 150th anniversary of the publication of his Origin of Species.”[1] Especially, among the atheists, the celebration was huge as it was portrayed that religion is an enemy to science, also revived the ‘science vs religion’ debate.[2] “Is science and the Bible contradict one another? If so, should Christians believe the Bible and reject science?” In this essay, we will explore these questions with modern science’s relationship with Christian history and through the lens of morality, evolution theory and the Bible.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MODERN SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
After the Protestant Reformation, Francis Bacon (1561- 1626), potentially the originator of modern science used a metaphor “God’s two books” to seek “God’s mind through His word and His world.”[3] In his book Advancement of Learning, he expresses, “God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.” However, in the same century, the Catholic Church saw a conflict on Galileo’s claim “the sun, not the earth, was the centre of the universe.”[4] An article of faith the Catholic Church proclaims that “just as the earth is the centre of the universe so is the Church the centre of society”, nevertheless, Galileo responded the conflict “as science tells us how the heavens go, so the Bible teaches us how to go to Heaven.”[5]
When Darwin published his evolution theory, it was more sociological than theological. There was a famous debate in Oxford in 1860 called “Huxly vs Wilberforce”, however, many scientists found Darwin’s theories hard to accept and many Christians were happy with his theories in nineteenth century.[6] Even today there are many Bible believing Christians who are also professed to be world-renowned scientists and celebrate their ability such as John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke, Francis S. Collins and Denis Alexander.[7] Not only this, this tradition carried out from the “founding fathers of Physics Newton, Boyle, Faraday and Maxwell,” science and faith were seen as pals not rivals.[8]
EVOLUTION THEORY
Evolution “is a scientific theory and suggests that life developed slowly through the ages as a result of in-built processes and not through big, sudden, inexplicable steps.”[9] Many Christians cannot digest it and I can understand which is an unimaginable concept for them to accept that “God deals with His people in slow, gradual and developmental ways.” On the other hand, chapters from Genesis one and two tell us God created the heavens, earth and species, most importantly, why He created them especially humans. But never laid a path for explaining how it was all executed. Woolnough suggests that “God’s creative act was, and is, a continuous process rather than a series of dramatic interventional acts seems to accord with, rather than challenge, our knowledges of the way that God works.”[10]
In 1991, Ricard Dawkins’ lectures on evolution theory made a stir among the audience that he was saying “science leads to atheism.” He tried to convince the youth by indoctrinating the truth of evolution and later to media he expressed, “I can see that a few hours in the science lab is no match for a lifetime of religious indoctrination.” Likewise, I recognize many new-atheists put forward a debate Darwinism Vs Christianity, otherwise they are conveying to the world with a message ‘What is atheism?’ It is Darwinism. However, Michael Poole disagrees with atheists’ stand on depicting their view as a choice between belief in God and evolution.[11] He further introduces the fallacy of the excluded middle, when other choices are logically possible why present a choice between only two positions?[12] Even some ideological abuses of Darwinian evolution cannot hide from history. For instance, Richard Dawkins uses it as an argument for atheism, Herbert Spencer used it for ‘theory of everything’, Karl Marx used it in support of socialism, Rockefeller used it in support of capitalism, Scientists in the 1920’s/30’s used it to support eugenics (breeding humans for racial purity) and Hitler used it to justify the ‘final solution’ of exterminating Jews.[13] Poole debates, “it is coherent to believe both that adaptation occurs through evolution by natural selection and that this process is God’s creative work.”[14]
MORAL LAW
The late famous new-atheist Christopher Hitchens claims, “Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to be able, by its total command of a worldview, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard – or try to turn back – the measurable advances that we have made.”[15] But according to Peter Harrison, “The Bible was an influential and motivational factor in the rise of modern science in seventeenth-century Europe. Christians gave social and cultural support for science. Belief in an ordered Creation led to the necessary assumption of scientific Laws of Nature. Belief in the Fall of humanity led to new methods of scientific investigation (experiment and instruments).”[16]
Though science is not the enemy to Christians as atheists generally portray, science cannot explain the following questions, but the Bible can.[17] The questions and the Biblical answers are: “1. Why does science work? Because both humans and the natural world have the same Creator. 2. What is the purpose of humanity? To live in a covenantal relationship with our Creator and glorify Him.”[18]
GOD’S TWO BOOKS
First, Barbour brings the relationship between religion and science in four models for: 1. Conflict (Religion and science contradict one another, and the only one can be true. For example, Dawkins, some religious fundamentalists, and Scopes trial) 2. Independence (Religion and science are completely different topics, and both can be true) 3. Fusion (Religion and science are really about the same thing, so they are consistent. For instance, interpreting Genesis with geological epochs) 4. Complementarity and Dialogue (Religion and science are complementary to each other and they can learn from each other through dialogue).[19]
Second, ‘God’s Two Books’ is a perfect metaphor to elaborate the relationship between God’s word and nature, in other words, Christianity and science. “God’s two books are Book of Scripture and Book of Nature.”[20] Augustine calls them together the unity of truth as “God reveals himself in complementary ways,” both books cannot contradict each other as they have the same ultimate author.[21] Moreover, an early church father Tertullian (c.160 – c.230) conveys, “God is known through Nature, and then again, more particularly, by doctrine; by Nature in His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word.”[22] Moreover, Ross McKenzie expresses that “just because natural science can explain something without reference to God (e.g. the Big bang, evolution of life) does not mean that God is not involved in the process.”[23]
Third, though models and metaphors are generally helpful in both theological and scientific explanations, however, they can mislead.[24] For instance, Charles Coulson explains that unnecessarily anxious theologians once thought God was being pushed out by an increase in scientific knowledge.[25] So they placed God as a valid replacement for the missing scientific explanations known as God of the gaps.[26] It would lead atheists to think God was squeezed out of the gaps by science.[27] For example, Dawkins says, “Religion can provide only facile, unsatisfying answers. Science is constantly seeking real explanations, reveals the true majesty of our world in all its complexity.”[28]
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, though religion is mostly spread to the
today’s world as an opponent to science, in reality, in our case, Christianity
is science’s friend. More importantly, Protestant Reformation played a vital
role to modern science history. By viewing the Bible as God’s two books,
Christianity and science do not go against each other, moreover, they are
complementation to one another. Finally, it leads Christians to believe in both
the Bible and science. Yes, it is possible through the relationship of science
with Christian history and through the lens of origin of morality, theistic
evolution and God’s two books.
[1] “Happy 200th Birthday, Darwin!,” Travel, July 7, 2009, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/intelligent-travel/2009/07/07/happy_200th_birthday_darwin/.
[2] Brian E. Woolnough, “Science and Christianity: Friends or Foes?,” Transformation 27, no. 2 (2010): 83–94.
[3] Michael Poole, Exploring Science and Belief (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Pub, 2007), 9.
[4] Woolnough, “Science and Christianity,” 85.
[5] Woolnough, 85.
[6] John van Wyhe, “Darwin Online and the Evolution of the Darwin Industry,” History of Science 47, no. 4 (December 1, 2009): 459–73, https://doi.org/10.1177/007327530904700407.
[7] Woolnough, “Science and Christianity,” 85.
[8] Woolnough, 85.
[9] Woolnough, 86.
[10] Woolnough, 86.
[11] Michael Poole, The New Atheism: 10 Arguments That Don’t Hold Water, New edition edition (Oxford, England : Chicago, IL: Lion Books, 2009), 28.
[12] Poole, 29.
[13] Ross McKenzie, “Class Lectures” (SAIACS).
[14] Poole, The New Atheism, 29.
[15] Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York, NY: Twelve, 2009), 282.
[16] McKenzie, “Class Lectures.”
[17] McKenzie.
[18] McKenzie.
[19] McKenzie.
[20] McKenzie.
[21] McKenzie.
[22] Poole, Exploring Science and Belief, 18.
[23] McKenzie, “Class Lectures.”
[24] Poole, The New Atheism, 25.
[25] Poole, 54.
[26] Poole, 55.
[27] Poole, 55.
[28] Neil Riding, The Forbidden Instruction Book (Trafford, 2012), 26.