August 19, 2025 • 41 mins
Some people believe faith contradicts science. In this episode, we discuss the foundation for that argument and how faith and science can actually complement each other. If you have comments or questions, use the link below to text us!
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Episode Transcript
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Zack (00:00):
Welcome to episode two of Between Sundays.
I'm Zach Casey, the executivepastor at City Awakening Church,
and today I'm joined by LouisTambor, our lead pastor, and
Alex Robinson, our communitypastor.
Our vision at City Awakening isto see both skeptics and
(00:22):
believers seek truth, find joyin community, and live with
purpose in our city.
And the teaching series thatwe're currently in on Sunday
mornings called Kingdom Thinkinghas really given us an
opportunity to address some ofthe current issues that we can
tend to struggle with from bothChristians and skeptics'
perspective as we navigate thoseon a daily basis.
(00:42):
Last week we discussed moraltruth versus moral relativism,
and today we're going to bediscussing faith and science,
and how we can reconcile the twowhen they seem to be in
conflict.
And maybe even asking, is therea need to reconcile the two?
Is there even a conflictbetween faith and science?
So I want to start there,really, because just like the
(01:04):
moral truth, moral relativismdiscussion, this is not a new
topic.
It's been around for a while.
But in your opinions, do youthink that the majority of
people today would say thatthere is a conflict or that
science and faith arecontradictory?
Louis (01:19):
I don't think they're going to come right out and say
that.
I think if you start tochallenge them, press them a
little bit on faith and science,I think you're probably going
to see people leaning a lotmore, people who aren't
Christians, maybe leaning a lotmore towards having faith and
trust in science than they domaybe believing in any other
religion or even in theexistence of God.
So I don't think they're goingto come out and say that there's
(01:42):
a war between the two, but intheir minds, there is an us
versus them mentality, that thementality of, well, if you're a
Christian, then you're ignorantbecause you basically believe in
faith without facts, but I'm aperson of science, so I believe
in facts, not faith.
And I think that's amisunderstanding, which maybe we
(02:02):
can get into a little bitlater.
Zack (02:04):
Do you think that that's changed in recent times, or has
this always been?
Because what you're saying isbasically the more religious
people, even beyondChristianity, I think, but
religious people tend not to seeit as a contradictory versus...
those who aren't as religiousor have a faith in that way see
it as more contradictory.
(02:25):
Do you think that that'sshifted
Alex (02:28):
Well, I think it can be kind of a– it's more of a
perception difference, I think,than an actual, like, argument
difference between Christiansreally see the world this way
and then people who valuescience really see the world a
totally different way.
Like, I don't think it's that.
I think it's a perception of,again, like– people are going to
look at Christians and say, Oh,you have, you put your, you
(02:51):
know, you, you stake everythingon something higher than just
the observable facts of things,um, that like science would say,
because there is that you doget an element of faith, but
it's not that faith is this likeblinding thing.
I think that's what people'sview is.
It's this misunderstanding offaith that faith is just a,
like, Totally blind phenomenon.
(03:14):
We don't take in any facts.
We just have faith.
And they think that's what theBible teaches when the Bible
doesn't.
I mean, the Bible givesevidences of who God is and what
he's done and how he'sinteracted with the world.
So, yeah, I mean, I thinkthere's probably a difference
there.
You know, we've got—we'llprobably go into some history on
this, but, you know, we've gotsome—there's a few instances
through history where thechurch— Mm-hmm.
(03:37):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
You can kind of pick and choosehistory to make fun of
(04:01):
Christians and science if youwant to, but you can do just as
much showing, hey, here's adedicated Christian who...
came up with all these theoriesand all these different things
that we now know to be kind oflike scientific fact.
Y
Louis (04:13):
Yeah, and I think going through the history of things, a
lot of cultures, I mean, wejust study history.
Most people in most culturesend up believing that there is
some sort of a higher power,some sort of a creator of some
sort.
It doesn't matter what tribe,people, group you go to.
There's always some littleglimpse of that throughout
history.
As science developed, I thinksome people started to become
(04:37):
maybe more skeptics of thingsthat they couldn't see, treating
it kind of like a blind faithmentality, like Alex was just
saying, as if we believe thatthere's an existence of God, but
we don't have any facts to basethat, at least observable data
to be able to back that claimup.
But I think what a lot ofpeople misunderstand when it
(04:57):
comes to this topic is that theytreat science as if it's truth
when science isn't truth.
It's a method for helping us tobetter understand truths.
It's one of many methods.
So we can study historicalliterature, and that can be a
piece of evidence for certaintruth claims that are made in
the past.
Now, it's just one method ofstudying a truth claim, and
(05:18):
that's what science is.
So I think the misconception alot of people have, at least in
our Western American culture, isthat science is truth.
No, it's not.
It is a method for helping usto better understand specific
truths.
This is why you'll see datachange.
This is why the science bookthat I'm studying, that I
studied several years ago, isn'tthe same addition to the
(05:39):
science books that the kids arestudying today.
Well, why is it a differentaddition?
I mean, if science is just alltruth across the board, then we
shouldn't have new additions.
But we have new additionsbecause new data has come in.
And as that new data came in,more observations were made,
more theories were made, moreclaims are being made.
Well, that science helps us tobetter test that.
T
Zack (05:57):
That's why there are theories.
That's why there are theories.
Everything in science istheories, right?
Louis (05:59):
r That's absolutely right.
And I think that's themisunderstanding that people
tend to have.
And like Alex was saying, too,Christianity does have facts.
that we can back our claims on.
We might use some science likearchaeology actually can help us
to be able to back some of theclaims that we make, that the
Bible makes.
But then there's other methodsthat we use to back some of the
(06:22):
claims that we have as well.
Zack (06:24):
Yeah.
So, I just did a quick search.
The most recent research reallyon this is from 2015,
ironically enough, from PewResearch.
And they showed that 59% ofAmericans say in general that
science is is often in conflictwith religion, but 38% believe
science and religion to bemostly compatible.
But 68% say that there is noconflict between their personal
(06:48):
religious beliefs and science,which is kind of interesting
because it's...
It's cognitive dissonance at work becauseyou'd be...
You can't do this in a surveyvery easily, but it'd be
interesting...
To have people give exampleswhen they answer to the
positive, like that there issome contradiction and be like,
okay, what?
Because I feel lost in thatsometimes.
(07:11):
I hear that and I go, okay, butwhat do you think is the
contradiction now?
When people even come back andsay, well, there's nothing in my
personal life.
belief system or a country.
Okay, well, what are we talkingabout?
Louis (07:22):
But that's where I think the conclusion comes in.
I think people don't understandreally what science is about.
They make it more than what itactually is.
I was talking to a buddy ofmine who is a biology teacher,
and he's a biologist, and he's abeliever in Christ.
I've gone on hikes with him onthe Appalachia Trail, and he's
pointing out things to me thatare just very intriguing to me.
(07:44):
And he said most people have amisunderstanding of what science
And he's the one who taught meearly on years ago that science,
you know, is a method forhelping us to better understand
truth.
And they're not at war witheach other.
They're not in conflict witheach other.
They can actually complementeach other in a lot of ways.
But I think that's where, like,that stat, as you were reading
that stat, I'm sitting here andI'm thinking to myself, that
(08:06):
doesn't make sense to me.
But I think it comes down topeople not really fully
understanding science.
Zack (08:13):
Alex, you mentioned some of the history.
I mean, it is true, like, thescientific method was developed
by critics.
really two Franciscan friars inthe 13th and 14th centuries.
Then it was made popular byFrancis Bacon, who we probably
learn about more in school inthe 16th, 17th century.
And then there's otherscientists, or that method was
(08:35):
largely founded in the Christiancommunity.
A lot of the universities,which were the primary sources
areas of study were formedaround Christian faith.
You have Oxford, Cambridge,Cambridge University, Harvard,
Yale, even medieval monasteries,which is where a lot of that
study took place in history.
But the thing looking back isthere was a belief in God which
(08:59):
laid the foundation for sciencein a lot of ways because these
men believed that there was aprocess that was designed by God
that made sense and that he hadgiven humans, rational beings,
the ability to discern what thatprocess was.
And so the idea was never todisprove or contradict faith in
God, but to study and reallyunderstand unpack or reveal the
(09:23):
secrets hidden within creationthat would show us more of who
god was it wasn't to set out todisprove god but it was more to
reveal the way god had madecreation which i think is a lot
of times like you're like youguys are saying it's a different
approach than people thinkabout science today they think
(09:43):
not all people think there hasto be like science is um part of
the process is to disprove thatfaith idea, you know?
And that was never really thecase in early scientists.
Alex (09:57):
Right.
I always, when I talk aboutthis with people, I always say,
you know, it's an overlysimplistic view to say that, you
know, Christians have a hardtime with science because, you
know, even if you go back into,you know, more ancient times,
pre-modern stuff like that, it'snot like Christians were
walking around thinking that ifyou like cut a tree open, that
(10:17):
it was just a blank space inthere and it was just God making
a tree work.
Like they knew there was stuffinside the tree.
They knew It had rootsunderground.
They knew kind of the workingsof it.
Now, of course, they didn'thave microscopes to look at,
like, oh, here's whatchlorophyll is, and here's
exactly how this works, andhere's what it takes.
Like, they didn't know all ofthat method, but they knew, hey,
there's something working here.
(10:38):
And, like, the simplistic wayto say it is, hey, God is in
control of the things growing.
But they knew there was somemechanism by which that was
working.
It wasn't just, like, God magicworking all over the place.
And then through...
the work of a scientific methodand studying things and
observing things, we now learnmore about it than what people
(11:00):
you know, what like ancienttimes did, but people in ancient
times didn't walk around justas imbeciles thinking that
things didn't have a method ofworking.
They just didn't necessarilyhave the method to know every
detail about it.
Now we can know a lot moredetails about it.
Louis (11:14):
Yeah.
You know, you brought upFrancis Bacon and I'm glad you
did because he is often creditedto developing the scientific
method, which every scientificarea depends on.
Well, one of the reasons why hedid that, he often used the
term idols whenever he talkedabout things which was biblical
language, was to preventscientific corruption.
So he wanted to create thatmethod to be able to keep
(11:37):
scientists in check so that theywouldn't have their own
intellectual biases tainting thedata, so to speak, right?
And so one of the major reasonswhy he created that was because
he knew that humans were sinfulpeople, and because we're
sinful people, we can corruptthe data.
So the very scientific methodthat all these other sciences
(11:58):
depend on were actually startedby a guy who held both faith and
science together.
And he didn't see them at war.
He saw them as complementary.
Zack (12:06):
c Yeah.
Now, Alex, you also mentionedwhere the church can overstep.
The case that comes to mindwith that is Galileo.
Sure.
You know, who came up with theheliocentric model, but was
condemned by the Catholic churchbecause it went against what
their tradition had taught.
And so they, you know, shotthat down, which obviously
turned out to be true.
The earth is not the center ofthe universe, but the sun is.
(12:29):
And so The church has not beenperfect in this, obviously, and
we can't err on that side ofbeing dismissive of those truths
or those theories if we're notcareful, just because it's not
what we've always held to.
Alex (12:45):
Yeah, I would say that's the first thing that comes to
mind.
And that comes from a weirdinterpretation of Scripture,
essentially, and just like a...
frankly, like a sinful view ofourselves that we needed to be
at the center of the universebecause God created us.
And it was, it was just thiskind of deeply held view that,
(13:07):
you know, that's the older one.
There's like a more modern one.
I think of like kind of anAmerica around kind of the
introduction of the theory ofevolution.
Like when you had eventuallybecame the scopes trial, which
now it's famously called themonkey trial.
And it was Williams, Jenning,Brian, I believe that was
arguing for it.
And just kind of in the, Way iskind of made a fool of himself
(13:28):
talking about, hey, this methodmeans that...
And his argument, too, was notso much against this theory of
evolution as a thing, but he wasarguing against teaching the
conclusion that, therefore,since we now have a theory of
evolution, there must be no God.
Because we found a method thatbasically does away with the
need for God.
(13:48):
And he didn't think that's whatwe should be teaching kids,
which...
in reality, is not how thatshould be taught.
It's a perfectly fine thing toteach.
There's elements of it thatmake sense in nature and it's
observable, but it doesn't...
even someone like Darwin wasn'targuing when he came up with
that, that, oh, this now gets usall the way back to this and we
(14:09):
now can do away with God.
He was just saying, hey, we canobserve these changes in
species across time.
And this could be a pretty goodway of explaining how we got
all these species.
So those are kind of the, yeah,the scopes trial evolution
stuff, more modern.
And then, yeah, theheliocentrism stuff back in the
day were definitely ways whenthe church kind of came in and
(14:31):
you know, kind of to ourchagrin, made a fool of us by
kind of overly focusing on.
Right.
I
Louis (14:39):
Can I chime in on two things on that?
Fine.
(15:08):
Let's say all that's true,whatever.
I don't care.
So, I mean, I do care, but howdoes life come from non-life?
How does something that's notliving all of a sudden produce
something that's living?
If you have a rock that is notalive, how does that rock that's
not alive all of a suddenbreathe life into existence?
(15:31):
And so they've got you got toanswer that question for me if
you want me to not believe inthe existence of God.
And I've had had them say,well, you know, it's it's kind
of always existed.
OK, well, you're describinglife.
god because so now so nowmatter is eternal instead of an
eternal you have to come to
Alex (15:47):
something something eternal
Louis (15:49):
right so then i go to the cause and effect argument okay
well so there's a cause andeffect i mean if i'm if you come
into a forest one day and youfind a ball sitting there and i
said to you how did that ballget there well it just appeared
on its own or it's alwaysexisted you'd say i'm crazy
right we would say i'd sayyou're crazy if you said that to
me well you a more logicalexplanation would be well a
factory created that ball thatball was blown up by somebody in
(16:12):
the factory and a kid wasplaying with it and just forgot
it in the forest.
And that's why it's there.
So this is the cause and effectmentality.
And God is the first causer ofthe effects that have taken
place here.
So how does life come fromnon-life?
Okay, that's one thing.
Galileo, he once stated, when Iconsider what, because you were
talking about Galileo, right?
So yes, I believe, you know, Iagree with you.
(16:35):
Like the church was wrong onthat, which is one of the
reasons why we're doing thispodcast too.
We're doing this podcastbecause even next week when we
talk about, you know, is artartificial intelligence, helpful
or harmful.
We're wanting to address thesethings because we personally at
City Weekend, we don't want tobe the kind of church that's
like, okay, you know,everybody's an enemy.
No, we want to be in the world,but not of the world.
(16:55):
And so we want to address someof these tough questions and
things to deal with.
And we've also want to learnfrom history that the church
wasn't always on the right sideof this, but some Christians
were.
And, you know, we have a listof names on that.
Well, Galileo stated, when Iconsider what marvelous things
and how many of them men haveunderstood, inquired into and
contrasted, Right.
Zack (17:33):
Yeah, which is, you know, you go back and you study guys
like that or others.
And, you know, I know I havesome family members who I think
their approach is, distantfamily members, but I think to
have faith in God is ignorance,right?
that is unintelligent.
But then you look at guys likethat or other scientists, it's
(17:53):
just not based on what?
How is that unintelligent?
Even some modern-dayscientists, people don't think
about there being these greatscientists that have strong
Christian faith.
MIT professors, Ian Hutchinson,the guy Francis Collin, who was
a major leader in the HumanGenome Project.
These other people that are waymore intelligent than I am And
(18:18):
they know way more than I doscientifically, and they have
great faith.
So it's not unintelligent tohave faith in God, or the two
don't.
They don't have to be mutuallyexclusive in that way.
Louis (18:29):
Correct, yeah.
Zack (18:31):
So we talked about evolution.
That's obviously one of themajor areas.
What are some of the other keyareas you feel like that people
tend to turn to that feels likeor can feel like there's a
contradiction between faith andscience?
Alex (18:47):
I mean, this could be repeating somewhat from kind of
our more objective truth versuspersonal truth type thing, but I
think when you get into thesofter sciences, like the social
sciences, you get into this bigfight between...
faith and what socialscientists find.
(19:07):
I mean, you find people talkingthrough psychology or sociology
or anthropology, like whypeople interact.
And, you know, they talk abouthow cultures form and all these
different things.
And I think that has been useda lot of times to say, look, all
these cultures do these things,do similar things, or they form
their morality in differentways, or, you know, just...
There's oppression throughoutthese things.
(19:28):
And again, I look at the Bibleand go, oh, the Bible tells us
that we're sinful and thatthings get screwed up.
When people are involved,things get screwed up.
But you'll get people that thencome in and say, well, here's
these theories about why peopleinteract this way and what's
actually at the root of that.
And that's where things likethe Marxist dialectic comes from
(19:49):
or the...
you know, oppressed oppressormatrix kind of thing.
I think that is an attempt tokind of science away the idea
that People are sinful, and theworld is not going to function
perfectly.
And God has been honest aboutthat through Scripture.
We point to the solution ofChrist in that, not a, oh,
(20:14):
here's this system, and nowpeople can come in and kind of
fix the system, and that makesit better.
Yeah, I think
Zack (20:20):
you think about the beginning of life argument.
When does life begin?
That's one that comes intoplay.
Medical practices, when youstart talking about things like
genetic modification orengineering, stem cell research,
those kind of things, where Ithink there tends to be some
disagreement in that.
Louis (20:38):
Cloning.
Alex (20:41):
Well, even the life one is tough, because you hear people
get in arguments about anabortion type idea, and they
talk about all the science wehave where we know genetic
development and how a babydevelops.
When you get down to brasstacks in that argument, if
someone is really pro-abortionin that, they're not arguing
scientifically at that point.
Because they get to the pointwhere you're going like, well,
(21:04):
it's a clump of cells.
And I go, okay, but it's aclump of cells that eventually
becomes a bigger clump of cellsthat is a baby.
So where's the scientificdifference between those two?
And then it just comes down toa choice argument.
A lot of times...
In some of these arguments,you'll see people default away
from science when it doesn'twork anymore quicker than I feel
(21:26):
like I have to as a Christian.
I can kind of lean on thescience and say, well, it's
there.
I see all of these buildingblocks of life going on.
What other conclusion am Isupposed to say other than
that's life there?
And you'll have to kind ofdeviate from that to get to a...
you know, more pro-choiceposition a lot of times.
Louis (21:48):
Yeah.
Even what's coming to mind forme too, is when you get into
like computer sciences, theadvancement of technology, you
know, some of our scientificdiscoveries leading to like AI
and things like that.
And now they're, they're,they're potentially going to be,
I mean, it's going to happenwhere they create like
humanoids, you know, you know,artificial intelligence robots
(22:08):
and people having intimateconnections and even
relationships with them and whatthat does, or even the
conversation about the uploadingour consciousness, almost like
uploading data to the cloud andhaving our consciousness eternal
now to try and prolong life.
And I mean, there's just somany things that I think this is
(22:29):
paving the way towards.
And as Christians, we need tohave these kind of dialogues.
Zack (22:32):
Yeah.
The thing about that, since youbrought up the artificial
intelligence thing, how do youthink that that will affect this
debate in the future?
I
Louis (22:42):
I think there's going to be some...
Going back to the moral issues,moral law issues, I think
there's going to be sometheological issues that are
going to come into play.
So moral issues, like is itmorally right or wrong to have
an intimate relationship withGod?
a robot with an artificialintelligence.
I think theological issues.
(23:04):
How much do we really rely onartificial intelligence?
A lot of people treating itlike it's their savior.
And so almost creating an idolout of artificial intelligence.
So I think it could affectthat.
And I'm not hating onartificial intelligence.
We're going to talk about thatin the next week.
But I'm saying these are justsome some issues that could
arise with that where we have tohave some discussions on that.
(23:25):
How far do we take it?
Do we put a kill switch onthings or not?
You know, what are the extremedangers of if artificial
intelligence gets out of handand we don't have kill switches
or it creates nuclear issues,all kinds of things like that.
I think we have to, there'sgoing to be things that we
aren't even aware of yet thatcould be dangers or moral issues
or theological issues,spiritual issues, practical
(23:47):
issues that we'rejust not aware of.
Alex (23:49):
o Yeah, what's the nature of the soul?
All of that.
If you create the technologythat can put all of my memories
and personalities somehow into acomputer and my body dies is my
soul still with my informationin the cloud or is it gone to
(24:10):
god now like and now there'sjust kind of an imitation of me
walking around yeah it's andwhat what human rights does that
collection of my data haveversus it being within you know
it's an interesting yeah that'san interesting question
Zack (24:25):
I think on the on the positive side i think if you're
familiar with like the finetuning argument there's
artificial intelligence is goingto it already has begun and is
going to allow a lot ofsimulations and calculations to
take place that will I believewill show that the conditions
for life and things to exist asthey are is so specific that
(24:51):
it'll even rule out evolutionarytheory even more.
It's so specific and has to beso finely tuned.
that it points even more to anintelligent design.
Louis (25:05):
I mean, that already exists.
We already have incrediblestats on that and scientific
data on that and scientists whoaren't even believers in God or
Christians in general.
In fact, it was interesting.
Richard Dawkins wrote a book,The God Delusion, and yet he was
being debated by somebody atone point because he's a
hardcore scientist, but anatheist scientist.
(25:26):
And he even admitted at somepoint there has to be some sort
of a higher power that thatstarted all this, some
intelligent designer, but hewon't call it that.
He won't call it God.
He just says that there'ssomething out there that's
greater and just doesn't knowwhat that something is.
He can't put a name on it.
So, yeah, the fine-tuneargument and fine-tune theory,
(25:47):
we already have some of thoseintricate details that really
point to the, well, what I callit, really random order, you
know, because it's so random forlife to exist, but yet it's so
ordered and calculated by God,you know.
It had to have been God who didthat.
But this is where the wholemultitheory, multiverse theory
(26:07):
comes in.
Alex (26:08):
We go into comic books.
to account for that it's wellit seems infinitesimally
impossible so there must beinfinite universes so of course
if there's infinite universesthen at one time it's going to
happen
Louis (26:20):
which is a desperate grasp there's even another
theory called panspermia Ibelieve the science is called
planspermia where they believethat life began from some
extraterrestrial means and camehere but where did it come from
on the extraterrestrial meanslike how did it start there like
all it is is just pushing theargument back and if you're
saying there's an an infinitemultiverse that exists.
(26:42):
Okay, well, but again, you'regoing back to a description of
really the infinite God.
You're saying that, you know,people are crazy for believing
in an infinite God, but we'regoing to believe that there's an
infinite God.
multiverse you know universethat exists and also yeah and it
just keeps pushing it back
Zack (26:55):
yeah so how when we think about on the practical side as
as christians uh and we approachscripture how does does it
matter how we interpretscripture how does our approach
to scripture affect our uminteraction with science
Alex (27:11):
well i think there's this simple you know it it The simple
stuff you learn when you startthinking about hermeneutics, the
interpretation of scripture,and it sounds really basic
because we do this with languageall the time, is what got the
church in trouble sometimes wastaking...
What's called phenomenologicallanguage and making it totally
(27:36):
literal.
So the Bible talks about thesun rising and setting.
Now, scientifically, we knowthat the earth is rotating.
The sun is the stationarything.
But as we perceive...
life, we see the sun movingacross.
So we talk about sunrise andsunrise.
That doesn't mean we're wrong,but it just means as we see
things, that's how we perceiveit.
And that kind of got them introuble saying, well, I see the
(27:58):
sun moving across.
Certainly we're the solidthing.
Um, and that, you know, thatjust became the wrong thing.
And Right.
Right.
(28:20):
Yeah, this carpenter helpedwith us.
We can do the same things withGod, saying God is in control of
(28:40):
creation, but he also is a Godof order and a God of working
things.
He's an immaterial God, buthe's working things out in a
material world, so we're goingto see systems...
and things that work in thematerial world, but God is in
control of that.
And so I can believe both.
I can say God is ultimately incontrol, but yes, photosynthesis
(29:00):
happens, and my body has amillion functions that are
happening inside, but I trustthat God is the one who authored
that and laid the plans out forit and created it, and then now
it works because he's a gooddesigner.
You know, I think that's kindof the idea of interpreting
scripture to...
(29:20):
To just be, you know, theapologist Wes Huff, who's now
really famous online.
He's been on everybody'spodcast.
He does a really great job ofexplaining a ton of stuff.
And he just really is reallysimple.
The Bible is clear on theissues that it wants to be clear
on.
And it is not completely clearon the things that God didn't
want to be totally clear on.
(29:41):
And so we take the things whereGod is clear and says, you
know, I'm sovereign overcreation.
And then it's okay for us tothen use...
the capacities that God gave usto, okay, let's study exactly
how that creation works.
And it just points us back to,wow, God put in some really good
parameters here for why thisworks.
Louis (30:00):
Yeah, you know, when it comes to all this too, I...
I think back again to theconfusion that people sometimes
have on, okay, well, what is theBible about?
And then what is science about?
The Bible isn't intended to bea science book.
So if we're going to the Bibleto learn more about science,
(30:22):
well, we're misunderstandingwhat the Bible is intended to be
about and what it's intended topoint us to, the God it's
intended to point us to and totell us about.
I'm not going to go to scienceto be able to, you know,
understand who God is.
I can help to better understandhow incredible he is and how
great he is.
And so this is one of thebeauties of science.
(30:42):
Like you were talking aboutphotosynthesis and stuff like
that, to be able to study thosethings and the details of human
anatomy, you know, our world andall that.
I mean, to me, that's veryintriguing.
And I'm so thankful for Godgifting us with sciences and
people with scientific mindsbecause they help us to really
see just how incredible God is.
And how intelligent he is andhow powerful he is by the
(31:06):
fine-tuned details of hiscreation.
The more we study through thesciences and be able to see
those things, to me, it justcauses me to be that much more
in awe of God.
So science can help us.
to better understand creation,but the Bible tells us who
created it.
When it comes to the beginningof creation, for example, in the
(31:28):
Genesis account, I'm notstudying the Genesis account to
be able to better understand thedetails of creation.
No, I'm going to go to ascience book to better
understand some of thebeginnings of our creation.
But I am going to go to theBible and in Genesis 1 to better
understand the God who createdit.
So I think it was Andy Stanleywho said, and I think it was in
his book, or his curriculum,Starting Point, where he
(31:50):
mentions how um the how genesisis about us not understanding
the method of the maker butgetting to know the maker of the
method and that to me is is thedifference between the bible
and and science we're getting tounderstand the maker of the
method when we read the biblegetting to better know the
(32:10):
method of the maker when westudy some of the sciences
Zack (32:14):
so for me um The more I learn about science,
particularly when I was incollege, I was a horticulture
major, so I took a lot ofclasses around plants and those
kind of things.
And any time I would learn aprocess or something specific
about the details of the waythat worked, photosynthesis, I
took an entomology class wherewe studied insects and the way
(32:37):
those insects interacted witheach other and with the plants.
I would walk away from classand just think how...
That can't just be chance.
It just magnified God ascreator and his creativity and
ability and knowledge and allthose things that really became
enhanced worship for me.
(32:58):
So I think the more that we,when we approach it that way,
the more that we learn aboutscience and the way things work,
it really enhances our view ofwho God is.
And then we can come back toscripture and see how those
things work.
complement each other notcontradict each other
Louis (33:14):
yeah that's why it's not at war for me right that's why
it can be beautiful friends youknow like a marriage you know uh
you know beautiful relationshipwhere man we just we get to be
so much more in awe of god as westudy science
Zack (33:28):
yeah yeah so final question i think what is our
role as a church thinking aboutthe universal church in this
conversation and do we have aplace to step in and say there's
a limit to how much we leaninto science or how those two
(33:48):
things interact so how can weenhance this or help guide
people through this as a church
Alex (33:55):
i mean my first contention is i would say It's not
something we necessarily need tobe afraid of.
I think we can trust that Godis big enough to handle...
human developments on things,if that makes sense.
We are still the creatures.
And so that's why I'm notentirely worried about AI as a
thing, as of right now, becauseI think at some point we're
(34:16):
going to run into a wall with AIthat says, oh, we are not
totally capable of replicatingeverything it is to be human,
because we don't have thatpower.
I think we'll run intosomething of a wall there.
We'll get really good atcopying things, but I think
we're going to run intosomething where we can't Totally
put together like consciousnesslike God can.
(34:38):
And because of that, I wouldthen say that, you know, as the
church, as the people in thechurch, like we should have, we
should have more and moreChristian scientists.
Like if you're you know, ifyou're growing up and you have a
love of the sciences and loveof mathematics and like go into
those fields and you don't needto be afraid of them.
You don't need to go in andsay, Oh, my faith is going to
(35:00):
hold me back in these areas orthings like that.
I mean, I would, I would say,go be a physicist, be an
engineer, be a doctor, be aresearcher and a chemist.
Like you're going to learn moreabout how God's word work, how
God's world works, um, And likeyou said, it can be this kind of
spur to your faith.
And you can go at it with theperspective that I'm studying
(35:23):
the creation that God has putbefore me.
And I'm going to use, you know,the faculties he's given me to
know these.
And you might be the next onethat creates something that is,
you know, that discoverssomething that's incredibly
important for humans.
Because you trust God and youtrust that he's made an orderly
world and you can observe it.
Yeah.
learn from it and derive thingsfrom it.
Louis (35:46):
I love what Alex said about if you're a scientific
mind, well, then great.
Praise God for that.
And if you're a Christian whohas a scientific mind, get into
the sciences.
Go study the world and help theworld in whatever ways you
(36:06):
possibly can while also pointingpeople to Christ.
I think that's a great thingand I don't believe churches
really talk enough about that orwe don't really teach it.
We almost teach that ministryis really something you do on
Sunday or when you go overseas.
You can be a scientist but alsolove Jesus and live missionally
through the sciences you'restudying.
(36:26):
So I love that he brought thatup.
I think one of the things wehave to be cautious of just in
the future when it comes to anyof this or any scientific
advancements we have, and someof it I've already brought up,
is if we start to see an issuewith there being a moral or
ethical dilemma.
Maybe there's a certainadvancement and it's starting to
(36:48):
cross the line or it can maybeeven create some dangers.
Let me just take nuclear power,for example.
There was debates when theywere creating nuclear bombs and
things like that.
Do we do this or do we not dothis?
I think the church has to stepin and try and lead the way on
what is the best decision we canmake in this, going back to
(37:10):
what we talked about last weekwhen it comes to the moral laws
of God.
We as a church need to helplead the way in discerning that.
I think if there becomes atheological issue that we feel
like might be in conflict withsomething or a theory that's
going on, I don't really getthreatened when, this happens
almost every Easter, whereyou're going to get something on
(37:30):
TV, National Geographic, orsome magazine's going to come in
and say, well, we found thisand it disproves Christianity
and the resurrection of Jesus.
And it's like, oh my goodness,no, it doesn't, right?
And so I never get threatenedwhenever there's some new
scientific discovery and thenpeople start making claims that
that's going to disprove aChristian.
No, I don't.
Even if we go back to like, youknow, somebody making a claim
(37:51):
that the earth is flat.
Well, no, it's round.
Well, so I don't get worriedabout that because I know that
again, there's going to beanother addition in science.
There's not another addition tothe Bible.
And so I'm not worried aboutthe Bible's claims being true.
I believe those are true andtime will always prove that it
is true regardless of thescientific studies.
And as we get moreadvancements, whatever claim is
made today, that appears tomaybe disprove a theological
(38:14):
claim, I'm not worried about itbecause in time we're going to
have another discovery that'sgoing to come back and prove,
oh, wait a minute, thetheological claim was right that
the Bible talked about.
We've seen that all throughouthistory.
We have things where it wassaid, well, that didn't really
happen.
This is what happened.
But then we did anotherarchaeological dig and we're
like, oh, wait a minute, we'vegot to backtrack.
The Bible was right on that.
So that's where maybe I'll comeback to the way we started
(38:36):
things off.
I think one of the major thingsthat I try to teach people when
it comes to this topic isscience also requires faith.
If you have a theory, then youhave faith that that theory
might be true.
Therefore, you now have to goand do tests based on your faith
(38:58):
that that theory is true.
If you didn't believe thattheory is true, then you're not
going to do tests to try and doit.
So even science is based onfaith, just like Christian
beliefs are based on faith.
Both require faith.
And so, again, this is not, andboth have facts.
And it goes back to, again,both can be very complementary
if they're in sync together.
Yeah.
Zack (39:20):
And I think in all these things that each week we're
going to kind of find this sameunderlying truth to be there,
that it's important for us asChristians to know what we
believe and why we believe it,to do our study and research and
be educated on things, whetherthat's scientific, but certainly
on our faith.
I mean, 1 Peter chapter 3 says,be ready at any time to give a
(39:41):
defense to anyone who asks youfor a reason for the hope that's
in you.
And so if we just go throughlife, In any topic or situation,
and we're not confident orlearned, educated in what we
believe and why, then we'regoing to be more easily swayed
and we're going to be pulled indifferent directions, whether
(40:04):
that's, again, from a scientificplace or any other thing that
comes up.
I think in all these things,it's learning to think and ask
the right questions and haveconversations about it like
we're doing here.
And hopefully theseconversations that we're having
spur other conversations amongthose of you who are listening
and cause you to ask deeperquestions.
And I think those are alwaysgood things.
(40:25):
Just like we don't have to bescared of the science or
learning, we don't need to bescared of asking questions,
which is why as a church we saywe want to be a place where
people can seek truth.
We welcome those questions andwe invite people across the
spectrum to come and ask those.
And that's kind of who we wantto be.
So we're going to end theconversation there.
Next week we're going to pickit up with, as we mentioned, the
(40:47):
conversation on artificialintelligence.
So be sure and join us forthat.
If you want to share yourthoughts, you can use the send
us a text link in the episodedescription.
We'd love to hear from you.
For more information about CityAwakening Church or to listen
to this past week's
Welcome to episode two of Between Sundays.
I'm Zach Casey, the executivepastor at City Awakening Church,
and today I'm joined by LouisTambor, our lead pastor, and
Alex Robinson, our communitypastor.
Our vision at City Awakening isto see both skeptics and
(00:22):
believers seek truth, find joyin community, and live with
purpose in our city.
And the teaching series thatwe're currently in on Sunday
mornings called Kingdom Thinkinghas really given us an
opportunity to address some ofthe current issues that we can
tend to struggle with from bothChristians and skeptics'
perspective as we navigate thoseon a daily basis.
(00:42):
Last week we discussed moraltruth versus moral relativism,
and today we're going to bediscussing faith and science,
and how we can reconcile the twowhen they seem to be in
conflict.
And maybe even asking, is therea need to reconcile the two?
Is there even a conflictbetween faith and science?
So I want to start there,really, because just like the
(01:04):
moral truth, moral relativismdiscussion, this is not a new
topic.
It's been around for a while.
But in your opinions, do youthink that the majority of
people today would say thatthere is a conflict or that
science and faith arecontradictory?
Louis (01:19):
I don't think they're going to come right out and say
that.
I think if you start tochallenge them, press them a
little bit on faith and science,I think you're probably going
to see people leaning a lotmore, people who aren't
Christians, maybe leaning a lotmore towards having faith and
trust in science than they domaybe believing in any other
religion or even in theexistence of God.
So I don't think they're goingto come out and say that there's
(01:42):
a war between the two, but intheir minds, there is an us
versus them mentality, that thementality of, well, if you're a
Christian, then you're ignorantbecause you basically believe in
faith without facts, but I'm aperson of science, so I believe
in facts, not faith.
And I think that's amisunderstanding, which maybe we
(02:02):
can get into a little bitlater.
Zack (02:04):
Do you think that that's changed in recent times, or has
this always been?
Because what you're saying isbasically the more religious
people, even beyondChristianity, I think, but
religious people tend not to seeit as a contradictory versus...
those who aren't as religiousor have a faith in that way see
it as more contradictory.
(02:25):
Do you think that that'sshifted
Alex (02:28):
Well, I think it can be kind of a– it's more of a
perception difference, I think,than an actual, like, argument
difference between Christiansreally see the world this way
and then people who valuescience really see the world a
totally different way.
Like, I don't think it's that.
I think it's a perception of,again, like– people are going to
look at Christians and say, Oh,you have, you put your, you
(02:51):
know, you, you stake everythingon something higher than just
the observable facts of things,um, that like science would say,
because there is that you doget an element of faith, but
it's not that faith is this likeblinding thing.
I think that's what people'sview is.
It's this misunderstanding offaith that faith is just a,
like, Totally blind phenomenon.
(03:14):
We don't take in any facts.
We just have faith.
And they think that's what theBible teaches when the Bible
doesn't.
I mean, the Bible givesevidences of who God is and what
he's done and how he'sinteracted with the world.
So, yeah, I mean, I thinkthere's probably a difference
there.
You know, we've got—we'llprobably go into some history on
this, but, you know, we've gotsome—there's a few instances
through history where thechurch— Mm-hmm.
(03:37):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
You can kind of pick and choosehistory to make fun of
(04:01):
Christians and science if youwant to, but you can do just as
much showing, hey, here's adedicated Christian who...
came up with all these theoriesand all these different things
that we now know to be kind oflike scientific fact.
Y
Louis (04:13):
Yeah, and I think going through the history of things, a
lot of cultures, I mean, wejust study history.
Most people in most culturesend up believing that there is
some sort of a higher power,some sort of a creator of some
sort.
It doesn't matter what tribe,people, group you go to.
There's always some littleglimpse of that throughout
history.
As science developed, I thinksome people started to become
(04:37):
maybe more skeptics of thingsthat they couldn't see, treating
it kind of like a blind faithmentality, like Alex was just
saying, as if we believe thatthere's an existence of God, but
we don't have any facts to basethat, at least observable data
to be able to back that claimup.
But I think what a lot ofpeople misunderstand when it
(04:57):
comes to this topic is that theytreat science as if it's truth
when science isn't truth.
It's a method for helping us tobetter understand truths.
It's one of many methods.
So we can study historicalliterature, and that can be a
piece of evidence for certaintruth claims that are made in
the past.
Now, it's just one method ofstudying a truth claim, and
(05:18):
that's what science is.
So I think the misconception alot of people have, at least in
our Western American culture, isthat science is truth.
No, it's not.
It is a method for helping usto better understand specific
truths.
This is why you'll see datachange.
This is why the science bookthat I'm studying, that I
studied several years ago, isn'tthe same addition to the
(05:39):
science books that the kids arestudying today.
Well, why is it a differentaddition?
I mean, if science is just alltruth across the board, then we
shouldn't have new additions.
But we have new additionsbecause new data has come in.
And as that new data came in,more observations were made,
more theories were made, moreclaims are being made.
Well, that science helps us tobetter test that.
T
Zack (05:57):
That's why there are theories.
That's why there are theories.
Everything in science istheories, right?
Louis (05:59):
r That's absolutely right.
And I think that's themisunderstanding that people
tend to have.
And like Alex was saying, too,Christianity does have facts.
that we can back our claims on.
We might use some science likearchaeology actually can help us
to be able to back some of theclaims that we make, that the
Bible makes.
But then there's other methodsthat we use to back some of the
(06:22):
claims that we have as well.
Zack (06:24):
Yeah.
So, I just did a quick search.
The most recent research reallyon this is from 2015,
ironically enough, from PewResearch.
And they showed that 59% ofAmericans say in general that
science is is often in conflictwith religion, but 38% believe
science and religion to bemostly compatible.
But 68% say that there is noconflict between their personal
(06:48):
religious beliefs and science,which is kind of interesting
because it's...
It's cognitive dissonance at work becauseyou'd be...
You can't do this in a surveyvery easily, but it'd be
interesting...
To have people give exampleswhen they answer to the
positive, like that there issome contradiction and be like,
okay, what?
Because I feel lost in thatsometimes.
(07:11):
I hear that and I go, okay, butwhat do you think is the
contradiction now?
When people even come back andsay, well, there's nothing in my
personal life.
belief system or a country.
Okay, well, what are we talkingabout?
Louis (07:22):
But that's where I think the conclusion comes in.
I think people don't understandreally what science is about.
They make it more than what itactually is.
I was talking to a buddy ofmine who is a biology teacher,
and he's a biologist, and he's abeliever in Christ.
I've gone on hikes with him onthe Appalachia Trail, and he's
pointing out things to me thatare just very intriguing to me.
(07:44):
And he said most people have amisunderstanding of what science
And he's the one who taught meearly on years ago that science,
you know, is a method forhelping us to better understand
truth.
And they're not at war witheach other.
They're not in conflict witheach other.
They can actually complementeach other in a lot of ways.
But I think that's where, like,that stat, as you were reading
that stat, I'm sitting here andI'm thinking to myself, that
(08:06):
doesn't make sense to me.
But I think it comes down topeople not really fully
understanding science.
Zack (08:13):
Alex, you mentioned some of the history.
I mean, it is true, like, thescientific method was developed
by critics.
really two Franciscan friars inthe 13th and 14th centuries.
Then it was made popular byFrancis Bacon, who we probably
learn about more in school inthe 16th, 17th century.
And then there's otherscientists, or that method was
(08:35):
largely founded in the Christiancommunity.
A lot of the universities,which were the primary sources
areas of study were formedaround Christian faith.
You have Oxford, Cambridge,Cambridge University, Harvard,
Yale, even medieval monasteries,which is where a lot of that
study took place in history.
But the thing looking back isthere was a belief in God which
(08:59):
laid the foundation for sciencein a lot of ways because these
men believed that there was aprocess that was designed by God
that made sense and that he hadgiven humans, rational beings,
the ability to discern what thatprocess was.
And so the idea was never todisprove or contradict faith in
God, but to study and reallyunderstand unpack or reveal the
(09:23):
secrets hidden within creationthat would show us more of who
god was it wasn't to set out todisprove god but it was more to
reveal the way god had madecreation which i think is a lot
of times like you're like youguys are saying it's a different
approach than people thinkabout science today they think
(09:43):
not all people think there hasto be like science is um part of
the process is to disprove thatfaith idea, you know?
And that was never really thecase in early scientists.
Alex (09:57):
Right.
I always, when I talk aboutthis with people, I always say,
you know, it's an overlysimplistic view to say that, you
know, Christians have a hardtime with science because, you
know, even if you go back into,you know, more ancient times,
pre-modern stuff like that, it'snot like Christians were
walking around thinking that ifyou like cut a tree open, that
(10:17):
it was just a blank space inthere and it was just God making
a tree work.
Like they knew there was stuffinside the tree.
They knew It had rootsunderground.
They knew kind of the workingsof it.
Now, of course, they didn'thave microscopes to look at,
like, oh, here's whatchlorophyll is, and here's
exactly how this works, andhere's what it takes.
Like, they didn't know all ofthat method, but they knew, hey,
there's something working here.
(10:38):
And, like, the simplistic wayto say it is, hey, God is in
control of the things growing.
But they knew there was somemechanism by which that was
working.
It wasn't just, like, God magicworking all over the place.
And then through...
the work of a scientific methodand studying things and
observing things, we now learnmore about it than what people
(11:00):
you know, what like ancienttimes did, but people in ancient
times didn't walk around justas imbeciles thinking that
things didn't have a method ofworking.
They just didn't necessarilyhave the method to know every
detail about it.
Now we can know a lot moredetails about it.
Louis (11:14):
Yeah.
You know, you brought upFrancis Bacon and I'm glad you
did because he is often creditedto developing the scientific
method, which every scientificarea depends on.
Well, one of the reasons why hedid that, he often used the
term idols whenever he talkedabout things which was biblical
language, was to preventscientific corruption.
So he wanted to create thatmethod to be able to keep
(11:37):
scientists in check so that theywouldn't have their own
intellectual biases tainting thedata, so to speak, right?
And so one of the major reasonswhy he created that was because
he knew that humans were sinfulpeople, and because we're
sinful people, we can corruptthe data.
So the very scientific methodthat all these other sciences
(11:58):
depend on were actually startedby a guy who held both faith and
science together.
And he didn't see them at war.
He saw them as complementary.
Zack (12:06):
c Yeah.
Now, Alex, you also mentionedwhere the church can overstep.
The case that comes to mindwith that is Galileo.
Sure.
You know, who came up with theheliocentric model, but was
condemned by the Catholic churchbecause it went against what
their tradition had taught.
And so they, you know, shotthat down, which obviously
turned out to be true.
The earth is not the center ofthe universe, but the sun is.
(12:29):
And so The church has not beenperfect in this, obviously, and
we can't err on that side ofbeing dismissive of those truths
or those theories if we're notcareful, just because it's not
what we've always held to.
Alex (12:45):
Yeah, I would say that's the first thing that comes to
mind.
And that comes from a weirdinterpretation of Scripture,
essentially, and just like a...
frankly, like a sinful view ofourselves that we needed to be
at the center of the universebecause God created us.
And it was, it was just thiskind of deeply held view that,
(13:07):
you know, that's the older one.
There's like a more modern one.
I think of like kind of anAmerica around kind of the
introduction of the theory ofevolution.
Like when you had eventuallybecame the scopes trial, which
now it's famously called themonkey trial.
And it was Williams, Jenning,Brian, I believe that was
arguing for it.
And just kind of in the, Way iskind of made a fool of himself
(13:28):
talking about, hey, this methodmeans that...
And his argument, too, was notso much against this theory of
evolution as a thing, but he wasarguing against teaching the
conclusion that, therefore,since we now have a theory of
evolution, there must be no God.
Because we found a method thatbasically does away with the
need for God.
(13:48):
And he didn't think that's whatwe should be teaching kids,
which...
in reality, is not how thatshould be taught.
It's a perfectly fine thing toteach.
There's elements of it thatmake sense in nature and it's
observable, but it doesn't...
even someone like Darwin wasn'targuing when he came up with
that, that, oh, this now gets usall the way back to this and we
(14:09):
now can do away with God.
He was just saying, hey, we canobserve these changes in
species across time.
And this could be a pretty goodway of explaining how we got
all these species.
So those are kind of the, yeah,the scopes trial evolution
stuff, more modern.
And then, yeah, theheliocentrism stuff back in the
day were definitely ways whenthe church kind of came in and
(14:31):
you know, kind of to ourchagrin, made a fool of us by
kind of overly focusing on.
Right.
I
Louis (14:39):
Can I chime in on two things on that?
Fine.
(15:08):
Let's say all that's true,whatever.
I don't care.
So, I mean, I do care, but howdoes life come from non-life?
How does something that's notliving all of a sudden produce
something that's living?
If you have a rock that is notalive, how does that rock that's
not alive all of a suddenbreathe life into existence?
(15:31):
And so they've got you got toanswer that question for me if
you want me to not believe inthe existence of God.
And I've had had them say,well, you know, it's it's kind
of always existed.
OK, well, you're describinglife.
god because so now so nowmatter is eternal instead of an
eternal you have to come to
Alex (15:47):
something something eternal
Louis (15:49):
right so then i go to the cause and effect argument okay
well so there's a cause andeffect i mean if i'm if you come
into a forest one day and youfind a ball sitting there and i
said to you how did that ballget there well it just appeared
on its own or it's alwaysexisted you'd say i'm crazy
right we would say i'd sayyou're crazy if you said that to
me well you a more logicalexplanation would be well a
factory created that ball thatball was blown up by somebody in
(16:12):
the factory and a kid wasplaying with it and just forgot
it in the forest.
And that's why it's there.
So this is the cause and effectmentality.
And God is the first causer ofthe effects that have taken
place here.
So how does life come fromnon-life?
Okay, that's one thing.
Galileo, he once stated, when Iconsider what, because you were
talking about Galileo, right?
So yes, I believe, you know, Iagree with you.
(16:35):
Like the church was wrong onthat, which is one of the
reasons why we're doing thispodcast too.
We're doing this podcastbecause even next week when we
talk about, you know, is artartificial intelligence, helpful
or harmful.
We're wanting to address thesethings because we personally at
City Weekend, we don't want tobe the kind of church that's
like, okay, you know,everybody's an enemy.
No, we want to be in the world,but not of the world.
(16:55):
And so we want to address someof these tough questions and
things to deal with.
And we've also want to learnfrom history that the church
wasn't always on the right sideof this, but some Christians
were.
And, you know, we have a listof names on that.
Well, Galileo stated, when Iconsider what marvelous things
and how many of them men haveunderstood, inquired into and
contrasted, Right.
Zack (17:33):
Yeah, which is, you know, you go back and you study guys
like that or others.
And, you know, I know I havesome family members who I think
their approach is, distantfamily members, but I think to
have faith in God is ignorance,right?
that is unintelligent.
But then you look at guys likethat or other scientists, it's
(17:53):
just not based on what?
How is that unintelligent?
Even some modern-dayscientists, people don't think
about there being these greatscientists that have strong
Christian faith.
MIT professors, Ian Hutchinson,the guy Francis Collin, who was
a major leader in the HumanGenome Project.
These other people that are waymore intelligent than I am And
(18:18):
they know way more than I doscientifically, and they have
great faith.
So it's not unintelligent tohave faith in God, or the two
don't.
They don't have to be mutuallyexclusive in that way.
Louis (18:29):
Correct, yeah.
Zack (18:31):
So we talked about evolution.
That's obviously one of themajor areas.
What are some of the other keyareas you feel like that people
tend to turn to that feels likeor can feel like there's a
contradiction between faith andscience?
Alex (18:47):
I mean, this could be repeating somewhat from kind of
our more objective truth versuspersonal truth type thing, but I
think when you get into thesofter sciences, like the social
sciences, you get into this bigfight between...
faith and what socialscientists find.
(19:07):
I mean, you find people talkingthrough psychology or sociology
or anthropology, like whypeople interact.
And, you know, they talk abouthow cultures form and all these
different things.
And I think that has been useda lot of times to say, look, all
these cultures do these things,do similar things, or they form
their morality in differentways, or, you know, just...
There's oppression throughoutthese things.
(19:28):
And again, I look at the Bibleand go, oh, the Bible tells us
that we're sinful and thatthings get screwed up.
When people are involved,things get screwed up.
But you'll get people that thencome in and say, well, here's
these theories about why peopleinteract this way and what's
actually at the root of that.
And that's where things likethe Marxist dialectic comes from
(19:49):
or the...
you know, oppressed oppressormatrix kind of thing.
I think that is an attempt tokind of science away the idea
that People are sinful, and theworld is not going to function
perfectly.
And God has been honest aboutthat through Scripture.
We point to the solution ofChrist in that, not a, oh,
(20:14):
here's this system, and nowpeople can come in and kind of
fix the system, and that makesit better.
Yeah, I think
Zack (20:20):
you think about the beginning of life argument.
When does life begin?
That's one that comes intoplay.
Medical practices, when youstart talking about things like
genetic modification orengineering, stem cell research,
those kind of things, where Ithink there tends to be some
disagreement in that.
Louis (20:38):
Cloning.
Alex (20:41):
Well, even the life one is tough, because you hear people
get in arguments about anabortion type idea, and they
talk about all the science wehave where we know genetic
development and how a babydevelops.
When you get down to brasstacks in that argument, if
someone is really pro-abortionin that, they're not arguing
scientifically at that point.
Because they get to the pointwhere you're going like, well,
(21:04):
it's a clump of cells.
And I go, okay, but it's aclump of cells that eventually
becomes a bigger clump of cellsthat is a baby.
So where's the scientificdifference between those two?
And then it just comes down toa choice argument.
A lot of times...
In some of these arguments,you'll see people default away
from science when it doesn'twork anymore quicker than I feel
(21:26):
like I have to as a Christian.
I can kind of lean on thescience and say, well, it's
there.
I see all of these buildingblocks of life going on.
What other conclusion am Isupposed to say other than
that's life there?
And you'll have to kind ofdeviate from that to get to a...
you know, more pro-choiceposition a lot of times.
Louis (21:48):
Yeah.
Even what's coming to mind forme too, is when you get into
like computer sciences, theadvancement of technology, you
know, some of our scientificdiscoveries leading to like AI
and things like that.
And now they're, they're,they're potentially going to be,
I mean, it's going to happenwhere they create like
humanoids, you know, you know,artificial intelligence robots
(22:08):
and people having intimateconnections and even
relationships with them and whatthat does, or even the
conversation about the uploadingour consciousness, almost like
uploading data to the cloud andhaving our consciousness eternal
now to try and prolong life.
And I mean, there's just somany things that I think this is
(22:29):
paving the way towards.
And as Christians, we need tohave these kind of dialogues.
Zack (22:32):
Yeah.
The thing about that, since youbrought up the artificial
intelligence thing, how do youthink that that will affect this
debate in the future?
I
Louis (22:42):
I think there's going to be some...
Going back to the moral issues,moral law issues, I think
there's going to be sometheological issues that are
going to come into play.
So moral issues, like is itmorally right or wrong to have
an intimate relationship withGod?
a robot with an artificialintelligence.
I think theological issues.
(23:04):
How much do we really rely onartificial intelligence?
A lot of people treating itlike it's their savior.
And so almost creating an idolout of artificial intelligence.
So I think it could affectthat.
And I'm not hating onartificial intelligence.
We're going to talk about thatin the next week.
But I'm saying these are justsome some issues that could
arise with that where we have tohave some discussions on that.
(23:25):
How far do we take it?
Do we put a kill switch onthings or not?
You know, what are the extremedangers of if artificial
intelligence gets out of handand we don't have kill switches
or it creates nuclear issues,all kinds of things like that.
I think we have to, there'sgoing to be things that we
aren't even aware of yet thatcould be dangers or moral issues
or theological issues,spiritual issues, practical
(23:47):
issues that we'rejust not aware of.
Alex (23:49):
o Yeah, what's the nature of the soul?
All of that.
If you create the technologythat can put all of my memories
and personalities somehow into acomputer and my body dies is my
soul still with my informationin the cloud or is it gone to
(24:10):
god now like and now there'sjust kind of an imitation of me
walking around yeah it's andwhat what human rights does that
collection of my data haveversus it being within you know
it's an interesting yeah that'san interesting question
Zack (24:25):
I think on the on the positive side i think if you're
familiar with like the finetuning argument there's
artificial intelligence is goingto it already has begun and is
going to allow a lot ofsimulations and calculations to
take place that will I believewill show that the conditions
for life and things to exist asthey are is so specific that
(24:51):
it'll even rule out evolutionarytheory even more.
It's so specific and has to beso finely tuned.
that it points even more to anintelligent design.
Louis (25:05):
I mean, that already exists.
We already have incrediblestats on that and scientific
data on that and scientists whoaren't even believers in God or
Christians in general.
In fact, it was interesting.
Richard Dawkins wrote a book,The God Delusion, and yet he was
being debated by somebody atone point because he's a
hardcore scientist, but anatheist scientist.
(25:26):
And he even admitted at somepoint there has to be some sort
of a higher power that thatstarted all this, some
intelligent designer, but hewon't call it that.
He won't call it God.
He just says that there'ssomething out there that's
greater and just doesn't knowwhat that something is.
He can't put a name on it.
So, yeah, the fine-tuneargument and fine-tune theory,
(25:47):
we already have some of thoseintricate details that really
point to the, well, what I callit, really random order, you
know, because it's so random forlife to exist, but yet it's so
ordered and calculated by God,you know.
It had to have been God who didthat.
But this is where the wholemultitheory, multiverse theory
(26:07):
comes in.
Alex (26:08):
We go into comic books.
to account for that it's wellit seems infinitesimally
impossible so there must beinfinite universes so of course
if there's infinite universesthen at one time it's going to
happen
Louis (26:20):
which is a desperate grasp there's even another
theory called panspermia Ibelieve the science is called
planspermia where they believethat life began from some
extraterrestrial means and camehere but where did it come from
on the extraterrestrial meanslike how did it start there like
all it is is just pushing theargument back and if you're
saying there's an an infinitemultiverse that exists.
(26:42):
Okay, well, but again, you'regoing back to a description of
really the infinite God.
You're saying that, you know,people are crazy for believing
in an infinite God, but we'regoing to believe that there's an
infinite God.
multiverse you know universethat exists and also yeah and it
just keeps pushing it back
Zack (26:55):
yeah so how when we think about on the practical side as
as christians uh and we approachscripture how does does it
matter how we interpretscripture how does our approach
to scripture affect our uminteraction with science
Alex (27:11):
well i think there's this simple you know it it The simple
stuff you learn when you startthinking about hermeneutics, the
interpretation of scripture,and it sounds really basic
because we do this with languageall the time, is what got the
church in trouble sometimes wastaking...
What's called phenomenologicallanguage and making it totally
(27:36):
literal.
So the Bible talks about thesun rising and setting.
Now, scientifically, we knowthat the earth is rotating.
The sun is the stationarything.
But as we perceive...
life, we see the sun movingacross.
So we talk about sunrise andsunrise.
That doesn't mean we're wrong,but it just means as we see
things, that's how we perceiveit.
And that kind of got them introuble saying, well, I see the
(27:58):
sun moving across.
Certainly we're the solidthing.
Um, and that, you know, thatjust became the wrong thing.
And Right.
Right.
(28:20):
Yeah, this carpenter helpedwith us.
We can do the same things withGod, saying God is in control of
(28:40):
creation, but he also is a Godof order and a God of working
things.
He's an immaterial God, buthe's working things out in a
material world, so we're goingto see systems...
and things that work in thematerial world, but God is in
control of that.
And so I can believe both.
I can say God is ultimately incontrol, but yes, photosynthesis
(29:00):
happens, and my body has amillion functions that are
happening inside, but I trustthat God is the one who authored
that and laid the plans out forit and created it, and then now
it works because he's a gooddesigner.
You know, I think that's kindof the idea of interpreting
scripture to...
(29:20):
To just be, you know, theapologist Wes Huff, who's now
really famous online.
He's been on everybody'spodcast.
He does a really great job ofexplaining a ton of stuff.
And he just really is reallysimple.
The Bible is clear on theissues that it wants to be clear
on.
And it is not completely clearon the things that God didn't
want to be totally clear on.
(29:41):
And so we take the things whereGod is clear and says, you
know, I'm sovereign overcreation.
And then it's okay for us tothen use...
the capacities that God gave usto, okay, let's study exactly
how that creation works.
And it just points us back to,wow, God put in some really good
parameters here for why thisworks.
Louis (30:00):
Yeah, you know, when it comes to all this too, I...
I think back again to theconfusion that people sometimes
have on, okay, well, what is theBible about?
And then what is science about?
The Bible isn't intended to bea science book.
So if we're going to the Bibleto learn more about science,
(30:22):
well, we're misunderstandingwhat the Bible is intended to be
about and what it's intended topoint us to, the God it's
intended to point us to and totell us about.
I'm not going to go to scienceto be able to, you know,
understand who God is.
I can help to better understandhow incredible he is and how
great he is.
And so this is one of thebeauties of science.
(30:42):
Like you were talking aboutphotosynthesis and stuff like
that, to be able to study thosethings and the details of human
anatomy, you know, our world andall that.
I mean, to me, that's veryintriguing.
And I'm so thankful for Godgifting us with sciences and
people with scientific mindsbecause they help us to really
see just how incredible God is.
And how intelligent he is andhow powerful he is by the
(31:06):
fine-tuned details of hiscreation.
The more we study through thesciences and be able to see
those things, to me, it justcauses me to be that much more
in awe of God.
So science can help us.
to better understand creation,but the Bible tells us who
created it.
When it comes to the beginningof creation, for example, in the
(31:28):
Genesis account, I'm notstudying the Genesis account to
be able to better understand thedetails of creation.
No, I'm going to go to ascience book to better
understand some of thebeginnings of our creation.
But I am going to go to theBible and in Genesis 1 to better
understand the God who createdit.
So I think it was Andy Stanleywho said, and I think it was in
his book, or his curriculum,Starting Point, where he
(31:50):
mentions how um the how genesisis about us not understanding
the method of the maker butgetting to know the maker of the
method and that to me is is thedifference between the bible
and and science we're getting tounderstand the maker of the
method when we read the biblegetting to better know the
(32:10):
method of the maker when westudy some of the sciences
Zack (32:14):
so for me um The more I learn about science,
particularly when I was incollege, I was a horticulture
major, so I took a lot ofclasses around plants and those
kind of things.
And any time I would learn aprocess or something specific
about the details of the waythat worked, photosynthesis, I
took an entomology class wherewe studied insects and the way
(32:37):
those insects interacted witheach other and with the plants.
I would walk away from classand just think how...
That can't just be chance.
It just magnified God ascreator and his creativity and
ability and knowledge and allthose things that really became
enhanced worship for me.
(32:58):
So I think the more that we,when we approach it that way,
the more that we learn aboutscience and the way things work,
it really enhances our view ofwho God is.
And then we can come back toscripture and see how those
things work.
complement each other notcontradict each other
Louis (33:14):
yeah that's why it's not at war for me right that's why
it can be beautiful friends youknow like a marriage you know uh
you know beautiful relationshipwhere man we just we get to be
so much more in awe of god as westudy science
Zack (33:28):
yeah yeah so final question i think what is our
role as a church thinking aboutthe universal church in this
conversation and do we have aplace to step in and say there's
a limit to how much we leaninto science or how those two
(33:48):
things interact so how can weenhance this or help guide
people through this as a church
Alex (33:55):
i mean my first contention is i would say It's not
something we necessarily need tobe afraid of.
I think we can trust that Godis big enough to handle...
human developments on things,if that makes sense.
We are still the creatures.
And so that's why I'm notentirely worried about AI as a
thing, as of right now, becauseI think at some point we're
(34:16):
going to run into a wall with AIthat says, oh, we are not
totally capable of replicatingeverything it is to be human,
because we don't have thatpower.
I think we'll run intosomething of a wall there.
We'll get really good atcopying things, but I think
we're going to run intosomething where we can't Totally
put together like consciousnesslike God can.
(34:38):
And because of that, I wouldthen say that, you know, as the
church, as the people in thechurch, like we should have, we
should have more and moreChristian scientists.
Like if you're you know, ifyou're growing up and you have a
love of the sciences and loveof mathematics and like go into
those fields and you don't needto be afraid of them.
You don't need to go in andsay, Oh, my faith is going to
(35:00):
hold me back in these areas orthings like that.
I mean, I would, I would say,go be a physicist, be an
engineer, be a doctor, be aresearcher and a chemist.
Like you're going to learn moreabout how God's word work, how
God's world works, um, And likeyou said, it can be this kind of
spur to your faith.
And you can go at it with theperspective that I'm studying
(35:23):
the creation that God has putbefore me.
And I'm going to use, you know,the faculties he's given me to
know these.
And you might be the next onethat creates something that is,
you know, that discoverssomething that's incredibly
important for humans.
Because you trust God and youtrust that he's made an orderly
world and you can observe it.
Yeah.
learn from it and derive thingsfrom it.
Louis (35:46):
I love what Alex said about if you're a scientific
mind, well, then great.
Praise God for that.
And if you're a Christian whohas a scientific mind, get into
the sciences.
Go study the world and help theworld in whatever ways you
(36:06):
possibly can while also pointingpeople to Christ.
I think that's a great thingand I don't believe churches
really talk enough about that orwe don't really teach it.
We almost teach that ministryis really something you do on
Sunday or when you go overseas.
You can be a scientist but alsolove Jesus and live missionally
through the sciences you'restudying.
(36:26):
So I love that he brought thatup.
I think one of the things wehave to be cautious of just in
the future when it comes to anyof this or any scientific
advancements we have, and someof it I've already brought up,
is if we start to see an issuewith there being a moral or
ethical dilemma.
Maybe there's a certainadvancement and it's starting to
(36:48):
cross the line or it can maybeeven create some dangers.
Let me just take nuclear power,for example.
There was debates when theywere creating nuclear bombs and
things like that.
Do we do this or do we not dothis?
I think the church has to stepin and try and lead the way on
what is the best decision we canmake in this, going back to
(37:10):
what we talked about last weekwhen it comes to the moral laws
of God.
We as a church need to helplead the way in discerning that.
I think if there becomes atheological issue that we feel
like might be in conflict withsomething or a theory that's
going on, I don't really getthreatened when, this happens
almost every Easter, whereyou're going to get something on
(37:30):
TV, National Geographic, orsome magazine's going to come in
and say, well, we found thisand it disproves Christianity
and the resurrection of Jesus.
And it's like, oh my goodness,no, it doesn't, right?
And so I never get threatenedwhenever there's some new
scientific discovery and thenpeople start making claims that
that's going to disprove aChristian.
No, I don't.
Even if we go back to like, youknow, somebody making a claim
(37:51):
that the earth is flat.
Well, no, it's round.
Well, so I don't get worriedabout that because I know that
again, there's going to beanother addition in science.
There's not another addition tothe Bible.
And so I'm not worried aboutthe Bible's claims being true.
I believe those are true andtime will always prove that it
is true regardless of thescientific studies.
And as we get moreadvancements, whatever claim is
made today, that appears tomaybe disprove a theological
(38:14):
claim, I'm not worried about itbecause in time we're going to
have another discovery that'sgoing to come back and prove,
oh, wait a minute, thetheological claim was right that
the Bible talked about.
We've seen that all throughouthistory.
We have things where it wassaid, well, that didn't really
happen.
This is what happened.
But then we did anotherarchaeological dig and we're
like, oh, wait a minute, we'vegot to backtrack.
The Bible was right on that.
So that's where maybe I'll comeback to the way we started
(38:36):
things off.
I think one of the major thingsthat I try to teach people when
it comes to this topic isscience also requires faith.
If you have a theory, then youhave faith that that theory
might be true.
Therefore, you now have to goand do tests based on your faith
(38:58):
that that theory is true.
If you didn't believe thattheory is true, then you're not
going to do tests to try and doit.
So even science is based onfaith, just like Christian
beliefs are based on faith.
Both require faith.
And so, again, this is not, andboth have facts.
And it goes back to, again,both can be very complementary
if they're in sync together.
Yeah.
Zack (39:20):
And I think in all these things that each week we're
going to kind of find this sameunderlying truth to be there,
that it's important for us asChristians to know what we
believe and why we believe it,to do our study and research and
be educated on things, whetherthat's scientific, but certainly
on our faith.
I mean, 1 Peter chapter 3 says,be ready at any time to give a
(39:41):
defense to anyone who asks youfor a reason for the hope that's
in you.
And so if we just go throughlife, In any topic or situation,
and we're not confident orlearned, educated in what we
believe and why, then we'regoing to be more easily swayed
and we're going to be pulled indifferent directions, whether
(40:04):
that's, again, from a scientificplace or any other thing that
comes up.
I think in all these things,it's learning to think and ask
the right questions and haveconversations about it like
we're doing here.
And hopefully theseconversations that we're having
spur other conversations amongthose of you who are listening
and cause you to ask deeperquestions.
And I think those are alwaysgood things.
(40:25):
Just like we don't have to bescared of the science or
learning, we don't need to bescared of asking questions,
which is why as a church we saywe want to be a place where
people can seek truth.
We welcome those questions andwe invite people across the
spectrum to come and ask those.
And that's kind of who we wantto be.
So we're going to end theconversation there.
Next week we're going to pickit up with, as we mentioned, the
(40:47):
conversation on artificialintelligence.
So be sure and join us forthat.
If you want to share yourthoughts, you can use the send
us a text link in the episodedescription.
We'd love to hear from you.
For more information about CityAwakening Church or to listen
to this past week's
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