Science: What are we to say about it?

Not far off sixty years ago, when I was a young teenager, I learned a bit about science: not a lot, I must admit. When I was in my mid twenties, I dipped into some books which touched on the subject of science. What I’m saying is this: I’m not, exactly, an expert on science. In fact, I’m very far from being an expert. Do I have anything worthwhile to say about science? Probably not, but I’ll give it a go, and try and say something that’s worth saying.

When they hear the word, ‘science’, many people stand in awe of it. They don’t really understand much about what scientists say and do, but they assume that the scientists have done their work, and have got everything right.

Often, their attitude towards science is very different to their attitude towards God. They do not stand in awe of God. They do not pay much attention, when someone speaks to them about God.

In my mid-teens, I put my faith in Jesus Christ, my Saviour. Since that time, the study of the Bible has been the great study of my life. In my early twenties, I studied psychology and sociology. During these years, I put a lot of time into studying the Bible. This was because I felt that I was learning so much when I was reading the Bible and writing down my notes on the Bible. It’s been a long, long time, nearly fifty years, since I read a book on psychology and sociology, but I have continued to read the Bible.

What did I think about my studies in psychology and sociology? Some of the things I read were interesting. Other things seemed to me to be less interesting. How scientific did I think these studies were? People may have described psychology and sociology as social sciences, but I must say that I thought that there was a lot of it that was about people expressing their own opinions. One writer and one book seemed to be popular for a while, and then another writer and another book took over. This seemed to be very different from what I was learning from my studies in the Bible. Many centuries had come and gone, yet here I was, in the later decades of the twentieth century, reading and learning from the ancient words of the Bible.

Some people tell us that we don’t need God. All we need is science. When I hear this kind of thing, I find myself asking, “Who says we don’t need God? Who says that all we need is science?” The scientists are asking all sorts of questions about all sorts of subjects, but are they asking all the questions that need to be asked, and are they paying attention to all the answers that today’s world still needs to hear?

Perhaps, we need to say that science isn’t everything. It’s not the be-all and end-all. Science may give us some of the answers to some of the questions, but does it really do any more than that? Is there more that we need to hear, more than science has to say to us? Are there places where science will not take us? What are we to say about science? Are we to say that science has its place, and then follow this up with the question, “Does science take the place of God?”

We ask, “What place does science have in today’s world?” Surely, no-one can deny that science has achieved much success in providing us with a safer and better world to live in. Once, we have said this, we should ask the question, “Are there still areas of life where science does not have anything to teach us?” What about the wisdom that comes to us from Jesus, the prophets and the apostles?Will we ever find such wisdom, if we concentrate all our attention on science, and pay no attention to what the Bible has to say to us?

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