Date: 6 November 2002
Subject: General

Reflections on life as both scientist and a Christian.

My acceptance of the Christian faith at the age of 34 was associated with a very dramatic conversion experience that I have described in a testimony in the testimonies section on this site. It was powerful and life changing and it convinced me of the reality of a God who not only has the power to create and sustain the whole universe, but who also through Jesus, wishes to enter into a personal relationship with each of us: a God who is both transcendent and immanent, almighty and yet a Father. As the years have gone by God has developed this relationship as He has continued to input into my life through scripture, Christian friends and the power of His Holy Spirit. But during this journey, indeed for over a decade before it started, I was a researcher and teacher in the field of medical sciences. The interaction of my belief and my work has led me to ponder on the difficulties that some people have in harmonising faith and scientific understanding., Indeed, many would say that the two are in conflict with the findings of science leading us to doubt both the existence of God and the truth of much of what is in the Bible.

A great deal has been written about this and there is little point in repeating what has already been said, other than to say that there is growing awareness that many of the perceived difficulties are more apparent than real (1). They result from both misunderstandings and the aggressive attitude of militant minorities who are found in both science and the Church, and whose views are directly opposed. Yet because these minorities are very vocal and often have the ear of the media, there are many who are influenced by them and who therefore still perceive difficulties in marrying science and Christianity. This has made me think through these issues from the perspective of my own journey and its aspects of these reflections that I will share. Where better to begin than at the beginning, with my conversion story.

Explanations that are not explanations

There are those in the behavioural sciences who would say that my experience was simply a product of my mind, for we know that religious feelings can be induced by emotion or disease or artificial stimulation of certain parts of the brain. From this they conclude that all religious experiences are simply from within, a result of an overactive or damaged brain. They assume that the conviction of so many that it is of God is simply spurious.

This sort of argument, where an observation or result in a specific situation is then assumed to explain fully all similar occurrences whatever the circumstances, is often at the very heart of apparent science/faith conflicts. If this way of thinking were correct it would suggest that I, as both a medical scientist and a Christian, ought to be schizophrenic. But the belief that approaches like this are conclusive, or even valid, and that there is therefore serious conflict between the two disciplines, does not take into account all the evidence and is not, therefore, good science.

We are physical beings and as such it is quite probable that God would interact with us, at any rate in part through our senses and the structure of our brain. After all at the very heart of the Christian faith, as recorded in scripture, the infinite became finite and established a relationship with us through the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. Whilst this was in part miraculous, that is beyond scientific explanation or investigation, it was also through the usual functioning of the senses of the people who met Him: their eyes that saw, their ears that heard and their memories that recorded and described those encounter. So normal neurological functioning is clearly one way that God reveals Himself. When abnormal neurological circumstances mimic that revelation (such responses are often but a shadow of the usual Christian experience of God), we should not assume that it provides evidence against the reality of the event. After all the artificial stimulation of specific parts of the brain produces effects and sensations that mimic our experiences of the real world. Clearly this doesn't mean that the real world exists only inside our minds.

But there is more evidence for suggesting that tricks of our psyche are not the explanation for Christian experiences of God? Let me remind you of my story after I had made that step of faith and asked Jesus into my life. I felt nothing at the time; indeed I had a vague sense of concern about my ability to follow the call, and especially the promise I had made to stop drinking heavily. Next morning as I am driving to work, not thinking about that step of faith the previous evening, I suddenly feel as though I am brought into the presence of God. The experience, which words fail to describe, lasts for 3 days and vanishes almost as quickly as it came. I then spend several weeks unsuccessfully trying to recreate it by prayer, meditation and the like. Yet, although the experience never returns, it leaves me a new person. The heavy drinking is gone; removed miraculously. Scripture, which had preciously seemed irrelevant and obscure, suddenly leaps out with blinding revelation and continues to do so for the rest of my life.

You could say my story is unusual, but it's by no means unique. Testimonies of other Christians would indicate that hundreds of thousands, probably millions, from Saul of Tarsus down to the present day, have experienced the presence of God from similarly unlikely starting points of varying degrees of disbelief, cold rationality, and absence of emotion or complete ignorance and lack of expectation of what is about to happen. Is it following the evidence to say that this is always a deceptive creation of the mind, of the psyche from within, when there is nothing to trigger, build or sustain it? In my case, and I suspect others, there's no evidence of psychological ill health or emotional instability, at least I hope not. Also, conversion experiences occur in very different circumstances and situations. Sometimes it is encountered alone (Acts 9:1-9); sometimes in and by groups (Acts 2:1-4, 10:44-46). They occur in a variety of emotional states and geographic situations, sometimes after a long quest, sometimes when seeking after God has been brief. The touch is on people from all backgrounds, economic groups, races and cultures and yet the end result is the same, a sense of the presence of God (although for some this may not be dramatic) and a changed life. Rather than this being the product of an overcharged mind doesn't it sound like the touch of God? Some might say, "I can't comment, it's beyond my worldview". But if an omnipotent God impacts us, wouldn't we expect the encounter to be outside our usual limits, miraculous even. Would we not be disappointed if God sent us an e-mail: we would certainly disbelieve that it was from God. No we need much more help from God than that if we are to establish a relationship with Him.

The God of the gap

In contrast, although we are not good at understanding and relating to God without his help, we are good at using our own God given talents to study the created and so we should not be surprised at the success of science. This brings me to the second example of where my faith and my research agree. It's an area where, again, some would see conflict. They make the mistake of assuming that because we can successfully investigate the material we also ought to be able to figure God with the tools of science. When this approach fails and investigations reveal no gaps in the created order which only God can fill, it is assumed that God does not exist. The lack of rational thought in this assumption by folk who would claim to have logic at the heart of their reasoning never ceases to amaze me.

For example:
- why should temporal and finite techniques be able to quantitate the eternal and infinite?
- why should we expect the creator to be confined to the created? We don't expect to find automobile designers trapped forever in their cars.
- if we could analyse God by the techniques of science the God who would appear would be limited by our capacity to think and reason, not the creator at all. A God made in our image. God is not only bigger than we reasoned; He is bigger than we can reason (Isaiah 40:28; Romans 11:33; 1Corinthians 1:25).
- if we were to find God in the created then what of belief. God has decreed that He will not be found through our cleverness, which can be a hindrance, but by faith in a relationship with Jesus (John 14:6; 1Corinthians 1:18-25). If we could come to God by reason and experiment alone why would we need the Bible, Jesus or the Holy Spirit? God could have said get on with it yourselves, as He did with regard to our understanding of the world (Genesis 1:28).

Yet there is a "God of the Gap". It's not a gap in the created where God might be found upholding a particular aspect of our physical functioning or existence; it's a relational and spiritual gap between our maker and us. We have caused it by turning our backs on Him and failing even to acknowledge His existence, let alone give Him our allegiance. It is a gap into which we, in spite of all our cleverness (in some cases because of it), can't come without His help. The bridging of that gap is at the heart of the Christian faith, for the essence of the faith is a restored relationship with God made possible through Jesus Christ.

Contrary to popular belief there are no ways for us to bridge that gap using our own abilities or talents. People say that there are many ways up the mountain to God. But God says that they are all too difficult for us to negotiate. So God, because He is our loving Father, comes down the mountain to us in person and as a person Jesus Christ: Immanuel, God with us. It's a relationship that is full of God's input. It's describe in scripture, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, powered by the Holy Spirit and experienced, as I did, when we agree to accept our part in it: for relationships need two to be viable.

So, both my research and my God-given faith (with the emphasis on given), teach me that the appliance of science won't figure the knowledge and presence of His being, which is not of the material but is spirit. Whilst God moves within and sustains space/time, the basic laws are His and we can certainly find pointers to Him here, such things are but a fraction of the fullness of God, which we can only begin to know through His grace. The point of entry is through faith in Jesus Christ, not the logic of science, although our reason should accompany us on the journey.

It is thus through both the success of science in the study of a fascinating and beautifully ordered creation and my personal experience of God as a relational creator that I find agreement, rather than conflict, between my work and my faith. However, I have not yet covered what many would consider the most obvious point of apparent disagreement between science and Christianity, the Bible itself.
Science v the Bible: no contest

I have already touched on some of the reasons why this fixture should be abandoned. Science and the Bible help us to understand two different aspects of our reality, the former investigates the created, and the latter encourages our relationships with the creator. They are opposite sides of the same coin and each reliably displays a different facet of our existence. However, although scripture does not address in detail the things that science investigates, it does make some references to how we are as we are and it is at these points that the Bible is said to contradict the findings of science. Arguably the most celebrated area of disagreement is the story of creation and our beginnings as outlined in Genesis chapters 1-11. Forests have been felled to paper the books and articles on this subject and we will not resolve it here. But the differences between the findings of science and the revelations of scripture about our origins don't have to be seen as conflicts and disagreements if we remember that:
- it is not the purpose of scripture to detail how and so we must beware of reading too much science into it.
- scripture has to be understandable, reasonable and relevant to all generations. Hence, although much of scripture is factual narrative, some of its language is poetic and symbolic and early Jewish and Christian insights on scripture accepted and understood this.
- the Ancient Hebrews used literary styles to emphasise and develop themes in ways that are unfamiliar to us. For example, parallel constructions between creation-days 1 & 4, 2 & 5 and 3 & 6 in Genesis are used to emphasise that God created everything, both the domain and it's features and then the creatures that fill it. These literary devices are much more important to interpretation than the apparent chronology of the account on which today's readers tend to focus.
- aspects of science and scripture appear incompatible when they are not because our understanding of both the workings of the physical and the ways of God are incomplete.
- some aspects of our origins are not addressed by the scientific method, but are the focus of scripture, for example, our relationship with God. (For an excellent overview of this issue see Lucas E, Can we believe Genesis today?(2)

When we take account of these factors and remember the different roles of science and scripture, then much of the claimed disagreement between the two is seen to be an illusion. It has been my experience that both have contributions to make to the way I perceive, understand and develop reality. Indeed, I could go further, for my scientific experience has actually helped me to resolve to my own satisfaction another area where the intellectual credibility of the Christian faith has been called into question.

Science relieving scripture under siege

There is a popular misconception that the application of scientific approaches to the analysis of the text of the Bible itself has shown that it isn't historical. Many of the events that are described within its pages are believed to have no more credibility than a fairy tail. " We now know," people say, "that many of these things never happened." Surprisingly I have met this perception not from within science, but in the ranks of the clergy. It was they, or at any rate some of them, who within a few weeks of my conversion were telling me these things. When I protested that my experiences of the faith led me to believe that what was described in the Bible was neither exaggerated nor modified, neither fabricated nor corrupted and its promises were true, I was told that if I studied the evidence using my scientific training I would see that I was wrong: and so I accepted the challenge.

I discovered that scepticism began about 250 years ago with the suggestion that Jesus Christ never existed; He was simply a character or fiction. There are still a few scholars who hold this view today, but 1st century extra-biblical sources written by non-Christians of several nationalities, including Romans, Jews and Greeks have been discovered that mention Jesus and His centrality to the developing Christian faith. This makes it almost certain that someone of immense stature walked, taught and impacted first century Judea.(1)(3).

The first challenge to the historicity of the N.T. having fallen, the next to be developed acknowledged Jesus' existence, but claimed that the copies of the New Testament writings that we have today have been so embellished and corrupted by Christians down the centuries that they bear little resemblance to the original documents. However, we now have complete copies of all the New Testament books and their translations dating back to the 4th century and with 5 examples of parts of N.T. documents from the 3rd century and some fragments reaching back possibly to within 20-30 years of the resurrection.(1)(3)(5) Comparison of one manuscript with another (the science of textual criticism) can identify alterations, because differences would appear between the copies of the altered document and copies of the uncorrupted manuscript. The results of extensive investigations of this type show that the many ancient copies of the N.T. documents have little variation of substance and nothing that would affect the basic doctrine of the Christian faith. (1) (3) (4)(5). So another challenge to the truth of the documents is discredited, but the most recent and the one my church leaders were probably referring to, has proved the most formidable.

From the nineteenth century onwards a form of analysing scripture, called higher criticism, was developed. This approach, which still has adherents, seeks to analyse an ancient text in terms of how much it includes of what actually happened and what has been modified, embellished or even fabricated by the original authors. Essentially higher criticism (under whatever name) asks the question as to what remains of the actual words of Jesus and the events in His life. Putting it another way, although we have the N.T. as it was written, is what was written a true reflection of what happened? The results of this approach at first appear devastating to the credibility of the accounts. Although researchers vary widely in their conclusions, a general view would be that the authors of the N.T. books provide little of the actual words of Jesus and they so distort the events of His ministry and His intentions that we have much more a picture of what the early Church thought and wanted people to believe, than what actually happened. An overall summary would say that Jesus did not intend to introduce a new faith, that He never claimed to be divine, performed no miracles, was probably crucified, but was resurrected only in the minds of His followers and not in reality. He is recognised as an outstanding and original teacher who brought a different emphasis to the Jewish religion and challenged the legalism to which it had descended. So, Jesus under the dissection knife wielded by higher criticism becomes nothing more than human. Gifted? yes; charismatic? certainly; revolutionary? probably, but divine and commanding spiritual power, which was also to be available to His followers? certainly not.

So what do I make of the conclusions reached by higher criticism? At face value they remove the very heart of the Christian faith. But are the results as sound and robust as many claim for them. The answer lies not in the findings themselves, but in their reliability. My scientific experience indicates that the techniques used to analyse scripture are simply not up to the job. As an analyst, before I could identify the words and actions of Jesus in a mixed text that possibly contains impurities and additives or perhaps material that might modify or distort the original meaning, I would need to have purified standards of the sayings of Jesus so that I could calibrate His words in the mixture. Biblical critics have no such standards for their initial assumption is that we don't know what Jesus actually said anywhere.

Not only this but the very procedures themselves are open to severe criticisms. For example, they assume that a difference in emphasis or detail of a teaching or an event between two gospel accounts is a distortion of the original (e.g. The Lord's Prayer Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4, or some parables, Matthew 18:12-14, Luke 15:3-7). But as a teacher I often provide different presentations of the same material at different times. Alternatively, eyewitnesses observing from different positions can account for variant reporting of the same events1. It is also expected that individual writers would choose to emphasise different aspects of Jesus' ministry. So there are many valid reasons for producing differing versions of a three years ministry and none need lead us to assume that the authors have used fabrications or inventions.

The shallowness of the "a difference must be a distortion" approach is no exception. The "dissimilarity" technique is equally suspect. Here the only words of Jesus that are accepted as genuine are those that have little reliance on 1st century Jewish traditions and do not become part of the theology of the early church. However, what teacher would not wish to build on the culture of his students and hope that they would then value and practice what they had learnt, as the disciples did in establishing the Church. Some of these critics seem to discard scholarship all together as they build their research on statements of faith, such as miracles don't happen or the prophetic can't foretell. Such beliefs are then used in subsequent analyses as though they were precision tools: e.g. anything in scripture that appears to be supernatural can't be true.

The ease with which the very basis of higher criticism is challenged does not inspire confidence in the reliability of the conclusions. It's hardly surprising, therefore, that it fails another gold standard of analyst; that of reproducibility. Each researcher produces different results from essentially the same material, the findings often supporting the hypothesis with which the researcher began.(6)

We also find that their conclusions often defy logic; that essential at the heart of the scientific discipline. For example, although the nine N.T. authors have different approaches to their subject and write the material from different standpoints and backgrounds and although there are differences of detail, arrangement and emphasis, there is a consistency to the central thrust of their message. At its most basic this is that Jesus, was an incarnated expression of God on earth, as witnessed to by the earlier prophetic, the claims He made about Himself and the miraculous that accompanied His ministry. He taught that through His death on the cross a new and previously promised covenant between God and mankind would be made possible and this was confirmed by His resurrection. Jesus further taught that this new covenant brings all who accept and follow Him, into an eternal relationship with God. He also promised to remain with us in the power of the Holy Spirit to build the Church into a loving family, who are commissioned to sacrificially care for each other and to reach those who don't know Jesus with this message of salvation. Finally, the N.T. writers and the early Church experienced the fulfilment of this promise spiritually and miraculously as they sought to do His will. We have seen that the books that we have today are essentially faithful copies of the originals which current consensus also suggests were probably written between AD 50-90, within living memory of the events.(1)(4)(5) If what we have today is not a reliable account of what actually happened, as higher criticism implies, how was it possible to get 9 authors, some claiming to be eye witnesses (John 21:20-24; 2 Peter 1:16-18), writing over a period of 50 years from different backgrounds and places, to agree (2 Peter 3:15-16) on the essentials of a false account whilst claiming it to be true (Luke 1:1-4; 2 Timothy 3:16)?

Further, because some of the theories developed from higher criticism about the origins of the N.T. books offer such complex and tortuous processes of composition, with several hypothetical lost accurate versions of the events one is bound to ask why or how was so much of the original so easily lost and over such a short time period? Why don't we also have conflicting accounts as others attempted to record the "true" story as they witnessed it? There are some accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus that do conflict with the New Testament books and which are not found in the Bible, such as the Gnostic Gospels of Thomas, Peter and the Hebrews. But all these are, on average, later in composition that the books in the Bible, (A.D. 100 onwards) and, unlike the Gospels, contain little social knowledge of historical detail. The credibility of the findings of higher criticism depends on having answers to these questions. The scholars in this discipline appear to have none.

Once again both my experience of the faith and my training as a scientist unite and this time lead me to affirm, along with the evangelical wing of the Church, "The divine inspiration of scripture and its entire trustworthiness and authority in all matter of Faith" (2 Timothy 3:15-16). This is not to deny that some problems still remain with the translation, interpretation and, less commonly, the harmony of scripture. There are some apparent contradictions and differences that have yet to be resolved and it is a legitimate Christian activity to tackle these challenges. We should not stick our head in the sand. But, as we have seen, attempts to understand these difficulties have usually assumed the worst of scripture and its reliability, often when there has been little to support such a conclusion and sometimes when the evidence has been against it.

Conclusions

In my journey as a Christian down the corridors of science I have stumbled over issues raised by those who would see these two views of the world, science and faith, as incompatible, with all the evidence in favour of science. I hope that I have been able to show from my own particular perspective that there is no need for this conflict. Indeed, together science and faith can provide us with a more holistic and complete picture of who and what we are. Scientific information is collected by our investigative skills; the truth of the Christian Faith is experienced through a relationship with the creator. There are pointers to God in the observation and understanding of the created, but we need to remember that there is a gap, the very being of God, where science can't go. This is not any facet of the created, for although God moves amongst the material He is only fully experienced in His Kingdom; entry to which requires that we allow Him to actually develop the spiritual dimension in our lives through a new birth in Jesus. God moving in creation can be a light to us, but it's only God moving in us that makes us a new creation. We are incomplete without Him, for the gap that God inhabits creates a God shaped hole in all of us and only when we allow Him to fill it do we become a God shaped whole.

References
1. Forster R, Marston P. Reason and Faith. Monarch, Eastbourne: 1989.
2. Lucas E. Can we believe Genesis Today. Intervarsity Press, Leicester: 2001.
3. Gumble N. Questions of Life. Kingsway, Eastbourne: 2001.
4. Bruce FF. The Books and the Parchments. Marshall Pickering, London: 1991.
5. Thiede CP, D'ancona M. The Jesus Papyrus. Phoenix, London: 1997.
6. Stanton GN. The Gospels and Jesus, p164. Oxford University Press. Oxford: 1989.