Are Science and Faith Incompatible? Part 1
Introduction
In his book You Lost Me,[1] Christian researcher and author David Kinnaman reveals the factors behind the exodus of eighteen to twenty-nine-year-old Christians from the church. While these are many and varied, I want to discuss just one of these today. Many Christians, young and old alike, have bought into the popular notion that science and religion are mutually exclusive. Worse still, some young Christians are being actively discouraged by their churches from entering scientific fields of study. Kinnaman reveals the following from his research: “Rather than being encouraged by the Christian community to investigate God’s good creation with wonder and reverence, too many young [Christians] have been told that their curiosity is dangerous. I recently heard a pastor declare that intellectual questions are a defense mechanism used by those who don’t want to accept Christ.”[2] The tension such sentiments breed between the church and those who have a passion for the sciences is one of the reasons young people are leaving the faith, often for good. What I hope to do here today is to dispel any such notion of incompatibility between faith and science should any of you find yourselves believing the two cannot coexist.
Christians who believe one must choose sides are not alone. “Science and religion,” wrote physicist Victor Stenger, “are fundamentally incompatible because of their unequivocally opposed epistemologies - the assumptions they make concerning what we can know about the world.”[3] But is Stenger right? No, he is not. I believe that Intelligent Design, often erroneously labeled religiose, explains the existence of life better than mere chance. First, we will look at how physics points us in the direction of design. Then we will turn to biology and see the finger-prints of design in the cell as well.
Intelligent Design Defined
Many scientists accuse Intelligent Design of being merely scientific creationism or creation science in sheep’s clothing. Theists are of course attracted to Intelligent Design because our belief system already incorporates God as creator of the uni-verse. But Intelligent Design is neither scientific creationism nor is it necessarily religious. As mathematician and philosopher William Dembski points out, “Intelligent Design needs to be dis-tinguished from creation science, or scientific creationism. The most obvious difference is that scientific creationism has prior religious commitments, whereas intelligent design does not.”[4] In other words, Intelligent Design interprets data according to scientific methodology and lets the evidence take us where it may, without preconceptions. And while charges of pseudo-science have been leveled against Intelligent Design, it is import-ant to note that
several branches of science already use the concept of
design or intelligence and have even devised tests for de-
tecting the work of an intelligent agent. Consider forensic
science. When police find a body, their first question is,
Was [sic] this death the result of natural causes, or was it
foul play (an intentional act by an intelligent being)?
Likewise, when archaeologists uncover an unusually
shaped rock, they ask whether the shape is a result of
weathering, or whether the rock is a primitive tool, delib-
erately chipped by some Paleolithic hunter. When a
cryptographer is given a page of scrambled letters, how
does he determine whether it is just a random sequence
or a secret code? When radio signals are detected in out-
er space, how do astronomers know whether it is a mes- sage from another civilization? In each case, there are
straight-forward tests for detecting the work of an intel-
ligent agent.[5]
Evidence from the disciplines of physics and biology reveal elements of design that many people don't realize are there, and we'll look at those next.
[1] David Kinnaman, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011).
[2] Ibid., 142.
[3] Victor Stenger, “Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible”. Available at: <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/why-science-and-religion-_1_b_879022.html> [Accessed 11/21/15]
[4] William Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design (Nottingham: InterVarsity, 2004), 41, original emphasis.
[5] Nancy Pearcey, “Design and the Discriminating Public: Gaining a Hearing from Ordinary People,” Touchstone Magazine (July/August 1999) as found at Leadership U. Available at: <http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/arn/pearcey/np_touchstone0899.htm> [Accessed 11/25/15]