Whatever else young people know today, they know that science and God are opposed to one another. At least, they think they know this, because it has been taught to them in a hundred formal and informal settings, from the classroom to the television. They have been taught that they must choose between science and faith (or even between facts and feelings), but cannot be fully committed to both.
John Lennox and Katy Morgan disagree, so they have teamed up to address the issue in Science and God: Do You Have to Choose? This is a short book written for a younger audience and one that addresses the subject well. “A lot of people in our world think that you can’t believe in God and in science at the same time, and you have to choose between them. Sadly, it’s no surprise if you have got the impression that believing in God is a bit old-fashioned and silly—so you don’t want to hear about religion or engage with it. It’s also no surprise if you’ve got the opposite idea: you’ve heard that science could undermine your faith in God, and so you don’t want to think about science or engage with it more than you have to.”
Their book is meant to engage those who are curious about both God and science and to show that there is actually a great harmony between them. “This book is an invitation to be curious, no matter what your current beliefs are. It’s an opportunity to engage with both science and God at the same time and see what happens. It’s a book, hopefully, that will make you more excited about science and more curious about God. Or more curious about science and more excited about God. Or more curious and more excited about both—with a dose of wonder thrown in as well.”
They go about this by first admitting that science and God have often been placed at odds, but resolve the dispute by showing how faith and science are meant to address different questions. Where some people insist that science offers the only legitimate way to learn what is true, the authors show that it cannot answer some of our biggest questions, and especially the all-important “why.” They show that, in fact, science depends upon faith—faith as trust or reasoned belief. They address some of the most common modern-day charges against the existence of God and show how many, or even most, of history’s most eminent scientists have believed in him. They address the possibility of miracles and focus attention on that greatest of all miracles, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, they invite the reader to do what they themselves have done—to test the claims of Christianity and to enjoy the wonders of this world through the lens of one who sees the existence and attributes of God displayed in the things he has made.
I suspect many readers will want to know what they teach about the origins of the world and of humanity. While they raise the issues, they take no particular position, simply saying that different Christians have different understandings of these matters and that going deeper into them would mean writing a very different book, not to mention a much longer one. That seems like a fair strategy under the circumstances, though I suspect it will disappoint some readers.
“The universe is amazing,” they say. “Its designer is even more amazing, and he invites us to get to know him both through the natural world and (best of all) through Jesus. Here’s my advice: Be curious. Keep exploring. Who knows what you’ll find out?” I am confident that this little book, ideal for those in high school or college, will help foster both curiosity about the world and confidence in God.
