Faithful Thinkers: Science and Faith

It is often claimed by skeptics that science has buried God and that science and faith are completely incompatible with one another. What is really scary is that many Christians (including myself several years ago) believe these claims, and instead of attempting to refute them, these Christians stand against reason and evidence, which only gives credence to that false claim in Christian circles. Defending the faith includes showing how science is not only compatible with faith and God, but it finds its very foundation in God. Over the past several years I have written many posts and reviewed many books that explain this in much more detail. This page serves to compile them into one place.

Foundations for Science / Faith Relationship Discussions

Any religion or worldview that claims to be true implies that it can accurately explain the findings of science. Some worldviews disregard the findings of science, and others are based exclusively (supposedly) on them. These posts set the stage for the proper interaction between science and faith:

"Distortion and suppression of the truth is encouraged by a prevailing attitude of scientism, not science itself but rather a certain attitude of veneration toward science as the exclusive means of obtaining truth"- Angus Menuge (Agents Under Fire)

Foundations for Christianity / Science Relationship Discussions

Many debates about how scripture and science interact and the correct results of those interactions are taking place. The common debates that come to mind involve the age of the universe and earth and whether God used natural processes in his creative acts described in Genesis. Others involve the historicity of Adam and Eve and Noah's flood. These posts provide a foundation for how Christians are to look at these issues and interact with one another regarding them:

"We want to have our ideas tested. We are persuaded that our positions today are going to need adjustment as we gain more understanding...we need some diversity; we need open dialog. What I'm concerned about is that we have so much hostility in this dialog and that needs to be replaced with a more humble spirit where we say, 'Chances are we are both wrong in part, at least, and we may discover that we need to develop something new that none of us have thought of.' How are we going to discover that if we don't have open dialog without the threat of hostility?- where we say, 'we're making progress together. We're allies; we're not enemies. We're allies working together toward the common goal'." -Hugh Ross (Life and Death in Eden)

Defending Old-Earth Creationism

My position is that God created the universe out of nothing and used both fiat miracles and natural processes to form the universe and bring the earth to the finely tuned state for humanity's existence and flourishing (to fulfill the Great Commission). I defend Adam and Eve as historical individuals created separate from other creatures, thus they were not the product of evolution and were not merely a "representative pair." I hold to the historicity of a universal flood that wiped out all of humanity (save Noah and his family) but was geographically localized. I believe that all these positions are compatible with a literal and historical reading of the Genesis accounts. They are compatible with orthodox Christian theism, but are not necessarily explicitly taught in scripture (as opposed to others who like to insist that their view IS explicitly taught). Here are the posts:

"I don't believe that science can correct scripture because I believe in the inerrancy of scripture. I don't believe there are any errors or holes in scripture. I do believe this: that sometimes science can come along and show us that we've been reading the text possibly the wrong way."- Kenneth Samples (The Whats and Whys of Common Grace)

Book Reviews

I have also reviewed several books that look at the latest scientific evidence and shows how it is either compatible with or can only be explained within the context of the Christian worldview.