Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Faith says, “You can believe it.” Science may say, “There is no proof, it can’t be so.” Religion may even say it is uncertain. So, the question is: “Are science and the Christian faith complementary or contradictory of each other?” We must define exactly what science means and what the Christian faith is. First of all, the Christian faith can not be identified only as religion.
Webster’s dictionary defines religion as commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. As one can see from this definition, our Christian faith is a religion, but it is much more than that to me. My Christian faith is a result of my relationship with the creator of the universe, God. I do believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth. I remember my dad’s statement of how believing in something and having faith in it are totally different. He said, “Faith is believing in something so much that you are willing to put your life into its hands.” My faith has led me to place my life into the hands of an Almighty God and encourages me to believe that God is in control of all nature, science, and the order of created things. He sent His one and only son to die for me so that I would not have to pay the debt for my sins. Webster’s defines science as the knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation. My faith in God is not based on the study of the truths of God but because of what I have experienced and what I know He has done for me. I believe science can only confirm my faith in God. Scientific method seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of science and faith are complementary even though they deal with different questions. They do not contradict one another because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God.
In the book, Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man, he is quoted, I don’t think that there’s any conflict between science today and the scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the scriptures many times and we’ve tried to make the scriptures say things they weren’t meant to say. I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of redemption, and of course I accept the creation story. I believe God did create the universe. I believe God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made a living soul or not, does not change the fact the God did create man…. Whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man’s relationship to God.
Just as Billy Graham accepts science as a part of God’s creation, I believe that the very order of nature and created things points to the fact that God is in control of all of this. The seasons, the exact tilt of the earth in rotation, the distance of the earth from the sun to keep us from freezing or burning up, the depth of the sea, or the height of a mountain are all examples of God’s ultimate design in creation. Each of these, however, is a scientific phenomenon that is still trying to be explained by science.
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science seeks to give us knowledge of what things are and how things happen. It can answer the question about how the world and the universe were made, but it can not answer the question of who created the universe and why. The contemporary scientist, Stephen Hawkins said, “even if science could