More Than Meets the Eye: A ScientistaEUR(tm)s Journey of Faith

By Thomas L. Larry

Misunderstandings of biblical creation texts have resulted from a lack of appreciation of the cultural context of the inspired writers. Views of nature have changed greatly over history. At the time of ancient Israel, people gazed up to the star-studded firmament that separated the "waters above" from the "waters below" and the land. Land was bounded by sea which merged with the "waters above" at the horizon.

The universe was close and intimate. Pagan peoples believed gods occupied this realm and accounted for much of observed cause and effect. Biblical writers also viewed nature in this context. However, they were distinctly monotheistic writing of a supreme God who made and gave meaning to everything.

God chose a covenant relationship with a select people. This relationship was based on belief in God (faith). Fast-forward through many twists and turns of intellectual history, and we come to the modern scientific age. We picture our home as a spherical planet rotating once a day and orbiting the sun yearly. We gaze out at a vast space seeing distant suns (the stars) and enormous collections of stars (galaxies). Light travels at a known speed; thus, astronomers peer back to times billions of years in the past. We need to avoid concordism, conflating modern views with the biblical text. The concordism error has occurred throughout church history up to the present.

The book addresses this as well as some discoveries of modern science that were unknown to ancient people. Such discoveries give us good reason to bow in awe before the Creator. Even though mankind's views of nature have greatly changed with time, the message of the Bible is the same. We come to God through faith as did Abraham who saw "more than meets the eye."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887516615

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More Than Meets the Eye

A ScientistaEUR(tm)s Journey of Faith

Thomas L. Larry PhD

ISBN 979-8-88751-660-8 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88751-661-5 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Thomas L. Larry PhD

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Fresh Perspective

Confessions of a Believing Skeptic

Coming to Terms

Reasonable Faith

Cultural Awareness

An Eye for Design

Old Faithful

Hearing from the Past

Peering into the Past

As Old as It Looks

Roots and Destinies

Dynamic Earth

That's Life

Child's Faith

About the Author

Chapter 1

Fresh Perspective

New wine must be poured into new wineskins.

—Luke 5:38 (NIV)

I see skies of blue, And clouds of white

The bright blessed day, The dark sacred night

And I think to myself, What a wonderful world

—Lyricists Thiele and Weiss; Sung by Louis Armstrong

We and all we can observe are part of the inconceivably vast and complex universe. In modern parlance, this observable realm in its entirety is referred to as the cosmos. It is also referred to as the natural world or natural realm. It consists of anything and everything that we humans can, in principle, detect either directly via our senses or indirectly by means of instruments designed to augment our senses. However, there is more to what is seen than meets the eye.

Modern science seeks to understand this natural realm or universe in all of its observable details. This book attempts to explain what scientific understanding actually means. It also addresses the issue of faith. The pursuit of science requires a certain type of faith. The God of the Bible also requires a certain type of faith. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6 NIV).

Scientists observe that the natural realm is very diverse and constantly changing. Yet they seek to discover unchanging and rational principles of nature that can describe and explain all that is observed. The belief in the existence of such principles lies at the foundation of the belief system of science. It is a type of faith that seeks new discoveries of things believed to have always existed and governed all that we observe. The evidence used for this pursuit is all around. Enormous amounts of effort and money are expended to gather and analyze such evidence.

Another core belief of science is the objectivity of nature. Simply put, this means that nature exists independently of us and that there are things about nature that different observers of nature can agree upon. These things of agreement are the subject matter of science. There are also observations that are personal and can vary from one individual to another. The day may be beautiful to one person and too warm for another. The night sky may be mundane to someone and tantalizing to someone else. William Wordsworth's Daffodils is evocative but not meant to be an objective description of a flower. These types of experiences are said to be subjective. They may be very real but not the subject matter of science.

The objective evidence of science points to the beginning of the universe at a measurable time in the past. What is the source of the universe? For many millennia, humankind has looked to gods or a god as this source. The Bible is about one God, Elohim, who alone is the source of all existence. The gospel of John makes the astonishing and mind-bending claim that this God became a human being in Jesus Christ. The New Testament presents Christ as the essence (logos) of existence, the creator, the agent of creation, and the purpose of creation. A greater claim cannot be made about anyone or even anything. It also asserts that this one became human to redeem mankind and be the Savior and Judge. This is either ridiculously false or frighteningly true.

I am a scientist with a Christian upbringing. Much of my life has been spent pursuing questions that relate to the Bible, faith, reason, and science. Insight and understanding have come slowly. I always had the sense that it was crucial to be sure I get things right, at least the most important things that actually impact the meaning of life and my destiny. Unhealthy biases are difficult to overcome. For me, one source of bias was certain denominational teachings that I was commonly exposed to as I grew up. Some of these had to do with principles of biblical interpretation.

Some were concerned with teachings about what was claimed to be the biblical notion of creation. Others had to do with teachings about the natural world as supposedly described in the Bible. I commonly heard suspicions about science, scientists, and scientific discoveries that seemed to disagree with these denominational teachings. What made matters worse was that some well-accepted scientific conclusions were incompatible with church doctrines that were believed to be essential to Christian orthodoxy. These particularly related to the scientifically determined age of the earth and the age of the universe. Biological evolution was attacked as being a direct contradiction of the Genesis creation account. Some church teachers even claimed evolution was actually motivated by atheism and fossils were a ploy of Satan.

As a student of science, I could not help but see that well-accepted conclusions in science are based on much-careful observation of facts, careful analysis of such facts, and a great deal of discussion and debate within the scientific community. All of this careful effort gives much credence to scientific conclusions. I could not honestly dismiss the results of scientific investigations just because they appeared incompatible with some of the teachings of my religious community that related to the natural world, creation, flood stories, and genealogies in Genesis. I also noted that many of the characterizations I heard about science and scientists from Christians were disingenuous and completely inaccurate.

I wondered about what good it does to defend the Bible with fabricated and false arguments. It seemed inconsistent with their claim that the Bible is true. As a young person struggling with beliefs, all of this gave rise to conflicts within my mind. I needed to resolve these conflicts because my faith in Christ was and is of utmost importance to me.

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (John 6:68 NIV).

This took many years of asking questions and searching for answers. This book results from that quest. Please be assured that I am now amazed more than ever by the awesome wonders of God's creation seen through science as well as the very personal ways he reveals his love and grace to me through the Holy Scriptures.

New wine cannot be poured into old wineskins. It must be poured into a container of thought that is fresh and desiring to be filled with well-reasoned ideas and not mere opinions or apocryphal stories. New insights that enlighten the soul turn out to be ageless wine that has always been and that can be enjoyed by all. I have had to struggle with misconceptions that cloud the truth about reality and the way I perceive it. This particularly applies to the revelations of the Scriptures.

God has been patient and faithful throughout my pursuits. I believe that God sees into the deepest core of our being. He discerns and values the truly seeking heart whether or not the person has a religious background. I do have such a background, but the source of all existence does not value religiosity, mindless ritual, or traditional doctrines. Such things can be major impediments to truth. His thoughts and ways are much higher than all of that. Recollection of my own life tells me that his providence has been a guiding mystery in all my experiences.

In this book, I want to share insights that God has revealed to me as I have struggled with the impact of science discoveries on some common biblical interpretations. The Scriptures are God-inspired, but interpretations may not be. I have learned that my perceptions of what some biblical passages say have often missed the true message. This particularly applies to passages that discuss or allude to the world of nature and its origins.

New insights I have gained have been greatly aided by the talks and writings of many gifted thinkers who have had similar struggles and have published what they learned on their journey in life. I owe a debt to them. With this book, I want to join this legacy and provide some help for struggling minds and yearning souls. Science provides wonderfully new and useful descriptions about nature, but the issues of the soul are found in the Scriptures and are ageless. There is truth, and the truth sets us free as we act on it.

The chapters of this book are intended to provide tools for thought, investigation, and meditation along your path of life. For the nonscientist, I hope to convey what science is all about. In this regard, there is no lack of misconception and misunderstanding in the Christian community. For everyone, I also hope to share some of my joy in science which is made wonderful by its subject matter—the world of nature that we experience. To the science-trained reader, please understand that I attempt to present science in a way that is accurate but also accessible and hopefully interesting to the nonscientist. I will discuss some of my lessons learned. However, I know that you cannot go down my particular path.

As the gifted poet said, take the road less traveled by. It is your life and your destiny, and you must own it for yourself by making your choices and applying your God-given human attributes of faith and reason. These tools are simply offered as help and come out of my experiences as well as the legacy of so many others that I have drawn upon. The book is organized into some general topics and makes use of a number of illustrations and bullet points that are meant to succinctly summarize various ideas and principles. They can form a basis for your private meditation or for discussion groups. At the end of each chapter are thought-provoking questions for personal meditation or group discussions. I encourage you to draw your own conclusions.

What is the truth that I have come to experience with confidence? There is a God who is the source of all existence. This includes the universe which is profoundly wonderful and mysterious. Modern science is a great human endeavor with the aim of discovering rational descriptions of the universe and all its observable contents. This endeavor always seeks to refine and improve these descriptions.

Science has vastly expanded human knowledge of nature over the past two centuries. All the amazing technologies that characterize modern society are the product of this science. This all is marvelous, but there is something more marvelous. The creator God is a person who is there for every searching soul. The Bible is God's personal message to humanity, and it was conveyed through the writings of God-inspired human minds before anything we would call science existed.

The Bible was not intended to convey scientific knowledge in the modern sense of what such knowledge means. The Bible has a much higher purpose. It reveals the one and only supreme God (Elohim) to us. The Bible reveals Elohim as the source of all existence and purpose.

The discoveries of science are telling us about the contents of the natural realm and how it all works. The Bible affirms that the one supreme God is the sole source of this realm and all the processes it displays. From the Bible, we also know that God desires that we seek him. Science cannot tell us that. For those that seek him, he has graciously provided a way to know him as a person to whom we can relate.

This person came as a human and experienced life as a human from conception, through the birth canal, to growing up in relationships, in service, in conflicts, and in death. After an unjust execution, he then resurrected to life as the forerunner of our resurrection. That person is God's Son, Jesus Christ, who alone can make us acceptable to God. Jesus is both necessary and sufficient for salvation. Those that know him follow him and are his people. They are God's children. They will receive all his wonderful and unending promises.

Though born as a man at a particular time and place, the person dwelling within the body of Jesus has always been and is the Creator. The Scriptures teach the unfathomable truth that all things have been created by and for Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:16). Yet he appeared during a particular brief window of time in human history. His limited travels were by foot. He lived among us in a humble manner which is God's way. He values love above everything. Eternal life is knowing him. When you come to know him and his love, you will discover a whole new world that has always been and always provides a fresh perspective. You have been created for him, and he loves you beyond measure. Amazingly, God actually desires fellowship with you.

Reference

Robert Frost. 1915. The Road Not Taken.

Questions for Review and Discussion

Living by faith in an age of science is the main theme of this book. There is more to what is seen than meets the eye. A life of faith can mean many things, but the life of faith that is the focus here is faith in the biblical God as the source of all there is.

What does it mean to live by faith? Does a life of faith require a belief in a deity?

Modern science seeks to understand the natural realm and all of its observable details. This is done by careful observation and the formulation of explanatory mechanisms for these observations. It is a collaborative effort that involves much discussion and debate. Do scientists exercise a type of faith as they pursue understanding?

How would you characterize the impact of the Bible on human history?

How influential has the Bible been in the creative arts such as literature, art, and music?

How influential has the Bible been in the areas of cultural ethics and law?

Does the Bible have a central message? If so, what is it?

Is there scientific content in the Bible? Does it address issues relevant to modern science?

What sort of conflicts are you aware of that involve biblical claims versus scientific claims?

Do you seek a fresh perspective?

Chapter 2

Confessions of a Believing Skeptic

I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!

—Mark 9:24 (NIV)

Doubting but Yearning to Believe

Is he real? Did these things actually happen? How can I know for sure? I asked myself these and similar questions as I grew up, and this mental cross-examination continued into my adult years. The concerns behind this questioning had to do with the God of Abraham, Jesus as Son of God, and the stories contained in the Bible. I was taught these things as a child. They formed the core of my faith tradition. The claims are nothing short of being out of this world. The stakes could not be higher—eternal destiny after our body dies. If a conscious existence, will it be very good, very bad, or very drab? If the claims are untrue, then it would seem that consciousness and personhood cease forever. In the Bible, so much depends on belief, and I had so many secret doubts.

I relate to the movie The Polar Express. It is a tale about doubt and belief. The main character is a boy who very much wants to believe in Santa Claus but doubts his existence. He entertains thoughts that Santa may be nothing more than a childhood fantasy promoted by well-meaning adults. In the story, Santa is a metaphor for something you want to believe, but you have nagging doubts. Perhaps it's a professional goal, and yet you doubt that you actually have what it takes to achieve it. It could be a set of social and or political ideals. That something could be God, but you are unsure of his existence. Whatever it may be, you want it to be real and not just a self-con from your imagination, schooling, or upbringing.

A memorable scene in the film occurs when the boy encounters a ghostly hobo on top of the train. The question of Santa comes up followed by this dialogue:

Hobo: What exactly is…is your persuasion on the Big Man since you brought him up?

The Boy: Well, I… I want to believe… But—

Hobo: But you don't want to be bamboozled. You don't want to be led down the primrose path! You don't want to be conned or duped. Have the wool pulled over your eyes. Hoodwinked! You don't want to be taken for a ride. Railroaded!

That hobo speaks to my biggest concern. I was raised in a Christian household, and we were regular church attendees. Faith in Christ and the Bible were discussed often in the home. However, as I grew up, I found that I had to question much of what I had heard. It was critically important for me to know what was true. The people in our church congregation seemed well-meaning and sincere, but I heard too much of what I considered to be mindless beliefs that had little to do with the Bible or what I observed around me.

There were many things that I called pulpit legends in the same way people speak of urban legends. These were fanciful stories which someone had heard or read and passed on with personal embellishments. The stories were meant to illustrate a principle or prove something about God or the Bible. They were told as though they were actual occurrences but little if any substantiation was offered.

Over time, I heard some of these stories repeated with different details but recognizable nonetheless. Such things were like folklore and too easily believed by so many people like children believing in Santa Claus. In fact, they were useless as evidence for anything. I did not want merely inherited beliefs. I was concerned about false hopes, wishful thinking, and gullible mindsets. I very much wanted to believe Christ and all his claims and promises but wanted to be sure that there was validity to it all.

I was the boy in The Polar Express, except it wasn't Santa I wanted to believe—it was the biblical God as revealed in God's Son, Jesus Christ. I needed to be assured that he was there and that I would see him on the other side of the grave. My hobo has been an inner voice that urges me to honestly face reality and confront and deal with doubts by getting real answers to honest questions. Many seem to ignore this voice and self-con themselves to stick with familiar belief patterns and dare not admit to doubt.

As I grew, I also noticed that many in our Christian circle had a strong bias against science. This was a particular concern to me because of my strong fascination with science which was discovering so many things about the world around. The products of science were so real and tangible in our everyday lives. Society was undergoing a technological revolution because of scientific findings. This was undeniable and strongly confirmed the scientific knowledge that forms the basis of the modern technological world. I wondered why many churchgoers displayed so much fear about these discoveries.

Did they view science as a threat to their belief in the Bible and Christ? Did it stir up the self-denial of their secret doubts? Did they imagine that science somehow renders God to be unnecessary? Is it not obvious that science seeks to understand tangible things and its principles are used to design and build technical marvels? Does the scientific community oppose God and the Bible? Did the Bible promote ideas that were in clear violation of the findings of science? Is not scientific discovery meant to support truth? Is not the pursuit of truth a Christian virtue? Why in churches are there so many pulpit legends or straw-man arguments about science or scientists?

I have spent much of my life pursuing questions such as these. Insight and understanding have come slowly. But God has been patient and faithful. There were times when God seemed so remote and silent. My being cried out like David in the thirteenth Psalm, How long will you hide your face from me?… Enlighten my understanding or I will sleep death. However, by the end of the Psalm, the answer has appeared, I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me. Such has been my experience.

In this book, I want to share insights that God has revealed. This has been aided by the talks and writings of many gifted thinkers who have had similar struggles and have published what they learned on their journey in life. With this book, I want to use such things and personal insights to provide some help for struggling minds and yearning souls. We need to seek truth and act on it. This will set our minds free whether or not we presently view ourselves as believers or nonbelievers.

Every individual has their own path to travel in life. We should learn from our experiences and adjust our course in beneficial ways. I have been on my path and offer some of my experiences and adjustments I have made as an encouragement to others.

Beginnings

The fifth of October in 1957 was a Saturday, and I had recently begun the fourth grade in school. As a kid, I loved Saturday mornings, particularly in the fall. A Michigan autumn was a colorful and pleasant time of year, and how I loved to go outside and let my imagination take me on wonderful journeys.

On this morning, my parents were discussing the latest news over breakfast. The previous day, the Soviet Union had become the first nation to put a satellite in orbit around the earth. It was called Sputnik. This really sparked my curiosity. It also produced a sense of dread. I was a child of the Cold War, and Atomic Age and American culture instilled in us a fear of the Great Bear nation and communism. The nation was shocked by Sputnik. Americans felt very vulnerable. They were above us.

Sputnik marked the beginning of the space age as well as the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. It also marked the beginning of my growing fascination with science and technology. For the next several years, I followed the developments closely. The national media had a fascination with the space race story as it unfolded. This helped foster my growing interest in science. The government increased funding for science and math education at all levels. I started to wonder about how things worked. I wanted to get some knowledge and understanding of nature.

At the same time, my curiosity about nature was growing, something else was also happening inside. I started asking myself another set of questions. Who or what are we? What is our place in the scheme of things? Do we have a meaningful destiny? What is within that causes me to ask such questions? I now realize that most people ask themselves these types of questions. It is part of being human—even for a kid.

Starting in childhood, I was seeking after something but was not fully conscious of the yearning that existed deep within. It was a subconscious rumbling. I was more preoccupied with the immediate world around than with the call from the inner core of my being. Daily life is often filled with activities and distractions. All of this has a way of deafening us to the cries of our hearts. Nevertheless, the cries were there, and I struggled with the meaning of existence, the purpose and brevity of my life, the issue of truth, the existence of God, and many nagging doubts. Our church discouraged doubt. To me, this was equivalent to discouraging questions that do not have a pate answer. We must simply believe what the Bible says or, anyway, what the church claims that the Bible says.

Budding Curiosity

From childhood, I was curious and wanted to understand nature. By my early teens, I was already thinking of becoming a physicist. The reason for this was pretty straightforward, perhaps a little naïve and simple-minded. I believed that physics offered concise and simple explanations for the workings of everything that we observe. I longed to be able to understand things in very concrete ways that I could relate to and feel confident about. I read about science and was impressed by the lives of famous physicists. To my young mind, they seemed to grasp ideas that allowed them to understand things in ways both logical and simple. This was very appealing.

I read about an incident, perhaps apocryphal, written by an associate of Albert Einstein. Shortly after coming to America in the early 1930s, Einstein was standing next to him on a sidewalk. They were waiting for a ride. It began to rain, and immediately, Einstein took his hat off and placed it under his coat. Curiously, he asked the famous physicist, Why did you take your hat off? and waited for the profound response.

Einstein replied, So that it won't get wet.

I was impressed by this anecdote since it illustrates the notion that there is a clear and concise explanation for every observation. In a nutshell, that is what I was hoping for when I eventually decided to pursue physics as a career.

The story illustrates something else that took many years for me to see. Our conclusions and actions are conditioned by our values and beliefs. My understanding of the facts of reality depends on what I happen to believe. Many of us believe that apparel is meant to cover and protect. Therefore we would be sure to put the hat on if it started to rain. Others may believe that apparel is primarily meant to complement the appearance. They may tend to protect the hat as Einstein did. Both types of beliefs contend with the same facts—hats in the rain get wet, and hats protected from the rain stay dry. Likewise, uncovered heads get wet, and covered heads stay dry. Our beliefs do not change what is true. They do affect the way we view the facts and the way we understand and respond to them.

Nature is full of many wonders. Most of you have had those moments when a sense of awe takes over and you ask yourself things such as How does everything work? or Where did it come from? or What does it all mean? Nature has always captured my imagination and provided food for thought. Nature acts according to its own set of rules.

Regardless of what fantasies I may have about it, nature behaves according to its nature. Perhaps that is why we instinctively call it nature. Thinking about this mysterious nature can evoke a sense of pure wonder of the world about us. For me, this is a delightful experience.

Free to Think and Wonder

Many warm feelings come to my mind as I think back on my childhood. I am very fortunate in this respect. Mom and Dad were devoted to each other and to their three sons. Our family was active in community affairs, and we attended church regularly. We also discussed the Bible a lot. Dad loved to read the Bible as well as the written works of biblical teachers. However, I would not say that our home life was particularly religious. It was open-minded and provided a good contrast to the church experience.

My parents were certainly people of faith and had some definite beliefs. What was exhibited in their day-to-day life would better be described in terms of a relationship with God rather than a religious obligation to God. Their primary motive seemed to come from a simple desire to know and please the person of God rather than from a requirement to adhere to a set of religious practices. This relationship was present in every aspect of their lives. Their belief that God was a person to relate to had a deep impact on me.

I was the youngest of the three boys in our family. Mom and Dad always encouraged us to pursue things that were of interest to us. This was true whether it was academics, athletics, or hobbies. I have many fond memories of growing up. The lots in our area were fairly large for a residential community. They ranged in size from about three to six acres. In addition to these, there were also a number of large open fields and some forested areas as well. It was a great environment for playing and pursuing the imaginations of childhood.

I enjoyed roaming around and letting my thoughts run free. There were the fields. There was the forest with many paths through it. On the backside of the forest, I spent wonderful times along a gentle meandering stream where my imagination took me to far-off places. On the other side of the stream was a farm with grazing cows in a well-watered pasture. In my mind, it was something like the hundred-acre wood in the Winnie the Pooh stories.

A lot of time was spent playing make-believe. Imagination is a world that the mind creates within itself. I enjoyed being a player in that unfolding story. There were also times when I looked around and would think about what it all meant. Perhaps the best thing was the experience of wonderment that would sometimes come on me. As a child, I developed a deep need to understand things and a deep desire to know what is true. Now this is not at all unusual. Actually, I think this is much more the rule than the exception. My personal experiences have taught me that a need for understanding and truth has been common to most people I have encountered. Children will ask all of the deepest questions about life, meaning, and purpose. They are also aware of death and think about what things will be like afterward. The way they express themselves may not be sophisticated, but the thoughts are there nonetheless.

One of the downside I have noted about adult life is that we can get so caught in the day-to-day struggle that we make little opportunity to pursue the deeper issues that lie within. I am grateful that my parents never discouraged me from pursuing ideas or looking into other people's ideas. They instinctively knew that truth would prevail if the truth were honestly being sought. Like so many other people, I want to know the real truth about things. This is particularly the case for issues that are tied to my ultimate destiny.

Fearing Death

When I was eleven years old another one of those events occurred that had a great impact on me. Tragedy entered my life. I had a boyhood friend that I spent a lot of time with. His name was Bob. We went to a lot of places and did a lot of things together. The summer before we entered the sixth grade, Bob went on an outing with our community recreational program for kids. He was so excited. It was the first time he had ever gone to a beach. It was also the last time because my friend, Bob, drowned on that outing. I was devastated and greatly disturbed when I saw his body laid out in the casket. Death had become very real to me, and I started to become increasingly concerned about what happens afterward.

By the time I was thirteen, I was giving a great deal of thought to my ultimate destiny. I distinctly remember being quite bothered by the obvious fact that I was going to die, just like everybody else. I was also bothered by the thought that death could come at any time. People die at all ages, and this could happen unexpectedly. This certainly was the case with my good friend, Bob. I remember having this notion in my head that dying was something like entering a door. No one going through it ever comes back. No one on this side of the door knows by experience what lies beyond.

Common sense told me that whatever came after death was going to last a lot longer than anything I would experience in life, no matter how long this life might last. In fact, I could not escape the conclusion that whatever state we are in after we die must last forever. It would never end. So, no matter how long it lasts, the length of our life is insignificantly short by comparison. Even a thirteen-year-old understands that this is a very important issue to get right. I started to dwell on it a lot.

A Commitment to Christ

I was certainly seeking a personal God, but I also felt that the stakes were so high that I better get things right. As a thirteen-year-old boy, I was already aware that there are very many different ideas and viewpoints about these matters. And yet this doubter felt something so compelling about Jesus Christ. It wasn't theological teaching that got my attention. It was the person himself. I was drawn to him. In the Bible, I found a promise that says, Whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

This was a promise for a doubter like myself. From the context, I knew that the Lord refers to the God of the Bible, and according to the New Testament, this God sent a Savior, Jesus Christ. Also I could see from this passage that being saved meant being saved from the godless eternity I feared. Clearly, whosoever must include the honest seeker who may be plagued by doubts. Even I could do this. I could call on God in the name of Jesus Christ to save me from the blackness of eternity. Would He hear me and do this? According to the Bible, He would. So I did this one night as I lay in bed. I told him about my sins and doubts and committed my life to him.

In retrospect, that was the most significant event in my life. Something very real and life-changing did happen that night. However, at the time, that was not so apparent. It took years for me to fully realize what had taken place. I do remember experiencing a sense of peace after I made this commitment. Otherwise, nothing seemed to change that much. Day-to-day living proceeded as before, my interests remained the same, and I was still struggling with the nagging intellectual doubts of a skeptic. In retrospect, I see the Shepherd's hand.

A Commitment to Science

I entered college at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1966. At the time, I was considering a career in biochemistry and genetics. Rapid advances were occurring in these areas since the recent (at that time) discovery that the structure of DNA contained a coded message which was the genetic code. A vast new area of research had been opened. At the time, I had no idea of how truly vast this was. The very foundational mechanisms of biology could now be analyzed. I was also aware that this gave a great boost to theories of biological evolution.

Simultaneously, in the Christian community, the ideas of young earth creationism (YEC) had gained a large following. The book, The Genesis Flood (Morris and Whitcomb), played an important role in this. For many, this seemed to cement the idea of YEC as a basic tenet of Fundamentalism. A brief explanation is required here.

Between 1910 and 1915, a twelve-volume set of about ninety essays was published concerning what the editors called the orthodox beliefs of Protestant Christianity. This set of essays was called the Fundamentals. These covered a range of topics by a large number of conservative Protestant theologians. From these five basic tenets were recognized as absolute musts of belief for any true (orthodox) Christian. These are as follows:

2.1 Five Fundamental Tenets

(bii) Biblical authority—it is to be taken as literally true, God inspired, and inerrant.

(vb) The virgin birth and deity of Christ.

(sa) The doctrine of substitutionary atonement through God's grace, Christ's sacrifice, and faith.

(br) The bodily resurrection of Jesus from death.

(hm) The historicity of the miracles of Christ as found in Scripture and his future historical second coming.

These tenets have been believed by many Christian denominations, although there has been a wide range of opinions concerning the meaning of literal and inerrant as well as scenarios related to the Second Coming. By the 1960s, many believers of the five tenets had added YEC to this essential list. According to YEC proponents, the universe, earth, and living organisms were created in a week's time about six thousand years ago. This was in accord with their meaning of a literal interpretation of Genesis. The ideas of a very old universe and earth as well as evolution were declared incompatible with biblical authority. For many of them, no orthodox Christian could believe such things. The argument was that such acceptance would be tantamount to a rejection of the authority of the entire Bible (tenet 1).

During high school, I had read about recent advances in astronomy, geology, and evolution and realized that these rested on a great deal of evidence as well as reasonable and careful interpretation of a large body of evidence. Based on data collected with meticulous effort, the universe and planet earth were billions of years old. YEC views about the Bible and the age of the Earth were in stark contrast to this. However, my church supported the notion that biblical inerrancy required the YEC interpretation. Thus, for many fine people I knew, old earth ideas and evolution were direct threats to the reliability of Scripture. Such ideas were labeled as ungodly, liberal, and even atheistic.

I, too, could be labeled this way if I supported scientific findings in these areas. My faith in Christ was of central importance to me, but I was also bothered by teachings that essentially said that clear scientific findings and scripture are incompatible. To those seeking truth, such statements in defense of so-called truth actually fuel skepticism and promote doubts. I saw this in many of my Christian contemporaries. How could I ignore clear conclusions from so much evidence? I was hoping that somehow I could erase doubts arising from this conflict of claims. The Christian community seemed to offer no help as YEC ideas became more widely accepted and led to divisiveness in the broader community of Christians. These had produced a serious dichotomy and quandary for myself and other believers as illustrated by the mental quandary chart seen in F2.2.

2.2 Mental Setup Quandary

Essentially, there had occurred a conflation of the original five tenets, strict literalism, and origins in six twenty-four-hour days. In some circles, this conflation became a new list of fundamentals for true Christian orthodoxy. Another conflation combined science, material philosophy, and humanism as if they all go together. They do not. These unfortunate conflations led to this dichotomy that was taught to many believers. There were two irreconcilable sides. One seen as worldly science and the other biblical orthodoxy. This has contributed to the common misconception that biblical faith and science are at odds.

I thought that gaining a good understanding of nature would resolve the so-called conflicts with the Bible and help solve my struggles with doubt. After all, I reasoned, the truth should be consistent with what we observe in the physical world. Certainly, this must be the case, but I was also somewhat naïve in this thinking. Science deals in a realm of observation, evidence, and rational thought. The paradigm of science is inherently objective. However, scientists, like religious adherents, are also strongly influenced by their philosophical and personal beliefs. These vary considerably in both the scientific and religious communities.

This in itself has been an important lesson that I have learned in life. Fortunately, I have also discovered many who live in both of these communities and recognize the fallacies of the mental setup quandary of YEC orthodoxy.

In my sophomore year, I decided that physics would be my major. This is the career that I would end up pursuing. I was seeking foundational truth in science, and I realized that physics was the foundational physical science. Chemistry rested upon the physical forces among entities described by physics. Life was a biochemical process. Star formation was driven by physical processes, and the elements of the periodic table and their relative abundances were well explained as produced in stellar interiors. I was interested in space technology, and trajectories and orbits were determined using physical principles. In science, I saw a hierarchy and physics was the foundation. I reasoned that perhaps this was the path to truth regarding the physical realm. I greatly desired a clear and well-understood foundation for truth. In retrospect, I realize that this path to truth was very limiting. In fact, this approach tells me nothing about why all the familiar objects of my experience exist. Nevertheless, it served well as a guiding principle or worldview as I studied physics.

I do not think that it is possible to function in life without a basic worldview that provides a framework for interpreting things and giving meaning to our experience. This is as true for scientists as for YEC proponents and anyone else. This need for a basic worldview seems more related to human nature than to scientific or religious practice. Scientific training tends to put little emphasis on assessing philosophical ideas—at least in a formal sense. Such ideas are definitely there in individual scientists. However, rarely are they critically analyzed in scientific discussions.

We scientists become good at doing science as an objective discipline. We also become good at advancing our careers and gaining recognition from our peers. But the basic ideas that form our worldviews and give a sense of meaning are rarely discussed in professional settings. Principles of meaning are not part of scientific practice. I am not saying that scientists do not think about the meaning of things in private. I believe most do. However, when writing research papers or reports or giving technical presentations, we learn to keep such things devoid of meaning and focus instead on technical issues; that is, descriptions of repeatable natural processes and not their meaning. It is simply the acceptable style of communicating the results of scientific investigations to other scientists. This approach encourages objectivity, which is such an important hallmark of science and reason for its success.

I remember writing my first scientific paper for publication. I was doing it with my PhD adviser. When he read my first draft, he shook his head and said that it sounded more like a story than a scientific paper. On the next draft, I removed any sense of emotion or personal attachment to the work. I made it more formal and stuck to the technical details and explanations only. The paper came across as purely objective. As required, I was careful to cite the work of others, have plenty of references, described my new twist on the problem, presented results, and summarized everything with a conclusion. And, of course, the last thing I had in the paper was a statement of appreciation to the source of funding for the project.

My adviser was pleased, and the paper was accepted. Altogether, we collaborated on four papers. They were all readily accepted following the same style. These papers joined countless thousands of papers with a similar style, which fill the thousands of journals lining the shelves of libraries worldwide.

This very objective way of describing scientific research and its results is very beneficial to the advancement of knowledge. It forces the scientific community to focus only on the objective aspects of nature. These are those things that can be described in terms of data that can be observed, measured, or calculated and then recorded and discussed rationally. These data can then be analyzed using well-defined procedures.

The implicit assumption made is that two different investigators following the same process for obtaining data should obtain similar results, provided they analyze their data in the same way. Also implicit in this is the notion that the scientist must be careful not to introduce any subjective element into their work. This process of objective investigation is an essential part of the scientific method and has proven to be quite successful.

Scientists can become very adept at performing this rather detached method of investigation. However, they sometimes have trouble discerning the dividing line between their scientific work and the set of beliefs that make up their worldviews. These beliefs can take on a very religious tone, even for people who do not believe in a personal deity and state that religious notions should be excluded from science.

In our society, the most common example of this is the belief system of materialism. This also referred to as philosophical naturalism. By itself, naturalism refers to the observation that processes in the natural world can be explained in terms of governing rules or laws that themselves are contained and derived from within the natural (or material) world. Inputs from transcendent causes such as a deity are unnecessary for such explanations. This does not preclude the activity of God but simply recognizes something that is well-observed and accepted—the explanatory power of natural laws that have been inferred from nature itself and repeatedly tested.

It seems that I have always had naturalistic leanings within me because nature confirms such an explanatory approach. I need to explain this very carefully since materialism has become a commonly held belief in our society. I have never been a strict adherent of this version of naturalistic philosophy. However, I have always been filled with a sense of awe and wonder about the physical world and the fact that it seems comprehensible in terms of natural laws that can be discovered. Strictly speaking, philosophical naturalism says that everything can be explained in terms of these laws that govern the physical world. This applies to the very existence of reality itself.

According to philosophical naturalism, there is nothing other than what can be observed with our senses or the scientific instruments we humans build to aid our limited senses. This is an amazing statement of faith. Those things most immediate to our experience such as the sensations of sight and sound or our emotional state are merely the products of biophysical or biochemical processes. According to this creed, even our self-awareness or soul is in essence a biophysical effect.

Within this materialist credo, science is the process by which the underlying laws of nature are revealed. The late Carl Sagan was a well-known and eloquent advocate of materialism. He was fond of the term cosmos by which he meant the totality of the physical universe. At its most basic and fundamental level, Sagan believed with other materialists that the cosmos is characterized by a set of impersonal laws that determine its origin, its history, and its ultimate fate. One famous quote of his says that the cosmos is all that there is, ever was, or ever shall be. This is not a conclusion of