Science and Faith

I am a scientist. I have a masters degree in biology and I worked for 20 years in medical research. I loved to snip DNA and reassemble it, to measure the amount of a particular protein in sample, and to design experiments using scientific method to test a hypothesis. 

I am a minister. I see the grace of God in the world around me - in the beauty of the trees, in the laughter of children, in the way one person reaches out to help another. I believe in creator, savior and sustainer. 

On top of that, I believe the theory of evolution is the human's way of describing the miracle of creation, and I see the wonder of God in a test tube of deoxyribonucleic acid. 

I see no conflict between science and faith - unless we place one there ourselves. 

I was particularly struck this morning reading Frederick Buechner's words about science and faith. He said that comparing words of science and faith is like comparing the work of a podiatrist to that of a poet. A podiatrist would describe fallen arches, and the poet would describe how a woman walks in beauty. Both are true - but which you choose depends on the truth you are looking for.

When we try to reduce the words of the Bible to science, we are reducing the word of God to the words of man. Science is our way of describing the natural world. In the Bible, God has given us more than that. We don't need the Bible to tell us about dinosaurs - science can and does do that. We need the Bible to help us to begin to attempt to understand that which we cannot understand - the creator. It may be that poetry or story is the best way to do that; it wasn't meant to be a science book. It is a book of faith - and we need that so much more!