Jason Kottke recently posted an excerpt from a New York Times op-ed piece by Senator Sam Brownback, one of the Republican candidates that stated they don’t believe in evolution. While the quote Kottke posted isn’t a fair representation of the whole, one line in the quote is exceedingly interesting and true.
From the piece:
“The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God.”
In the first implementation of “Creation is old fashioned”, I linked to a site that showed Biblical references with sound, scientific proofs – science working to prove creation instead of trying to disprove. Over and over again, events in the Bible have been proved to be scientifically accurate from many different sources, not mentioning historical proof (see here). But, in popular debate, science and creation seem to be polarized as elements that cannot coexist.
With all of this concrete evidence working for creation’s favour, wouldn’t those who state that science and creation contradict each other either be ignorant or intentionally mistaken? This seems surprising, as those who make such claims are often very learned men and women of science. Wouldn’t one think that those dealing most closely with science see the hand of an Almighty Creator? Evolution has always been in the business of “getting rid” of God – take God out of our schools, our homes, and even our beliefs – and science (or rather, men and women of science) have been trying their best to prove it.
Too bad (for them) God was the one who created science as well.
Filed under: Faith | 1 Comment
I’ll bite. I agree that science and faith are complementary. I look at it from a pragmatic and subjective point of view, though, not an objective epistemological one: Science and faith are complementary in that they each serve a different purpose to individuals and to society as a whole. Which is “correct” (if either is correct) or the compatibility of the two in terms of cold, hard fact is not what I am addressing.
But I do also agree that in many or most ways, science and faith or theology are epistemologically compatible: God can make the world and it can still evolve.
Where I disagree with you is that “evolution has always been in the business of ‘getting rid’ of God” — I think you’re conflating several ideologies there. There’s a difference between evolution and atheism and even a difference between evolution and evolutionists. Evolution, as a natural phenomenon, has no agenda: It just is.
There is an argument to be made, though, that atheism (or, more accurately, atheist activists — not all atheists are rabidly disestablismentarian) does wish to do just that.