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In the name of science (and/or
religion, for that matter) human beings embrace and teach many
strange ideas. We have all known people who hold amazing
assumptions as undeniable fact. Christians are hardly
exempt from making horrific mistakes in interpretation.
Unbelievers, however, are all the more vulnerable to error
because they actively reject God's truth.
The idea that a universe can spring
from nothing more than chance is absurd. The idea that the
universe (all physical matter and energy) must therefore be
eternal in one state or another is equally absurd. And the
idea that complex life forms can evolve from simple life forms,
all of which sprang into being by the chance occurrences of
celestial impacts and bad weather is as primitive as any myth.
God created the universe. Man
tries to figure it out. There is nothing wrong at all in
trying to figure things out. Study and research and
experimentation is very often a good thing. But as long as
human beings (any of us) try to ignore what God plainly reveals
to us, the chances of our arriving at truth are slim. We
may discover many things about life and the universe itself.
In fact, we already have been able to gather in quite a few
facts about the physical universe, and about how life works.
But we will never discover a universe that exists on its own.
Christians do not need to squirm and
worry when science makes this or that proclamation. We
humans are always announcing things that turn out to be less
than true. Just look at the weather forecast, if you have
any doubts about the fallibility of human understanding.
And just like the weather, truth is never influenced by what
anyone thinks. The truth remains forever.
Yet we do rely on much of what
science tells us. After all, good science is just common
sense (as in basic logic at work), and God gave us reasoning
minds. God teaches all of us many things through trial and
error, experience and calculation. If we can learn from
mistakes, we are on our way to a better understanding of the
truth. If we can face the fact that we are all students of
understanding, and not masters, then we may yet learn some of
God's best lessons in this life.
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