Emerging Scholars Blog

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When Science and Christianity Meet

Science Book Club: When Science & Christianity Meet Ch 12

Photo of the classical columns of the Mellon Institute
The Mellon Institute, where I studied biology as an undergrad, could be a courthouse or a Greek temple. (Photo by wallyg )

Are definitions descriptive or prescriptive? That’s a classic conversation about language. I enjoyed this recent Twitter exchange that encapsulates the discussion well.

Neil deGrasse Tyson seems to come down on the prescriptive side, or at least would prefer that meanings remain static. Most dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster, aspire only to describe how we use and have used them. Dictionary editors don’t want to be in the business of legislating linguistics, or indeed even policing who is allowed to innovate. Fun fact: it’s predominantly teenage girls, which means I’m about 18 months away from having a front row seat to the latest in language.
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Science Book Club: When Science & Christianity Meet Ch 11

Photo of Clarence Darrow questioning William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Trial
A dramatic moment when Bryan agreed to take the stand and be questioned by Darrow. (Photo by Smithsonian Institution)

When I chose When Science and Christianity Meet for our book discussion, I thought it would keep us away from current politics. I figured The War on Science had given us enough of that for a while. Yet as the historical narrative encroaches further on the present, the relevance becomes harder to deny. If politics applies truth to arrive at policies, and if science is a way of discovering truth, then the two will inevitably be intertwined. That was the case in the Scopes trial nearly a century ago, and it’s the case now.
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Science Book Club: When Science & Christianity Meet Ch 10

Photo of crocheted Sigmund Freud doll
Yet another marvel of the human mind – crocheted dolls of notable scientists. (Photo by Zoria )

The more we evolve, the less we need God. That’s the proposition up for debate in a recent Intelligence Squared event. And if that phrasing wasn’t enough to raise the eyebrows of Christians, the pro-God side is represented by Deepak Chopra and Anoop Kumar, who share a concept of God that seems more pantheistic than personal. Of course, no two people could represent the full range of religious beliefs, and in many other comparable debates or dialogues one or a few Christians wind up standing for all believers of all faiths. So personally, my concern is not with Chopra or Kumar, but with the binary nature of such debates. Both sides are supposedly given equal hearing, but in reality this is not a topic with just two sides. God obviously means a variety of things to people of different faiths, not all of which have even have a single God. For that matter, there are plenty of skeptics, agnostics and atheists who don’t feel that Michael Shermer speaks for them either.
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Science Book Club: When Science & Christianity Meet Ch 9

Photo of napping crocodile
They do look ancient and intimidating, like something that could tango with a T. rex. (Photo by FireandWhispers )

The Easter season is a natural time for Christians to reflect on miracles, as the resurrection of Jesus is the central miracle of our tradition. And as Robert Bruce Mullin reminds us in “Science, Miracles, and the Prayer-Gauge Debate,” miracles are a natural point of contact when science and Christianity meet. Thus scientists and theologians at that interface today continue to take up the question of whether one can reasonably believe that Jesus of Nazareth died and subsequently returned to life in a physical sense. BioLogos ran a whole series on the topic last month, Veritas Forum published this piece last Easter from scientist (and ESN contributor) Josh Swamidass, the Faraday Institute had N. T. (Tom) Wright speak on the topic a few years ago, to list just a few examples. Even Scientific American covered the topic last year, albeit with a different conclusion from Michael Shermer. (Let’s agree to be charitable and assume the fact it was published on April Fool’s Day last year rather than closer to Easter was a coincidence of the print publishing schedule.)
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Science Book Club: When Science & Christianity Meet Ch 8

Photo of nautilus shell fossil
I thought this was a striking fossil, and hey, fossils are relevant to Darwin, right? (Photo by Tjarko Busink )

Evolutionary biology is a challenging topic; the history of the Christian church’s reaction to it, doubly so. Continuing a theme running throughout When Science and Christianity Meet, David Livingston identifies the human element as a major complicating factor. After all, the church does not respond to evolutionary biology; individual Christians do. And some of those individuals are responding more to Darwin the man than his scientific contributions. And even Darwin the man had many reactions to his own work and its relationship to his own religious beliefs and perhaps subsequent lack thereof. And on and on, down the rabbit hole.
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