No Bad Questions Q&A: Hasn't Science Disproved Christianity?

Hey. I'm Jeff Bradford from Christ the King Presbyterian Church. This is this week's response to an email that came in at questions@ctkraleigh.org in our sermon series on "No Bad Questions."

This week's question is: Hasn't science disproved Christianity? Good question. I think what's probably at root there is a reference to Darwin's theory of evolution and that branch of science disproving Christianity. So I want to respond to that really briefly.

Christianity and Science

Christianity and science, of course, have had a long and complicated relationship. There are tons of believers throughout history who have been leaders in science and mathematics. People like Robert Boyle, Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, and Gregor Mendel, Samuel Morse, Charles Babbage, Lord Kelvin, George Washington Carver, and even the current Francis Collins. Lots of people have found the Christian faith and scientific work and scientific worldview to be compatible.

There has been some tension around a lot of what people have read in scripture and assuming that the Bible presumes a nonscientific worldview. What's fascinating, though, is if you look at the history of the rise of modern science, the scientific method itself came from a conviction among Christians that the world could be studied because God is consistent, and therefore, the world is consistent. So the scientific method itself—that of observation, making hypotheses, testing hypotheses, those being able to be proven over time or disproven—comes from, at its roots, a current that is borrowed from Christian faith: that God is constant, and therefore, the world can be studied. It's not chaotic, and it can be studied. You can make hypotheses and prove or disprove them.

Evolution and Christianity

I think at the root, this question has to do with: does evolution disprove Christianity? And I found that question is probably more complicated than the way this is phrased states it. What's helpful is to determine what you mean by evolution.

I had a professor in seminary, a man named Vern Poithras, who's written a very helpful book called Redeeming Science, where he talks about the difference between microevolution and macroevolution. Microevolution is simply the change in species over time. Macroevolution is a worldview that precludes God as any cause or agent in the change of species over time.

Christians can look at microevolution and affirm that very strongly. We can study it. We can see the change of species over time. That doesn't necessarily make Genesis one and two false. There's a lot of work that's been done around thinking through what Genesis one and two actually say, what they mean to say, and what they don't mean to say. There's even views within our denomination that you can read about. I'm happy to give resources for that.

But macroevolution—the idea that the universe is set up in a way that precludes any form of God, that there can be no prime cause behind the big bang, for example—that is something that Christians do deny and say is antithetical to our view of a God who's the prime cause in the universe, who's upholding it all by the word of his power, who's involved intimately in the lives of his people and the universe and the functioning of the universe.

So, no, we don't believe that science has disproved Christianity. I hope that if you are studying science or a scientist, that you are very much affirmed in your calling as a scientist and your faith.

Thanks for the questions. Keep them coming. Questions at CTKRaleigh.org. Thanks for tuning in.