O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it some have missed the mark as regards to faith.
I Timothy 6:20-21
One challenge to faith is reconciling it with science. One of the first challenges is reconciling the story of creation from both a Biblical and scientific perspective. When we struggle to reconcile this, we struggle with reconciling many other things. Let’s start with creation.
Whatever understanding one has of the creation story, however far back one goes scientifically, the question that can never be answered is “what caused the first thing to happen.” Whether that thing was an explosion or a bang, or the appearance of light, science can go back only so far. It cannot determine the cause of the first thing, because the uncreated God created that first thing. Some people will argue that everything evolved from the first thing, and that man evolved from an animal species. There are actually scientific arguments against the evolution of man from animal. And as Christians, we believe that God intentionally created at every stage of creation, rather than starting the process and letting everything evolve. But even if one believes that everything evolved, that still places God at the beginning, to start the whole chain reaction. The world did not evolve or come to exist from nothing. It came from the creative hand of the eternal God.
If we literally believe the creation story in the Bible, that the earth was created in seven literal days, this would make the world 6,000-7,000 years old and we know that science has proven that the earth is billions of years old. This is addressed in 2 Peter 3:8, where we read “But do not ignore this one face, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” This means that God’s time and our time move in a different way. Could each one of those “days” of creation actually been billions of years? YES! There is a harmony between science and Christianity on the order of creation, that plants came before animals and animals came before human beings, and that the first thing created was light.
There is a video series called “The Truth Project” which I watch several years ago which addressed the harmony between science and Christianity. I remember one part of the series talked about the biology of a human being. Science has broken down our bodies into systems of bones, blood vessels, muscles, nerves, etc. When there is a trauma to our bodies, something as simple as a paper cut, hundreds of things happen in our bodies as a response to the trauma. This complexity of the human body in itself points to an incomprehensible Creator making a divine design that is the human body.
Science has certainly deepened our understanding of the world around us, in ways that are not in conflict with God or faith. Knowledge of medicine has allowed people to live longer and healthier lives. It hasn’t found a way to stop people from eventually dying. Science has allowed us to see galaxies and universes that are far from our planet. It hasn’t given us a complete glimpse of all that God has created.
Science focuses on what we know. Faith is a belief in what is not completely known. In one of the prayers of the Divine Liturgy, God is described as “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, existing forever, forever the same.” (Divine Liturgy, 2015 translation of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, p. 49) There is nothing wrong with acquiring knowledge, scientific or otherwise. Knowledge helps us live better lives. Think about if we didn’t know how to read or do math, or understand how to grow plants, build cars, build houses, maintain safe roads and bridges, and so many other things. We must know that even knowledge has limits. Because we will never be able to fully comprehend the inconceivable and incomprehensible God. This is where faith comes in. Faith is believing in what cannot be fully grasped or understood. Ironically, science helps us understand God and faith, because in our pursuit to know everything, we realize that there is a realm of knowledge we cannot have, and that is where God is.
We know the sun through its energy—we feel its warmth, we see its light. We cannot know the sun in its essence. Similarly, science helps us understand the energies of God, and not even all of those. It cannot help us to know the essence of God. The first human beings were created by God, they didn’t evolve. Human beings have created human beings through present day, in a cycle that was begun by God. In having children, we become co-creators with God, as we combine male and female matter with spiritual matter (a soul) and this is what begins human life. Our destiny is for our souls to go to meet God, and those whom He judges worthy will enter into the Kingdom of heaven. What that looks like exactly is a matter of faith, not science. There are enough energies of God, enough examples of people who have lived lives of faith, and hopefully in our lives, enough experiences of things that we cannot explain, to put our faith in an unseen, incomprehensible God. Faith is a choice, made by each of us, based in part on our own experiences and in part on the experiences of others. This is why it is important to consider the grace of God in the knowledge we have, and the majesty of God in the knowledge we don’t have. This is also why it is important that we share our faith with others, because faith grows both from personal choice and encouragement from others.
Lord, thank You all the things we can see—the sky, the trees, the water, the sun. Thank You for things we can feel, like the warmth of the sun, and the gentleness of the wind. Thank You for the things that we know—biology, math, science, reading. Thank You for the things we can create—technology, art, relationships. Thank You for the things we cannot create—stars, the moon, distant planets, gravity. Strengthen our faith in You—for the things we cannot see or comprehend. Help to accept Your majesty with humility, and the part of You we cannot know, to accept with faith. Help us to reconcile science and faith, to crave knowledge but to also know that You are inexhaustible. Thank You for all of our blessings, seen and unseen, that You have bestowed on us. Amen.
There is a harmony between science and faith. Science helps us understand the energies of God. Faith fills the void of the things we cannot know or comprehend.
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