Stress Test Devotional April 27
April 27, 2024
Science can’t ask, by deliberate design, the question—”Why there is anything at all to be studied?”. Science can trace cause and effect back to the big bang but is silent about the moment before this amazing universe came into existence. Just because questions about ultimate origins and about purpose are existential and religious, does not make them irrational, as if science can claim sole possession of the word reason, and theology is left with speculation and wishful thinking.
Reason operates in theology in a slightly different way than it does in science. But it still operates critically, seeking coherence, intelligibility, elegance, and explanatory power, just as scientific theories do. We can still ask how the Christian case for God with its description of life’s purposes and origins fits with the reality we encounter and explore in daily life and also with various intellectual projects, including science. The Big Bang Theory, for instance, fits very well with the Christian concept of God as sovereign and mysterious creator who, in one moment summoned existence into being. The way in which science uncovers order and more mystery with each discovery, is also suggestive. The correspondence between our minds and the order we uncover coheres with the anthropology of the Christian narrative. Even the insight that the universe is not eternal, but had a beginning and will have an end, corresponds to orthodox Christian belief.
Have you ever found correspondence between biblical ideas and the concepts of science or the social sciences?
FAMILY TIME—
If you have teenagers, watch a video of Alister McGrath or John Lennox talking about faith and science.
