Healthy plants have deep roots and strong pillars have solid foundations. If we are to be Christians who are deeply rooted in Christ and built on the solid Rock, then we need more than mere sound bites. One means that the Lord has used throughout church history to strengthen His people’s faith and witness is reading good books. This book review series is identifying books that can serve as shovels that help you dig deeper in your Christian life.
Book: Surviving Religion 101 – Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College - Michael J. Kruger
“There is no heaven or afterlife…; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” So wrote the late, leading scientist Stephen Hawking, capturing the sentiments of many in the West. To such, Christianity is viewed as an emotional blanket to help soothe those who are too weak to face the facts that science has taught us about life and the universe. The pervasive assumption is science and Christianity are mutually exclusive – that the more people embrace science, the less they will embrace God. Is this true? Is Christianity anti-science? In Chapter 8 of Surviving Religion 101, Michael Kruger shows that science does not present a reason to reject Christianity but actually supplies many reasons to accept it.
1) Christianity’s (Surprisingly) Scientific Heritage
Based on the popular narratives that bombard us it is easy to get the impression that no respectable scientists would be Christian. However, what’s often forgotten is the great history of scientists who were Christians (or committed theists) and saw no conflict between their vocation and their faith. In fact, the scientific method itself was the result of the work of committed Christians, such as Roger Bacon and William of Ockham. This legacy has continued into recent history, so that between 1900 and 2000 over 60 percent of the Nobel Prize winners identified themselves as Christians.
This positive connection between Christianity and science should not be surprising since Christianity provides a great motivation to do science. The famous Christian scientist, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) wrote, “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order which has been imposed on it by God.” Christians ought to enthusiastically engage in science in order to discover and study the works of the Lord (Ps. 111:2).
2) Science Needs Christianity
It sounds like a staggering claim, but science actually needs Christianity in order to work. The entire scientific enterprise is built on the philosophical principle of uniformity of nature. Science needs a worldview in which the universe operates in an orderly, predictable, uniform fashion where water boils at the same temperature and gravity remains predictable. Without this, scientific experiments have no validity and no conclusions could ever be reached.
Here’s the key question: Which worldview provides a basis for affirming the uniformity of nature? Certainly not the atheistic-evolutionary worldview! If all the universe is random and unpredictable – beholden only to chance – then we have no reason to affirm the uniformity of nature and no reason to think that science would work at all. The atheist is free to assume it, but he does so without any basis. It is effectively a blind leap of faith.
The atheist will likely respond by saying they believe the future will be like the past because every other time they have run the experiment, it has worked. But this misses the point. The fundamental question is why past experience are a reliable guide for the future. Pointing to the past simply begs the question. Instead, we point to God the Creator, Sustainer, and Upholder of the universe as the reason why there is order and uniformity in the universe. Thus, the irony is that belief in God is not a hindrance to science; it is what explains the possibility of science!
3) Separating Fact from Theory
It’s typical for people to conflate opposition to a particular scientific theory with the opposition of science itself. Christians have no issue with the scientific method – observing the natural world, developing hypotheses, and testing them through experimentation. This needs to be distinguished from what Christians think about particular theories that are prominent in the modern day, such as continental drift, geological uniformitarianism, or biological evolution. One can disagree with a particular theory without being anti-science.
We need to realize that science works through existing paradigms that determine how facts are identified, sorted and interpreted. Moreover, scientists, like all of us, are fallible, fallen and biased, so it’s very possible for science to come to mistaken conclusions, as the history of science demonstrates. The challenge right now is that the modern scientific guild is often more interested in enforcing the evolutionary paradigm than allowing the freedom to ask difficult questions. Darwinism has become its own religion often giving the impression that the scientific method produces conclusions with absolute certainty.
However, the insistence that evolution is an indisputable fact simply overlooks the serious scientific problems with the theory. There are many good questions about the origins of the first living cell, how order can increase in the face of the second law of thermodynamics, and the systemic gaps in the fossil record. But the biggest scientific problem is the origin of new genetic information.
Evolution requires massive structural changes within organisms (i.e. invertebrates become vertebrates); and each of these structural changes requires massive amounts of new genetic information. The enormous question is: how does an organism get new genetic information? How does an organism that does not have the DNA ‘assembly instructions’ for wings get those instructions? This scientific reason alone is why many consider evolution to be an untenable theory.
4) Scripture’s Role in Science
While atheists are quick to dismiss the role of scripture, Christians cannot ignore God’s descriptions about the history of the world. The scriptures must have a shaping role in understanding the origins of the universe. Jesus interpreted Genesis as straightforward history and spoke of Adam and Eve as real historical figures (Matt. 19:4-6). Thus, Christians may reject a theory like evolution on scientific grounds and biblical-theological grounds.
Imagine that scientists were able to examine Adam five minutes after he was created by God from the dust. If they did a thorough examination – measuring height, weight, physical development, and so on – they might conclude that he was something like twenty-five years old. Although their conclusions would be reasonable, even scientific, they would also be wrong. Adam would only be five minutes old. To get the right conclusions, they would need to listen to God regarding how He made Adam. Once they had done that, they could interpret the data properly.
God graciously gave us His word to guide us in understanding His world. We must recognize that there is a complex relationship between the Bible and science that goes in both directions, where the natural world can shed light on God’s Word and God’s Word is the guiding lens for understanding the world.
Conclusion: Since God made this world, believers can vigorously and optimistically pursue scientific studies for His glory. Christianity provides the philosophical soil in which science grows and prospers. May our scientific studies led us to say: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork” (Ps. 19:1).
Surviving Religion 101 – Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College by Michael J. Kruger. Published by Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois, 2021. Softcover, 262 pages.