Of the various mathematical arts, one that has fallen into more disuse than the others is astronomy. The art of astronomy is a simple idea—looking at the night sky and figuring out how God moves it—but simple as it is, the concept works as a great model for the rest of Christian scientific thinking. That’s because when we look at the night sky, there’s nothing we can do with the heavens but look up and wonder. Ultimately, that’s what science is: wondering in awe at God’s creation.
As we do science as fallen human beings, we are prone to believe that, given enough time, doing science will answer all our questions and solve all our temporal problems. This is simply not the case, first because that sentiment denies God’s Word as essential for wisdom and knowledge, and second because it does not make sense for one area of study to be able to speak about everything in the cosmos. Science has no authority when it comes to morality, the spirit, ethics, theology—it can only report “the facts,” not conclusions about them—and those “facts” are only a fraction of all the knowledge there is in the universe (When is the last time you heard of a scientific study on angels? It’s rather absurd). There is much we can know apart from science, and it is foolish to put all weight and authority into a scientific method, even if it is an incredibly useful tool. When doing science, we need to keep in mind the words the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote about scientific thinking: “Whereof one cannot speak, one must remain silent.”
That’s what makes astronomy so wonderful— it helps us to know what the place of science is. When we sit back and look at the night sky, we aren’t tempted to use science for any more than simply witnessing Christ actively holding the world together. The beautiful, complex dance of the stars and planets was placed in the sky simply for man to watch. Even better is the fact that you don’t need to know a single thing about the sky to start marveling at it and enjoying it (although knowing how to read a star map and recognizing the different features of the heavens certainly makes the experience that much better).
This is how Christians should understand science as a whole. At its core, it’s about taking in God’s creation and marveling at it, although not to the exclusion of being curious about it and asking questions about it. A young student can be a great scientist, because he can have so many curious questions about what he observes. I see this in science class all the time: I will teach a basic concept to the junior high class, and the students will start to make all sorts of connections and ask great questions. They don’t need to know complex scientific theories; they just need to live in God’s creation and have a little curiosity.
That’s not to say complex science is not important to learn, or that science shouldn’t be used for accomplishing godly goals and solving problems—far from it! We wouldn’t even have our own printed bibles if it weren’t for the scientific genius of Johannes Gutenberg, for example. But it should be that night-sky-wonder in God’s creation that drives the pursuit of science, not some desire to bend creation for our own pleasure. This is a very different view of science than the evolutionist “survival of the fittest” approach. The goal of pagan science is survival; as Christians, we already know we have eternal life. That means we have the unique opportunity to sit back, relax, and enjoy seeing our orderly God graciously at work in His creation for us whom He has redeemed.
In Christ,
Mr. Hahn
