GOD, SCIENCE AND CREATION
(week 44/15)
OLUBI JOHNSON
Reality exits in 2 realms: the physical and the spiritual: which includes the subconscious and the psychological realms.
Spiritual things are INVISIBLE OR IMPERCEPTIBLE to the physical senses or equipment, but are real, as they have a PHYSICAL EFFECT on physical things: for instance, psychological (spiritual) forces that CANNOT BE SEEN OR MEASURED PHYSICALLY like fear, anxiety, joy, peace have a physical effect on your heart, blood pressure that can be measured physically.
Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment: the world of science and technology.
Using the Bible, we can study the character and power of God through REVELATION of the reality of spiritual things.
So, science is LIMITED to PHYSICAL truth; but the Bible gives us REVELATION OF BOTH PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL TRUTH.
So, the study of God’s Word, by REVELATION is not opposed to and does not contradict scientific study: RATHER IT ENHANCES IT.
It has been said that the Bible is the book of God’s words while Science is the book of God’s works.
A statement of this concept in Francis Bacon’s Advancement of Learning is of special interest, because it is one of the quotations which Darwin included on the reverse of the fly-leaf of The Origin of Species:
‘’To conclude therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill applied moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficiency in both.”
Both Johannes Kepler and Albert Einstein and many other scientists have implied that science is thinking God’s thoughts after Him.
“…Those laws are within the grasp of the human mind. God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after His own image so that we could share in His own thoughts… and if piety allow us to say so, our understanding is in this respect of the same kind as the divine, at least as far as we are able to grasp something of it in our mortal life.”
–Johannes Kepler, the German mathematician and astronomer who discovered the laws of planetary motion which later served as one of the foundations for Isaac Newton’s theory of universal gravitation. Kepler is considered to be one of the founders of the field of astronomy.
“I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.”
–Albert Einstein
(From E. Salaman, “A Talk With Einstein,” The Listener 54 (1955), pp. 370-371, quoted in Jammer, p. 123).
The knowledge of science comes by PHYSICAL experimentation.
The knowledge of God comes by SPIRITUAL REVELATION.
Science DOES NOT CONTRADICT the Bible:
1Timothy 6:20 KJV: O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
In particular, the theory of evolution: is a theory that in essence states that man and all living things evolved from inorganic chemicals, to complicated biological cells and then to living organisms and then ultimately to plants, animals and man.
However, fossil records show significant gaps: so evolution was not continuous, but must have been punctuated with creation at different points on the evolution time line.
Furthermore is the FUNDAMENTAL question of where the original sub-atomic energy and particles, which later formed inorganic atoms, molecules and matter, came from: obviously, they were created by the invisible God Who is a Spirit (Jn.4.24) according to
Hebrews 11:3 AMP: By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible.
Romans 1:20 KJV: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Evolution also CONTRADICTS the 2nd. Law of Thermodynamics, which states that IN A CLOSED SYSTEM ENTROPY (OR THE DEGREE OF DISORDER INCREASES). Evolution states that living things came from a state of disorder to a state of intelligent order WITHOUT the input of power and intelligence from a Creator: this is mathematically impossible (for the DNA structure of a single cell, the probability for this to happen Sir Fred Hoyle calculated to be of the order of 1: 10^40000 (1 to 10 raised to the power of 40000!) and absurd.
Finally, the Bible states that the heavens are being ‘stretched’ which is what modern astronomy has observed in the expanding universe by dark energy (or invisible energy–through which the invisible God has access to the physical universe):
Psalms 104:2 AMP: [You are the One] Who covers Yourself with light as with a garment, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain or a tent,
Job 9:8 AMP: Who alone stretches out the heavens and treads upon the waves and high places of the sea;
Isaiah 42:5 AMP: Thus says God the Lord–He Who created the heavens and stretched them forth, He Who spread abroad the earth and that which comes out of it, He Who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it:
Jeremiah 10:12 AMP: God made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and by His understanding and skill stretched out the heavens.
In conclusion, the evidence of an intelligent and powerful Creator in the PHYSICAL world is OVERWHELMING as seen BOTH in the heavens and in the physical body:
Psalms 19:1-4 NIV: For the director of music. A psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (2) Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. (3) There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. (4) Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
Psalms 139:14 MKJV: I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are marvelous and my soul knows it very well.
So through creation, God has shown us His INVISIBLE existence:
Romans 1:19-20 NIV: since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. (20) For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
HONEST scientists attest to this truth:
“As we conquer peak after peak, we see in front of us regions full of interest and beauty, but we do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon; in the distance tower still higher peaks, which will yield to those who ascend them still wider prospects, and deepen the feeling, the truth of which is emphasized by every advance in science, that ‘Great are the Works of the Lord’.”
—Sir Joseph J. Thomson, Nobel Prize winning physicist, discoverer of the electron, founder of atomic physics.
“I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God.”
“Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created.”
—Physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell, who is credited with formulating classical electromagnetic theory and whose contributions to science are considered to be of the same magnitude to those of Einstein and Newton.
“For myself, faith begins with a realization that a supreme intelligence brought the universe into being and created man. It is not difficult for me to have this faith, for it is incontrovertible that where there is a plan there is intelligence—an orderly, unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever uttered—-‘In the beginning God.'”
“Science can have no quarrel with a religion which postulates a God to whom men are His children.”
—Arthur Compton, winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the Compton Effect.
“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
—Werner Heisenberg, who was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for the creation of quantum mechanics (which is absolutely crucial to modern science).
“God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”
–Nobel Prize winning physicist Paul A. M. Dirac, who made crucial early contributions to both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics.
So the knowledge of science should bring us to a greater appreciation of God and thus a desire to come to know Him by spiritual revelation.
