Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. Well I say there are some things we don’t want to know… Important things! (Ned Flanders)
i'm really tired of people drawing either/or lines in the sand when there should be meaningful crossover between science and faith. they are complementary disciplines. recently, in response to the silly simpsons quote above, a friend of mine said:
I find it curious that in this faith/science distinction faith is always accused of walking around blind to the realities of science yet science always seems to escape being criticised for walking around blind to the realities of faith. (hineini)
science is observational, theoretical and, above all, subject to time and further discovery. God is not subject… God IS the subject.
but without science, our study of God can become ‘incredible’, disembodied, mystical and esoteric. science needs to be simply another lens through which we see the love of God- indeed perhaps the very face of God.
for example, what if physics is only completely physical because we’ve relegated it to the physical box? what if part of the connection between all events, although perhaps not immediately perceptible as such, is that they are shadows, approximations or perhaps even enactments of that which is taking place in the spiritual realm and is, at the very least as real as this physical veneer…
what if the physical and spiritual were rent apart simply by our own spiritual disregard? what if science and faith actually belong together?
Q: what is the first sound recorded in the bible?
A: the voice of God: “Let there be light”
on the first page of our bibles, God and light seem to be together at the source of everything. on the last page of our bibles it’s the same. (genesis 1.3-4; revelation 21.22-23)
what if some scientific study of sound and light were to somehow inform our picture of our eternal God?
- isaac newton first used a prism to intentionally break white light into a spectrum, revealing that all was not as it seemed and paving the way for deconstructive studies like molecular biology and ultimately the splitting of the atom.
- taking the spectrum into account, divisionist painter georges seurat applied the properties of light to his approach to painting, essentially creating the possibility of the colour t.v. out of thin air and grandfathering pixelization, mused in his journals that …
“In nature, light is the source of reality.” (seurat) - at the same time, albert einstein was developing theories of his own…
“Light is a particle that has mass and a volume of energy. energy (E) equals a constant number (h) times the frequency of the light (v) E=hv
In reality, all matter is nothing but condensed light.” (Einstein)
- in gary zukav’s book The Dancing Wu Li Masters the following observation is made in response to an experiment exploring the unexplainable connectedness of spinning particles…
"Sound waves only travel so fast… the fastest communication signal is the electromagnetic wave- like a light wave…" (Zukav)
and the gospel of John seems to begin with a riddle…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. (John 1.1-9)
in a bible i have, this prayer accompanies john 1... How glorious you are, O Jesus, Word of God. My finite mind can only begin to comprehend your infinite wonders. My words can never aptly reflect who you are as the divine Word. You are before all things. Through you all things are created. By your light all things are seen…
And I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ
The only-begotten Son of God
Begotten of the Father before all worlds
God of God
Light of Light
Very God of Very God
Begotten, not made
Being of one substance with the Father
By whom all things were made
Who, for us men and for our salvation
Came down from heaven
And was incarnate by the Holy Spirit
of the Virgin Mary
And was made man. (Nicene Creed)
i love that, for the artist, God's artistry is richly woven into the fabric of creation, while for the scientist, God's 'intelligent design' illuminates and informs each new challenge, never giving it all away lest we stop looking for truth.
