I bet that recent sentiment has a lot to do with the whole Intelligent Design/Creatist groups out there trying to get their creation views taught in schools as science while they keep shouting about how evolution and it's partners are not scientific fact. I always cringe a little inside when one of these people take the stage. Realisticly they... well... they don't seem to know much other than their belief system seems to hinge on a literal translation of Genesis. I don't understand those people. Genesis is a story of creation as understood by people who lived far after the fact, it is not literal. Although I do believe that the general ideas seem to match up roughly with what we do know scientifically about the creation of the universe, the earth, and life.
So perhaps some of the confusion lies there people taking a literal view of Genesis. It seems though that in a larger context people seem unable to reconcile God and science, perhaps they are trying to fit God into science and he doesn't seem to fit. I look at it the other way around, fit science into God and things seem to fit nicely. Science can tell us the mechanics of the universe, but that is all, and I see no reason for that to shake a persons faith in God. I have heard of no theory yet that does not fit into a God view of the universe. Just because you figure out how a car works, what it's made of, when it was made, doesn't tell you who created it or why.
Here are some imporant scientists who were also Christians.
| Roger Bacon |  | He was an English philosopher who emphasized empiricism and has been presented as one of the earliest advocates of the modern scientific method. |
| Jean Buridan |  | He was a Catholic priest who sowed the seeds of religious scepticism in Europe. He developed the theory of impetus, that was the first step toward the modern concept of inertia. |
| Robert Grosseteste |  | A Catholic bishop. A.C. Crombie calls him "the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in mediaeval Oxford, and in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition". |
| Nicholas of Cusa |  | Catholic cardinal and theologian who made contributions to the field of mathematics by developing the concepts of the infinitesimal and of relative motion. His philosophical speculations also anticipated Copernicus’ heliocentric world-view. |
| Michael Stifel |  | Led to the development of Logarithms, hence the picture. He was also among Martin Luther's earlier followers and wrote on Biblical prophecies. |
| Robert Boyle |  | Scientist and theologian who argued that the study of science could improve glorification of God. |
| Antoine Arnauld |  | Jansenist theologian who wrote New Elements of Geometry and was compared to Euclid. |
| Isaac Newton |  | He wrote Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John(Nontrinitarianism) |
| Blaise Pascal |  | Convert to Jansenism known for Pascal's law(physics), Pascal's theorem(math), and Pascal's Wager(theology) |
| Charles Babbage |  | The Difference Engine and the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. |
-- Three of my favorites there; Newton, Pascal and Babbage.
| Teilhard de Chardin |  | A member of the Society of Jesus, a Paleontologist linked to the finding of Peking Man, and a philosopher linked to the Omega Point idea. |
| Asa Gray |  | His Gray's Manual remains a pivotal work in botany. His Darwiniana has sections titled "Natural selection not inconsistent with Natural theology", "Evolution and theology", and "Evolutionary teleology." The preface indicates his adherence to the Nicene Creed in concerning these religious issues. |
| Lord Kelvin |  | He gave a famous address to the Christian Evidence Society. In science he won the Copley Medal, the Royal Medal, and was important in Thermodynamics. |
| Charles Townes |  | In 1964 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics and in 1966 he wrote The Convergence of Science and Religion. |
1 comment:
yes, well, try being a Christian in the science world and a scientist in the Christian world. I assure you that both require a great deal of standing up for what I believe. Sometimes, it can be utterly exhausting.
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