Science In The Life Of The Believer
Mike,
If you have time, and please don’t go out of your way…. a friend of mine made these statements, and I was wondering how you would respond…
If I believe in the God of the Bible, might I expect science to be able to explain everything I can observe (since God is the one who makes science work)
Then I quoted 1Ti 6:20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane [ and] vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:” and I also said ‘It is God which gives us ‘understanding’, and we will not understand anything until HE is ready for us to understand it.’ His response was…
Unfortunately many modern Christians share this view: if anyone believed in the God of the ‘scriptures’, they would never ‘expect’ nor need science to explain anything to them. Isaac Newton and George Carver are surely laughing about it. With God.
I guess my comments: “if anyone believed in the God of the ‘scriptures’, they would never ‘expect’ nor need science to explain anything to them. … ALL things work after the counsel of God’s own will; Eph 1:11 It is God which gives us ‘understanding’, and we will not understand anything until HE is ready for us to understand it”; didn’t help any. Anyway, maybe I said the wrong thing… so then today, he comes back and said this; (so maybe to help me understand what he meant) maybe you understand it better, or maybe I’m missing something.
My status (statement) was not a statement that science gives the scientist a reason to believe in God, but a statement that God gives the Christian a reason to believe in science.
Obviously there are implications for the idea of “proving God,” but this statement is not prepared to fully address that.
I think we do see God, from the inauguration of the human race, telling people to use their powers of observation to figure out how the world works – “tend” the garden. So using our powers of observation must not be part of the “oppositions of science” referred to in Timothy.”Thanks, Mike!
M____
Hi M____,
It sounds like your friend has a pretty good understanding of God and the fact that God is our creator. But he does not seem to have a very good grasp on the Biblical doctrine of faith. Saving faith is something that is a gift of God, and is not the same faith that we exercise when we sit in a chair and have faith that it will hold us up. That does not require a great deal of faith, and it certainly could never qualify as faith that has been “tried in the fire.” Saving faith cannot be demonstrated in a lab, and is not something that anyone can give to another.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [ it is] the gift of God:
God is not impressed with our faith because we have no faith of our own, and even what we are given to believe in Him is no more than what the devils themselves exercise.
Jas 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
So faith in the obvious is not saving faith. It is not childish faith that God values, and that seems to be the faith that is in question with this statement:
If I believe in the God of the Bible, might I expect science to be able to explain everything I can observe (since God is the one who makes science work)?
The Biblical answer to that particular question is a resounding NO! Absolutely Not! If you expect science to be able to explain everything you can observe, then you need to get another religion other than Christianity, because science has yet to explain or demonstrate how a virgin can conceive of the holy spirit. Science is yet to explain how a person can rise from among the dead.
Mat 1:20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
Joseph was no idiot. He knew fully well that it was impossible for a woman to conceive without a man being involved. If God had not visited Joseph in that dream, he would never have had any faith in Mary’s fantastic tale.
Likewise, if all the apostles had not seen Jesus after His resurrection, they would never have believed that He was alive from the grave.
Luk 24:9 And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.
Luk 24:10 It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary [ the mother] of James, and other [ women that were] with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
Luk 24:11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
So no, we should not expect science to explain observable supernatural healings nor the change that occurs in the lives of all who are spiritually healed or whose lives are supernaturally changed in a way that all their friends and relatives can observe. If science could do that, then there would be no need for the most important kind of faith, “the trial of our faith.”
Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Jas 1:3 Knowing [ this], that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
Jas 1:4 But let patience have [ her] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
We “possess our souls” in the exercise of our patience.
Luk 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.
Also our patience is exercised by “the trial of our faith”. Faith that is “tried” is not something that can be demonstrated scientifically. If it were, then we need to cut the story of a six- day creation, the flood of Noah, the crossing of the Red Sea, Daniel in the lions’ den, the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, the virgin birth and all of Christ’s miracles out of our Bibles as events which cannot be explained by science.
Your friend makes this statement:
My status (statement) was not a statement that science gives the scientist a reason to believe in God, but a statement that God gives the Christian a reason to believe in science.
Obviously there are implications for the idea of “proving God,” but this statement is not prepared to fully address that.
… I think we do see God, from the inauguration of the human race, telling people to use their powers of observation to figure out how the world works – “tend” the garden. So using our powers of observation must not be part of the “oppositions of science” referred to in Timothy.
Of course I don’t know your friend, but he seems to brush aside and skip over the fact that God Himself cannot be “explained by science”; that what he is saying requires that we have been given faith that God even exists, and yet he emphasizes the need for believing science, by the things we can observe. A much safer approach is to always consider the things we can observe in the light of scripture. Your friend, appears to have fallen into the trap of basing his faith in scripture on science instead of basing his science upon scripture.
He is right to say that “our powers of observation help us to figure out how the world works”, but that is true only as far as those observations agree with scripture. The resurrection of Christ, His virgin birth and every other miracle recorded in scripture, demonstrates that the faith in the word of God is better than believing only what we can observe.
Here is Christ’s summation of the proper place in the body of Christ, for observable true science.
Joh 20:24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
Joh 20:25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
Joh 20:26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: [ then] came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace [ be] unto you.
Joh 20:27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust [ it] into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
Joh 20:28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
Joh 20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [ are] they that have not seen, and [ yet] have believed.
Joh 20:30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:
Joh 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
Thomas was a believer in proving all things by observable science, whereas Christ wants us to “prove all things… by the demonstration and power of the spirit… the Word.” It is never to be done vice- versa.
1Co 2:4 And my speech and my preaching [ was] not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spiri t and of power:
1Co 2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Here is what Paul is talking about when speaking of the demonstration of the spirit and the power of God. This is where our faith should be:
Mat 22:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
The “sum” of those two verses gives us what Paul meant by “in demonstration of the spirit and of power”. We are to do as Paul did, not as Pasteur did. What both Thomas and Pasteur did was good enough for those who can go no further in their faith, and of course we are all at that point at some time in the beginning of our walk in faith. But if this is as far as we can go and we cannot believe anything we cannot demonstrate with observable science, then our speech and our preaching will never be ‘in the demonstration of the spirit and power of the word of God.’
I’m not very confident that any of this will even make sense to your friend, but I think it will make good sense to you. Both Christ and Paul were far more concerned with the scriptures than with observable science. Here are those verses all together.
1Co 2:4 And my speech and my preaching [ was] not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1Co 2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Mat 22:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
It is the scriptures that gave Paul’s preaching its power and which demonstrated the Truths he was teaching. Opposition of science falsely so- called is anything that conflicts with the speech and preaching which is in demonstration of the spiritual and powerful words of God. Anything that conflicts with scripture and claims to be science is really nothing more than “the wisdom of men”.
1Ti 6:20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
1Ti 6:21 Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace [ be] with thee. Amen.
I know you love your friend, and I pray that he is given the faith that goes beyond observable science, but after you have witnessed to him, “let him that is ignorant remain ignorant”.
1Co 14:38 But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.
God bless you as you stand faithful to His Word.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike
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