God of Science

7/3/15                                                    Fernando                                             19
Religion is not incompatible with science.  Fernando, 19, told me he thought it was and gave that as the reason for rejecting the faith he had been raised in, so I responded: “Actually, the Bible teaches that God created everything, which would include science.  The scientific method is based on an ordered universe, which is why we are able to explain and predict anything at all.  If God hadn’t created an ordered universe, science wouldn’t be possible.”   I had reached out to Fernando in a sidewalk conversation, and he told me he wasn’t sure he believed in the God of the Bible because he couldn’t “prove” He exists.  But as a personality God would be impossible to explain scientifically like, say, an impersonal energy source like electricity.  “Electricity can be harnessed and made to serve us because it is beholden to the laws of physics, but God can’t be explained by science because as the Creator of those laws, He is not obligated to follow them.”  It was conversation like this which made sense to Fernando and won his attention to hear an explanation of the Gospel.  He came to a point of what I believe to be “intellectual ascent” – he understood the Gospel and it made sense to him on an intellectual level, but in the end we had to return to his original doubts about God’s existence.  So did I put the cart before the horse and share the Gospel before Fernando believed in God?  I don’t believe so.  Knowing that, should this God exist, there is a way to have a right relationship with Him makes belief in such a God more feasible.  The Gospel is part of a much larger narrative of creation, fall, and redemption in the Bible.  Some people need the details for the larger story to make sense.  Others need the larger stories to make sense of the details.  Some need to know that, should their faith in science fail them, there is something far greater than science to trust in.