How Can You Be a Scientist and a Christian?
“How can you be an astrophysicist and a Christian?” is a question which has become an inevitable part of my life. The people who ask such a question often find it difficult to see how someone trained as a scientist should now be entering the Methodist ministry. They reflect popular belief that science disproves Christianity. Scientists are expected to be atheists rather than Christians. If the scientists have the misfortune to be Christians then they are expected to keep their religion and science in safe, separate compartments.
Although much popular belief arises out of popular ignorance, there is something to commend the view. After all, is God needed to provide explanations? Darwin explains the apparent “design” of the biological world and Stephen Hawking’s speculations may give an answer to what was before the Big Bang. Is there anything left for God or should he take early retirement?
However, this is certainly not the whole story. Many historians have argued that modern science itself only developed because of the theological basis of biblical Christianity. In addition, it is often not stressed enough just how many scientists today testify to Christian faith in their own lives. I too can testify to my experience that you can be a scientist and a Christian. I made a commitment to Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour shortly before going to University to read physics. As my faith grew, my interest in science grew at the same time. Research in theoretical astrophysics (for those who might be wondering!) involved some wide ranging problems including the formation of stars, the production of the chemical elements both in the Big Bang and in stars, and even how the dinasaurs were wiped out.
It seemed to me that if Jesus was Lord then he should be Lord of my science as well as Lord of the rest of my life. This at times raised difficult questions for biblical Christianity. How do we understand the opening chapters of Genesis in the light of modern cosmology? How does God work in acts of special providence or miracle in a world governed by the laws of physics? While I do not yet have full answers to some of these questions, I have found no reason to reject either science or the Bible.
In my experience, science and Christian faith have been mutually enriching rather than mutually destructive. The study of the stars has enriched my faith in three ways. First, the vastness and complexity of the Universe increases one’s sense of awe before the greatness of God. The Sun is three hundred thousand times the mass of the Earth. However, it is only one star amongst a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, which is one of the hundred billion galaxies in the Universe. To put it another way, there are more stars than grains of sand on the beaches of the world. What a mighty God we serve!
Second, the simplicity and faithfulness of the laws of physics speaks to me of the faithfulness of God. The regularity of the seasons follows from the laws which govern the Earth’s motion about the Sun. Such laws lie at the heart of the origin and evolution of the whole Universe. They seem to me to be a reflection of the faithfulness of the One who guarantees those laws and holds the Universe in being.
Third, recently cosmologists have talked of the “fine-tuning” of the Universe. This means that the structure of the physical laws seems to be carefully balanced in order to allow carbon based life to exist. For example, carbon is produced in the nuclear furnaces of stars. If the energy levels in the carbon nucleus were 4% lower or if levels in oxygen were only 0.5% higher there would be no carbon produced, and none of us would be here. I am told that Fred Hoyle, who was one of the discoverers of this remarkable fine-tuning, has said that nothing has shaken his atheism as much as this discovery. It seems to me to speak of the grace of God in willing a world which would produce intelligent life.
Of course, none of these things prove the existence of God. They need to be seen from the perspective given by the revelation of Christianity. It is in an encounter with Jesus Christ, both in the Bible and in experience, that one’s eyes are opened to the author of the Universe, the God of power, faithfulness and grace. However, not just a Creator who stands back and views his creation from a distance. The Bible bears testimony to how this Creator comes to redeem and eventually perfect this creation.
The exciting thing about being an astrophysicist and a Christian is that the great God of the Universe is the same God who is experienced in a personal way in Jesus. The one to whom all authority in heaven and earth was given is the same one who promises, “I will be with you always to the end of the age.”
David A. Wilkinson, BSc, PhD, BA, FRAS, did research in theoretical astrophysics and now is a minister in the Hitchin and Letchworth Circuit.