“I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.”

– Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project 1

God created the universe for His glory, and He placed mankind at the head of His creation, that by reflecting Him, they might lead creation into the worship of its Maker. This role was twisted by the Fall, but by the invasion of the new kingdom through Christ, the world, and man’s place in it, is being set to rights. These are central beliefs for Christians, and the drive to worship should permeate all Christian endeavors. This holds true for science, which illuminates God’s glory by seeking to understand the workings of  the natural world.

Yet all too often, as Christians we approach science in one of two ways. At times we try to use science to prove God’s existence. Every scientific fact becomes an argument either for or against God. Soon the wonder of discovery is lost as we get stuck in a cold proof, and it can even be replaced by fear—fear that we will find some new data that disprove God once and for all. Other times we take a pragmatic view of science. We deem science useful for the technology it brings us, but scientific enquiry (and the natural world) becomes simply a means to an end. This tendency can also turn to fear—we fear science precisely for the next technologies that it brings.

Neither of these is wrong, but they are inappropriate starting points. God has certainly left evidence of His character in the natural world, and it is fitting to search out these clues (a field of study known as natural theology). And God has given man dominion of the earth and the role of stewarding it, and it is right to use scientific understanding to promote technology that will further this mission. But when these become primary, they distort our view of the natural world and cause us to forget that, as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins says, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”2

As Christians approaching the natural world, our first instinct should be to worship—to worship God for His grandeur, and also for how He has given us the ability and mandate to understand His world and have dominion over it. This attitude of worship is less an end in itself as it is a posture to assume. And as we approach science through this posture of worship, we find that it reciprocates—the truths we uncover inspire wonder that compel praise of the Creator.

These pages will be tracing this idea of science as worship. We will look at how the drive to worship permeates the Scriptures that deal with the natural world. Then we will see how this attitude of worship instills wonder in our hearts as we seek the Person behind the scientific truths. Having our minds infused with this wonder, I will give crash courses in cosmology and neuroscience that I encourage you to approach in the posture of worship. And finally, we will examine an issue that challenges attempts to bring harmony to faith and science: the question of origins and the theory of evolution. There we will follow the arguments of two Christian scientists, Francis Collins and Darrel Falk, who seek a vibrant synthesis of the worlds of science and faith.

But first, a bit of my own story . . .

Next Page: My Story