Currently in the junior high science class, in anticipation for the war of siege weapons we’re planning for the end of the year, the students and I have been discussing various physics concepts. Most recently, I’ve taught them Newton’s three laws of motion—those well-known and often-recited phrases like, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This week they’ll learn about the law of gravity.
All the recent talk about laws means definitions are in order. What exactly do we mean in science when we use the word “law”? First, scientific laws are certainly not in the same class as the 10 Commandments. Although God is in control of gravity, it’s not by definition a sin to explore possible ways around gravity. Second, unlike God’s Law, scientific laws are not revealed by God in His Word. For example, we can be certain that stealing is evil and harmful because God says it is. He doesn’t, however, tell us that what goes up must come down, even though that does seem to be the way the world operates.
That second point is extremely important for how Christians understand the art of science. When non-Christian scientists do science, they see scientific laws as impersonal, cold, unbreakable rules coded into the universe. If you can imagine doing science like that, you can picture how empty, lonely, and ultimately fruitless that endeavor would be. Your goal as a secular scientist would be to discover the laws of the universe in order to “put nature to the rack,” in the words of Sir Francis Bacon. In other words, the secular goal of science is to stretch and break nature to bow to our will.
Compare this to a Christian understanding of science. When we see the laws of nature as descriptions of the acts of God instead of inscriptions on the universe, we find a vastly different purpose for science. Instead of seeing ourselves as specks in the universe fighting against nature for survival, we see ourselves as created beings made by God’s hands. We explore his beautiful order and put it into words. Maybe we’re wrong about some of our theories on how God works in the physical world—maybe we’ll find we’re even wrong about some of our “laws”—but if we are, the source of that order doesn’t change. Isaac Newton believed that there was an orderly God who governed the workings of the universe, and that belief undoubtedly affected his keen ability to do good science and to come up with his laws of motion. After all, our laws of nature only work well because God works in orderly ways.
However, Newton wasn’t a Christian. He didn’t believe Jesus was God in the flesh. And that means he missed out on the most beautiful part of science. God may be a God of order governing the universe, but without the justification we receive through Christ, our scientific endeavor is still a grasping after the wind. We may as well be the specks in the universe the secular scientists believe us to be, if in the end we are still dead in our sins with no hope of salvation.
In Christ,
Mr. Hahn
