Science vs Christianity – No one has the only or definitive answer!

Science vs Christianity – no one has the only or definitive answer: It’s true, there are questions Christians on earth are unable to fully answer (but, for Christians, it is only God that knows all the answers)

Just before we dive in to this philosophical post of Science vs Christianity – no one has the only or definitive answer a quick note. If you have arrived here looking for specific responses to some of life’s difficult questions from a Christian perspective such as ‘How old is the Earth?’, please visit our page Tough Questions for Christians – Perspectives on the Difficult Questions For Christianity, Faith and Life. You’ll find links on many topics and links to other websites which also answer more questions.

We know that science can really help us to discover and understand important facts and information about our world that can help us to look after it more carefully and use it in a positive way. We also recognise that some areas of science discovery have, sometimes inadvertantly caused the opposite to happen. As God created humans, it is our responsibilty to use science for good always with faith, hope and love in mind as well as knowing our position in the physical universe in relation to God as he alone knows all the answers already.

Just give me the facts and the answers…

When you place emphasis only on historical and scientific facts only in drawing your own conclusion about Christianity, you remove the one unique thing about all religions – if they have a belief and faith in a god – or gods – of some sort, and in the case of Christianity specifically about the one Christian God.

Let’s be clear, most people would say that no one religion or science has found the answers to life the universe and everything, even if they claim that they do. In the same way that perhaps atheists and many others are convinced science, history and logic conclusively proves that many gods – perhaps all – don’t exist today and never have. For many, the Big Bang scientific theory regarding the origin of our universe widely accepted as truth, backed up by a mix of theories and observable truth is the most practical, probable and accurate account of how we came to be here on earth.

No time for infinity?

Well, maybe, it does part answer the question of the origin of life, the universe and everything. But it still leaves questions: What about before the so-called Big Bang – and after the end of the universe as we know it? What then? Just nothing, zero, pure darkness, no particles, no science, nothing? What is pure ‘nothingness’? Can pure nothing exist?

Perhaps an infinite timeline makes more sense – there has always been something, no beginning, no end (for Christians, God has always existed for eternity past, and eternity future). The universe we live in is unimagineably womderful and vast, but it exists, perhaps, for only a brief moment on the infinte timeline of past, present and future.

No time for religion or ‘myths’…

Many websites collectively try to debunk most religions and myths and anything that isn’t based on real, provable facts etc. There are many people happy to discuss and argue that much of religion in general, or a particular religion, is simply myth, untrue, a waste of time and only ends up in producing negative ‘results’ in and for this world (and sometimes this is actually correct, for very real reasons and as a result of the actions, in the most part, by selfish, power-hungry, greedy, proud, lustful, angry humankind).

There are also many books, websites and well-known respected people strongly advocating and making it central focus of their life’s work to debunk and rip-apart a religion or myth or legend. Some will actually be right in what they understand and discover, but others may one day conclude that they have been wasting their time, at least in part – or be totally wrong.

So, what is the purpose of this post?

The aim of this post is not to try to persuade you by reason and scientific proof alone that Christianity is genuine. Rather the only purpose is to suggest that it’s good to keep an open mind. If you can’t accept Christianity and perhaps even all religions and absolutely believe that they serve no other purpose than causing most of the worst problems in the world, this is not the article for you!

If you don’t believe at all in faith, hope and love, then please do feel free to navigate away from this page as you’ll be wasting your time reading on.

Have you really totally shut and locked the door – and even perhaps thrown away the key?

However, if you have any doubts at all in the religion vs science vs the universe debate where science wins, isn’t it worth keeping the door of different world perspectives open rather than shut? After all, science, maths, physics, philosophy are all vast areas of study, controversy, theory and experimentation, where often answers generate more questions than satisfyingly drawing a definitive conclusion.

In addition, the often unexplainable paranormal (bad spiritual things as far as Christians are concerned) may be real to you, or the possibility of aliens visiting us or real-world testimonies of people’s strange or wonderful experiences may interest you even if you are a staunch atheist, or believing without question that science answers all your questions or are just non-religious.

Image generated with AI

Science vs Christianity – no one has the only or definitive answer: Define the indefinable… solve the unsolvable…

Recognising there is a spiritual realm, Christians are open to the possibility of the miraculous, paranormal, wonderful, impossible, myth vs truth, unexplainable, infinite (even though we can’t really define it – in the realms of infinity, there is no starting or end point for one thing!)

Some of these things are good, some are very bad. Many can fall outside the natural ‘Venn diagrams’ (that is, the complex connections and overlaps between history, known truths, known scientific laws and humanity) of the understood world and it’s connection and relationship with science, space, and the unknown. However, it doesn’t automatically make them all false (especially if there is no tangible proof). In the end, we human Christians, as is true of everyone on the earth, simply don’t have all the definitive absolute, perfect answers to every single question in the world – but we can offer our perspective and understanding in the light of the Christian faith.

We can’t always trust what we see and understand

We all know we can’t always trust what we see (and AI, for example, is most likely going make knowing the truth even harder). Here’s a fun website based on visual illusions that also challenges the idea of everything having to make sense with a single, correct answer: https://www.illusionsindex.org/ This is fun, but there is a serious point to these things. Perspective can change, and the answer seemingly definite, becomes different.

Like viewing the number 9 from one angle, which becomes a 6 from another angle. There is the possibility of being wrong, depending on your viewpoint. Christians, for example, can get things wrong and mis-understand or mis-interpret what they think God is saying or doing. The consequences of this can be catastrophic, and being open to the possibility of being wrong and being humble and acting in love and grace (these two being capable of resulting in positive but ‘illogical’ actions that don’t always make sense).

A question of faith?

No-one should look at religion and treat it as the place where they will find all the answers to their problems. Faith challenges that notion immediately as it requires actions without previous or complete answers. Most genuine religions require the individual to exercise a level of faith in their lives (and in the case of Christianity, hope and love too).

The actions of all three of – faith, hope and love – are not quantifiable and can operate outside of the world’s ‘Venn diagrams’ (that is, the complex connections and overlaps between history, known truths, known scientific laws and humanity) of what might be viewed as ‘normal’ and understandable by science and nature alone.

There’s a bigger picture here… Science vs Christianity – no one has the only or definitive answer

Despite many people continuing to try to debunk Christianity as a myth, there are still currently 2.4 billion people out of the world’s population that have some sort of closer connection or belief based around just the Christian message, God and Jesus and of faith, hope and love as we read about in the New Testament. (Source of this fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country).

Of courses there are also many other religions in the world which make up many more percentages of the global population – some similar to Christianity (but not the same), and many nowhere near the same – don’t be fooled, and don’t be afraid to ask questions! It is interesting just how much of the world’s population is attracted to some sort of religious aspect to their life.

Out of all this, there are many place you can go to find out more both for and against the various different religions of the world. We live on a wonderfully unique and diverse planet. It is an almost imperceptible dot in the ocean of the vastness of our viewable universe – science fact tells us this.

Changing and making a difference?

Yet, while very few have been given the opportunity to ‘look after’ the global world, we each can choose to make a massive difference to the people around us – to positively influence their little world – whatever revolves around them. But now, we also have the ability to positively influence way beyond that like never before if we use technology responsibly in faith, hope and love.

So often, it is clear that technologial advance isn’t always being used for positive and good purposes. With great knowledge comes great power – and ultimately responsibility for which we are each individually responsible and accountable.

Coming back down to earth… Science vs Christianity – no one has the only or definitive answer

As we have already mentioned, Christianity (like all religions) doesn’t have all the answers to life, the universe and everything. If that were the case, perhaps we could all become god-like with all-knowing knowledge of past present and future – win the lottery every week, argue every point to a conclusive win, avoid any problems by pre-empting them and knowing what happened previously when a decision was made, plus inventing new things to make limitless money – wouldn’t that be great?

But, wait, so could anyone and everyone else do the same as they too could have all the answers to life, the universe and everything – and that would ultimately most likely cause chaos and anarchy and simply speed up the coming of the end of the world – our little universe.

In the same way that the film Bruce Almighty (2003) suggested what would happen if ‘god’ simply answered ‘YES’ to all our prayers all the time, chaos and anarchy would rapidly develop as people perhaps seek to get their own prayers answered first – to win the lottery, to be infintely knowledgeable, to be the most clever, to lead a country – or the world, build the ultimate time travel machine and so on…

Knowledge vs Faith, Hope and Love

Of course, we don’t know all things – for from it, and perhaps that’s not such a bad thing because it might be more than we can handle. Instead, perhaps each of us are on this little planet, with the ability to exercise (as Christians believe) our God-given faith, hope and love and ‘fruits of the spirit’ (Galatians 5:22-23) and have been blessed with the miraculous ability to choose to use these things for good and to help other find their way in life too, and we don’t need to know absolutely everything in order to make a difference around us.

Perhaps it is a good thing afterall to at least keep your foot propping open the door to different world perspectives and understanding. Even if at the moment you want pure facts and evidence before you can trust something, shutting out all other glimours of light to finding your way in this confusing and broken world could mean you miss something you don’t even yet know is there.

A few Bible references related to philosophy, space, time, infinity, miricles, positive unexplainable events and also negative demonic forces – Science vs Christianity – no one has the only or definitive answer

We would encourage you to read the full stories in the Bible around all of the verses listed below to understand better their context.

Some verses regarding understanding our position relative to God…

‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ – Genesis 1:1

‘It is I who made the earth and created mankind on it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts’ – Isaiah 45:12

A few of the miracles in the Bible…

‘By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.’ – Acts 3:16

‘My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight.’ – Daniel 6:22

‘That is why it was called Babel – because there theLordconfused the languageof the whole world.’ – Genesis 11:9

‘Then Moses stretched out his handover the sea,and all that night theLorddrove the sea back with a strong east windand turned it into dry land.The waters were divided,and the Israelites went through the seaon dry ground,with a wallof water on their right and on their left.’ – Exodus 14:21-22

‘Then he touched their eyes and said,“According to your faith let it be done to you”;and their sight was restored.’ – Matthew 9:29-30

‘There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”’ – Exodus 3:2-3

‘Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,walk.” Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping,and praising God.’ – Acts 3:6-8

Beyond science and the physical world in the form of positive unexplainable events and also negative demonic forces

‘The demons begged Jesus, “If you make us leave these men, please send us into that herd of pigs.” Jesus said to them, “Go!” So the demons left the men and went into the pigs. Then the whole herd rushed down the hill into the lake and were drowned.’ – Matthew 8:31-32

‘At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”’ – Mark 5:30

‘Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.’ – Mark 5:42

More…

‘Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”’ – Luke 18:27

‘But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”‘ – Matthew 19:26

We would encourage you to read the full stories in the Bible around all of the verses above to understand better their context.

Further reading and useful Christian links on Science vs Christianity – no one has the only or definitive answer

A perspective on the bigger picture of infinite time (coming soon)

Understanding Christianity and Science – The Faraday Institute

What does the Bible say about science and are they in conflict? Bible Study Tools

The World – Christianity and Science – The BBC

No conflict between Christianity and Science – Reasons to Believe

Science and Christian Faith: Conflict or Cooperation? – C.S. Lewes College (USA) – Inspired by the life and legacy of C.S. Lewis

Do faith in God and science contradict? – Got Questions

Find out what it means to be a Christian on our dedicated page

More information about Christianity at christianity.org.uk

To explore more questions and difficult topics, try our tough questions for Christians page

What are Venn diagrams and what are they used for in everyday life – find out on Wikipedia

For more information about this interesting subject, a search on the internet will bring up many articles both for and against whether Christianity and Science are compatible, hence the reason why we entitled this post ‘Science vs Christianity – no one has the only or definitive answer’. Christianity will always require the parts of faith, hope and love, aside from proof of facts and theories. It is, therefore impossible for us to proove God exists, or to verify all the facts relating to God simply by science alone – even if we were to gain actual evidence or experimental results of some sort one way or the other. In addition, perhaps it is not in our best interests to focus on that goal as mentioned earlier, it would most likely end in humankind ultimately self-destructing via it’s own free-will.