On this episode of the Evangelist Podcast, we're asking, is Christianity anti-science? The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you with Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scriver.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. This is the show where we delve into issues regarding sharing the good news of Jesus. I'm Andy Brinkley, Media Producer, and here is my good friend and colleague, Glenn Scriver.
SPEAKER_01Hello everybody. What's funny? What do you mean everybody? It's just me and the listeners. Yes.
SPEAKER_02So this time we're looking at is Christianity anti-science? Mm-hmm. So I'll just say no. Yeah, no. Next. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01Next. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So anti-science, where does this accusation come from?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's I mean it it does sound a bit nuts, doesn't it? When when you when you think historically about the contributions of Christians to science and and just the sort of the foundations of a Christian worldview that enable science to happen, it it is quite a strange thing that we're in the position of people thinking kind of Christians are are anti-science. But I I think it's a bit of a power struggle, really. Who is it who holds the keys to knowledge these days? And it used to be Christians. Christianity used to be the queen of the science, theology used to be the queen of the sciences. Um that's what it used to be sort of known as in the Middle Ages. But now the natural sciences have kind of ascended because they've been very useful in terms of you know helping us to fly halfway around the world and stamp out malaria and you know there's no cure for the common cold yet, but you know, there are lots of lots of things that I I've staring at my iPhone right now. Thank you, science. Thank you. That's great. But uh it yeah, it becomes a bit of a a grab for power, really, when science when some scientists and when some secular people want to make claims for science that it is God. That it rules. And and really the it's not really Christianity versus science, it's Christianity versus naturalism. Naturalism is the view that the cosmos is all there is, was, and ever shall be. There's no kind of other dimension or Yeah, it's it all, you know, all it's all biology which boils down to chemistry, which boils down to physics, okay? And behind that there's you know, there's not a supernatural realm that that sort of uh intervenes in all those sorts of things. And so naturalism is is the thing that is not Christian. Science is something else. Yeah. Now lots of naturalists are scientists, and lots of Christians are scientists. And I think I want to make the argument, you know, later on in the podcast that perhaps science fits more comfortably within Christianity than it does within naturalism. But I think I think the success of of science makes people sort of think that that science is now Lord and you know, and they want to have power play against against Christianity.
SPEAKER_02So And they cut it kind of often it comes from a philosophical starting point and then sort of picks up science as a a tool or you know evidence. Yeah. And as we were saying last time, you know, it comes from what we want to believe, you know, uh what the heart loves first, and then we try and reason it, you know, and make it true. A lot of these starting points are nowhere near science. Yes, yes, start in in philosophical i ideals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And there's a vision of the world in which humanity, through the use of our minds, can intellectually ascend from the slime from which we have, you know, arisen, and we can take charge of the world because you know we are top of the heap.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So why do you think this question is so commonly asked now then?
SPEAKER_01It's uh yeah, I I think for all these reasons that we're just sort of saying that that there's a vision of progression that we love. We love this idea that yes, through selfishness and slime we have emerged and we're we are top of the heap, and we can continue to to evolve ourselves and evolve our species, and we are kind of clever apes. And we are are clever apes who are ascending through science. And in a sense, you know, the Bible's vision is is of of us as sort of fallen men and women. We're fallen people who have come down from a great height. The scientism story is we are ascending apes. And and there's something attractive. There's something attractive to being top of the cosmos. You know, here we are, top of the cosmos. Even though we're apes. So there's an irony there, isn't there? Because the even the Christian position, even though we are fallen men and women, we're the pinnacle of, you know, we're made in God's image, for goodness sakes, and we're we're told to rule and have dominion over the earth. So I actually I think Christianity gives us a a a a humble but true picture of humanity that actually has authority and the authority to to rule and have dominion, and science ha plays its part within the Christian worldview. Science within the atheistic just sort of human progress view is yeah, it's the tool that we need to keep on ascending and ascending and ascending and ascending. So no wonder if that's gripped you, you hate the Christian story that we're you know, we're fallen then, and that there might be an authority over us and over science. So some of that is where the conflict comes from, I think.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so uh if someone sort of comes with a scientific type approach to to faith and you're speaking to them, and we you want to use 321 to speak to them, obviously. Yeah, why why would you not? Um so how would you bring in Jesus?
SPEAKER_01I I think uh here we go, we'll go a bit big picture here. I think in the history of human thought there have been two different kind of ways of explaining everything. One is top-down and the other is bottom-up. The top-down thing starts with grand ideas and then looks at the details and tries to put them into the details. The other uh kind of way of seeing the world is very good at look looking at the individual details and then piecing them together in a piecemeal kind of way until you you you come up with the grand theories in that kind of way. Now, interestingly, you you kinda need both. You actually you actually need both if you're gonna have a true picture of reality. And if you don't have both, you can't do science. So the Greeks were incre the ancient Greeks I'm talking about are incredibly clever producing playwrights and philosophers, um, and mathematicians, and people who are very happy in their own heads. And yet they didn't produce science the way that we understand science to be. Aristotle famously said that uh bees have four legs because he reasoned it out in his head. It was because the the nature of all things meant that a bee fit fitted into this kind of classification of animal, and these classifications of animals had four legs, and therefore a bee's got four legs. And it didn't occur to him to go and count, right? It didn't occur to him to actually try and like catch a bee. And of course, we these days, well well, surely you start there, you start with the observation. But that's that's not how that culture kind of progressed, and the Greeks were very good at the top-down thing. Other cultures have been really good at the bottom-up thing. So the Chinese have come up with all sorts of brilliant technology. Um glasses and fireworks and uh gunpowder and spectacles and and all sorts of things like that, and and um You said glasses. I said glasses and spectacles, both of them. Yeah. Uh printing, printing as well. Um They they're coming up with all this kind of of technology. So they're very good at the sort of the bottom-up stuff, but they don't they don't have a view of the cosmos that enables them to put the bottom-up stuff together with the top-down stuff. So very clever cultures have existed in the world that have not come up with anything like what we consider to be science today, modern science. What you actually need is a top-down and a bottom-up thing. You need the grand theories and you need the experimental, you know, data.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so I hope you're getting to Jesus here.
SPEAKER_01I was just about to. So, what do you know, what do you what do you read on the first page of John's Gospel? In the beginning was the word. Okay, here's top here's a very top-down thing. Verse 14, the word became flesh and lived among us. Or the beginning of John's uh first letter, you know, that which was from the beginning, which we've seen and heard, which our eyes have seen and our hands have touched, this we proclaim to you. And actually, what you get in the Bible is this this view of the world that has uh a very grand top-down vision. Here it there is a word. The Greek word is logos, from which we get the the word logic. You know, there it there is a kind of a logic to reality. Therefore, no no wonder you can have grand theories that explain stuff. Brilliant. But the word became flesh and anchored himself in the details of this world, and therefore you do not retreat into your mind in order to understand the word. And you do not un retreat into your mind simply to understand the world. Actually, you go out and you explore and you handle and you taste and you touch. So actually, the Christian worldview with Jesus at the center actually answers that big question, you know, do we understand the world from top down or from bottom up? And Jesus, Jesus is the one from the top who's earthed himself in at the bottom, and so that we at the bottom can investigate but also lay hold of, you know, the stuff at the top. And and and actually, therefore, it's no surprise that actually it's Christianity that is the sort of the seedbed of modern science.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well look at three then.
SPEAKER_01Three is the truth about God. Yeah. God is three persons united in love, and and you just need to with science, the the whole of the scientific enterprise is based on the fact that we're dealing with a cosmos and not a chaos. The whole of it is a is about the fact that there's we've got a rationally understandable, rationally comprehensible, rationally ordered universe where, you know, I I look through my telescope that's been, you know, the the telescope's been manufactured in China. I I look through the telescope to something that that's that's hundreds of thousands of miles away, I I make a little, you know, observation and write it down, I plug that figure into a th uh, you know, a an equation that was discovered 400 years ago by a guy on another continent, and then I change the the direction of the of the telescope, and lo and behold, that's where the that's where the asteroid is the next time I look. And there's this triangulation between what's out there and the laws that govern it, and and and that people over centuries have discovered these same things and they all triangulate, they all match up. Why should that be? Why should why should we live in such a finely tuned, finely ordered universe as as the one that we do? And I Einstein um said uh the fact that the universe is comprehensible is the greatest miracle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Why why should it be that we can do all these experiments and continue to and and that it makes this coherent, comprehensible kind of picture of of the world? And and Christians say, well, there there is a God of truth, beauty, goodness, love, there is a logos, a logic that's been there from the beginning. And therefore that that's why science, I think, sits most naturally within a Christian worldview. Um because we we actually believe there is a rational, coherent explanation for stuff that's out there, and that human minds might be able to access that. Well we'll think about that with two, but um yeah, because of three, I think there is every reason for doing science. And you know, and the fact that in science different theories try to account for data. And what scientists find is that the s the the theories that are most likely to account for the data the best are the ones that are simplest, the ones that are mo most symmetrical, the most beautiful, as mathematicians might call them. There there is a sort of a beauty to the order of the world. Why should this be? Uh well perhaps perhaps the God of Jesus gives us uh the answer.
SPEAKER_02Okay. We'll look at two then, uh uh relating to Adam and Christ.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. So two is is yeah, Jesus has come into the world to reverse the work of Adam, to become true man, the second second Adam. And that really gives us great confidence for being able to do science. I mean, it's it's not like I I read up on in scientific journals and all that kind of thing, but I'm I'm vaguely aware of debates about you know whether there can be a grand unified theory of everything, whether we should have any right to expect that our human minds can comprehend the vastness of of reality and and all that sort of stuff. And at that point, you see why science might not best fit within the atheistic worldview. Because if we have emerged from slime and we're on top of the slime and and then why why should we think that simply because all my ancestors happen to be more selfish than all their competitors, why should I think therefore that that bestows upon my mind any great ability to kind of comprehend reality? Why should why should I think that? But if I'm a fallen human but made in God's image, well then I'm then I might have the right to think that this mind can understand the cosmos that we that we live in. You know, for science for science to happen, there need to be laws that are up there, minds that are in here, and a world that is out there. The laws that are up there that govern all things, a mind in here that can understand those laws, and a world that is out there that is um governed by those laws. Um and and and again, I I don't know what right we have to expect that triangulation between the law and the mind and and the world. But with Jesus we have every right to expect it. Yeah. Um because Jesus Jesus is the Logos of all things who has earthed himself into a human mind. There is a human mind that really does comprehend the cosmos. Well that should that should give scientists everywhere should be rejoicing, even if they're not Christians. Um they should at least respect the Christian worldview, in which we say, yeah, there is a human mind that comprehends all the deepest mysteries of the of the galaxies. That sh I mean that should give you hope and I and and yeah, that should give you the inspiration to go out there and and and think Christ's thoughts after him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So one then, who are you one with? says uh says 321. So the personal side.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the personal side. I think I've said before on the podcast, because we we have done a science sum podcast before, and we can put some links to the the show notes there. But uh um it was very interesting, Brian Cox did a documentary about the large hadron collider a few years ago. Brian Cox is the the the guy who used to be the the D-Ream keyboard player. Oh really? I didn't realise that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's D Reamy. And and then retrained as like an astrophysicist or whatever. So yeah, yeah, clever guy. So um he he did this um a documentary on the uh large color. And he had this brilliant line at one stage he said, Physics is stuck, and the only way we can we can figure out a way forwards is to go back to the very, very, very, very, very beginning of creation. And uh we need to smash together particles at velocities and energies never before known before, so that we can get right back to to sort of the conditions that there were at sort of you know at at T equals zero. We need to get back to ground zero, and then once we've smashed together all these particles, then we will see the face of creation. And that was his phrase, that we we will see the face of creation. And and at that point you think, well, I think uh wow, I I understand that you want to see a face. Like I totally understand that. The world's like the greatest stuff in the world is sort of personal reality. It it is. Um and we all know, like on our deathbeds, the stuff we will most regret not having done will be stuff to do with personal reality and personal relationships and not you know not having face-to-face relationships with people that we should have done. We all know that that's sort of ultimate reality. So I can understand Brian Cox saying, okay, we uh at the end of all things we want to see the face of creation. We want there to be a personal reality at the heart of all things, but how are you gonna find that? Smash particles together? I don't think so. If you smash particles together, you're gonna figure out a lot about particles, and that's great. Fantastic, thank you. Keep on doing that. But if you want to see a face, then do good science, okay? Do good science. Science um you always do science according to what it is you're looking at. So if you want to look at the stars, buy yourself a telescope. If you want to look at microbes, buy yourself a microscope. If you want to see the face of creation, get yourself a Bible, you know? And do good science and and study if you want a face at the heart of creation, then then then figure out who this Jesus guy is, because he claims to be the face of creation. And and do good science on him, humble him with questions, investigate him through historical analysis, and figure out whether he is the face at the heart of all creation. And then, with him, go back to the LHC and s and smash particles together. That's fantastic, and keep on doing science and keep on discovering things in physics and biology and astrophysics and everything. Please do that. Jesus doesn't take you away from those things. Um Jesus sends you back into those things and says, please, you know, think my thoughts after me. Think my thoughts after me. But that's that's the way around it's got to be. Do all the science you like, you're not gonna see a face until you see Jesus. So do good science on him and figure out who he is.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Okay, well, there's obviously so much more we could we could develop there uh to do with science and you know all the different aspects, but uh we better leave it there. Yeah, well if people have questions then um write them in and uh Yeah, you can uh enter it on the podcast page, or you can even just contact us through Twitter at Glenn Scrivener, or I'm at Andy Brinks. Contact us there, or as I say, you could go to this show's web address which is revivalmedia.org slash tepfifty seven. You'll also find links to uh give us a rating and review on iTunes. We'd be grateful if you could do that, uh, and also to get our free daily prayer bulletin. But I think uh I think that's it for now, so uh we'll see you next time on the Evangelist Podcast.
SPEAKER_01See you later.