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The same applies in many academic activities, especially the more technical ones. Yet the implication of such methodological secularization is different from that of the "methodological atheism" that is more often the academic rule. Methodological secularization means only that for limited ad hoc purposes we will focus on natural phenomena accessible to all, while not denying their spiritual dimensions as created and ordered by God or forgetting that there is much more to the picture. The pilot who follows the radar and the instrument panel may even sense those tasks differently if she believes she is ultimately dependent on God and that she has spiritual responsibility to her passengers. In academic work, such openness may have real impact on our theories, particularly in eliminating those that claim the universally accessible natural phenomena are all there is.
For Christians in the natural sciences, this incarnationally based viewpoint should invite a consciousness of the wider context of the more real and more permanent spiritual dimensions of reality within which empirical inquiry takes place. This awareness might have an impact on how one regards the significance of one's work, even if, technically considered, that work might look much like the work of a nontheist. When scientists have occasion to articulate their understandings of the wider contexts--philosophical, historical, or practical--this wider consciousness may have explicit implications as well.
Since Christ the Word is co-creator according to Christian doctrine, scientists with a strongly incarnational view of nature may be sensitive to spiritual dimensions in all of reality. Practically speaking, such views might affect how one applies scientific or technological inquiry to issues such as ecology, medicine, or engineering. For some pure researchers, simply the doxological implications of an incarnational world-view may be sufficient. They might resonate with the sensibilities of Gerard Manley Hopkins:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed . . .
Such sensibilities might not change one's research methods or conclusions. Nevertheless, they might have an impact both on the quality of one's work and on one's agenda in studying God's creation in the first place. Surely there would be huge implications when such scientists relate their subjects to the larger issues of life. At the least, it would counter the impression, created by some scientific popularizers, that because natural science is essentially materialistic, materialism therefore provides the best account of reality.
The incarnational motif also has implications for the arts, humanities, and social sciences. It suggests, for instance, that we may see God working in the ordinary, if only we have the eyes to see. Poets, artists, and musicians may be most open to giving expression to such dimensions of reality, but they are there for all to see.
For the Christian, the Incarnation is not an abstraction; it is central to the revelation of the character of God. As Jonathan Edwards emphasizes, God is not only a righteous judge, but is also infinitely loving. God is not only revealing the beauty of his love in creation, but he displays the highest love and hence the highest beauty in Christ's dying for us, the infinitely good God incarnate dying on behalf of those who despise him. Although we are creatures capable of great love, we in fact build our universes around love to our selves. God's display of his sacrificial love to us in Christ relativizes our self-righteousness. United with Christ, we are to love even those whom we would naturally despise.
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