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Following the sermon series on Creation, Pastor Edward ask that I (Wei-Jing Zhu) conduct a brief seminar on Science and Faith, in which I share some of my thoughts on the subject, followed by a Q&A session. The notes below formed the basics of my presentation, though the MP3 audio files of the presentation and the Q&A that followed will show you that I digressed a lot, into many personal stories and comments. Links to audio files:
My notes on the seminar My opinion on the role of science in our intellectual pursuit: The more you understand science, the more you understand its limitations. The only time science seems to conflict with faith is when we blindly worship a technique that we don't fully understand, and yet assume its omnipotence. (To this end, any scientist, who place unwarranted faith in supposedly scientific claims in realms outside of science, is subjected to my doubt of his professionalism.)
However, we as Chrsitians have to recognize science for its usefulness, and its tremendous contribution to civilization as we know it.
i.e. Just because there seems to be conflicts between science and faith, the believers should not be so quick to dismiss science. Often, blind dogmatism leads to faulty beliefs, and such strict adherence would result in bad logic and bad science, causing the public to associate such nonsense with the genuine part of Chrsitianity, and result in their total dismissal of the seriousness and integrity of our faith.
I started out, with rather priviledged training in math, physics, and technology. While seeking the meaning of life in life, I was determined to disprove the societal need for false religions, on the grounds that ridding such social garbage (intellectual spam) would be a meaningful contribution to my purpose in life, even if I had not identify any positive form for its meaning.
Ironically, the writings of famous atheists such as Carl Sagan (particlarly the arguments between science and faith in the novel Contact), Bertrand Russell's why I am not a Christian, Stephen Jay Gould's writings, etc, all fueled my intense effort to seek truth. It is on this serious journey, while attempting to rid Christianity, that I found myself traveling the path of Paul, and in similar fashion, during my weekly debates with Christian counselers in junior year at Harvard, led to my reading of the Bible, in which I have encountered the living God. I experienced my first miracle of sensing the scales of my spiritual eyes fall, with my doubts removed like avalanche.
Precisely due to my understanding of science, I have an easier time to identify when event sequences are explanable by pure chance, or intuitively perceive that they are absolutely impossible to explain short of miracles. e.g. The story of waking up for church consistently for a whole year, ultimately place to the test the night before my sister's graduation.
In my relationship with God, the language of science had been a major channel through which He communicates to me His genuine presence. Different personalities relate through different modes of communication. Relationship psychologists speak of the Love Languages. Friends have their own subtle body language, whether wink of an eye, or allusion to shared experiences. For a musician, He probably chooses the language of music, and for other people, He may well use the particular language that speaks the loudest to that person.
Through the use of the scientific method, I am able to filter out the noise in life, and be more centain when sensing how God is intervening in my life. The series of stories would have to be postponed to another time.
Having experienced the reality of God, which now is more genuine than anything else I can place my faith on, science and faith takes on equal footing, both being methods to understand and make sense of my physical and spiritual environment.
e.g. For the longest time I only want to believe in the existence of God, but not in evil spirits. With the reality of God in my life, and the Bible pointing out their existence, I find my preference for the good spirits but rejection for the bad spirits preposterous. Having faith in the Bible, I accept the reality of spiritual warfare purely because of my trust in God.
The discipline of science gives me the tenacity to pursue answers to spiritual dilemmas, using one's own resources and mental power, as well as the exploration of all that the spiritual community offers, e.g. writings of past saints, and never accept blindly what others say until properly internalized.
This is the reason that I treasure independent Bible studies where we only consider other reference material after forming our own opinion by letting the Bible speak for itself. Consequently, the conviction for acting on these internalized beliefs are much stronger than if they had been merely taught.
The drive for a simple and coherent conceptual understanding in my faith is what led to my constant thoughts on how to integrate life and faith. I have to admit that I have succeeded, to my satisfaction, in integrating the role of all my life expereince and scientific training, into the bigger scope of faith. Seeing how everything in my understanding and my background experiences are part of my contextual "self", I now actively put my knowledge and ability to use for God, convinced fully that He gave talents to me for such purposes.
My arrival to an integration of faith and science is this: The more we understand the natural world, the more we appreciate God's miracles; and the more we trust God as the ultimate Designer and Creater behind our daily lives, the more we courageously explore the unknown and advance the understanding in science, and make use of science properly in the abundant and meaningful life.
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Postscript:
For those who are expecting more discussions on the origin of life, issues on evolution, etc, I would recommend reading Philip Johnson's Darwin on Trial, which bring to light many doubts against evolutionary theory, or the theory of Intelligent Design, recently championed by William Demski, which distinguishes different degrees of complexity in order, namely, that the crystalline structure of ice via self organization is much simpler than the immense complexity of DNA. Chuck Colson's "How now shall we live"
put forth a great summary of all these scientific issues, as well as other fields of intellectual pursuit, in the context of their impact on society. Most recently, I find Francis Collin's "The Language of God" to be the best tutorial on the subject.
On the issue of the age of the Earth, I once interacted with a bible scholar, and agreed with him that God could have created a Young-Earth where everything looks like it is much ollder. But later the counter-argument of "why would God act as a deceptionist?" won over. In fact, most achievements in science relies on this assumption of uniformity in time and space. Einstein has declared his amazement that the universe is understandable. Most scientists who are devote Christians would trust that God uses no deception, and that He welcomes our investigation of His creation.
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