I believe in science

Reflection

I believe in science is often said as though it settles a question, particularly in conversations about faith, but the phrase deserves more thought than it usually receives. Science is a method for investigating the physical world through observation and testing, and it has done that job remarkably well. It was never designed to answer questions of meaning, morality or ultimate origin, and many of its founding figures were themselves people of faith who saw no conflict between studying creation and believing in a Creator. The Christian tradition has long held that truth is unified, so that careful science and honest faith need not compete. Psalm 19 declares that the heavens declare the glory of God, suggesting that the created order itself points beyond mere mechanism. Believing in the reliability of scientific method is entirely compatible with believing that the universe it studies was made, ordered and sustained by something more than blind process.

Questions to sit with

• Do you see science and faith as rivals, partners, or something else entirely?
• Has a scientific discovery ever deepened your sense of wonder rather than reduced it?
• What questions do you think science was never designed to answer?

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