Are science and religion compatible?

I am a scientist

I am a Christian.

Many people today insist that science can only be done by people who have a secular worldview or at least by those who are willing to leave their religious views at the door as they enter the science lab.

Some people believe it is impossible to be both. Either you believe in a secular world or a spiritual world. For them, it is a dichotomy. It does not make sense.

Secularism has taken over the country. Secularism is a belief system that rejects religion, or the belief that religion should not be part of the affairs of the state or part of public education.

They believe that science and God are mutually exclusive.

By why would it be the case?

Science means “knowledge” and refers to a process by which we learn about the natural world. It has nothing to do about believing in God or not.

If science is a strictly secular endeavor without any need for a biblical worldview, then why were most fields of science developed by Bible-believing Christians?

For example, consider Isaac Newton, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, Johann Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Robert Boyle, Blaise Pascal, Michael Faraday, James Joule, Joseph Lister, James Clerk Maxwell, etc.

Were these “greats” of science not doing science?

Francis Bacon developed the scientific method, and he was a young-earth creationist and devout Christian. Ironically, he is the one he structured science with his method.

Even in modern times, the inventor of the MRI scanning machine, Dr. Raymond Damadian, is a Christian working with Christian principles.

The founder of catastrophic plate tectonics, Dr. John Baumgardner, is also a devout Christian.

And those who recently founded the scientific field of baraminology are also Christians.

Dr. Bodie Hodge developed a new method for production of submicron titanium diboride for the materials science and ceramics industry. He is a Christian.

Professor Stuart Burgess developed a new mechanism for the two-billion-dollar European (ESA) satellite Envisat. Dr. John Sanford developed the gene gun.

And let’s not forget Werner Von Braun, the young-earth Christian who was the founder of rocket science and led the U.S. to the moon.

These are but a few examples of people who held to a biblical worldview and were quite capable as scientists and inventors of new technologies. These two can co-exist.

Some would say Christian Theism is anti-science. But the interesting thing that it was Christian Theism that gave rise to science.

Scientists such as Galileo and Copernicus believed in an intelligent, orderly Creator whose creation could and must be studied in an orderly fashion. They believed that it was possible to study God’s creation because it was made perfect.

It is Naturalism, with its insistence on the world materializing out of nothing (the theory of evolution supposes that we originated from molecules)  that flies in the face of true science.

So, the debate is not “science versus religion.” It is really religion vs religion.

Sadly, science is caught up in the middle.

The battle is between the religion of secular humanism (with its variant forms like agnosticism, atheism, and the like), which is usually called secularism or humanism for short, and Christianity. They both have religious documents (e.g., the Humanist Manifestos I, II, and III for humanists, and the Bible for Christians); both are recognized religions by the Supreme Court;2 and both receive the same 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Both have different views of origins. And both require faith.

For example, some evolutionists are willing to admit that their ideas about origins depend almost exclusively on chance. Jacques Monod, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist, once admitted as much in his book Chance and Necessity:

“Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution”.

The chemical origin of life remains the “holy grail” of evolutionists seeking to explain how life randomly emerged.

Lifeless randomly interacting chemicals would have to be able to create the informational blueprint for an organism and the code to transmit that information, as well as a system for deciphering and implementing that code. Despite often-sensationalized headlines to the contrary, nothing in biology has ever been observed to do this.

You see, this secular scientist admit that you need to have faith to believe in a secular concept like evolution.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary has multiple definitions for faith, but we have given one definition that originates with Scripture. But there is a definition of faith that does describe the evolutionists: “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” Clearly, this definition of “blind faith” has a much different meaning than biblical faith.

I’d rather have faith in a God than a man-made concept.

There are two different kinds of science; observational and historical. Historical science deals with the past and is not directly testable or observable so it must be interpreted according to your worldview.

The ironic part is that Bible is the foundation for science.

Non-Christians must borrow biblical ideas, such as an orderly universe that obeys laws, in order to do science. The bible says that God created the universe in an orderly fashion.

Jeremiah 33:25

“Thus says the Lord: If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth.”

If naturalism was true, if nature is “all there is”, then why should the universe have such order? The laws of thermodynamics state that everything tends to deteriorate over time, that everything goes back to ashes.

But clearly, that is not what is going on in our world.

Although naturalistic science claims to be neutral and unbiased, it starts with this bias!

Making a distinction between operational (observational) science and historical (origins) science helps us to understand the limitations of these naturalistic presuppositions in science.

The argument of “science vs. religion” attempts to paint evolution as a scientific fact and creation as a religious fairy tale.

However, both evolution and creation are belief systems about the past.

Particles-to-person evolution is an idea of men based on anti-God and anti-biblical philosophies, such as naturalism and materialism.

Creation is based on the Bible, which claims to be the Word of the Creator God. The scientific method cannot prove evolution or creation since both are in the category of historical (origins) science.

When someone challenges Voddie Baucham (is dean of the seminary at African Christian University and previously served as Pastor of Preaching at Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, TX.) by saying, “You can’t prove the Bible by the scientific method,” he responds that you couldn’t prove that George Washington was the first US president by the scientific method, which requires something that is observable, measurable, and repeatable.

Rather than believing “cleverly devised myths,” such as evolution, biblical creationists confidently trust the Word of God, including the first verse: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

The evidence for the Bible includes eyewitness writers, claims of divine authorship, fulfilled prophecies, historical accuracy, miracles, internal consistency, a unified message, archeological finds, and manuscript evidence. Read it for yourself!

Written over hundreds of years through dozens of authors, the Bible presents a unified message, God’s plan of redeeming and reconciling sinful mankind to himself forever for his glory.

Because the Bible is trustworthy, Christians do not have blind faith, but confident assurance in God and his promises.

Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

This faith does not stop at spiritual things, it encompasses the sciences, including faith in God as Creator.

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Hebrews 11:3-6 (NIV)

“3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.

By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.”[a] For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Since the Creator and his attributes are evident from creation, the argument of “science vs. religion” is a false dichotomy, as Voddie Baucham explains:

“We discover the truth by studying God’s general revelation, creation, as well as God’s special revelation, the Bible.” 

He laments the “abandonment of the hard sciences by the Christian community,” since it is the “secular humanists that are at a distinct disadvantage due to the inconsistency of their worldview.”

The only disconnect between science and the Bible is mankind’s sinful unbelief.

Creation displays the Creator’s glory so unmistakably that no rational person can be excused on the basis of ignorance, and mankind would do well to search it out

Proverbs 25:2 (NIV)

 “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.”

It is interesting to note that science comes out of a Christian worldview.

Only the God described in the Bible can account for a logical and orderly universe. God upholds the universe in a particular way, such that we can study it by observational and repeatable experimentation.

Genesis 8:22  (NIV)

 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

Because God upholds the universe in a consistent manner, we have a valid reason to expect that we can study the world we live in and describe the laws that God uses to sustain the universe.

Colossians 1:17  (NIV)

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

In the secular view, where all matter originated by chance from nothing, there is no ultimate cause or reason for anything that happens, and explanations are constantly changing, so there is no basis for science.

Though many non-Christians do science, like inventing new technologies or improving medical science, they are doing it in a manner that is inconsistent with their professed worldview.

On what basis should we expect a universe that came from nothing and for no reason to act in a predictable and consistent manner? We should not.

When non-Christians do real science by observable and repeatable experimentation, they are actually assuming a biblical worldview, even if they do not realize it.

The U.S. will lose out in “science” when its education system limits science in the classroom exclusively to the religion of secular humanism.

We can see what is already happening.

Our society is degrading. We have seen a decline in our morals.

People do not love each other anymore. Selfishness is taking over. Lust is dominant, it’s all over the place. Kids are exposed to all this junk more and more.

And then we are wondering what is going on with people?

2 Timothy 4:3 (NIV)

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

The answer is simple: we need to go back to God.

1 Corinthians 2:14
“The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”

Proverbs 1:7 (NIV)

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction”.

1 Corinthians 16:11 (NIV)

“So let no one despise him But send him on his way in peace, so that he may come to me; for I expect him with the brethren.”

I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that you will receive love, joy, and peace 😊

Dr. Serge

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