God Did It : Is It Really A Science Stopper?

I continue to browse read sections of Jack Collins fine book Science & Faith: Friends or Foes?

The next topic I chose to cherry pick out of the book was the topic of God's involvement in this world and its effect on science.  In theological terms, this falls in the area of study called providence.  How involved is God in the natural world?  If he is heavily involved, does it make the study of science pointless?

Collins unpacks God's involvement in the world by stating the classic Christian understanding of God's providence.  God created real things with real properties (i.e. natures) each with the possibility of causing things.  God ceased creating but goes on maintaining and governing.  That is, he keeps his creation doing what it is supposed to be doing.  Gravity works today exactly like it did yesterday simply because God keeps this force in existence and doing what it is supposed to do.  Apples taste like apples are supposed to taste whether you ate it yesterday or today.  Why?  Simple.  God keeps apples being apples.

This raises a question.  Does God do everything?

In a sense, yes.  In a sense, no.   God directly governs this world.  His purposes are holy, wise and thoroughly good; and he sees to it, that in the end, his purposes stand.  The reason the laws of physics work is because God keeps them working day after day.  They serve his purpose.  So God is directly involved in all of creation daily.  However, God created a universe with a web of cause and effect and things that have natures ... and one of the properties of those natures is to cause things.  In that sense, God did not write this blog post.  Mr. Dawntreader did.

What about miracles then?  Is everything a miracle?  What is a miracle?

Collins eschews the word miracle.  He does not like it.  He avoids it for a very good reason.  The word "miracle" has come to mean "amazing" in our culture.  It is true.  We hear about "miracles" all the time.  Medical miracles, the "miracle on ice", etc.   Since the world "miracle" has become watered down, Collins chooses to divide events in this world into natural events and supernatural events.

Natural : God made the universe from nothing and endowed the things that exist with "natural properties"; he keeps those things in existence, maintaining both the properties and their power to interact with other things, in a web of cause-and-effect.

Supernatural : God is also free to "inject" special operations of his power into this web at any time: for example, he may add objects by creation; he may cause events directly; he may enable something or someone to do what its own natural properties would never have made it able to do; or he may impose organization on some collection of objects - whatever suits his purpose.

Science and Faith, p. 168

Is it still possible for Christians to study and learn about the natural world if God is so involved in it?

Of course it is, and we should learn as much as we can.  In fact, it is because God sustains this world and gives it order that forms the basis and foundation for studying it.  Collins suggests that we assume that natural things are behaving with their natural (God-given) properties unless you have a compelling reason to assume otherwise.

God uses natural and supernatural events to advance his purposes.  God's purpose in making this world was to have a relationship with mankind.  Even after the sin of our first parents, God has pursued this purpose.  The great supernatural events of the Bible have this in focus.  Some people worry that this talk of supernatural events leads to a world that is willy-nilly.  I believe that worry is unfounded.  The Bible shows otherwise.  Supernatural events are filled with purpose.

There is one other nice by product of Collins' taxonomy of events.  It gives us a positive way to identify a supernatural event.  We can call something supernatural when we know the properties of the things involved, and we know they could not have produced the event on their own.  So, when a virgin gives birth, or a dead man comes back to life after three days, or a man stretches out his hand and a tornado starts blowing and divides a sea, we can say a supernatural event occurred.  This is better than saying a supernatural event occurred simply because we don't know how something happened.

Conclusion: Studying science is a good thing for the Christian because it involves studying the natures of things and how they affect other things.  God gave things natures and continues to keep those natures behaving as he created them.  Let's study the nature of things and learn about them.  Let's build technology based on them.  All of this is part of God's common grace.  When we study historical events (i.e. geology, cosmology), we can assume natural forces at work unless it would be absurd to do so.  We have the freedom to follow the evidence where it leads.  We also need to recognize how limited science really is.  It gives no help in answering why things are the way they are, or how he keeps them this way.  Science is limited ... but useful.

Comments

[AJ]

Great post, Mr DawnTreader

To argue against miracles on the grounds that it would impede science is a non-argument, since it begs the question and is based strictly on faith that science is the ultimate pursuit. It is akin to arguing that serial killers can't exist because they would harm the public.

Second, science does not suffer from the supernatural. Science is the study of causes and effects. All science has to do to be science is hold that every cause has an effect. It is a philosophical insertion to believe that every cause must have a natural effect. As a matter of fact, with the implications of the beginning of the Universe, it is impossible to believe that every cause had a natural effect.

It's interesting that you post this now, since my reading material at this very moment is "Miracles and the Modern Mind", by Norm Geisler. If you are enjoying "Science and Faith", I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it.

Be blessed. I enjoy your site.

[John M.]

"God's purpose in making this world was to have a relationship with mankind"

I have a hard time believing that the entire universe was created specifically for the habitation of humans. I don't know of anything in the Bible that implies that too strongly. There may be intelligent life on other planets and God has to have some kind of a relationship with them too. Jesus was His method for reconciliation with us. Other species might have some other system, or might be unfallen.

[Mr. Dawntreader]

AJ,

Thanks for the visit and kind words. The Geisler book sounds great.

John,

I have often wondered about the life elsewhere in the universe. The evidence, at the moment, paints an extremely bleak picture of life elsewhere. Our planet, our moon, our sun, our solar system and our galaxy are all extraordinarily unique. That doesn't mean, however, that God could not have created life elsewhere. It would not be fatal to the Christian worldview at all if there were other life "out there" : simple life or complex life.

The Bible only speaks of humankind ... and astronomers continue to find more and more ways that our earth is rare and our universe inhospitable to life -- all except for this little extraordinary oasis we find ourselves in. For those reasons I don't think too long or hard about other life.