Many believe it has. We are now in the post-Christian age of Scientism, which basically says how can anyone believe in a personal God who created the universe? Isn’t it all just superstitious nonsense that we have grown out of? We are people who put men on the moon so what need have we of God? Besides, didn’t Major Yuri Gargarin, first man in space, say I saw no God nor angels whilst in orbit. All of this hinges upon the artificial idea that science and religion are opposites, whereas true science and true religion are at ease with one another, God being the author of both, and having given man a scientific mandate at the beginning (Gen. 1:28).
The reality is man can be scientifically knowledgeable and spiritually ignorant (cf. Luke 12:54-56). How much can science tell us? There is no doubt science has given us a great deal. We watch TV’s, You-Tube, drive cars, fly planes etc etc. If we are sick we take antibiotics, fit hip replacements and install pacemakers. It’s very tempting to think that science must be able to provide the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Edmund Leach said, Men have become like gods – Science offer us total mastery over our environment and over our destiny. True we have great potential (remember God’s statement at the Tower of Babel – Gen. 11:6), and there is great temptation in intellectual pride (Gen. 3:5). Of course, much of the saviour-like status attributed to science is based on the assumption that it will do in the future what it can’t do today. So people have their bodies frozen in anticipation, but I wouldn’t hold my breath (1 Kings 20:11 Heb.9:27).
We need to be clear about the limitations of science. When we come to the most important questions in life, scientists can only provide limited information. Somebody once said, Science gives perfect answers to trivial questions. When it gets down to the really serious issues of life – origin, purpose, destiny, meaning, morality etc. science is silent. And these are valid questions despite what Jean Paul Sartre said: I was just thinking…..that here we are, all of us, eating and drinking, to preserve our previous existence, and that there’s nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing. Somerset Maugham opined If one puts aside the existence of God…one has to make up one’s mind what is the meaning and use of life….Now the answer is plain, but so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life, and life has no meaning. Similarly Leo Tolstoy wrote What is life for? To die? To kill myself at once? No, I am afraid. To wait for death till it comes? I fear that even more. Then I must live. But what for? To run from God to fall into the arms of Science poses so many problems at a deeper level, so much so that H.J. Blackham, late British atheist, said It’s too bad to be true. And, of course, it is to be noted that we act as if life has purpose and meaning and promote this to help prevent suicides..
Science is useful in answering “how” questions – describing how things work. What science can’t answer are the “Why” questions. In the Mar-May 2000 issue of Ex Nihilo there was an article on world-famous physicist, author, and evolutionist Paul Davies. He acknowledges that the laws of physics, chemistry and biology do not explain the origin of life. He says, Like a super-computer, life is an information processing system…it is the software of the living cell that is the real mystery, not the hardware. But where did it come from – the logical structure and organizational arrangement of the molecules. Davies framed the question this way: How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software?…nobody knows.
Some have had little time for science and for various reasons. G.B. Shaw said Science is always wrong – it never solves a problem without creating ten more! A somewhat jaundiced view no doubt, but I concur that it does not have the answers to everything, simply because it’s not equipped to. A fisherman had a net with a 50mm mesh and concluded there was nothing smaller than 50mm in the ocean, When someone disputed his findings and affirmed there were many fish in the ocean less than 50mm, the fisherman retorted what my net doesn’t catch aint fish! Years ago a blacksmith was told that they were making iron ships. He laughed and tossed a hot horseshoe into a tub of water – look its impossible for iron to float! His experiment was not adequate.
But what can science do to disprove Christianity? What tools does it have for the task? Christianity is a fact of history and so you could use the tools of history to disprove it. Luke 3:1,2 records this: Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being Governor of Judaea, and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip Tetrarch of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the Tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. Fairy tales begin with Once upon a time in a land far away, and thus there is no way in which any sort of verification can be made of the tale, but the Bible is different. Luke is effectively saying check it out! to the recipients of his history. The upshot of all this is that history bears witness to the advent of Christianity, and does not disprove it.
Christianity says that Jesus died for our sins but science is out of its league here, for it has no means to pass any sort of opinion on this fact.
Christianity says that Jesus rose from the dead to prove the veracity of His claims (amongst other things). Science would say that this is unscientific and impossible, (and all would agree that this was not normal), but this would presume that even God could not do this, and what can we say when the same Science also says that nothing gave rise to something and dead matter gave rise to life?! Physician heal thyself.
Textual criticism is another tool that science could use to cast dispersions on the record of Jesus Christ, but, again, it cannot do so. There has been no history of any character that has been subject to the amount of scrutiny of the texts than that of Jesus Christ. There is no doubt that we have an accurate account of the history of Jesus Christ, and if we were to doubt it, we would have to cast aside all ancient history as untrustworthy.
Jurisprudence is another field that science could use to try and disprove Christianity, but the eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ stand up under scrutiny. And as for Jesus’ apostles, why would they fabricate a lie and lay down their lives for it? Men will die for things they believe to be true (whether it is true or not), but not for things they know to be a lie.
In short, we owe a great debt to those who have made our lives less austere by their research of the laws which govern our physical universe. Of the spiritual realities science knows nothing, well illustrated in the following comment: Science can show us how to make an atomic bomb, but it cannot tell us whether we should explode it or not.