I've ranted a lot about this, and maybe I'll quit for a while after this. I felt very prompted by the chapel speaker today to address the issue, for whatever it may be worth.
Our speaker stated that because of his worldview, he found it requires more faith to believe in macroevolution than to believe in the Genesis account of Creation. But I make this statement: because of my worldview, I find it takes much more faith to believe in the Genesis account of Creation than to believe in atheistic evolution,
but I believe it anyway. That's what faith
means. It's "being sure of what we hope for and certain of
what we do not see" (
Heb. 11:1, NIV). See, science and faith are disjoint by design. True science does not require faith because of its very nature—I can sense things with my five senses and make rational decisions about what I sense and draw logical conclusions on those things. Faith, on the other hand, is diametrically opposed to this. Belief in God is not something that I come to by any measurements or experiments or logical deductions from what I sense with my physical body. God is outside of reason and rationality, and for me, belief in God is very irrational. That's what faith means, and that's how I am still able to call myself a scientist at the same time that I claim to be a Christian and an active follower of God. I can look at a rainbow and see God's promise to us, or I can see the refraction of the visible spectrum in miniscule drops of water; or (here's something radical) I can see
both. When I look at a beautiful sunset, I can see God's wonderful artwork displayed for us to admire, or I can see photons being bent by particles through a polluted atmosphere to produce a range of visible colors; or I can see
both. I can look at a nebula and see God's leftover fingerprint when He made creation, or I can see the remnants of a massive stellar explosion that happened millions of years ago; or
both. I can see a waterfall as an outpouring of God's love as demonstrated by nature, or I can see the force of gravity and liquid equilibriums clashing to great effect; or
both. Why then can I not look upon God's wonderful, masterful, loving design of the specially created human body and not also admire the eons of evolution and forces of natural selection that He used to produce it? To admire creation is to admire the Creator (
Ps. 19,
Ps. 104,
Rev. 21, etc). Science requires eyes, not faith. God requires faith, not eyes (
John 20:29,
Heb. 11). If science claims faith is necessary for anything, it is no longer science (e.g., string theory); but if science requires us to use our eyes and minds to understand something (e.g. macroevolution), who's to say it's not a gift from God? God gave us science to study the world. Who are we to reject this gift? There is no dichotomy between the things of this universe and the things of God—He made it all and owns it all! I can seek God not only through Scripture, but also through a telescope, or through a microscope, or through deductive powers of reasoning and scientific fact that tell me how God formed the universe and how He designed it to work. Greg Johnson states clearly in his book
The World According to God that "to say that something God gives us is intrinsically evil is to malign the character of God." I fear that's the level we Christians have stooped to.
</rant>
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