Science has never been a true enemy of Christianity. Nor has Christianity been a true enemy of science. Yet this is the story that has been told to us all our lives in our schools and in our culture. We are told that science is the source of all truth and Christianity is only a source of superstition. We are told that science will lead us into the future and Christianity can only keep us trapped in the past. We are told that science reveals the mysteries of the universe and Christianity can only reveal the delusions inside our own heads. But all this is a grave misunderstanding at best, and at worst a condemnable lie.

First of all, science was created by Christianity. Sure, every culture across the world has had ways of exploring the world and developing new things. But only in the Christianized west, did science, as we understand it, emerge. No other area of the globe experienced the level of technological progress and innovation that occurred in Europe after the Middle Ages. And this can all be blamed on Christianity. Science was founded on Christian principles. For example, science believes that the universe is knowable, that it can be understood by human reason. This was founded on the Christian belief that a God who reveals Himself created the world and He created humans to know and improve the world He created. Science believes that the universe is consistent, that laws and formulas that work in one place at one time will remain the same at other places at other times. This was founded on the Christian belief that God is a god of order and He instilled that order in the world He made. Both of these beliefs cannot be assumed without faith, faith in something beyond science. You can’t demonstrate that gravity works the same everywhere until you look and see that the moon too has gravity, and then you have no guarantees that gravity will exist at all beyond the reaches of our telescopes, unless you believe in an ordered universe.

Second, Christianity has never worked to suppress science as a discipline. Sure there have been controversies like Galileo’s heliocentric universe, where he debated with the Pope about whether the earth revolved around the sun. This conflict however had much more to do with politics and power rather than faith versus science. This is made plain by the fact that scientists and Christians were on both sides of this controversy. We can explain the conflict and controversies surrounding science without pointing at Christianity. But we cannot explain the existence of science without pointing at Christianity. The story we have been told is a bad story built on poorly done history, flimsy philosophy, and projecting present conflicts into the past. Christianity and science have been true friends much longer than they have pretended to be enemies.

The conflict now exists coming from science against Christian faith rather than a religious assault on science. Or rather it is more accurate to say, many scientists are coming against Christianity even if their science does not truly support their hatred.

They claim that Christianity is a superstition that cannot be proved by the scientific method. This is a strange accusation considering that science cannot be proved by the scientific method either. How would you propose constructing an experiment where we proved that science was always right? How would you test it? How long would it take you? When would you have proved it? You can’t. You have to take it on faith that science can tell us something true about the world and then use their discoveries to back up their faith, similar to what they claim Christians do.

This illustrates the essential difference between “mathematical proof” and “sufficient evidence”. Scientists want us to discover a math formula or a set of logical statements that demonstrate that God exists. But you can’t even do that with logic or math! And besides, we don’t rely on this method of verification for anything outside of math and logic. No one asks for a mathematical proof that their breakfast isn’t poisoned when their mother sets it on the table. No one asks for a philosophical syllogism to demonstrate that their car brakes are still working. No one demands a formula to confirm that the wedding vow has been truly spoken and will be kept. We take all these important, life or death moments on the basis of sufficient evidence. We know that we can’t know everything for certain in life, especially the big stuff. So we have to work with the evidence we have in front of us. Evidence doesn’t have to be mathematically air tight, it just has to be convincing. It doesn’t have to remove all possibility of doubt to be trusted, it just has to be the best explanation for the evidence in front of us. 

This is one of the reasons why the approach some people take called “The God of the Gaps” is so dangerous to faith and reason. The God of the Gaps, as explained by John Lennox, is a theory that God is a placeholder for things in the universe that we don’t understand. So if we don’t understand how lightning works, then we invent Thor, the God of Thunder, until we do some meteorology. Then we can remove Thor once we understand how lightning works. 


But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of two important things. First, God has never just been the explanation for “how” something happens. He has always also been the explanation for “why” anything happens. All science can answer is the question of “how” and not the question of “why”. Second, as John Lennox points out, it is the parts of the universe that we do understand that point so powerfully to the existence of God. 

The more we discover about how finely tuned our planet is for the sustainment of life, the more unlikely it is that life developed here on earth by chance. There is only a 1 in 1^15 chance that all the requirements for complex life would exist on one planet at the same time. Beyond that, we have discovered that the cell, the basic building block of life, is extremely complex. To just randomly assemble one single protein chain needed for the function of a cell, has a probability of only 1 in 1^74. (There are estimated to be 10^65 atoms in the entire galaxy. This would be like launching a rocket into the milky way blindfolded hoping to hit a single atom.) So everything from the smallest blocks of life to the largest structure we stand on are all telling us the same thing, we shouldn’t exist, and yet miraculously we do! The whole universe we inhabit is screaming out that someone made it and made it for us. 

But we should not be surprised that science is slowly revealing to us the truth that God made the universe. The Scriptures already told us that long ago in Colossians 1:16-18, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” This means that Jesus is not only the ruler of Christianity, He is also the ruler of science! All truth is God’s truth. He is in charge of everything, both the spiritual realities of the world and the physical realities. This means that there is no realm of experience that Christianity does not speak to, because there is no corner of reality where Jesus is not Lord. 

But we should also not be suprirised that current day scientists hate Christianity and want to twist their discipline to attack it. The Scriptures already told us that woud happen in Romans 1:19-21, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” No one is unbiased when it comes to God, because God’s existence has consequences for everyone. This is why scientists can’t pretend to answer the question of God “objectively” without “prejudice”. If God exists that changes everything for everyone, which means even scientists have some feelings about that. And Scripture makes it clear that humans have a long track record of suppressing the truth, even when it presents itself to us. 

So for Christians we need to step out in confidence and not be afraid that science is going to overrun our Christianity. Modern science is pointing to God by accident all the time. And the conflict between faith and science is more about a conflict between faith and certain unbelieving scientists. We can confidently trust our Scriptures because they are worth trusting even apart from what science says because they give us something more sure than hypotheses and experimental results. The Scriptures give us promises. And these promises are given by the creator and ruler of the whole universe who loves us and makes himself known to us in the spiritual and the physical aspects of reality. He can be trusted.