Science and God? No contest for me; God created, science uncovers and transforms that which is created. Science and God not mutually exclusive to me because science is one of the ways we gain a better understanding of God in the areas we are able to do thus far. In the many other areas we are yet to know, faith is the only available option.
So, we have 2 sides of the same coin but we approach them like they are different. Science can be more predictable, even reliable than faith when the accompanying knowledge is in place. But when we are at the frontiers of our knowledge or when available knowledge points to negative outcomes, only faith in a better outcome enables us progress.
The problem comes when we mix up the two and use them wrongly. If we depend on God for something we can do for ourselves as in the many instances of our national and personal lives where we fail to be proactive, we cheat ourselves and it can lead to tragic results.
What of when we depend on ourselves for things we should trust God for? Are there even cases like that? Well, think about facing illnesses that are at the frontiers of medical knowledge or wanting to execute huge projects you do not have resources for and you will appreciate that you may never take the first step if you want to first figure it all out.
People often abandon the scientific approach because it is rigorous, requires discipline, patience and – believe it or not – faith. Faith because there is often no guaranty it will work, faith because it might take a long time and effort to become an accepted formula or method. In essence, whenever you use the ready-made scientific solution, you are riding on the faith invested in it by the people who worked it out.
People also abandon faith in God because the process often appears unpredictable, inconsistent and the outcome sometimes does not manifest as fast or as complete as hoped. And especially after outcomes don’t appear as expected, people get disillusioned with the faith process when they are asked to approach it with discipline, rigour and patience – the very same things they ran away from in the scientific approach.
In the end, it will appear that we need to know when to apply whichever approach, give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s while remembering that God created Caesar.
