One of the most common given objections given by non-believers about Jesus is that they "believe in Science," usually said with a stress that the object is to be spelled with a capital S. What are we to make of this?
The first thing we need is to understand what science or 'Science' is, though it is often assumed that we (the speaker and us) know what it is. In fact it is not the case. Let us see why.
Let us begin by putting the two sentences side by side, so that we better appreciate the apparent similarities and differences.
I believe in Christ (or, alternatively, I put my faith in non-Christian).
I believe in Science (or, I put my faith in Science).
The two sentences, at first glance, seem to declare the same thing except that the object is different; Christ in the one case and Science in the other. But do they? In fact they don't. My two adult childen, as I, are science graduates and we (with millions of scientists who believe in Christ) can affirm that we believe in Christ but we also believe in science. A non-Christian who has no interest in Christ would assert that he believes in Science and see that as antithetical to believing in Christ. This indicates clearly that the word 'believe,' or the object of our belief (Christ and/or science) mean different things in the two cases. Belief in Christ does not preclude belief in science, whereas belief in science (in this context, at least) is exclusive.
Second, belief in Christ is his faith in a person. The Christian faith is, first and foremost, about a relationship; a relationship between a person (the Christian) and the Person from whom we all derive our personhood, i.e., God in Christ. The belief in science puts its faith in an object, science. So what is science? Or Science? Science, notice is an abstract noun. It has no form or substance that you can hold in your hand or see with your eyes. Just like love (also an abstract noun) we see its effects everywhere, but it is no something we can see of itself or hold it in our hand. It neither speaks nor responses to our needs except as we made it do what we want it to do, nor demands anything from us except to admit we are wrong when the evidences indicate that the explanation we have proffered do not explain most of the data (when, it is then assumed, we are wrong). Even the stringent demands of a high standard of integrity in the investigative methods of science upon scientists are self-imposed by us in (usually presupposed) common agreement with all others in the scientific community. -
Semantically, therefore, science and Christ belong to the same class of words. Both words carry a verbal sense and a nominal sense. As a verb, we speak of 'theologizing,' i.e., the act of investigating what is involved in and how we are to understand a particular subject (e.g., the theology of work, theology of sin). There is no specific term for doing science. Nonetheless, to do science is to investigate what is involved in and how we are to understand a particular subject (e.g., ecology of earthworms, carcinology of the liver).
Further Reading & Resources:
☰ Alister McGrath, "Has Science killed God?" Faraday Paper No 9 (Apr 2007). 4pp. pdf
©ALBERITH