- From Pastor Kelly Patchin -
I have always enjoyed the sciences. I personally have an undergraduate degree in biological sciences and have always loved learning more about how God created this world and everything in it.
But what if you don’t believe there is a God?
Does science itself go against religion?
Below I have added a great TED talk on this by Bryan Enderle, a Christian and a professor at UC Davis. I also think it is healthy to start the conversation with agreed on definitions that both those who believe in God and those who don’t can agree on. Science means both “a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study" (Merriam Webster) such as biological, mathematical, and even theological sciences, as well as meaning, “the study of the nature and behavior of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them" (Collins Dictionary). Science most often involves a process called the scientific method.
The scientific method has five basic steps:
Make an observation.
Ask a question.
Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation.
Make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
Test the prediction.
You then take the results to make new and hopefully improved hypotheses or predictions.
So, science is really the study of knowledge and what can be known. On this foundation religion and science have no friction. The friction arises from the predictions made from the knowledge. Listen to Bryan explain some of the incredible things we can learn from scientific study and how it relates to what God says about Himself. I hope you find this helpful.