There is no conflict between science and religion, only between bad science and bad religion. At London Bible College I learned a very important principle from Dick France. In many situations, truth lies not in either/or but in both/and. I am persuaded we do not need to make a choice between either science or Christian faith. Rather, to understand the world and our human condition, we need both science and Christian faith. I have continued to read widely on topics such as evolution both from scientific and theological perspectives. I have wrestled with the interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis and other significant Bible passages as well as with issues in epistemology and the philosophy of science. I am more convinced than ever that Christian belief and scientific study are entirely compatible. It was Albert Einstein who said, “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
This morning we considered this important topic thinking about the relationship between science and the supernatural. There are a number of presuppositions which are necessary if you are going to understand science and these intrinsically exclude anything which could be described as supernatural. The same assumptions exclude the possibility that miracles can happen. Bad science rejects reports of miracles because such events cannot be handled in the ways science is equipped to do.
We went on this morning to think about the existence of God and saw again that saying “God does not exist” cannot be declaring a proven fact but only expressing a personal belief. Faith is concerned with the God who is above science, Who created and sustains the scientific laws which scientists study but is inevitably Himself beyond the scope of scientific study. Science does not, and cannot, prove God doesn’t exist. It is not possible to prove that kind of negative statement. And science will never ultimately be able to explain how the world began. Science is very good at explaining how this world works and how we can control it. But it has its limits – and good scientists recognise those limits. Science cannot give us any answers about things in the universe which we cannot see or touch, the whole spiritual realm.
Some people, including some scientists, are unable to recognise the signs of God in the world. Many people are so blinded by the way the media suggest that science has replaced God that they simply cannot see God. Some scientists are so locked into their way of looking at the world that they genuinely cannot see the evidence for God which is all around them. But for anyone who looks for it the evidence is there plain to see. All it needs is a shift in perception and people can see the world in a new way.
The biologist Louis Pasteur said, “Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature the more I am amazed at the Creator.” “Science brings men nearer to God.”
Thinking about science and Christian faith, I am not going to talk specifically about creation and evolution. I have preached on that topic before and those sermons are on my blog. Chapter 7 of my book Prepared to give an answer gave my understanding of the question: “Just how did God create the world?”. This evening instead I want to look at the issues of science and Christian faith from a broader philosophical perspective. I hope you won’t feel I am going too deep if I pose the very important question, “What is truth?” I ask this because science and religion have fundamentally different ideas about what it means to say that something is true. Let me begin with three statements. Think about each one – is this true or false?
(a) 2 + 2 = 4
(b) force equals mass times acceleration
(c) Henry the Eighth had six wives

Are these statements true or false?
The first statement,“2 + 2 = 4”, expresses mathematical truth. This starts from certain basic assumptions (axioms) and derives from them other mathematical truths by means of defined operations. These can be proved totally theoretically by following the rules of mathematics.
The physics equation, “force equals maths times acceleration”, expresses scientific truth. Science is based on observations and experiments from which theories are deduced. A theory or model is only true if it successfully explains and predicts the results of practical experiments. So truth in physics is quite similar to truth in mathematics, but not identical.
“Henry VII had six wives” is true in the area of history. According to all the available evidence, historians judge this statement to be correct. Truth in historical events and people can still be accepted even though there may be little evidence remaining of what actually happened many centuries ago. But it is always possible that new facts emerge and change what is understood to be true in history. That cannot happen in the same way in mathematics.
The study of the philosophy of knowledge is called epistemology. It considers matters such as truth, belief, evidence, and reason. There are many different areas of knowledge: mathematics, science, history, literature, morality, philosophy and religion too. Each area has a different understanding of truth within it, with different ways of determining what is true or false. Historical facts cannot be proved true mathematically because the rules of mathematics do not apply to history. Moral questions of right and wrong, like “Is murder wrong?” cannot be decided using scientific principles alone, because the scientific method of reasoning is not designed to apply to moral issues. Religious truth is another distinct kind of truth concerned with things which are infinite, eternal and spiritual, things we can never fully understand or adequately describe.
When we recognise that there are different kinds of knowledge, we then also need to realise that they all use language in different ways. Mathematics and science almost always use language very precisely and literally. But there are other ways language can be used. Consider four more statements – are these true or false?
(d) “He’s got a frog in his throat.”
(e) Romeo loves Juliet.
(f) God is love.
(g) “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them.”
“He’s got a frog in his throat” is an example of a statement which we consider to be true if the person is coughing. But this is an idiomatic expression in English, which would not translate directly into a foreign language like French. It is using language which is metaphorical, not literal. No actual frogs are involved.
“Romeo loved Juliet” is a true statement about the characters in Shakespeare’s story world. But since they were fictional characters, it is meaningless to say whether their love was true in the real world. In real life relationships, rather than in fiction, saying to somebody, “I love you” can be true or not true, However, such love cannot be proved mathematically or scientifically or historically, but only in the experience of the people in love.
When Christians say “God is love” is that true or false? We need to think about what we mean by “truth” in that statement and we also need to consider how we understand the word “love.” The love expressed by the almighty and eternal God will necessarily be much more profound than any human expressions of love.
Similarly, when we read in the Bible in Genesis, “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them.” We need to ask what we mean by the concept of truth in that sentence. Is that truth in scientific terms, or in history, or is it truth in the terms of religion and faith? And we need to ask what kind of language is being used? Is it literal or symbolic.
Poetry is often not intended to be understood literally. Take as an example, “Tyger, Tyger burning bright, in the forest of the night.” This poetry is not referring to a tiger which is on fire. Religious truth cannot always be explained in the language or judged by the sorts of ways of thinking which belong to other kinds of knowledge. Eternal and spiritual truths often can’t be expressed in literal language.
Isaiah 55 8 ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.
9 ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Consequently, religious truth is usually not expressed in literal language but instead in words used symbolically or poetically, using similes and metaphors, sometimes bending language almost to breaking point. It is a big mistake to try to understand literally language which was intended to be understood symbolically.
Very many of the alleged conflicts between science and faith arise because science and religion are using language in different ways. The Bible uses many different forms (genres) of language: history, parable, law, letter, proverb, and the highly symbolic language of prophecy and revelation. When we approach any passage in the Bible, we must try to work out what kind of language it is written in and that will then lead us to consider what kind of truth the passage is trying to communicate. As an example, think about when Jesus told His parables, do we think He was quoting historical truth? Was the Good Samaritan a real living person? Did an actual Prodigal Son ever leave his father? Were the parables history? Or were they instead carefully constructed stories which convey spiritual truth?
The same questions arise when Christians and scientists debate the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. Is the Bible account of God creating the world in six days true? That will surely depend on the sense in which we are using the word true? Some people argue that evolution has disproved the Bible. I want to suggest the issue in the alleged conflict between creation and evolution is actually philosophical. The real question is what do we mean by truth? Are the Creation Narratives in Gen 1-2 intended to be read as scientific truth? This leads to the related question. Is the language literal or is it instead symbolic or poetical, or some combination of these genres? It seems very unlikely that the writers were trying to produce a textbook of science and history. For one thing science and history and modern scientific language as we know them have only been invented over the last few hundred years. The Bible accounts of creation have been around for 3000 years or more. It seems much more likely that Genesis was written to present religious truth in an enduring form, using the kinds of language which were in use at the time of writing. I have explored those Genesis accounts from the angle of biblical interpretation in different sermons which you can find on my blog.
When it comes to creation, science and religion are asking different questions. Science wants to know how the universe began and how did life begin and develop. Religion is asking who was behind it all, why did life begin, what is the purpose of it all? In this, as in so many alleged conflicts of science and faith, religion and science use different concepts of what is true and are using language in different ways. Both scientists and Christian believers are well-versed in the forms of truth they deal with all the time, and they are fluent in the kinds of language appropriate to those respective kinds of truth. It is very sad that science and faith so often misunderstand each other, firstly because they have different understandings of truth and secondly because they use language in such different ways. When it comes to science and Christian faith, it is not a matter of either/or but both/and. If we want to understand the universe and our human condition properly, we need both science and Christian faith.

How do we know that God exists? How can we know what God is like? Psalm 19 points us to two ways we can be certain that God exists and that show us what God is like. For the Psalm writer, the most obvious are all the ways God has revealed Himself in his Word, the Law of Moses. The law of the Lord and the statutes of the Lord, God’s precepts and commands and decrees reveal his righteousness and holiness and lovingkindness.
10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.
For us as Christians, God’s Word the Bible brings Jesus to us. Jesus the Son of God has revealed God’s character and the saving actions of his death and resurrection bring us God’s salvation. So we know that God exists and what God is like through the Bible. But Psalm 19 reminds us that there is a second way in which all people can know these things, whether they are believers or not.
1 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 reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

Everybody to the ends of the world can know that God exists and what God is like because He has revealed himself to the whole earth through his marvellous creation. Psalm 8 says the same.
Psalm 8 1 LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory in the heavens. …
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

As well as through his Word the Bible, God’s glory and majesty have been revealed in the beauty and grandeur of his Creation. The Apostle Paul told the Romans that the created world clearly reveals everything that people need to know about God.
Romans 1 19 … 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 people are without excuse.
Paul is saying that everybody should be able to see that God exists and what God is like from the things He has created. For many people this is true. Many people can see the hand of God in the beauty of a spectacular sunset or the night sky. Others find God in the sheer scale and power of thunderstorms and waves crashing on to the shore. Many people are touched by the wonder of childbirth, others by the beauty of mathematics. Scientific study reveals so many indications of God’s design within the complexities of creation, from how the brain works, to how DNA controls inheritance. God the Architect is indeed revealed in all that He has created.
So why is it that so many people today think that God doesn’t exist? How can they look at the wonders of creation and not see the hand of God? There are a number of reasons for this, but I believe that one of the most significant is the rise of science and the widespread belief that “science has disproved God.” In the popular view and especially in the media, modern science appears to leave no room for God in His world.
Growing up I was fascinated by science. Growing up in a non-Christian home I had been convinced by the popular view presented by the media that science had disproved religion. I became a Christian while I was studying sciences in the Sixth Form and needed to rethink all my mistaken assumptions. I went on to read Natural Sciences at Cambridge. As a leader in the Christian Union, I never kept my Christian faith a secret, so it was inevitable that while I was a student, other students, lecturers and even professors asked me questions about the compatibility of science and religion. Then I spent five years teaching chemistry and computing and pupils and colleagues also often asked me about science and the Christian faith. I remain convinced of the truth of something we learned in Religious Studies A Level. There is no conflict between science and religion, only between bad science and bad religion.
At London Bible College I learned a very important principle. In many situations, truth lies not in either/or but in both/and. In particular for today, I am persuaded that we do not need to make a choice between either science or Christian faith. Rather, if we want to understand the world and our human condition, we need both science and Christian faith. I am more convinced than ever that Christian belief and scientific study are entirely compatible. It was Albert Einstein who said, “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
Suggestions that science has disproved religion often focus on the supernatural in general and on miracles in particular. And then there are questions about the existence of God. So this morning I want to say a few things about these issues and about the relationship between science and Christian faith.
From the start we should recognise that there have been many important scientists who have had a deep Christian faith. Back in the seventeenth century the German physicist Johann Kepler was the first astronomer to formulate the laws which describe how the planets move in the sky. He was also a Christian and he was convinced that God had created the universe according to a divine plan which human beings could come to understand. It was Kepler who coined the phrase that all scientists are simply “thinking God’s thoughts after him”. Other notable scientists who were Christians have included Newton, Boyle, Pascal, Faraday, Volta, Mendel, Kelvin and Heisenberg. Friends from university and many Christians in the churches I have served have worked in different branches of science.
Nevertheless, many other people believe the popular view that science has disproved religion and even that science has replaced religion. People say, “we don’t need God any more” and “with the rise of science human beings have outgrown God”. This widespread opinion does not come so much from scientists themselves. Instead it comes from the media’s presentations of science and religion, from David Attenborough’s subtly atheistic natural history programs to Richard Dawkins’ explicit attacks on Christian faith. I am convinced that the idea that science has disproved religion is mistaken. So let’s start by thinking around questions about
Science and the supernatural
One commonly held view is that science has now explained away everything which used to be understood in terms of the supernatural. Of course, this is an assertion and not an argument. It flies in the face of the reality that very many people do have an instinctive and intuitive belief in the supernatural, whether they believe in any religion or none.
The reason that science can appear to discount the supernatural is that the underlying presuppositions of science exclude anything supernatural. At the deepest level, science presumes that the only things which exist are those which can be observed and touched and experimented on. That is an assumption, a presupposition. It is an essential assumption if you want to do work in science, but it is an unhelpfully mistaken and limiting presupposition if you want to live in the real world. Science is used to dealing with certain kinds of evidence – observations and measurements. The hardest thing I found in moving from studying science to studying theology was learning that there are different kinds of evidence as well as scientific experiments, for example the evidence of historical documents, or of personal testimony. These other kinds of evidence need different skills if you are to handle and interpret them properly. The world is overflowing with evidence for existence and activity of God – but sadly some scientists are so locked into their ways of handling evidence and their ways of looking at the world that they can’t accept the testimony of Christians about answers to prayer or God speaking in dreams and visions. Many scientists want to put the Bible under a microscope instead of letting its truth touch their hearts.
The same problem arises when some scientists think about miracles. Many people think that miracles can’t happen. The necessary underlying assumption in science is that the things will always keep on happening in the world in the same way. If you do an experiment today and get a certain result, then if you do the same experiment again tomorrow under the same conditions you will get the same result. That is how all the “laws of science” are discovered and explored. If events did not occur the same day after day nobody could do any science at all. On the other hand, by definition a miracle is God breaking or suspending those scientific laws which He created, and He sustains. God is the Creator – He is allowed to do such things if He wants to. But science will inevitably have difficulties on any occasion when God chooses to break His own rules. Science has problems with interpreting anything happening today which won’t necessarily happen again tomorrow unless God repeats the same miracle. Science can observe but cannot process unrepeatable events which can’t be experimented upon, especially anything where you can’t control all the variables and only change what you want to investigate. So bad science rejects reports of miracles because such events cannot be handled in the ways science is equipped to do.
To say “miracles don’t happen” is an assumption. The most any person should say is, “if miracles do happen, I haven’t seen any”. That is the limit of how far scientists should go – good science knows its limitations. On the contrary, many people, believers and non-believers, have seen miracles. We have seen healings and answers to prayer. I have seen miracles and experienced God’s healing in my own life. So, I believe in the God who works miracles. Good science should never reject evidence of miracles just because it doesn’t fit into its philosophy or conflicts with its presuppositions. Scientists should always be open to re-examining their assumptions until they fit with the real world.
J. B. Phillips wrote, “God is not discoverable or demonstrable by purely scientific means, unfortunately for the scientifically-minded. But that really proves nothing. It simply means that the wrong instruments are being used for the job.”
The conflict is not between science and religion, only between bad science and bad religion. We can say similar things about a second important issue – the question of
The existence of God
People say that science has disproved God. God couldn’t have made the world, God couldn’t speak through prophets or heal people, because science has explained everything supernatural, including God. Some people confidently declare ‘‘there is no God’’ as if this were a proven fact. All anyone can legitimately say is, ‘‘if there is a God, I haven’t seen evidence of His existence yet’’. People who say ‘‘God does not exist’’ are only expressing their personal belief. As a teenager I used to argue vigorously that God couldn’t exist. Then God proved me wrong. Someone who declares God cannot possibly exist is making the same mistake as someone who insists that Australia cannot possibly exist, just because they haven’t personally been there, or somebody who says “the Queen doesn’t exist” because they have never met Her Majesty and refuse to believe the pictures or the people who claim they have met her.
Many people’s minds are closed to all the evidence for the existence of God. But Christians have seen that evidence. We have experienced the power of God and seen Him at work. Scientists should not ignore the evidence but rethink their scientific assumptions. The biologist Louis Pasteur said, “Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature the more I am amazed at the Creator.” “Science brings men nearer to God.” Many scientists would agree with him.
Let me tell you a little story. Two people were walking along a riverbank one day when they saw a man across the river. “How can we get across?” They shouted. “Why would you be wanting to do that then?” The man asked. “We want to get to the other side” they explained patiently. “Don’t be daft,” the man replied. “You’re already on the other side!”
The way we all see the world, our world view, depends on where we are standing, where we are coming from and on our point of view. We do not always interpret what we see correctly. Our interpretations can be distorted by our presuppositions, our preconceived ideas, the things we assume and take for granted. Especially if we only see part of the picture, we may well completely misunderstand what we see. This is the challenge which some scientists face when they come to think about God. How all of us interpret stories, facts, events and evidence, can be blinkered by our presuppositions.
We are familiar with optical illusions. Rubin’s vase looks like the silhouette of a vase but look again and it appears to be two faces turned towards each other. Look at these two pictures. What do you see? (PICTURE)
On the left is Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit illusion: you can see either the duck or the rabbit in the picture, but not both images simultaneously. On the right is a picture of a woman? But what do you see? To one view it is a refined young woman. Look again and it appears to show an old woman. Both images are there in the picture. When your mind switches from seeing one to seeing other the picture has not changed, only your perception or your interpretation of it. It is possible to get so locked into viewing one of those kinds of pictures in a particular way that you can’t see the other possibility. But once you have seen both images it is impossible to argue that only one image is there and the other is not. In these optical illusions it takes a perception shift, known as a gestalt shift, to see the image in its different ways.
Many people are so blinded by the way the media suggest that science has replaced God that they simply cannot see God. Some scientists and very many other people are so locked into their way of looking at the world that they genuinely cannot see the evidence for God which is all around them. But for anyone who looks for it the evidence is there plain to see. All it needs is a shift in perception and people can see the world in a new way.
Romans 1 19 … 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,
Science describes the way the world works. Faith is concerned with the God who is above science. God created and sustains the scientific laws which scientists study. The Almighty and Eternal God is before and beyond the universe of space and time which science studies so God in Himself is inevitably beyond the scope of scientific study. Science is very good at explaining how this world works and how we can control it. But it has its limits – and good scientists recognise those limits. Science has not disproved the supernatural. Science does not, and cannot, prove God doesn’t exist. Science will never ultimately be able to explain how the world began. Science cannot give us any answers about things in the universe which we cannot see or touch, the whole spiritual realm. When it comes to science and Christian faith, it is not a matter of either/or. There is only conflict between bad science and bad religion. We need both science and Christian faith. We all only need to open our eyes and we will see that God is there.
1 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 reveal knowledge.
4 … their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

In the beginning, God Reading ISAIAH 40:12-31

The Nicene Creed begins: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible

All Christians believe that God created the heavens and the earth and indeed the whole universe. All Christians believe God is our Creator. Over the last hundred years or so Christians have debated just how God created everything, and we will think about that question in a couple of week’s time. But for today we are starting our series in Genesis at the very beginning.
“In the beginning, God ….”

In so many places the Bible tells us that God is Creator.
In the seven days of Creation in Genesis 1
Day 1
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Day 2
6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.
Day 3
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
4th Day
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. …. He also made the stars.
5th Day
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
6th Day
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
7th Day
Genesis 22 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

Genesis 5 tells us again that God created human beings in His own image and Genesis 6 repeats that God created humanity. Genesis 14 uses the title, “God most high, creator of heaven and earth.”
In Exodus 20 God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Israelites and the reason behind the fourth commandment is very significant.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, …. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
So the distinctive Jewish pattern of keeping the seventh day holy for God is intended as a weekly reminder that God is Creator of all things. That is repeated in Exodus 31.
Deuteronomy 1 refers to God as Creator
Psalm 89 praises God with these words. 11The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it.
Psalm 104 says, He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Psalm 148 is a whole Psalm calling the whole of Creation to praise its Creator. Angels and heavenly hosts, sun, moon and bright shining stars.
5 Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created.
6 He set them in place for ever and ever; he gave a decree that will never pass away.

We read God’s own words in Isaiah 40.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? …..
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. …..
25“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. 26Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. ….
28Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
Isaiah 42:5 This is what God the LORD says— he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:
In Isaiah 45:12 God again declares Himself to be Creator of the whole universe. “It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts.
Ecclesiastes, Amos, Habbakuk and Malachi talk about God as Creator and every verse of the Old Testament and of the New Testament assume it. The apostle Paul talks about God as creator in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians and 1 Timothy. Preaching in Athens in Acts 17 Paul said,
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
The Letters of James, 1 Peter and Hebrews speak of God as Creator. The Book of Revelation gives us a number of pictures of worship in heaven including these words in Chapter 4.
8 “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” …
11“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

Jesus calls God Creator in Mark 10:6 and Mark 13:19. And Jesus Himself is named as Creator – Colossians 1:15, John 1:1-2
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made,
Colossians 1:15 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
We will be thinking more about what Hebrews tells us about Jesus in our service this evening but here is how that letter begins.
Hebrews 1:1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
There are so many places where the Bible tells us that God is Creator of heaven and earth. But just one verse tells us two more things which are very important in our understanding of Creation. That verse is
HEBREWS 113 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Let me deal with the second half of the verse first.
As Christians we understand creation to be creation from nothing, what philosophers with their love of Latin call creation “ex nihilo”. If God had merely shaped what now exists from “stuff” which had already existed that would be termed creation “ex materia” But God’s work in creation was not merely to shape everything that now is. Hebrews 11:3 tells us “By faith we understand … that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” God did not just shape things from what already existsed. When Christians say God is Creator, we mean that God made absolutely everything that exists. God did not just create all the matter and all the energy in the universe. God created the universe. Before that act of creation, there was nothing. There wasn’t empty space – there wasn’t any space at all. God created space. God’s act of creation did not occur at a particular time – before Creation there wasn’t any time at all. God created time. Creation from absolutely nothing. This point is clear from other verses as well.
Revelation 4 for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
John 1: 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made,
Colossians 1:15 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
Absolutely everything owes its existence to God: matter, energy, even space and time. After bringing everything into existence, Christians also believe that God then formed and shaped everything to be the way we see it. But we believe that what God started off with was nothing at all, creation ex nihilo, creation from nothing.
But the first half of Hebrews 11:3 also tells us something very important.
HEBREWS 113 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
This point is vital. It is by faith that we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command. Not by science. Not by philosophy. But by faith. Neither science nor philosophy will ever be able to prove conclusively whether God exists or not. Science and philosophy can only ever tell us about this universe of space and time. The God of the Bible is greater than the whole universe, beyond space and outside time. We know God is Creator in the same way that we know anything else about God, through faith.
When we tell our friends who are not Christians that we know God created the world because “the Bible says so” that is not going to be a convincing argument for them even though we know it to be true. When we already have faith in God it is easy to see that God must exist and that God is Creator of everything that exists. But when a person doesn’t have faith in God already then it isn’t usually going to be possible to give them any kind of proof which will convince them that God exists or that God created the universe. What we believe about God as Creator follows on from other things we believe about God. If we want to show somebody that God exists, we should talk about Jesus and who Jesus is and what Jesus did and above all about the historical fact that Jesus was crucified but on the third day Jesus rose from the dead. We should talk about our own experience of God acting in our own lives and in the lives of people we know. That’s where our little book of our testimonies, “The Difference Jesus makes” is so valuable. Then when people have faith in Jesus they come to trust the Bible. And at that point we can explain how we know that God is Creator and how we know that we can trust what the Bible teaches. When somebody already believes in God then we can show them how God creating the universe is not contradicted by science or philosophy.
In fact both science and philosophy give us good reasons to believe that God exists and that God created everything. But those reasons will not usually be convincing proofs that God is the Creator if somebody doesn’t already believe. .
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command,
Having said that, I was originally a science student and then a science teacher before I studied theology and became a minister. So let me give you three reasons from philosophy and science which help me to be sure that God is Creator of the universe.
Back in the 13th century the Italian Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote about five ways we can be sure that God is Creator.
Aquinas’s first way talks about the “First Mover.” We observe that some things are in motion. But anything which is moving started in motion by being moved by something else, and there cannot be an infinite series of things moving things. So at some point in the past there must have been a First Mover, something which moved other things but wasn’t itself moved by something else first. That First Mover is God.
Aquinas’s second way is similar and talks about the “First Cause.” Anything which has a cause was caused by something else and this series of causes cannot be infinite. So there must have been a First Cause, something which caused other things but was not itself caused by anything else. That First Cause is God.
Taking those two ideas together, the First Mover and the First Cause give me a good argument for saying that God is creator. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the universe beginning with a big bang which brought time and space, energy and matter into existence. But what caused the Big Bang? What set all that into motion? For me the obvious answer is God.
My second argument comes from the fifth of Aquinas’s five ways which talks about intelligent design. Look at the world around us: the beauty of a sunset, the majesty of the night sky and the intricacy of flowers. Look at the amazing ways which the human eye or the brain work. Look at the amazingly complex interplay of proteins DNA and RNA in the mechanism of inheritance. Having studied bits of biology I look at these things and interpret them as examples of design in Creation and evidence for the existence of the Creator, God. The French biologist Louis Pasteur said, “Posterity will some day laugh at the foolishness of our modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature the more I am amazed at the Creator.” Then again, I look at human beings and I see creatures with a conscience with the ability to distinguish right from wrong. I see people with an intuitive longing to worship and to pray and in that I also see evidence of a Creator who made human beings in His own image with the unique capacity to have a relationship with God. The argument from intelligent design.
Then there is a third argument which having studied bits of physics I find convincing. We find ourselves in an expanding universe in which the fundamental constants were exactly right for stars and planets to form. We find ourselves on a planet which is exactly the right size and composition and distance from the sun for the conditions to be right for human life to develop. If any one of these factors had been ever so slightly different, we wouldn’t be here. Some scientists talk about probabilities or infinite numbers of parallel universes but I am convinced that we live in what some Christian physicists call a “finely-tuned universe”. The probability of everything being so exactly right for us to exist is evidence for me that God exists and God created us all.
The argument from First Mover and First Cause. The argument from intelligent design. The argument from a “finely-tuned universe.” There are other things I would also say to people trained in science or philosophy. I don’t claim that these arguments will convince anybody who does not already believe in God. But for those of us who already know Jesus, they are persuasive reasons for believing that the Bible is true and that God is indeed our Creator.
“In the beginning, God ….” Bow down and worship, for this is your God!

This sermon includes material I wrote which was quoted in articles in the Times Higher Education Supplement (Now Times Higher Education) although they managed to get my name wrong:)
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=203887

Hasn’t science disproved the Bible – specifically Creation? Genesis 1:1-27 060702

In our sermons we are looking at “Questions People are asking” and here is the question for today. “Hasn’t Science disproved the Bible – specifically Creation?”

Do we really believe that God created the Earth? Lots of people don’t. The media don’t. Most scientists don’t. Only ten days ago the science academies of 67 countries including our own Royal Society spoke out very strongly against the idea of a seven day creation, and in favour of the theory of evolution. They were particularly critical of teaching of what is called “Young Earth Creationism” in universities, and even to schoolchildren in “faith schools” in the north east of England. You may have seen their protest reported in the broadsheets or on internet news pages. The best coverage was in no less than four articles in the newspaper for academics, The Times Higher Educational Supplement, with another article and six letters to the editor last Friday too.

“Hasn’t Science disproved the Bible – specifically Creation?” The world’s scientists have just put this question on the agenda for public debate. So this morning I want to set the record straight about what I believe about Creation and Evolution, Science and Faith.

I want to make six simple points. I want to tell you all the points right at the beginning, so you know where I am going, and then unpack them one by one.

1) All Christians believe that God created the universe
2) Science assumes that everything came into existence by natural processes and random chance
3) Science will never prove decisively whether God created everything or not
4) Science gives us evidence which is consistent with intelligent design
5) 7 day “Young Earth Creationism” or “guided evolution” “Old Earth Creationism” is a matter of Biblical Interpretation for Christians
6) Focus on proving a 7-day creation distracts people from the more important task of pointing to God as Creator

So there are my six points – let me explain them in more detail. Some of them, like the first, will take a while to explain. Don’t worry because others are very short.

1) All Christians believe that God created the universe

i) The Nicene Creed:I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible
ii) Bible teaches that God is Creator: Creation out of nothing AND forming/shaping/designing

In Genesis 1-2 we read God created/made
Gen 1:1 heavens and the earth
1:21 creatures of sea and every living and moving thing
1:25 wild animals and livestock
1:26-27 human beings, male and female in His image
2:4 heavens and earth
2:19 “formed out of the ground” all the beasts of the field and birds of the air

We also find God specifically named as Creator in Genesis 5, 6 and 14, Exodus 20 and 31, Deuteronomy 4 and 32 Psalms 89, 104, 148 Ecclesiastes

Prophets like Amos, Habakkuk and Malachi call God creator, but it is a special theme of Isaiah

Isaiah 40:26 Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.
Isaiah 40:28 The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
Isaiah 42: 5. This is what God the LORD says- he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:
Isaiah 43, 45, 57
God is creator in PAUL: Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy 4:4
And In letters of James 1:18, 1 Peter 4:19 and Hebrews

Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

God is declared creator in the words of Jesus Himself: Mark 10:6 6 and Mark 13:19

Jesus is named as Creator –
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

God is our Creator – this is at the heart of what we believe!

2) Science assumes that everything came into existence by natural processes and random chance

From the subtle unchallenged assumption of evolution in David Attenborough’s natural history films, to the explicit anti-theism of Richard Dawkins and Steve Jones, science and the media are united in rejecting the idea of a Creator. Possibly the greatest Science Fiction author Isaac Asimov made the same mistake as very many people – “I am an atheist, out and out. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he does not that I don’t want to waste my time.”
The large majority of scientists close their minds to the evidence for God’s existence – so in the end he can’t see what many others can! But Christians HAVE seen that evidence. We have experienced the power of God and seen him at work! Scientists should NOT ignore that evidence, but rethink their scientific assumptions until their science fits with the real world! It was Albert Einstein who said “Science without religion is blind. Religion without science is lame.”

“Posterity will some day laugh at the foolishness of our modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature the more I am amazed at the Creator.” – Louis Pasteur

3) Science will never prove decisively whether God created everything or not

i) Knowing God as creator is a matter of faith Hebrews 11:3

Heb 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

This verse says to me that science will never ever give conclusive proof about the process of creation or even the existence of God. We will always need faith to interpret the scientific evidence correctly.

“God is not discoverable or demonstrable by purely scientific means, unfortunately for the scientifically-minded. But that really proves nothing. It simply means that the wrong instruments are being used for the job.” J. B. Phillips (1906–1982)

ii) God is by definition outside/beyond/before the universe

iii) We need a “change of mind” to see God

Two people were walking along a river bank one day when they saw a man across the river. “How can we get across?” They shouted. “Why would you be wanting to do that then?” The man asked. “We want to get to the other side” they explained patiently. “Don’t be daft,” the man replied. “You’re already on the other side!” What we see depends on our point of view, on where we are standing to begin with

GESTALT SHIFT PICTURE – WHAT do u see in this picture? Young woman or old hag. BOTH are there in the picture. when mind switches from seeing one to other the picture hasnt changed, only your interpretation of it. Its possible to get so locked into seeing the picture in one particular way that you cant see the other. But once u have seen both it is impossible to argue that only one image is there and the other is not. Many examples of optical illusions where it takes a perception shift, a gestalt shift, to see the image in its different ways. Many people are so blinded by the way the media suggests that science has replaced God that they simply cannot see God. Some scientists are so locked into their way of looking at the world that they genuinely cannot see the evidence for God which is all around them. But for anyone who looks for it with the eye of faith, that evidence is plain to see. Scientists just need to switch their way of looking at the world – to move from a world which excludes God to a world which allows the possibility of God in it.

4) Science gives us evidence which is consistent with intelligent design

i) Examples of design – “Irreducible complexity”

Consider the wonders of nature; the complexity of human brain and eye, the action of enzymes, the interplay beween DNA, RNA and proteins in replication and inheritance, and countless other phenomena. It is so unlikely that these marvels “evolved” by pure chance, and sometimes in opposition to so-called natural selection. Design points to the existence of a Designer, the Architect of the Universe, “God”.

ii) The origins of spirituality

In Genesis 1:27 and 2:7 man is created in the (spiritual) image of God by the inbreathing of the breath (or spirit) of life. Many Christians understand this as God giving the dimension of spiritual experience to animals which had already developed through evolution, making them “Man” by giving them rational, moral and spiritual qualities. Psychologists and philosophers find it impossible to explain how human beings developed consciousness and conscience, and appreciation of beauty and the desire to pray and worship. Evolution never claims to explain these things, and never could! The Christian explanation is simple – God made us this way, in His image!

iii) A “finely-tuned” universe

Design/Guidance could be step by step interventions, or could be in the “fine-tuning” of universal constants creating a universe where life as we know it would come to exist. If we believe miracles happen (or have happened) then there is no problem in an old earth / guided evolution, God steering the development of life at key stages.

iv) The improbabilities of evolution by random chance alone

Even if evolution was the mechanism by which life as we know it came into existence on earth, it seems obvious to many people that the probability of such complicated beings as ourselves evolving by random chance alone is infinitesimally small. But we did! So that suggests to the eye of faith that God had a hand in our development now and then!

5) 7 day “Young Earth Creationism” versus “guided evolution” or “Old Earth Creationism” is a matter of Biblical Interpretation for Christians
i) Whole weight of Young Earth Creationism rests on interpreting Day as literal 24 hours

ii) You don’t have to believe in a 7-day creation to believe in the infallibility of the Bible
“Young Earth Creationists” say that if you don’t believe in a 7-day creation then you don’t believe in the authority of the Bible! That is just rubbish! Old Earth creationists are as committed to the authority and reliability of the Bible as anybody else – they are actually disagreeing over the meaning of just one word as it is used in just three passages of Scripture.

iii) Events of creation were revealed, not observed

Until Day 6 no humans around so not from human observation, had to have been revealed in some way – revelations subject to interpretation – more often symbolic than literal

iv) There are different kinds of language in the Bible: some is symbolic or metaphorical

When we approach a Bible passage we must try to work out what kind of language it is written in. Eternal and spiritual truths, things we can never fully understand or adequately describe, often can’t be expressed in literal language. So religious truth is usually expressed in words used symbolically or poetically, using similes and metaphors, sometimes bending language almost to breaking point. We make a big mistake if we try to understand literally language which was intended to be understood symbolically.

For example, think about when Jesus told his parables. Was the “Good Samaritan” a real living person? Did a genuine “Prodigal Son” ever leave his father? Were the parables history? These carefully constructed stories convey powerful spiritual truth without necessarily relating to historical events. We have to ask similar questions about the Creation Narratives in Genesis chapters 1-2. Are they intended to be scientific truth? “Is the language literal or is it instead parable, symbolic or poetical language?

“Old Earth Creationists”, like me, are just as committed to the reliability of the Bible as the Word of God. But we believe that Genesis is teaching religious and not scientific truth. So the language of the Biblical account of creation is symbolic rather than necessarily literal. Genesis teaches WHO it was who created the earth (God) and WHY, but not scientifically HOW it all took place.

Old Earth Creationists regard the “days” in Genesis as long periods of time. Other parts of the account are SURELY symbolic – God “said” (what language did God say it in?) God “breathed” into Adam’s nostrils. When we’re talking about what God “says” and “does” human language HAS to be symbolic. When it says “days” surely these are God’s days. It’s not necessarily right, and probably wrong, to insist that the days in Genesis 1-2 have to be understood as literal 24 hour periods. (There were not even a sun or a moon until the third day!)

Notice how well the order of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 actually fits with scientific ideas of evolution, ideas which did not come alone till thousands of years after Genesis was written. So we can accept the idea of development or evolution. There probably were dinosaurs, living and dying out before humans were created in that long long period of the fifth “day.

v) The word “day” does not necessarily refer to a 24-hour period:
(a) 2 Peter 3:8 (quoting Psa 90:4) ¶ But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
(b) Phrases such as “the Day of the Lord”

vi) Day could be from God’s perspective not human – no more problem!!!

vii) Language of Science or History as we know it is only 18th century onwards

It seems very unlikely that the writers were trying to produce a textbook of science and history. For one thing science and history as we know them have only been invented over the last few hundred years! Everything in Genesis 1-2 must have been revealed by God to those writers in ways that the people THEN could understand, not in the language of history and science which weren’t going to be invented for thousands of years. The Bible accounts need to be read in the context of the kinds of literature which were around when they were written, not as if they were written today just for us.

The problem which I have with Young Earth Creationists is that they are fighting the wrong war on the wrong battleground! The challenge is NOT to prove to the scientific world that the earth came into being in 7 days only 8000 years ago. The challenge which the Young Earth Creationists keep dodging is to prove to the wider world and the mainstream Church that the word “day” in chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis HAS to carry the literal meaning of a 24 hour period of time, and cannot possibly in any way shape or form be symbolic language. That is not a question of science but a question of Biblical interpretation and systematic theology, and NONE of the so called “creation scientists” has enough training or competence in theology or linguistics or hermeneutics to begin to give a decent answer to that question. Until the 7 day creationists actually address that issue, competent theologians are not going to take them seriously, and nor are mainstream scientists!

6) Focus on proving a 7-day creation distracts people from the more important task of pointing to God as Creator

Almighty God is Creator of Heaven and Earth! Whether the earth was created in seven 24 hour days is an issue of Biblical interpretation, not science. The debate between science and seven day “Young Earth Creationism” is a red herring from the vital Christian message we have to proclaim about God as Creator.

i) Creation in 7 days is only mentioned in THREE places

Creation in seven days only THREE places –

Genesis 1-2, Genesis 2:3

Then the seven days of creation are given as the reason for the 4th commandment in Exodus 20 repeated in Exodus 31

Ex 31:17 the Sabbath, …. will be a sign between me and the Israelites for ever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.'”

But there is an interesting CHANGE of reason in 10 cmdmts as listed in Deuteronomy 5:14 where the reason given for the Sabbath is NOT the seven days of creation but instead Deut 5: 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

NO other references to 7 days of creation apart from one reference to the Sabbath quoting Exodus in Hebrews 4:3-4.

ii) Battle for “young earth” is a major barrier for some, especially scientists

Public arguments over Young Earth Creationism is likely to drive people away from God, not bring them to God. That certainly happened to some of my Cambridge friends who today are eminent scientists.

So, “Has science disproved the Bible, specifically creation?” You must make up your own mind. Science casts some doubts on whether creation took place over the space of seven 24 hour days just 8000 years ago. But I think that good principles of Biblical Interpretation cast doubt on whether the Bible really teaches Young Earth Creationism anyway. That all hinges on whether one single word “day” should be interpreted literally or symbolically!! What the Bible DEFINITELY teaches is that Almighty God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. With the eye of faith, we can see the Hand of the Designer, the eternal architect, in all He has made. And science which studies the wonders of creation will never ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of the Creator who is beyond and above His creation.

Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

FAITH AND SCIENCE

In the Middle Ages they used to ring church bells during storms to drive away the storm demons. In many parts of world today if someone is sick call witchdoctor / medicine man / shamen to cast a spell to heal the sickness or to break the curse which has caused it. Things have changed in Western world by the 3rd Millenium. For 3 centuries our world has been turning away from beliefs in magic and religion and trusting instead in science. Isaaac Asimov has even described scientists as the New Magicians. We no longer explain the world world in terms of God or evil spirits but in terms of atoms and molecules and forces and reactions. When we are sick most people no longer pray – we turn to doctors, the new miracle workers. So religion and magic have lost their sway over lives of ordinary people. This process of “disenchantment” has one simple cause – the rise of modern science which leaves no room for God in His world.

I have to declare a Personal Interest in this area. I studied science at Cambridge and then taught chemistry and I.T. for 5 years at Watford Grammar School. It makes me nostalgic and almost sad to say that I can probably no longer call myself a scientist. I have also studied theology at London Bible College for 5 years and been a Baptist Minister for 23 years.

Of course there have been and still are many notable scientists who have a deep Christian faith. Many in our own church work in different branches of science. At university there were more Christians in the science and medical faculties any other departments. But there is the popular view that “science has disproved religion”, that “science has replaced religion”, “we dont need God any more”, even that “with the rise of science human beings have outgrown God.” This popular view comes not from science itself but from the media’s presentations of science and religion, from David Attenborough’ subtly atheistic natural history programs to Richard Dawkin’s explicit attacks on Christian faith.

I want to touch this evening on three big areas where science and religion clash. Or rather I should say “where bad science and bad religion clash”. Because Id want to argue that there is no conflict between GOOD science and GOOD religion at all! But the claims that “science has disproved religion” often focus on three areas: questions about the supernatural in general and miracles in particular, questions about the existence of God, and questions about creation and evolution and the Bible.

1 THE SUPERNATURAL

One popular view is that science has explained away everything supernatural. Science has explained away God. God couldnt have made the world, God couldnt answer prayers, God couldnt speak through prophets, because science has explained away God.

Of course this is a claim, an assertion and not an argument. The last quarter century has seen an immense backlash against the claims of science in the growing interest in the supernatural, the paranormal and the occult. People want to believe. The immense popularity of the X-files shows popular beliefs that “the truth is out there.”
“Why is it” Government agent Deep Throat asked FBI agent Fox Mulder “Why is it that in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary you are not dissuaded from your beliefs (in the paranormal)?” Mulder replied “Because the overwhelming evidence is not entirely dissuasive.”

Very many people do have an instinctive belief in the supernatural. But because there is also the popular belief that “science has disproved religion” they no longer look for the supernatural in the church or even in the other world religions, but instead turn to the occult, to mediums and seances and tarot and astrology. In this way mistaken ideas about science are proving very very dangerous!

The reason science can appear to exclude the supernatural is that its underlying presuppositions exclude the supernatural. At deepest of levels Science presumes that the only things which exist are those which can be observed and touched and experimented on. That is an assumption, a presupposition. Its a necessry assumption if you want to do work in science. But its a dangerously mistaken and limiting assumption if you want to live in the real world. Science is used to dealing with certain kinds of evidence – observations and measurements. The hardest thing I found in moving from studying science to studying theology was learning that there are different kinds of evidence as well as scientific experiments, the evidence of historical documents, or of personal testimony for example. These other kinds of evidence need different skills if you are to handle and interpret them properly. The world is overflowing with evidence for existence and activity of God – but sadly some scientists are so locked into their ways of handling evidence and their ways of looking at the world that they cant accept the testimony of Christians about answers to prayer or god speaking in dreams and visions. They want to put the Bible under a microscope instead of letting its truth touch their hearts.

Same problem comes when some scientists think about miracles “Miracles can’t happen” they say. Underlying assumption in science is that the same things keep on happening in the world. U do experiment today and get a certain result then if u do same experiment again tomorrow under same conditions you’ll get the same result. Thats how all “scientific laws” are worked out. If things didnt happen the same day after day u couldnt do any science at all!!! By definition a miracle is God breaking or suspending those scientific laws which He created and He sustains. God is Creator – He’s allowed to do that if He wants to. But science has problems with God breaking His own rules. Science has problems with anything happening today which wont happen again tomorrow unless God does the same miracle again then. Science has problems with any events which cant be experimented upon, anything where u cant control all the factors and only vary what u want to investigate. So BAD science rejects reports of miracles because such reports cant be handled in the ways science likes to.
To say “miracles dont happen” is an assumption. The most any person should say is that “if miracles do happen I havent seen any”. Thats the limits of how far science should go. And many of us HAVE seen miracles – healings, answers to prayer. I have experienced miracles myself. So I believe in the God who works miracles! Good science should never reject evidence of miracles just because it doesnt fit into its philosophy or conflicts with its presuppositions. Scientists should always reexamine their assumptions so they fit with the real world!

2. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

“God is not discoverable or demonstrable by purely scientific means, unfortunately for the scientifically-minded. But that really proves nothing. It simply means that the wrong instruments are being used for the job.” J. B. Phillips (1906–1982)

Some people confidently declare ‘‘there is no God’’ as if this were a proven fact. All anyone can reliably say is, ‘‘if there is a God I haven’t seen evidence of his existence yet’’. People who say ‘‘God does not exist’’ are only expressing their personal belief.
As a teenager I used to argue vigorously that God couldn’t exist. Then God proved me wrong.
Someone who declares that God cannot possibly exist is making the same mistake as someone who insists that Australia cannot possibly exist, just because they haven’t personally been there (yet). Or somebody who says “the Queen doesn’t exist” because he has never met Her Majesty, and refuses to believe the pictures or the people who claim they have met her!
Isaac Asimov made the same mistake as very many people – “I am an atheist, out and out. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he does not that I don’t want to waste my time.”
Asimov had closed his mind to the evidence for God’s existence – so in the end he could not see what many others can! But Christians HAVE seen that evidence. We have experienced the power of God and seen him at work! And scientists should NOT ignore that evidence, but rethink their scientific assumptions until their science fits with the real world!

“Science without religion is blind. Religion without science is lame.” ALBERT EINSTEIN

“Posterity will some day laugh at the foolishness of our modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature the more I am amazed at the Creator.” – Louis Pasteur

The way we all see the world, our “world view”, depends on where we are standing, where we are coming from.

Two people were walking along a river bank one day when they saw a man across the river. “How can we get across?” They shouted. “Why would you be wanting to do that then?” The man asked. “We want to get to the other side” they explained patiently. “Don’t be daft,” the man replied. “You’re already on the other side!”

And we don’t always interpret what we see correctly. Our interpretations can be distorted by our presuppositions, our preconceived ideas, the things we assume and take for granted.
Advert – “What do u see?” 1. Scruffy black man running along street behind a well-dressed white man. Is it a mugger chasing his victim? 2nd picture – pull back – wider picture shows Policeman in uniform running after the black man. Perhaps that confirms your interpretation. What do u see? Answer = picture of 2 policeman pursuing a criminal – black man was a detective in plain clothes. How we interpret what we see depends upon our point of view, our presuppositions, our world view. Especially if we only see half of the picture we may well completely misunderstand what we see.

Some scientists face this problem when they come to think about God. How we interpret stories, facts, events, evidence, is blinkered by our presuppositions.
We all know the story of boy who cried wolf. How one day a wolf actually came and attacked the flock but when the boy shouted “wolf” the villagers thought he was joking yet again and didnt come so the sheep and boy were killed. What’s the moral of that story?
We probably think it is about the importance of never telling lies. But maybe that just reflects our presuppositions. In Star Trek DS9 when Garek the alien Cardassian who had been a leader in their secret police was asked for the moral of that fable, he saw things differently. “Surely it is the importance of never telling the same lie twice!”
If a person starts off with the wrong assumptions, the same evidence can reinforce those wrong ideas!

GESTALT SHIFT PICTURES – WHAT do u see in this picture? Young woman or old hag? BOTH are there in the picture. when mind switches from seeing one to other the picture hasnt changed, only your interpretation of it. Its possible to get so locked into seeing the picture in one particular way that u cant see the other. But once u have seen both it is impossible to argue that only one image is there and the other is not. Many examples of optical illusions where it takes a perception shift, a gestalt shift, to see the image in its different ways. Many people are so blinded by the way the media suggests that science has replaced God that they simply cannot see God. Some scientists are so locked into their way of looking at the world that they genuinely cannot see the evidence for God which is all around them. But for anyone who looks for it that evidence is there plain to see.

3. CREATION AND EVOLUTION

Has evolution disproved the Bible Is the Bible account of God creating the world in 6 days true? Here I suggest the real issue is philosophical. It’s nothing to do with science and everything to do with how we understand the Bible. The real question is what do we mean by “truth”?

True or False? Consider the following statements. Are they true or false?

(a) 2 + 2 = 4
(b) force equals mass times acceleration
(c) Henry the Eighth had six wives
(d) “He’s got a frog in his throat.”
(e) Romeo loves Juliet.
(f) God is love.
(g) “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them.”

What do we mean by True and False?
– Mathematical truth starts from certain basic assumptions, or axioms, and derives from them by defined operations other “mathematical truths” which are proved totally theoretically.
– Truth in science is based on observations and experiments from which theories are deduced. A theory or model is only true if it successfully explains and predicts the results of practical experiments.
– Truth in historical events and people can still be accepted even though there may be little evidence remaining of what actually happened many centuries ago.
– “Romeo loves Juliet” cannot be proved scientifically or historically, but only in the experience of the people in love. (Here – true in the story world, but did they ever exist? Does that matter?)

There are many different areas of knowledge; mathematics, science, history, literature, morality, philosophy and religion too. Each area has different ideas of truth within it, with different ways of determining what is true or false. Historical facts cannot be proved “true” mathematically because the rules of mathematics do not apply to history. Moral questions of right and wrong, like “Is murder wrong?” cannot be decided using scientific principles alone, because the scientific method of reasoning is not necessarily valid when applied to moral issues.

Different Kinds of Language

The different kinds of knowledge can use language in different ways. Poetry is not always literal. Consider,
“Tiger Tiger burning bright, in the forest of the night.”
This poetry does not mean that the tiger is actually on fire!

Religious truth is a distinct kind of truth concerned with things infinite, eternal and spiritual, things we can never fully understand or adequately describe. Religious truth cant always be explained in the language or judged by the sorts of ways of thinking which belong to other kinds of knowledge.
Eternal and spiritual truths often can’t be expressed in literal language. So religious truth is usually expressed in words used symbolically or poetically, using similes and metaphors, sometimes bending language almost to breaking point. We make a big mistake if we try to understand literally language which was intended to be understood symbolically. It’s an issue of interpretation.

When we approach the Bible we must try to work out what kind of language it is, what kind of truth it is trying to communicate. There are many different kinds of language in the Bible -history, parable, law, letter, proverb, and the highly symbolic language of prophecy and revelation.

As an example, think about when Jesus told his parables. Was he quoting historical truth? Was the “Good Samaritan” a real living person? Did a genuine “Prodigal Son” ever leave his father? Were the parables history? Or were they instead carefully constructed stories which convey spiritual truth.

We have to ask similar questions about the Creation Narratives in Genesis chapters 1-2. “Are they intended to be scientific truth?” “Is the language literal or is it instead symbolic or poetical, or some combination of these kinds of language (genres)?” It seems very unlikely that the writers were trying to produce a textbook of science and history. For one thing science and history as we know them have only been invented over the last few hundred years! These Bible accounts of creation have been around for 3000 years or more. It seems much more likely that Genesis was written to present religious truth in an enduring form.

Let’s remember another obvious but very important thing which makes the Creation Stories in Genesis different from every other part of the Bible. From Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 onwards people were actually there – people who could tell their stories to their children. But for the accounts of creation NOBODY was there! Everything in Genesis 1-2 must have been revealed by God to those writers in some way because before there were people on earth NOBODY was there! And it would have been revealed in ways that the people THEN could understand, not in the language of history and science which weren’t going to be invented for thousands of years.

When it comes to creation science and religion are asking different questions. Science wants to know HOW the universe began, HOW did life begin and develop. Religion is asking WHO was behind it all, WHY did life begin, what is the PURPOSE of it all?

SO How did the Universe begin? And How did life on Earth develop?

If people are honest, we just don’t know about the question of how the universe, and in particular life on earth, began. There are three kinds of approaches to the origin of the universe which many people believe today.

(a) Purely Scientific Views:
The Universe began with a “big bang” or else it has always existed in a “steady state”, or if Stephen Hawking is right it doesn’t even need to have a beginning at all. Then over the millenia, life has developed through evolution, a perfectly natural and chance process. This view is remarkably popular with non-scientists who often think that everything can be explained by “science”. Good scientists know it’s not that simple!

(b) Biblical Creation View:
One Jewish and Christian view is that the account of creation found in the Bible (in Genesis chs 1-2) is literally, historically and scientifically true. So God took six days of 24 hours to create the world and evolution (which is after all only a theory, not a proven fact) cannot have occurred.

(c) Symbolic Biblical View:
Other Christians, just as committed to the reliability of the Bible as the Word of God, believe that Genesis is teaching religious and not scientific truth. So the language of the Biblical account of creation is symbolic rather than necessarily literal. So Genesis teaches WHO it was who created the earth (God) and WHY, but not scientifically HOW it all took place. The issue is the correct interpretation of the texts.

This view regards the “days” in Genesis as long periods of time. This is a perfectly acceptable symbolic meaning for the word for day yom found elsewhere in the Bible (e.g. Psalm 90:4).
Ps 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch
in the night.

Other parts of the account are SURELY symbolic – God “said” (what language did God say it in?) God “breathed” into Adam’s nostrils. when we’re talking about God human language HAS to be symbolic. When it says “days” surely these are God’s days. It’s not necessarly, and probably a wrong way to approach the Bible as God’s Word, to insist that the days are literal 24 hour periods. (There wasnt even a sun or a moon until the third day!)

Notice how well the order of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 actually fits with scientific ideas of evolution, ideas which didnt come alone till thousands of years after Genesis was written. So we can accept the idea of development or evolution. There probably were dinosaurs, living and dying out before humans were created in that long long period of the fifth “day” in Genesis 1:20 .

So evolution probably happened. But sensible scientists will realise that the probability of life in all its complexity appearing by the operation of mere random chance would be exceedingly low! So we believe God must have intervened by “guiding” evolution, continuing the process of creation.

Consider the wonders of nature; the complexity of human brain and eye, the action of enzymes, the interplay beween DNA, RNA and proteins in replication and inheritance, and countless other phenomena. It is so unlikely that these marvels “evolved” by pure chance, and sometimes in opposition to so-called natural selection. Design points to the existence of a Designer, the Architect of the Universe, “God”.

In Genesis 1:27 and 2:7 man is created in the (spiritual) image of God by the inbreathing of the breath (or spirit) of life. Many Christians understand this as God giving the dimension of spiritual experience to animals which had already developed through evolution, making them “Man” by giving them rational, moral and spiritual qualities. Psychologists and philosophers find it impossible to explain how human beings developed consciousness and conscience, and appreciation of beauty and the desire to pray and worship. Evolution never claims to explain these things, and never could! The Christian explanation is simple – God made us this way, in His image!

Science describes the way the world works. Faith is concerned with the God who is above science, who created and sustains the scientific laws which scientists study but is inevitably Himself outside the scope of “scientific” study. Science does not, and cannot, prove that God doesn’t exist. Science is very good at explaining how this world works and how we can control it. But it has its limits – and GOOD scientists recognise those limits. Science will never ultimately be able to explain how the world began. Science cannot give us any answers about things in the universe which we cannot see or touch, the whole spiritual realm.

The most important questions about creation are these. WHY did life begin? WHAT IS the purpose of our existence? WHAT IS the meaning of life? Science can’t answer these questions. The Bible can!

Faith and science: the supernatural and miracles, the existence of God, creation and evolution – things to say to your friends when they ask, things to think about.