THE SPIRITUAL REALITY

IN THE BEGINNING, GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH

- GENESIS 1:1

Science versus religion... do they really stand in opposition. As a scientist myself, I am troubled by the lack of objectivity in the scientific community in quest for the Missing Link.1 As a Christian, I am troubled by the stubbornness of the Christian community in response to scientific research.2 Truth is truth and our goal as human beings is to uncover the truth, as if it was hidden from us. The evidence is all around us if we but open our eyes, ears, and minds to a reality larger than we can detect and measure.

In 36 BC, Marcus Terentius Varro presents us with the following: "...and because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases".3 Here was a man who understood that forces beyond his ability to perceive were interacting with his environment and causing measurable results.

Over 1600 years later, the optical microscope was invented and further refined (by Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek) to show for the first time micro-organisms and bacteria.4 Antonie's work proved the existence of these "certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the [naked] eyes". And, there are still unseen, unheard, undetectable entities that we can and do perceive their interaction within the world around us.

I've heard it said that for every ledge a scientist crests on his ascent of the mountain of truth, he finds a theologian who's been sitting there for centuries. That's not a slam against the scientist for his lack of faith. Nor is it a praise for the theologian for his blind faith. It simply describes two sorts of people: those who want to understand the world we live in and those who want to learn about the world to which we will go. Both people are on a quest for truth. What is important here is that both are on the same mountain and both build each other's mutual understanding of reality.

And here's what settles it for me: in 1970, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose proved that our universe's space and time dimensions (as well as matter and energy) began in the same moment.5 If time began, then a creator of space and time who exists outside of space and time is a given. The God of the Bible is the only god who is described in terms outside of human imagination. (See John 1:1-5 for an example of this.) And the historically validated man6 Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead by this God as validation of Jesus' claims about the Old Testament, Heaven, Hell, and God. Hundreds of people saw Jesus after His death and saw Him ascend into the sky. Now we each must decide what that means to us. If we understand that Jesus lived and walked on this earth, and was tortured to death by means of crucifixion,  then we are faced with the decision to accept or reject the eye witness accounts of his resurrection. If we accept that, then our lives are forever changed when we start down a path of personal improvement as we encounter the living God on a daily basis.


Footnotes:
  1. Piltdown man was unearthed in 1912 and immediately hailed as "The Missing Link" by British scholars because it was exactly what the scientific community was looking for to link ape and man. Great controversy followed the find for decades as the specimen seemed inconsistent with other finds around the world. No one noticed the obvious file marks on the teeth until 1953 when the specimen was thoroughly examined for the first time.
     
  2. The geocentric model (where Earth is at the center of the universe and celestial objects orbit it) was long held as truth since Ancient Greece. In the early 1600s, Galileo presented evidence in support of Copernicus' heliocentric model (where the sun is at the center of the universe and celestial objects orbit it) and was branded a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church. Even though this heliocentric model is not completely accurate, we would not know what we know today without this necessary stepping stone in our quest for truth.
     
  3. "On Agriculture" by Marcus Terentius Varro, 36BC
     
  4. Antoine van Leeuwenhoek, known as the "Father of Microbiology", first observed bacteria using his own single-lens microscope in 1676.
     
  5. "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology" by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, Proceedings from the Royal Society of London, 1970
     
  6. "The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell
    "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel

Recommendations:

More Than a Theory, A Testable Creation Model - Hugh Ross, PhD.
...a fascinating book demonstrating the synergy between the Bible and the Laws of Nature
 
The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel
...a former atheist assesses the scientific evidence for the existence of God
 
More Than a Carpenter - Josh McDowell
...a life-changing book about the historically validated man from Nazareth named Jesus