TWO American academics have recently publicized their survey of the religious views of 600 prominent scientists. The most significant finding is that almost 40 per cent believe there is a God. What has provoked most comment in the press is that this is remarkably close to what was found in a similar survey carried out in 1916 when a leading researcher discovered that only slightly more than 40 per cent of American scientists believed in the existence of God.
This suggests that the great change in religious attitudes had already taken place before the First World War. The big swing away from accepting the authority of God took place in the years immediately after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859. If man evolved from more primitive species and if, as the theories declared with greater and greater confidence, the whole universe came into its present state by gradual changes over an almost indefinitely long period stretching out over billions of years, then, people irresponsibly assumed, there was no need to believe in God. The thought that there is no God was very welcome for many – they could feel much more comfortable in their unbelief and in their disobedience to God’s laws.
However a Cambridge astronomer, Professor Antony Hewish, has commented that “now with modern quantum theory and relativity one sees that science is deeper and rather more mysterious than one imagined” in 1916. More recent discoveries have shown that science is much more complex and less easily understood by the human mind, and it is much less likely that mankind will ever get to the bottom of things. “Accepting that this is true for science,” Professor Hewish went on, “probably makes people ready to accept other mysteries.” And so it should. If nature is turning out to be as complex as it actually is – and in all probability it is far more complex than we yet know – how much more unlikely that evolution can explain anything about the origins of the universe, and of the human race in particular!
The fact is, of course, that we are not dependent on scientific probabilities for our knowledge of how everything began. We have a revelation from God Himself in the Scriptures, a revelation which is totally reliable. So we should beware of the philosophy expounded by Professor Lewis Wolpert of University College, London: “It is perfectly reasonable to be both deeply religious, as Newton was, and a brilliant scientist, so long as you don’t let one influence the other” (italics mine). It is significant that one of the authors of the report on scientists’ religious beliefs can point out that most of those surveyed regarded the issues of faith as a private matter. But our knowledge of God and of His revelation and will should be fundamental to our thinking and actions in the whole of our lives. It is not possible to separate the seen and the temporal from what is unseen and eternal. Man was not so created. We were created to glorify God in all we do, say and think. And that includes scientific thinking as well as every other area of thought.
In the end there can be no conflict between Scripture and the facts about the universe and about everything in it. Scientists’ understanding of origins may be in conflict with the testimony of Scripture, but only because of the way they understand the evidence and the presuppositions on which their theories are based. But both the Bible and the universe have come from the hand of God, so one must be perfectly consistent with the other.
Most brazen of all is the argument that “it is not possible to believe in gods and be a true scientist.” People may say what they like about false gods, but to try to define God out of His creation in this way is one of the most blatant forms of unbelief that has ever been dreamed up. Dr Denis Alexander, a biologist, has commented on this from a better perspective: “Christian believers have a strong motivation for wanting to tell the truth about God’s world.” Indeed it is very questionable if the modern scientific movement would ever have sprung up were it not for the impetus given by the belief that, because it is God’s world, it can be subjected to rational investigation.
Possibly by 1916 the watchword God has spoken had been replaced by Science has spoken. More recently there has been a reaction against science. Manifestly science does not have all the answers to the questions of life, and there has been a retreat into the irrational, including systems of New Age thought. To anyone with ordinary common sense, the irrational can provide no satisfying answers to the pressing questions of life: those more vital questions than, What shall we eat? and, What shall we drink? and, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? Only when scientists and non-scientists return to the watchword God has spoken, can we get satisfying and reliable answers to our questions about the meaning of life and the significance of death and of what is beyond it. And in that precious Book in which God has spoken we will find directions to guide us safely through life, through death and beyond, throughout eternity.
We ought not to be satisfied with an outward acceptance that God exists. We are duty-bound to value every word that God has spoken. If we do so, we will cast ourselves unreservedly as lost sinners on His mercy made known in Jesus Christ. Whatever else we may know or not know, one thing above everything else is necessary: to know Him for ourselves.
K. D. M.
Mass suicide by cult members
THE mass suicide by 39 people of the Heaven’s Gate cult in California shows yet again the propensity of some people to be deluded by bizarre and devilish beliefs. They were evidently people of high intelligence, yet they swallowed the claim of their leader Marshall Applewhite, known to them as John Do, that he was from a higher level of existence, that he had been brought down to earth in a spaceship, and that he was their extraterrestrial shepherd who would lead them to a higher life. They believed that by dying they would link up with a UFO behind the Hale-Bopp comet and begin their new elevated existence.
This awful event is another manifestation of the increasing interest in the paranormal which is the result of the widespread departure from Biblical Christianity. It is believed by cult experts that there are as many as 3500 groups in the United States which promote beliefs in unidentified flying objects (UFOs), astrology, eastern transcendentalism, white supremacy, the power of crystals and the intelligence of plant life.
This alarming trend is a result, in part, of the teaching of the Christian church being, to a large extent, “an uncertain sound” or worse. Many people look to it in vain for light about the momentous spiritual issues facing them. It is all the more urgent therefore that the true church of Christ redouble its efforts to disseminate the truth, looking to the God of truth to bless His word to the multitudes who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. □
Women wearing men’s clothing – the teaching of Scripture
AT a recent meeting in the local High School, I was asked the following question and thought that the answer might be of interest to a wider audience. The question was, “Why do we hold that the law in Deuteronomy 22: 5, ‘The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all that do so are an abomination to the Lord thy God,’ is held to be still of force; while the law in verse 11 of the same chapter, ‘Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together,’ is held to have been of only temporary authority.
These laws are not part of either the moral law, or of the Old Testament ceremonial law, but of the body of Old Testament civil laws which were given by God for ruling the nation and the ordering of society. There are two principles upon which such laws are held to be valid in New Testament times.
First, such a law is held to be valid where it is tied to a fact which is of continuing relevance to us. Thus the law in Genesis 9:6 which requires capital punishment is based on the fact that man is made in the image of God. Since man continues to bear the image of God today, as he did in Noah’s day, the law is equally valid for us, and is still binding upon us. Secondly, such a law is held to be valid where the law is specifically quoted in the New Testament.
Applying the first principle to the law in Deuteronomy 22:5, “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment,” it is obvious that the distinction between men and women, which this law is intended to preserve, is still with us, and that therefore the law has continuing authority.
The law relating to the mixing of wool and linen in one garment is not based on any such continuing fact. The reasons for this law were practical and symbolic and related to Old Testament times.
So it is clear that although the law prohibiting women from wearing men’s clothing (and vice versa) is not quoted in the New Testament, it is still binding because God requires that a manifest distinction be maintained between men and women. It is significant and solemn that this law is one of those which specifically states that disobedience to it is an abomination to the Lord. J.R.T.