The Church by the Bridge - 100 Years of Good News
When discussing the Christian faith with others, sooner or later the discussion tends to come round to the topic of ‘faith vs. science’ or ‘bible vs. science’. This discussion is not limited to believers vs. non-believers but is also a discussion that can happen amongst believers and within the church.
There are some fundamental biblical truths we might all agree on, but we still might disagree on whether to take the bible literally, or read the books and passages contained within it in their context and setting.
One of these biblical truths that we for example all agree on are the overarching love of God culminating in the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ, his Son, for salvation and the redemption of us all.
We also usually agree on how important it is to live out God’s commandments culminating in the biggest of them all: ‘love your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself’.
There are other fundamental truths in the bible we might agree on, yet still have disagreements on the ‘faith vs. science’ question.
Some weeks ago we started an Alpha course in Kimble where within the first video the video presenter Nicki Gumbel spoke about this issue in a way that I found helpful, and you might too. He likened this topic to that of making a cake and gave an example similar to this:
‘If I decide to make a cake and gift it to a raffle, someone might win that cake, taste it and like it. If that person then wants to know what is in the cake, they can use scientific methods to determine the ingredients. They can also determine the approximate age of the cake through science, and perhaps an approximation of how it was baked.
What no scientific method can do is determine who made the cake. It also cannot determine why the cake was made in the first place and why it was gifted to the raffle.’
Nicki Gumpel then drew the analogy with our world and with our lives. ‘Science can determine our approximate biological age and the world’s approximate biological age. Science can determine the individual parts in a body, or the world. Science can also describe in minutiae details the reproductive process of ourselves, as well as anything else that is in the world.
What science cannot determine is why we, or the world, was made. Science can also not answer the question of who made us or the world.
And this is where science and faith, or science and the bible are not working against each other, but are complementary to each other. The question of who and why gets answered in scripture, in the bible. The question of what gets answered by science.’
The wonderful thing is allowing us to have a healthy, holistic and God-centric worldview is that we go fully open-eyed into this beautiful world, admiring the wonderful autumnal colours, understanding why they come about, yet giving all thanks, praise and glory to God who put this intricate and beautiful world so wonderfully together.
Have a deeply blessed week, full of open-eyed wonder and thankfulness for our creator.
Kai