Challenging conversations Science and faith


Data and human experience complement each other I


have long thought that scientists who deserve our high- est admiration are individuals blessed with sophisticated minds, brilliant intellects, meticulous scientific methods


and notable achievements. But they also possess another spe- cial quality. They have a capacity to be awed. They meet mys- teries they can’t solve. They ask questions that reveal beauty. They are stunned by the intricate majesty of the universe. Listen closely to outstanding scientists. They share how


little they know in the midst of how much they know. Listen closely to deep believers. They testify to how much they trust in the midst of how little they can verify. The rift between religion and science often gets painted


with larger brushstrokes than seems necessary. Public debates on science vs. religion, and creationism vs. evolution, attract broad attention. Were these debates capable of generating heat and light from all the energy they expended, we might end our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. Strident arguments get aired. Camps develop. To even use the word “debate” implies a fundamental incompatibility between two realms. It should come as no surprise that strong passions get stirred in com- munities where compartmentalized thinking reigns. Certain public school districts in pockets of the country


have moved to prohibit the use of var- ious science textbooks. Proponents fear that the textbook content might conflict with matters of faith. Specifi- cally, they worry about the Genesis creation account getting undermined. It’s hard to believe that any ancient


Science asks different ques-


tions. Like every other discipline, science has its distinct ways of knowing. Scientific inquiry doesn’t deal with questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. In fact, strictly speaking, terms like “meaning” and “moral value” don’t even make it into the scientific vocabulary. Faith, on the other hand, traffics in a realm that doesn’t probe the makeup of a water molecule. Faith isn’t con- cerned with the why of a hummingbird’s fast-beating heart. These different angles of vision between science and faith merely point to various forms of truth. Someone once asked Albert Einstein, who was a music


lover as well as a great scientist: “Do you believe everything can be expressed scientifically?” He replied: “Yes, it would be possible, but it wouldn’t mean anything. It would be descrip- tion without meaning—as if you described a Beethoven sym- phony as a variation of wave pressure.” If everything were comprehensively


writer would have penned the Genesis story for the sake of recording good science. If that was the author’s intent, he (or they) failed mis- erably. The early chapters of Genesis make for lousy empiri- cal science. Not that this has kept numbers of Christians from trying to cram every dinosaur jawbone, distant galaxy and Grand Canyon formation into the span of the last 6,000 years. The Genesis story was never meant to tell us how the world


The Genesis story was never meant to tell us how the world was created. It is rather a master- ful treatise for informing us who created this floating orb in its magnificent universe.


explainable by science, essentially leav- ing no need for God, it would be hard to make a strong case for the role of imagination, poetry or storytelling in human experience either. Who would need these arts if science explained all? And where would the impulse for making moral distinctions come from?


Science doesn’t create the urge in us to do the right thing. So we lean on the complementarity of science and faith. Just


was created. It is rather a masterful treatise for informing us who created this floating orb in its magnificent universe. From the story, we learn that God appreciates beauty, design and order over ugliness, nonsense and chaos. One doesn’t have to tread far into Scripture before discovering that humans were created for relationship with God and one another. These con- victions of faith are hardly at the heart of scientific inquiry.


as a symphony might be considered an object, and thus taken apart and studied for wave pressure, so a symphony also con- tains a personal dimension. Every time the music is played, an unrepeatable experience occurs. Scientific explanation, beautifully


constructive as it is, can’t exhaust reality. Faith helps complete the pic- ture by turning our lives toward the reality of a personal God who loves and sustains this gloriously complex cosmos. 


Author bio: Marty is a pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church, Davenport, Iowa, and a regular columnist for The Lutheran.


April 2014 3


By Peter W. Marty Twelfth in a series


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