Science to the Glory of God (838 words)

Looking back, I can think of dozens of scientific experiments I and my classmates conducted during grade school.  Whether it was as simple as mixing baking soda with vinegar, or as complex as heating some mixture over a bunsen burner until an explosion occurred, science was always a class filled with excitement, complexity, discovery and wonder.

While we often took time to celebrate after a successful [rather difficult] experiment, I do not remember ever hearing a teacher stop the class in humble adoration and reverence to the Creator of the universe.  Not one line in my science book spoke of the attributes of God as they are revealed in science.  I was never led to consider why science experiments were possible in such a diverse world.  After watching the elementary volcano erupt, I was never led to praise God for His incredible faithfulness.

Consequently, I was never taught the whole truth.  This is more than merely leaving out a simple fact - or, skipping a hypothetical chapter on how God relates to science.  To leave God out of science is less than honest (albeit a passive and often unintentional dishonesty).  It is a vital misrepresentation of the facts; a denial of true reality; and a disregard for the Person who holds all things together.

Instead of learning about God, students are often taught to believe and rely upon the existence of scientific laws.  These laws exist in the universe.  They are discovered and not invented.  Laws indicate to us that there is such a thing as regularity in the universe - regularity that can be trusted and employed and even defined as "law."  But this raises the question: What characteristics must a scientific law have in order to be a law?  And, How do these characteristics relate to God?

First, scientists think of laws as universal in time and space.  In other words, the laws to which scientists appeal (even with particular restrictions) apply to all times and all places.   Vernon Poythress states, "the law, if it really is a law and is correctly formulated and qualified, holds for all times and all places."  Baking soda and vinegar will foam every time they are mixed together (time and space) under the right environmental circumstances (restrictions).

A simple but glorious substitution is necessary here.  This "law" of time and space is nothing more than an indication of God's omniscience (space) and eternality (time).

Second, if a law remains the same through all times, then we can say that laws do not change with time.  Even if a supposed "law" did change, it would not really be the law that changed, but one temporal phase of that law in a higher regularity that would account for the lower-level change.  The concept of law itself presupposes immutability.  I would also add in this vein that laws are seen as being faithful.  We trust that they will work every time.  If something goes wrong, we are more likely to question our own faithfulness rather than the law's.

Our God is unchangeable and meticulously faithful.

Third, laws, by nature, are both invisible and immaterial.  We cannot see them or touch them in order to know them; but are bound to know them by their effects in the world.  When a scientist, or empiricist, appeals to scientific law, he is doing so, not from empirical proof, but from inference.  There is a logical bridge in-between what is empirically tested and what is law.

So is God essentially immaterial and invisible; but known through His acts in the world.

Fourth, scientific law is both transcendent and immanent.  Poythress comments, "It transcends the creatures of the world by exercising power over them, conforming them to its dictates.  It is immanent in that it touches and holds in its dominion even the smallest bits of this world.  Law transcends the galactic clusters and is immanently present in the chromodynamic dance of quarks and gluons in the bosom of a single proton."

Transcendence and immanence are characteristics of God.

While many more characteristics can be named, these will suffice for now to get the point across.
What should be attributed to God in order to bring Him the glory He is due, man has attributed to scientific law in order to bring man the glory he so enviously desires.  The exchange is both obvious and common.  It is also epidemically rebellious.

We simply cannot afford to have another generation led to believe in an impersonal, ambiguous, amoral "law".  In an obedience response, we must repent and faithfully proclaim the personal, God who is Spirit, eternal, omniscient, immutable, transcendent yet immanent, and who is meticulously precise and faithful.  As Christians we must take time, when educating our children, to give praise to God for the things as He so graciously communicates to us during science class.  Make no mistake, Science is theology.

I would also suggest picking up a copy of Poythress's Redeeming Science.  A significant portion of the material in this post was taken from this book.