Science vs Faith

Science vs Faith

Professor Stephen Hawking allegedly once averred words to the effect that, “Science has everything covered – God is irrelevant and un-necessary.” Well, whoever spoke them, I find these words, if correctly reported, somewhat arrogant and erroneous. In the same way that you obviously find my belief in a creator and loving God irrelevant, so I find your words sadly mis-informed. In your quest for more and more scientific information, you have omitted three little words from your immense powers of thought – faith, hope, and love.

Scientifically speaking, what are faith, hope, and love. They are three intangibles, those strange indefinable entities also known as feelings rather than verifiable and provable facts. The problem scientifically is that faith, hope, and love are all emotions and not factually provable scientific entities.

Faith – “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 What a great definition this is – sure or certain of what we hope for (another intangible) and what we cannot see.

Hope – “hope is simply an imaginative feeling of something better than that which we can see right now.” (my own definition) As the dictionary puts it “An emotional state which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in ones life.”

Love – For a definition of love, see 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a “ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Where is science in these three emotions? You cannot scientifically test a feeling. You cannot scientifically prove a feeling. You cannot enumerate a feeling mathematically. Feelings are intangibles which can only be tested by other intangibles. They can only be measured by monitoring our brain or our body’s reaction to the stimuli of feelings.

So allow me to redefine them for you – my opinion that’s all.

Faith – My faith is based on the existence of a creator God. It is based on the provable fact that the man Jesus Christ was crucified on a Roman cross just outside Jerusalem, but in accordance with scripture, He rose again thus proving that He was all He claimed to be – i.e. the only begotten Son of God given as the atonement for our sin.

Hope – My hope is based on all the claims and promises of God and of Jesus Christ. That in His death and resurrection, He won for me the right to eternal life. In fact as 1 Corinthians 15:19 puts it, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”

Love – John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.“

My personal faith, hope, and love are based partly upon what is written in a 2-3000 years old library of scriptures known as the Bible, or Word of God, for how else would I have learned about Jesus and His love for me. Mostly, my faith, hope, and love are based upon my experience of coming to know Jesus through what we call salvation; my experience of answered prayer – conversations with this scientifically un-provable God, and my experience of the third person of the Triune God whom we know as the Holy Spirit – who is my constant companion and friend.

If I am wrong then so be it. If I am right, then I truly feel sorry for those who expound their erroneous theories. I wish with all my heart that every single person could have similar experiences with God to my own experiences. I would love to see a marriage of science with faith – that would re-write a few text books. Sir Isaac Newton was a great scientist who had a profound belief in God. Do you discount calculus because of his beliefs? Was he any less intelligent because of his belief in God? Perhaps you scientists should have another look at the one you so eagerly reject – before its too late.