Science and Religion will be the Adult Forum topic for three Sundays, beginning October 23. Allan Dieter, Christ the King Church member and former campus pastor, will present the first class, talking about the assumptions we bring to the discussion, what we mean by science, religion, and spirituality, our view of God as judgmental or loving, and the criticism of religion by secular materialists. On October 30, Daniel Johnson, an oil industry geophysicist, Christ the King Church member and organizer of a monthly Science & Religion discussion group, will lead the class. He plans to especially consider miracles and God’s role in nature. John McGee, former Catholic priest and lecturer in theology and science with the Rice University School of Continuing Studies, will present the class on November 6, on ways of relating science and religion, and questions of cosmic purpose and meaning in our individual lives.
From the beginning of the Christian church, ancient science and Greek philosophy were intertwined with the revelation of the one true God and covenant with the people of Israel, as St. Paul and other early missionaries set out to make disciples of all nations. “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, . . .(1 Cor. 1:22-23).” In the 5th century St. Augustine, schooled in the pagan classics before his conversion to Christianity, wrote volumes on understanding scripture in light of all that was known, and his work is still widely cited, especially about the concept of time, e.g. “ . . . It is silly for them to excogitate a past time during which God was unoccupied, for the simple reason that there was no such thing as time before the universe was made.” St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century integrated Aristotle’s science with the church’s theology, and is recognized as the foremost philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church. This classical integration of science and religion led to the rise of modern science, and the dramatic new unification by Isaac Newton of the laws governing the motion of both heavenly and earthly bodies, around 1700. Not only physics but all knowledge came to be seen as unified, a triumphant culmination of monotheism, but also a fundamental new challenge to traditional understanding of scripture. Stories of miracles, instead of being inducements to faith, raised questions of credibility. The integration of science extended to biology with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection in the 19th century, reinforced by 20th century discoveries of life’s physical basis in genetics and biochemistry.
Many people are not concerned with these issues, and get on with Christian love and service. But for those who care, several avenues for relating science and religion can be identified. Secularists see conflict, and find their opposite number in biblical literalists, who are now fighting back with Intelligent Design. A less confrontational approach is to see science and religion as dealing with entirely different things, a separation which excludes conflict by definition. A third way is to advocate dialog, and encourage scientists and theologians to seek mutual understanding. Fourth, some seek a new synthesis.