Science is in conflict with Christian faith ?

Myth #6: Science is in conflict with Christian faith.
Top scientists do not make this claim, but ordinary people often do. For them, science deals with facts, Christianity with values and emotions. Science can be proved, they say, Christianity cannot. Science is progressive. Christianity has often opposed progress. The scientific method is logical. Christianity involves the leap of faith. Science deals with the laws of nature. Christianity, apparently, thrives on miracle. The contrasts are immense. But they are myths all the same.
Both science and Christianity deal with evidence. Science deals with the evidence about our world, which is presented by what we can see, touch, measure and calculate. Christianity deals with what we can infer about our world from the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. He is very much open to examination – by the science of history.
Both science and Christianity involve value judgments, both involve the agent as well as the object. Both have a subjective as well as an objective side. There is no such thing as an uninterpreted fact. Even emotions are common to both “scientists” and “Christian believers.” Both are human beings. Both are reluctant to accept evidence that goes against what they have always believed.
Then is it true that science can be proved and Christianity cannot? Again, no. Science cannot be “proved.” To prove a thing with certainty, you have to show that it follows inexorably from something already known. Only deductive knowledge is certain. Of course, for all practical purposes, we accept the reliability of “laws” discovered by the sciences. But they are not proved.
Equally, you cannot prove Christianity. You cannot show there is someone greater than God from whom he can with certainty be deducted. That would be a contradiction in terms, for “God” is the name we give to the ultimate being. You cannot prove the historicity and teaching of Jesus Christ. You can’t do it with Julius Caesar either. Historical events are not “proved.” They are accepted or not on the ground of competent, credible, and preferably contemporary testimony. That is the ground on which Christians ask acceptance of Jesus.
Is science progressive, then, while Christianity opposes progress? There is some truth to that. But only some. Christianity has been opposed to progress at times in its history. But often Christianity has spearheaded progress in education, medicine, the liberation of the oppressed, of prisoners, slaves, and women, even progress in science.
Remember, too, the dark side of science. Think of nuclear fission – neutral in itself but opening the door to the destruction of the planet. Think of the terrifying possibilities opening up through biological engineering and chemical warfare. You might call these things “progress” in terms of strict academic science. But do they represent advance and progress for humanity itself?
Well then, is the scientific method logical, while Christianity involves a leap of faith? That is another myth. Both depend, in the long run, on faith. Faith is self-commitment on the basis of evidence. In the case of science, you must commit yourself to the assumption that the world we see and touch is real and to belief in the uniformity of nature and the prevalence of cause and effect. Without these prior “leaps of faith,” reasonable though they are, you cannot begin science.
So, too, real Christianity involves commitment. Commitment to the assumption that there is a living God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Commitment in faith to Jesus himself. Without that faith, that self-commitment on good evidence, there can be no Christianity. Contrary to popular opinion, by far the greater number of those who are converted to Christianity in the universities are scientists. It is not all that surprising. The approach is so similar: self-commitment on evidence – or faith.
And finally, what about miracle? If your theories are bounded by a closed physical universe with fixed and unalterable laws, you will find the concept of miracle, which involves the local and temporary suspension of those laws, intolerable. But that is a nineteenth view of science, and you would find few scientists of stature supporting it. The whole scene is much more fluid since the discovery of quantum physics and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. But the important thing to remember is that the “laws of nature” are not prescriptive but descriptive. They do not determine what may happen; they describe what normally does happen. Science can say that miracles do not usually occur in the ordinary course of nature. But it cannot legitimately claim they are impossible. Such a claim lies outside the limits of science. And if God has really come to this world in Jesus Christ, is it so surprising that he performed miracles, as the gospels report?
Science is not in conflict with the Christian faith. To be sure, some scientists are. Other scientists are passionately committed Christians, just like people in any other walks of life. The reasons for such decisions must be sought elsewhere than in science.


http://powertochange.com/students/faith/tenmyths2/