How are Scientists Uniquely Tempted?
Curious people like myself love the physical universe. We delight in exploring creation and investigating the inner workings of the objects and processes that make it incredible. And those of us who are Christians enjoy pointing to the Creator and talking about how creation teaches us about who He is and how He works. God made everything, and He made some of us with a special affection for the Earth and the universe. Science is good work that can be offered to God.
The temptations a scientist faces in the modern day are unique. While the scientific revolution was born in Christian Europe and largely financed by the Catholic Church, science in the present-day Western world has often been co-opted by Atheists and Agnostics. Scientists now inhabit a world that tries to separate the physical and spiritual realms to a degree our predecessors never imagined. Christians are often expected to go to work and act like God doesn’t work in the world, pretending that this incredible universe is a lucky accident, and then go home and pray and worship God and live a different kind of life.
Keeping Perspective
That’s why, when I used to do scientific work, I loved to read C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien, and G. K. Chesterton. These were brilliant men, not scientists, but deep thinkers and highly proficient in the fields of history and language. They were able, each in his own way, to show that the world is enchanted with the wonderful work of the Creator God. That can be a difficult truth to keep in mind for those of us who spend our days with our minds on the physical world. Some call it a struggle between living from the head and from the heart.
When we enter the worlds of Narnia, or Middle Earth, or Father Brown, we are able to view the universe from a different angle. We see the world with fresh eyes, and when we do, we see things in ways that we’ve become blind to through the numbing effect of familiarity. It’s healthy to find other ways of looking at the world, especially when you live and work in a culture that sees things through a one-dimensional worldview.
If the universe of Atheists were the real universe, I wouldn’t want to live in it. Who would want to go through life thinking that every beautiful sunrise was just an accidental reflection of colors? Who would want to believe that love is just the firing of a set of neurons between brain cells, instead of the meaning of the universe itself? Who would want to think that things like truth and justice exist only in our minds? A universe without the supernatural is a dead and empty place, no matter how full it might be of matter and energy.
The Ways God Works
One of the first things a believing scientist must keep in mind is that God works through nature. Since He is omniscient, when He created the universe He knew exactly what properties to give it in order to make the story unfold as He intended. God is ultimately behind every natural process. Whether you’re studying the mating rituals of tree frogs or the formation of new galaxies; whether your interest is in dinosaurs or theoretical physics; you can be sure that God is the ultimate driving force behind all things and that you can glorify Him by uncovering the truths that He has woven into creation.
The second thing a believing scientist must keep in mind is that God also works around the natural processes when He pleases; miracles are real. Of course, you must believe in at least two miracles to be a Christian: the Incarnation (Virgin Birth) and the Resurrection. But both the Old and New Testaments are full of stories about God intervening in the world to reveal Himself to humanity. That doesn’t change our confidence in the reliability of science or in the laws of nature; in order for a law to be broken, it must exist in the first place, as Christians have always recognized. But it does mean that there is always a supernatural reality to account for, especially when we’re looking at the lives and interactions of human beings, who are made in the image of God.
Difficulties in Believing
Each discipline of science has certain temptations to unbelief. The astronomer might one day find it easy to believe in the grandeur of God, because of the awesome splendor of the cosmos. But the next day, he might be shaken by the seeming waste of all those billions of miles of empty space, inhabited by no one, cold and dark and unexplored.
A biologist might one day be blown away by the wonderful design evident in creation, the special adaptations that help all kinds of creatures thrive in their niches in incredible ways. The wing of a duck or the eye of a housefly or the sounds of a dolphin can point us to a great plan for life to thrive and multiply all over the Earth. But the next day, looking at the story of nature, with its death and pain and seeming waste of life, it can certainly look like one big accident, and it seems awfully unfair to those at the bottom of the food chain.
We ought to allow for mystery and be willing explore the dark or confusing aspects of creation. Some of them are not so dark after all; the vastness of space is not so vast to God – It reveals an extravagant abundance of His creative power, and God knows how many angels are playing cosmic football in those giant starlit vacuums. Other mysteries reveal the depth of the Fall and give us hope for the true splendor of God’s creation to be revealed when Jesus returns to make all things new.
Christian and Scientist
A Christian scientist can live a fully integrated life. They don’t have to leave their faith at the door of the lab; it motivates them to do great work, gives them a joyful reason to care about the universe that God loves, guides their ethical decisions in the scientific world, and gives them a coherent worldview from which to examine the physical world and its meaning.
Neither do they have to forget our scientific minds when they walk into the sanctuary. There are problems in the church that can be solved by analytical minds, from the best methods to serve, to the engineering know-how to keep our church buildings functioning well, to teaching God’s people the myriad of ways the creation reveals and gives glory to its Creator. The scientific world needs godly men and women to be salt and light, and the Church needs scientists because they are integral to the family of God.
Many great scientists, from Isaac Newton to Francis Collins, have seen their work as an extension of their Christian lives. They felt called to serve God by finding His signature on creation. And churches (especially the Catholic Church) have seen the importance of supporting scientists in their work. This interaction is especially necessary now that we live in a world that has made a god of science, expecting the physical universe to have all the answers and to provide us purpose and hope.
Christians can step in, show the world the real role of science as a good part of God’s creation, and point them to the Savior who invented science and everything else and offers us purpose now and hope for the future. This is a great time for Christians to show how science serves God.
Exciting Days
It’s an exciting time to be a Christian who loves science, for (at least) two reasons: First, we live in an age when science is progressing at a thrilling rate, because we have tools that scientists before us could not have dreamed of. Supercomputers, the Webb telescope and International Space Station, the CERN Large Hadron Collider, and other technologies help us to learn new things every day, and it’s a great time to be a scientist.
Second, those of us who love the universe and love God have a clear mission and a wide open mission field, because people are longing to see (whether they realize it or not) that the world really does point to a loving and powerful Creator. When science-minded people try to figure out life, they’re going to find out that knowing about galaxies or ecosystems is not enough to fill the spiritual hole in their lives, and they’re going to look for answers.
The Church is better equipped than ever to answer the hard questions that trip people up on their way to Jesus; just look up books on science and Christianity and you’ll get a taste for how thoughtfully modern Christians have been treating this subject. We’re in a great position to engage with scientists, if we have the passion to love the things they love and the patience to answer a lot of questions.
Christians in the sciences can bring something special to their work and to their faith because of the way God wired their analytical minds. They needn’t give in to the temptation to section off the supernatural as the “spiritual” part of their lives, and think of their work as the “secular” part.
The same God who works miracles was behind the first miracle, the creation of the universe, and He sustains it daily by His power. He made scientists, He loves them, and it is His good pleasure to work through them for the coming of His Kingdom, the glory of His name, and the redemption of the world through the Gospel.