A congregation member recommended a book I am currently reading, about the interconnection between FAITH and SCIENCE: Believing Is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith by Michael Guillén, PhD. The author has three doctoral degrees, and he claims that science led him into a deep faith in God. I am fascinated by the many aspects of physics and quantum mechanics Dr. Guillen explains, even if I don’t fully understand all of it, and how these fields of study led him to an encounter with God. Not everyone, though, is impressed with Guillen’s attempt to reconcile the divide between science and the world of faith.
One critic, when asked if he found Guillen’s work convincing, said,
Not in the least; he suspends all his “credentials” and throws them out the window in order to BELIEVE in his INVISIBLE MAGIC SKYDADDY. Religion has NOTHING to do with Science; they are entirely incompatible. You cannot have Science if you insist on Religion, nor can you have any Religion or belief under Science. Humans are very good at Cognitive Dissonance; if one physicist decides to engage in Religion, why would anyone else educated in Physics be compelled to do so also? In other words, if your friends jump off of a bridge, would you be stupid enough to do it, too?
The hostility almost jumps off the page!
I have never found a fundamental disconnect between my faith and what I know of the world of science. What the critic above calls “cognitive dissonance” I might call “living with the Both/And.” I can hold onto the overarching story science tells us and the story that the Bible weaves for us. I can look out the window even now and see green-barked trees, and I can say, “Ah that tree is making energy for itself through chlorophyll and photosynthesis!” And I marvel at the wonder of what science can tell us about how the life of the tree is amazingly complex. The tree breathes! And it helps us human beings by exchanging CO2 for O2. The tree’s breathing helps my breathing. It’s a marvel.
At the same time I can say “God made that tree. God sustains that tree’s life. The Breath of God breathes through that tree. That same Spirit moves through me. That’s amazing.”
Both my understanding of science and my understanding of faith, deepen my encounter with the mystery of God. And engaging both of these causes me not to settle for easy answers about either. How does it all work? Why does life occur?
The Latin word scientia originally meant “knowledge,” but it also meant something more than what we know with the rational mind. Scientia meant “wisdom.” The kind of “knowing” I have through faith doesn’t involve a shutting down of the mind, believing in a ‘Magic Skydaddy.’ What I gain through faith is a wisdom that is relational…a wisdom that puts me in relationship both with all of life around me and its deepest mysteries AND with the Great Mystery of Life itself, the One who authors and sustains all Life: God.
One approach to science seeks to “know” me, to describe my inner workings to the most minute detail: cells, DNA, atoms, energy! Another approach to knowing, faith, lets me know that I am fully known only in relation to the One who “knit me together in my mother’s womb” and held me like a newborn child, who breathes life into me in every moment of each day.
How do you relate to the wisdom and knowledge you gain from science AND faith?
