Faith in Jesus Christ and his Gospel is the necessary axis for life that is truly life
Modern science has shaped a new earth—so it sometimes seems—and promises next to transform the heavens. Beyond many of the fondest dreams of the past, science and technology have changed man’s existence physically, socially, and intellectually.
For some reason, the explosion of scientific knowledge seems to have blasted God out of the world of learning. Since many university professors seem reticent to speak of God as an omnicompetent Person, their students understandably wonder whether the mountains of data accumulated through scientific and technological advances imply the irrelevance if not the unreality of God. In the words of Dr. Elmer W. Engstrom, president of Radio Corporation of America—himself largely responsible for the organization and management of a research and development program that led to practical television service—“We live in an age when the results of science and engineering exercise the controlling influence in all walks of life.”
Yet Dr. Engstrom does not stop there. Remarkably enough, while multitudes of twentieth-century men and women are tempted to look upon Science as a new god, and on the God of the Bible as outmoded, an impressive number of scientists—Engstrom among them—insist that it is science that is forever changing, while the God of creation is the same “yesterday, today, and forever.” Says Engstrom: “I accept as real God’s ruling in the affairs of men and in all aspects of his creation, and I accept the validity of a scientific understanding of material things and the happenings of nature.”
It is not “the scientists” as such, contrary to a widespread impression, who are debunking the supernatural; their authority as a class cannot be invoked against miracle or faith in the deity of Jesus Christ. Their formulations of Christian faith may contain turns of phrase less technical (and therefore sometimes more intelligible) than the vocabulary of the theologians and philosophers. But of the evangelical loyalties of a galaxy of scientists in many lands and in all races there can be no doubt.
Yet the accelerating changes worked by science seem to a science-oriented generation to imply the displacement of all past beliefs. As Dr. Richard D. Campbell, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Iowa, sees it, “With half of the working force engaged in occupations that did not exist a generation ago, a strange new world with new values and a new way of life underline man’s sense of estrangement. Sensitivity to human and moral values is threatened with detachment, and mankind faces a cultural crisis with dire social and moral implications.” But Professor Campbell is not himself caught in this maelstrom of ethical relativity. “The moral and human values intended for man by his Creator are revealed for man in many ways,” he says, “but the highest revelation is in Jesus Christ. The future direction of our world turns upon our individual pertinent and personal commitment to Jesus Christ.”
That science changes but God abides is a note struck also by Dr. Ross Alan Douglas, associate professor of nuclear physics at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Professor Douglas, who is Canadian-born but holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, points to the recent discovery of the non-conservation of parity in the weak interactions as an example of the “profound changes in scientific concepts produced by current research.” He stresses, moreover, that such changes are the price science must pay for progress. But he points to Jesus Christ as the fixed point of reference in the life of the spiritual man whose knowledge of Him increases through Bible study and personal communion.
While some philosophers—notably, naturalists in the free world as well as dialectical materialists in the Communist world—contend that the scientific way of knowing disproves and discredits a supernatural faith, some of the leading men of science have stepped forward to expose the impropriety of such claims. In a recent essay, Dr. Vannevar Bush, honorary board chairman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, declares that the time has come to emphasize the limits of science as fully as its power.
Modern science has made wonderful changes in our lives, comments Dr. James H. Shaw, associate professor of biological chemistry at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. But these very benefits “obscure the amorality and impersonality of science. The user’s motives dictate its application for good or ill. No standard for morals, no universal concern for one’s neighbor, no satisfaction for the yearning human heart can spring from any amoral, impersonal body of knowledge. Science has no answer to man’s dilemma.”
“For me,” Dr. Shaw continues, “the answer is a personal relationship with God freely given by him in response to faith in and commitment to the claims of Jesus Christ. Science can never displace Jehovah God of the Bible as lawgiver and Jesus Christ, his Son, as Saviour and Mediator between God and sinful man.” Dr. Shaw adds that in this dimension of faith, life as a scientist takes on “the new purpose, meaning, and direction that God intended in the unfolding of the works of his hands hidden in his creation.”
Have science and technology solved man’s basic problems: the quest for ultimate truth by which to live and to die, the problems of moral and intellectual corruption, of crime, war, and suffering? So asks Dr. Bodo Volkman, professor of mathematics at the Institute of Technology, Stuttgart, Germany. His reply is pointed: “It is evident that mere scientific knowledge, however valuable, can never accomplish this. Nor do I think that religious efforts will ever suffice.” It takes, he says, “something different from just adhering to some ethical principles or believing in some anthropocentric god. Rather do I believe in the God of the Bible as a Person, and faith in him to me means commitment to Jesus as the Christ. Actual communication with him changes man’s life from within; it is here that the answer is waiting.”
A British professor registers the same spiritual conviction. True manhood can be found only in response to Jesus Christ, to his claims and to his commands—so asserts Dr. James M. Houston, fellow of Hertford College and lecturer at Oxford University. “Faith in the omnipotence of science … makes man no more than a thinking machine,” he states. “Without religion, right and wrong are meaningless, are terms only of relative convenience. Without God, man is alone in the universe, and without him man cannot conceive of his own nature and destiny. I seek to be a practicing Christian, convinced personally as well as mentally in the authority of the Bible, because I believe that only in Jesus Christ can genuine, authentic manhood be seen and realized. To me, Jesus Christ is the norm of humanity, and to know and love him is to know and love God personally.”
An Indian scientist, Professor H. Enock, retired head of the department of zoology at the University of Madras, South India, emphasizes that science has “no explanation for the origin of matter and only speculations for the origin of life. The theories established in one generation are often contradicted by another. After more than thirty years of teaching, I have had no occasion to change my view of the spiritual realm or of the mission of Jesus Christ. I have come to the settled conviction that no established fact of science contradicts the Bible.”
Dr. Walter R. Hearn, associate professor of biochemistry at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, notes that scientists are persons and that science is a personal activity, requiring “a sense of values and dedication to purpose that cannot be derived from science itself. Science tells us what we can do, but it cannot tell us what we ought to do.” Where, then, are the moral absolutes to be found? “In my own life,” Professor Hearn comments, “ultimate personal questions find their solution in my relationship to God through the person of Jesus Christ. We Christians believe that we can come into such direct contact with our Maker and Redeemer that his wisdom can be applied to our deepest problems and his love can flow through us to touch others as well.”
The inability of science to explain the presence of features that make science itself possible is stressed also by Dr. Walter Rollier Thorson, associate professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Man today is finding,” Dr. Thorson says, “that science as such offers no explanation of the facts of human self-consciousness and of the freedom of choice experienced in human personality, which itself is the reason for man’s interest in scientific knowledge or indeed in any kind of truth.” It is Dr. Thorson’s opinion that “the question of a relationship to God is in the end more important than many of the terrible and urgent needs of our time. It affects human destiny as a whole, and has done so in the past. I expect it will in the future as well.”
The emphasis on two ways of knowing, and the necessary restriction of scientific method to relativities, characterizes the approach of Dr. Armando Vivante, professor of general ethnology and general ethnography at the National University of La Plata, Argentina. “Science with its sense of the historical relativity of truth, with its destiny of working toward the limitless approximation of a true asymptote, depending in the last analysis upon epistemological criteria—which is not science but philosophy—has nothing to do with faith. Faith is moved by grace, a concept full of biblical connotations. Science is moved by its peculiar causalist logic and the incessant and precarious accumulation of data that is temporal and conventionally true.”
Alongside an emphasis on the limits of science, many leaders assert that science itself could not have arisen in a vacuum—that it requires among its presuppositions a context of intelligibility. It was Dr. Alfred North Whitehead who declared that there seems but one source for the “inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles.… It must come from the medieval insistence [Professor Whitehead might have said, the Judeo-Christian revelation] on the rationality of God” (Science and the Modern World, Macmillan, 1946, p. 18). Professor Harold H. Johnson of the mathematics department of the University of Washington asserts: “The emergence of science in a Christian society is more than historical accident, I believe. Science and Christianity share objectivity. Scientists study the outside world, Christians seek truth outwardly in God’s revelation of himself. This method is in contrast to the Greek introspection or Hindu and Buddhist contemplation. Man’s first task was scientific: to name (analyze, understand) things in the world about him. Yet science is rapidly making life impossible. The physicists who built the first atom bomb felt science had sinned. Today any industrialized nation can destroy civilization. Soon every petty ruler in the world will have such power, and who knows what more deadly devices will come out of the laboratories? Even in the pure air of science we suddenly face ourselves as sinners. No trite humanistic platitudes can save the world. Let each escape by the only means available—the blood of Jesus Christ.”
Dr. Henry S. Darling, a native of Northern Ireland who is director of the Institute for Agricultural Research of Ahmadu Bello University in Northern Nigeria, speaks of “the superiority of heavenly morals over earthly science and technology.” Solomon acknowledged that authority through all time in the affirmation, “The reverent respect of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 1:7), says Professor Darling, “and this superiority has in no way been lessened by the vast accumulation of scientific data in recent years or by the extension of technology into every field of human activity. Science and technology have greatly enriched mankind in material things, not least in agriculture, where more and more food can be grown by the efforts of fewer and fewer workers. For these material blessings we must ever be devoutly thankful. But they have not helped us to solve the great and pressing problem of our race—how to find peace with God. To this I can find only one answer, given by Christ himself: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.’ ”
A similar note is sounded by Dr. Donald S. Kerlee, chairman of the physics department at Seattle Pacific College. In discussing the effect of science on religious-moral issues, he says, we would do well “to remember that the science of today arose, not from Communism, but out of the religious culture of the Western world. Indeed, it is well known that much of early science was developed by men of the Church.” These Christians, like science itself, he adds, presupposed an underlying rationality in the study of the universe. “Science is essentially a religious activity, in that it is a search for intelligible truth.”
What then of the widely trumpeted conflict between science and religion, and the bold claim of Anglo-Saxon naturalists and Communist atheists that belief in the supernatural is akin to faith in the pagan myths? This is not only an exaggeration and oversimplification—it is also a patent falsehood, and some scientists are saying so today with a directness that contrasts with the timidity even of some theologians.
The difficulty arises, says Professor Kerlee, when “it is assumed that all knowledge is essentially scientific in nature. A Christian view of science recognizes the excellence of science in its description of the physical world. Beyond the scope of science, however, the Christian recognizes parameters of experience not measured by units of length, mass, or time, nor easily expressed in units derived therefrom. There are many of these parameters; they cannot be ordered in the mathematical sense, nor can a quantized scale be assigned as in physics. Yet they describe many of the experiences of life, going far beyond the mere description of the scientific variables. A Christian view of science admits the revelation of God in nature through his creation, as well as through special revelation, the holy Scriptures.”
Whether one is or is not a scientist has no decisive bearing on personal faith in God, for decision for or against Jesus Christ is not made on the basis of peculiarly scientific data. So asserts Dr. George W. Andrews, geologist with the United States Department of the Interior in Washington: “Some scientists have adopted an impersonal view toward the universe; others like myself find satisfaction in the belief that a Supreme Being not only is responsible for our existence but also takes an interest in our activities. Faith in a personal God and in the redeeming work of Christ is a decision that can only be made by the individual, scientist and non-scientist alike. Science in no sense compels one to have a personal faith in God, but neither does it prohibit or restrict such a faith.”
British scientist Malcolm Dixon, who is reader in enzyme biochemistry at Cambridge University, from which he holds both the Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees, thinks the time long overdue to “dispel the harmful idea that science is anti-Christian.” He declares: “For over forty years I have been engaged in scientific research and teaching at the advanced level in Cambridge University, and I have found no reason to think that there is any incompatibility between science and Christianity. Many of the greatest scientists have been Christian believers, and I should judge that there is now in this country about the same proportion of such believers among scientists as among non-scientists.”
Another British scientist, Dr. Claude Rimington, also holder of Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees, and professor of chemical pathology in the University of London, issues a sober reminder regarding the alternative between faith and unbelief. “It is the duty of a scientist to question and investigate, to draw deductions, and in his search for truth to set up hypotheses which he then attempts to refute by further investigation. A hypothesis can only be assumed to have a high probability of correctness in so far as attempts to refute it have failed. The so-called laws of nature are of this character. Within a given set of circumstances, these laws may appear always to be obeyed, as in Newtonian mechanics, but they may be found inadequate or fallacious if the reference system is altered. Science must beware of dogma! It must be clearly aware of its own limitations imposed by the procedure which it uses, namely, to exclude as many variables as possible, save that under scrutiny. The process is one of exclusion and is highly selective, from which it follows that the picture of existence which science provides must be limited and incomplete. Bearing this in mind, I see no incompatibility in outlook between the scientist and the Christian. A Christian can be a scientist in the strictest sense of the word while believing in God the Creator and in the divinity of Christ, in whose person God projected himself into the existence of our world in space and time.”
Professor Rimington remarks that “a large section of the human race faces today the dilemma that it would reject religion as undemonstrable and therefore illusory but in its place must assert the supremacy of matter, an intellectual concept repugnant to a physicist! The choice carries the gravest political and social implications—as Belsen and Auschwitz remind us—apart from its supreme relevance to the ultimate intellectual and spiritual development of man.”
Not the incredulity of the man of sound religious faith so much as the naïveté of the naturalistic mentality established “the great divide” between Christian belief and unbelief, emphasizes Dr. John A. McIntyre, distinguished professor of physics at Texas A. and M. University. In Professor McIntyre’s words: “The most distinctive characteristic of our times is the sophisticated knowledge of people in scientific and technical matters and their simultaneous ignorance and naïveté concerning religious things. The general opinion seems to be that science has replaced religion as the source of answers for human questions so that religious ignorance is to be encouraged. Yet, how can science explain the terrible wars and persecutions of this century among the civilized nations, the lostness and boredom spreading rapidly through our materialistically affluent society, and the recent disintegration of the American family?” He continues: “As a scientist who discovered the Christian message as an adult, I can testify to the profundity and appeal of the Christian explanation of these facts: that man is estranged from God and that his life is empty and incomplete until he returns to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Further, I know of no scientific facts which contradict this view.”
Dr. Harvey Omar Olney, professor of biology at Gordon College, Massachusetts, puts the matter pointedly: “Modern scholars divest God of his dignity through yielding to the scientific Zeitgeist.”
This emphatic belief in the realities of revealed religion by competent scientists in the Western world obviously contradicts and indicts the Communist dogma that no educated modern man, and least of all a scientist, has a rational basis for faith in the living God.
“It is man’s relation to God, and nothing more, that determines man’s destiny.” So states Professor Roberto Dominguez Agurcia, an Indo-Spaniard who holds a dual post in Honduras, serving as professor in the physics department in Centro Universitario de Estudios Generales and as professor of structural analysis and structural design in the school of engineering in Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras. Such a relation (and not “property” or other socio-economic issues), he emphasizes, “is the real substratum of material life, of spiritual life, of the fate of humanity. The crisis of our scientific culture lies in the fact that science searches much into the mysteries of the atom, relating everything to matter, but cares not for the moral law that links behavior to destiny. Giant telescopes, powerful microscopes, accelerators, computers, rockets, spaceships, and so many other wonders of modern science are good—but not enough! Only reconciliation with the Infinite Master, God, through repentance and close friendship with Christ, can lead us to the grace of salvation and perfection.” Professor Agurcia issues a sober warning: “The world does not seem to know or to care about Nineveh’s lesson. The culture adored by the nations beholds not the ‘sign of Jonas’ given by our Lord Jesus Christ. Personally I thank God, the God of the Bible, the only God, because notwithstanding my insignificance he took me out of vain human doctrines, far from misleading ecologic ‘ethics,’ and led me to my beloved Saviour, his Son Jesus Christ. On the decision to accept Christ rests the destiny of humankind! Before it is too late, universities and scholars should learn humbly and teach this moral truth on which the Word of God is centered and which conditions the destiny of man.”
Dr. Russell L. Mixter, professor of zoology at Wheaton College, Illinois, and editor of a symposium of thirteen scientists and theologians on Evolution and Christian Thought Today (Eerdmans, 1959), recalls that evolutionary theory offered as a covering explanation of all reality and life at first seemed credible, but that as a university student he became convinced of its failure to account as adequately as Christianity for all the facts. “For me, faith began with parental instruction and pastoral guidance. In graduate school the disturbing influence of evolutionary theory was balanced by competent literature showing its inadequacy to explain the origin and complexity of all living things, and detailed study of anatomy and genetics has revealed the well-ordered intricacy characteristic of organisms whether surveyed intimately under the electron microscope or by the unaided eye. So my study of biology has harmonized with my early faith. But a knowledge of Scripture was necessary to make personal the relationship of divine truth to me. Hence the conviction of personal sin and the need of the salvation provided by our Lord Jesus Christ came not from science but from a conviction based on God’s Word. This conviction is needed by all men, for without it one’s destiny in eternity is dark indeed.”
Against naturalistic and materialistic theories of consciousness, Professor Thorson, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says, “The assertion that the reality behind the development of man is an impersonal force is a little strange, in view of the fact that it has led to the development of personality. Against this position Judaism and Christianity bear witness to a God who is at least personal, and indeed still greater than merely a person. This God has spoken to men and continues to speak, in the dimension of man’s personal life as well as in history. As a man who works in science, I do not find Christianity in any sense outmoded. On the contrary, my experience is that a personal relationship to Jesus Christ as God incarnate in man, a relationship of trust and love, is both possible in and relevant to daily life.”
Dr. Elbert H. Hadley, professor of chemistry at Southern Illinois University, puts the issue bluntly: “I believe that one’s belief in God and faith in Jesus Christ is a fundamental decision on which all human destiny turns. Will people become non-religious or pseudo-religious materialists or will they become practical, practicing Christians?”
The case for the reality of the supernatural and for the enduring relevance of the Christian religion is not supported only by “Western” scientists from Europe and America. In Africa and Asia as well, some leaders in scientific interests are speaking about the decisive importance of spiritual and moral priorities. Dr. Philip Saber Saif, an Egyptian researcher in the Ministry of Education in Cairo, pinpoints the crucial decision facing contemporary man this way: “In this age, when nuclear experiments threaten the world with final destruction, the only hope for humanity lies in Christianity. Our Bible does not teach scientific theory, but theological and eternal truths. God who has created man has also created science. I believe that no man of science has a proper reason for not becoming a Christian on the grounds of his science.” He continues: “As Jesus refused to pursue the young man (Matt. 19:16–22) and make other terms, so today the gospel terms cannot be lessened, cheapened, or altered. Therefore, if a scientist comes to God he must come the same way as any other man. He must repent, confess his sin to God, and believe in Jesus Christ with all his heart.”
Dr. D. A. Jonah, lecturer in applied mathematics at the University College of Sierra Leone, states the decision facing the modern scientist as inclusive of a verdict on Jesus Christ. “The more I study the Gospels, the more convinced I become of the rightness of the first of the following three choices which inevitably face one: (1) Christ is what he claimed to be; (2) he was a deluded fanatic; or (3) he was a deliberate imposter. His purity, nobility, greatness, and keen insight into human nature strike me too forcibly to permit any other conclusion. In the final analysis, however, my conviction is the result of that assurance which comes to the honest seeker through the Holy Spirit, and my personal experience of him through prayer. This makes it possible for me to live with the many ‘inexplicables’ in the Christian faith. As a scientist I have the highest regard for the scientific method and all its spectacular achievements; it has, however, not given meaning, purpose, or a sense of direction to my life. All these I have found in Christianity.”
Dr. Yajiro Morita, associate professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, points out that disbelief in God turns on bias rather than on lack of evidence. “Some nonbelievers today argue that if they could actually see something supernatural or miraculous,” he comments, “they would believe in God. I cannot but doubt this. If they saw, they would probably run and see a psychiatrist … showing they believe neither in God nor in themselves.” Professor Morita looks upon spiritual experience as “a confirmation of what I have believed in Jesus Christ. I accept the truth as it stands, and with gladness of heart.”
Another Japanese professor, Dr. Takeo Hama, who is dean of general education and professor of biology and philosophy of science at Meiji-Gakuin University, contrasts the limitations of the scientific method, which deals only with natural phenomena, with the larger avenue of spiritual knowledge. “The way of science is to know and experience natural phenomena through sense organs,” he says. “But science cannot inquire into spirit, values, right and wrong—as these fall outside its realm. God is not a natural phenomenon, but is Spirit; he can be known only by faith. Through the study of nature one cannot explain why matter exists, or why plants, animals, and mankind live. All these are miracles; the Bible tells us that God created them. This I accept. I have been believing God from my childhood—more than fifty years—and never have I been betrayed.”
Dr. D. J. Harris, professor of electrical engineering at Ahmadu Bello University, Northern Nigeria, points out that scientists are “basically religious men—forced to look beyond the pattern revealed by their work to the Creator of that pattern, or else to turn deliberately away from such a quest. The God of the Christian Gospel is far more than just a Creator; recording the revelation that came through Christ, Scripture shows us a God of infinite love, who is not only knowing but also knowable. This hypothesis can be tested experimentally by all who will venture along the path prepared by Christ, accepting his sacrifice for the remission of their sins, and it is a hypothesis that is found to be true. This has been my experience, and it is the experience of countless others, scientists and non-scientists alike.”
Professor Coralie W. Rendle-Short, who formerly was head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of East Africa Medical School in Kampala, Uganda, and is now on the Faculty of Medicine at Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, notes that the Christian believer finds a reminder of the unique miracle of the Incarnation even in the birth of a baby. “Every day my work brings me into the mysteries of birth and reproduction, and its complexities never cease to amaze me. I often think, Is God interested in me as an individual? Things have happened in my life that convince me that he cares for me personally. God as Christ chose to come into this world as a baby, and to live here so that he could show us that he knew what it is like to be a man, and more than that—to die on a Cross to take the punishment for man’s sins. I do not think this is an impossible thing to believe. The more we find out about the universe, the more amazing it becomes, and surely such an amazing God could implant such instincts in ourselves that we may seek after him. He loves us personally, but he will never compel us to be loyal. We have the dignity of free choice.”
The role of the scientific men of Christian faith in the present cultural conflict is outlined by Dr. Dewey K. Carpenter, assistant professor of chemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology. “Today’s world is the scene of the indiscriminate application of science with little regard to clear-cut patterns of morality. The resulting moral tensions cause many to cry out for some clear word of guidance. The Christian Church can serve a useful function in this respect by establishing guidelines moored in the rich biblical tradition from which it speaks. The Church bears a message that transcends this merely functional role: of a seeking God who mercifully allows rebellious men to approach him through personal commitment to the Mediator, Jesus Christ. This message possesses a relevance beyond the alleviation of those tensions that are peculiar to society today. A society permeated with men who know the forgiveness of sin as a personal gift is the only realistic basis for the prevention of the exploitation of human labor (such as science) or the eradication of mankind (through the application of science to military objectives).”
Dr. John De Vries, professor of chemistry at Calvin College and consultant to the National Science Foundation, emphasizes the enduring relevance of God’s twofold revelation—in the world and in the Word. “We live in an age which is inclined to worship the discoveries of science to the extent that it ignores the true source of knowledge. The Bible teaches, and the Church has always recognized the fact, that God revealed himself to man in two ways. God revealed himself first in nature when he created the universe and its inhabitants; and then, after man fell, God gave us his Word to show us the way back to him. It is foolish to think that God revealed himself only in his Word; it is equally foolish to think that he revealed himself only in nature. Both revelations are legitimate sources of knowledge, and we should not hope to gain, much less to ask, from science the knowledge which it can never give, nor seek from the Bible the science which it does not intend to teach. The two revelations, given to us by the same author, do not oppose but complete each other. Together they form the whole revelation of God to man, even though we can see God in nature only after we have learned to know him from his Word.”
Dr. Miguel Angel Zandrino, professor of anthropology at Victor Mercante College, Cordoba, Argentina, comments on the fascinating vistas that research presents to the man of faith. “We Christians love science as an activity of the spirit in which man perfects himself and shows something of the glory of the image of God within him. The sinner who has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit partakes of ‘the mind of Jesus Christ,’ and is able to use the discoveries of science as an aid to a more complete understanding of the message of revelation. Faith needs the whole truth.”
A scientist plans his investigations and correlates his data on the basis of certain assumptions or presuppositions concerning both himself and the universe in which he lives. So observes Dr. J. Frank Cassel, professor of zoology at North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Science, noting further what he calls “St. Paul’s summary of the position of the Christian scientist”: “He [Christ] is both the first principle and the upholding principle of the whole scheme of Creation” (Col. 1:17, Phillips). As a Christian I am led by my faith in and commitment to Jesus Christ to presuppositions which include: (1) God is; (2) God is self-revealing; (3) God has revealed himself in (a) Jesus Christ, (b) the Bible, (c) the Universe—his creation. Therefore, I ask not if God created the universe but rather, ‘How did he do it?’ I ask not if God controls his universe but rather, ‘How does he maintain it?’ And I ask not if the Bible is God’s Word but rather, ‘What does he say?’ When properly correlated, such data as my investigations produce in whatever area serve to give me a better understanding and appreciation of God as well as of the universe.”?
