Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that our God should not be the “God in the gaps”. Historically evoking God to explain the things that science can’t explain is a losing proposition—usually if you wait long enough science comes up with a credible answer. My grandparents grew up in an era when science couldn’t explain how the sun worked. I grew up in an era that couldn’t explain quasars. My kids have grown up in an era that can’t explain why the spiral arms in most galaxies, including the Milky Way rotate faster than scientists expected.
Astrophysicists theorize this phenomenon is due to “dark matter”, but it might as well be pixie dust for all they can say about it right now. I'm sure this gap in knowledge will be filled in the future. In a similar fashion science cannot explain much about living things now, but I suspect that will change too. Bonhoeffer states that God should be at the center of a Christian’s existence, not relegated to the fringes that science can’t currently explain. After all, Jesus did say that He was “The Way, the Truth, and the Life”
God avoids being seen in the astrophysicist’s telescope. It seems reasonable to me that God caused the “Big Bang” beginning of our universe to happen, but the mysteries of that event are well hidden by 14 billion years of elapsed time. Likewise, I don’t think God is going to be caught under the biologist’s microscope or DNA analysis. As we unravel the mysteries of life I predict we won’t expose the “Intelligent Designer”—instead we will uncover even deeper mysteries.
The Bible makes it clear that God did not just start things and wander off. He interacts with people, He challenges them, and He changed the whole fabric of our existence with His Son—but he does this in the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm is orthogonal to the infrastructure that physics and biology provide. Physics and biology provide the structure of God's creation, but the spiritual world provides its meaning.
1 comment:
Just wanted to write to say thanks for posting. It is a great resource, good writing and an amazing look into the mind of my father.
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