Sermon from October 24, 2004

Our Christian doctrine of creation teaches that the heavens and the earth serve as the setting in which God intends to be united in covenant love with man. Humans hold this exalted place, because God made us in His image. He implanted in man a measure of His mind, will, power and freedom. This makes it possible for us to know and love God, to govern this part of His creation, and to respond to Him in communal solidarity. Today, we take another look at how our participation in the mind of God works at street level.

We saw last week that God gave humanity a uniform moral sense that shows itself at all times and in all places. Even the old pagan world had an awareness of the same morality, which the chosen people, Israel, received by divine revelation. Theologians call this uniform moral sense Natural Law doctrine or the Law of Human Nature. Jesus captured the heart of this Law when He said, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12).

God also gave humanity a spiritual hunger. This hunger is not an illusion but evidence of God’s presence in our being. Christians go further and say that God is not only present in our being; He is in pursuit of our being. The hunger for God we feel is God’s image in us, causing us to hunger for Him until He and nothing else satisfies this permanent hunger of our hearts. Augustine said with elegance. “For thou hast created us for thyself, and our heart cannot be quieted till it may find repose in thee” (Confessions, 3).

God “has not left himself without testimony,” said the Apostle Paul in Acts 14:17. He has put into every human heart a moral testimony and a spiritual testimony. Our sense of fair play and our longing for the transcendent go down into the structure of humanity like electrons into the structure of matter. He has also put into us the testimony of reason. We have a capacity to understand the rational structure of creation. To the glory of our triune Creator let’s reflect on the rational powers He has given us.

The Unreasonable Power of Mathematics
Several years ago, Carole and I were on our way to a parents’ meeting at our daughter’s school one night. Shortly after we left home, we turned on to Black Gates Road and drove by the DuPont Country Club golf course. We had just passed the chipping green on the left, when Carole cried out, “Watch out!”

A deer had darted out of the dark on my left and crossed right in front of our car. I slammed on the brakes, the tires squealed, the car skidded, but somehow we did not hit the deer. The deer disappeared into the dark. I almost never pass that site without looking for an unexpected deer to run across my path.

I have a picture of what happened that night. In fact, I will put it up on the screen. Here it is: Vf2 = Vi2 + 2*a*d. This is an equation that measures among other things the displacement of a moving object. In other words if I can solve this equation it will tell me how far I traveled between the time I hit the brakes and the time I came to a complete stop. A good scientist could set up a controlled experiment, which would demonstrate the validity of the equation.

The equation is abstract. That means it won’t tell you anything about the fright Carole and I felt. It won’t capture the feel of the darkness or the smell of the night air as the deer disappeared onto the golf course. It is no help in reconstructing the what ifs that went through our minds later, as we thought about that near collision. The equation leaves out the human dimension of our experience, but it captures with great precision the movement of a physical object (our car) through time and space.

The same equation works in Johannesburg and Kuala Lumpur and on the moon and in distant galaxies. Thousands of equations measure the behavior of matter – everything from sub-atomic particles to planetary orbits to a skidding car on a dark road. They seem to work everywhere in the physical universe.

For example, Galileo proved mathematically that gravity is a force that acts equally on all bodies. So, in the 17th century he said that in theory a feather should fall as fast as a hammer in a vacuum. Scientists accepted his idea as a working hypothesis, but they couldn’t prove it experimentally, because we don’t live in a vacuum. Then, during the Apollo 15 mission to the moon in August, 1971, Astronauts David Scott and Jim Irwin proved it experimentally. Scott dropped a feather and a hammer together in the vacuum of the Moon. They hit the surface of the moon at the same time. I remember seeing it on television. Galileo, 350 earlier, had been right.

Science writer, Paul Davies, said, “To the outsider, mathematics is a strange, abstract world of horrendous technicality, full of weird symbols and complicated procedures . . . It is also, astonishingly, the language of nature itself” (Realism, 214).

Think about that for a minute. Carl Sagan complained that God didn’t put a mathematical formula in the Bible. But God didn’t put mathematical formulas anywhere. Mathematics comes only out of the human mind. Why should this purely mental activity capture with such precision the underlying order and structure of physical reality?

The Christian doctrine of creation offers an explanation. God made both. He created the underlying order and structure of physical reality. Then He created the human mind so that it could discover this underlying order and structure. That is the testimony of reason to the image of God in man. Oxford theologian and molecular biophysicist, Alister McGrath, said it well. “On the basis of the doctrine of creation, there is a ‘fundamental harmony between the “laws of the mind” and the “laws of nature”’ (Reality, 82).

Johannes Kepler, who discovered the three laws of planetary motion, said: “In that geometry is part of the divine mind from the origins of time, even from before the origins of time . . . (it) provided God with the patterns for the creation of the world, and has been transferred to humanity with the image of God” (quoted in Nature, 210). In other words, out of His mind God built geometrical structure into nature. Then, He gave humanity the capacity to discover that structure and express it mathematically.

Early in the history of modern science, scientists made another discovery. They could do brilliant science without reference to God. Faith seemed unnecessary to science. Some came to the conclusion, “Since we can do valid science without reference to God, maybe there is no God. After all, we can’t prove His existence by scientific methods.”

Think about that for a minute. Why does science work, when scientists deny the God who gave them the power to be scientists? Again, our doctrine of creation offers an explanation. God created the material universe to work by cause and effect and for practical purposes to work independently of Him. He gave this universe to just and unjust alike; and He gave to each the ability to understand it. Both matter and humanity have the freedom to act according to their proper natures. Such is His generosity.

The Application of Science to Human Need
So, science, as we know it, came into its own, when scientists, made in the image of God, began to use mathematics and experimentation to understand the physical creation. They were not content to understand creation. The more they understood how it worked, the more they wanted to harness its powers for human use.

Earlier this year, I saw an auto advertisement that was different. It said, “From 70 to 0 in x number of seconds.” That would catch the eye of drivers wishing to avoid deer and other dangerous objects. We can be sure that behind that clever advertisement were many equations like the one we looked at earlier. They helped engineers design the heat resistance of brake pads, the force needed to stop a car, the tread on the tires to grip the road, and the weight of the car to be stopped. This world of research, development and marketing is where many of you live every workday of your lives.

If you are in any way involved in mathematical and experimental research; or if you are in any way involved in the application of research findings to human life, I have a question for you. Do you try coherently to relate your faith to your work? I’d like to offer a framework in which you might do that.

We have said that God created us in His image, because He intended to be united in covenant love with humanity. That union with God doesn’t apply only to Sunday worship, but also to what we do everyday. Many of you are scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians. You are trustees of creation. Part of your trust is the understanding and use of the created forces of nature for human benefit and to the glory of God. Psalm eight expresses vividly the mandate for this trust.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet. This authorization to understand and use the created forces of nature has not been rescinded, nor is it optional. The careers of many of you are devoted to ruling creation through science. Your scientific labors to understand and use the forces of nature for human benefit are your way of serving the Lord of creation. You serve Him in that way, as surely as I serve Him in my way.

So, I have a second question for you. I pose it out of admiration for your abilities to turn creation to human benefit. In your scientific and engineering efforts to understand and harness the forces of creation, does your love of truth exceed your love of power? Let me ask it a different way. As was true of our equation, all the natural sciences leave out the human dimension of our experience. Can you remember the human dimension as you go about your scientific labors? It is an old question, but never as urgent as it is today. Consider the following checks and balances on the powerful endeavors of science.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
First, as they subdue creation to serve the needs and desires of mankind, the trustees of creation will remember that the complete “conquest of nature” is not meant for this world but for the next. Listen to the cautionary words of Hebrews 2:8. In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.

That applies to the formidable achievements of modern science as it did to the world of ancient Israel. We feel the incompleteness even more deeply, now that we know that science can not save us from our sins, but it can put into our hands more fearful weapons to sin with.

You, the trustees of creation, should go about your impressive scientific work with greater humility. Your work will always be incomplete, and it cannot save us from our sins and suffering.

Hebrews two points to the complete conquest of nature that is to come. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death . . . so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death (Hebrews 2:9, 14).

Second, as they subdue creation to serve the needs and desires of mankind, the trustees of creation will remember that every advance in the “conquest of nature” brings evil as well as good to humanity. Their discoveries bring relief from suffering and create wealth. They also raise disturbing questions about human wisdom and goodness.

For example, the Industrial Revolution that came from the discoveries of modern science relieved the backbreaking manual labor that man had known for centuries, and it began to create great wealth for ordinary people. It also led to urban ghettos and the oppression of the working class and the rise of Marxism and Communism and the despoliation of the environment. Its unending quest for cheap labor and cheap energy drives some of our current global problems.

The nuclear revolution that came from the discoveries of Quantum Physics has had life-saving applications in medical diagnosis and treatment and as a cleaner, alternative energy source. Hiroshima, Chernobyl and the threat of dirty bombs to our political and economic stability and even our existence tell the other side of the story.

However we may benefit from stem cells and cloning, it would be naïve and foolhardy to imagine that genetic technology will not have an equal, if not greater, downside, whose consequences will be with our posterity for a long time.

Third, as they subdue creation to serve the needs and desires of mankind, the trustees of creation will remember that the image of God includes a moral and spiritual dimension as well as a rational dimension, and they must not neglect the moral and spiritual. We sometimes refer to a bright person by saying, “He’s a brain;” “she’s a brainiac.” But we don’t just think. We also act and seek justice in our actions. We also hunger for God and must seek Him until we find repose in Him.

The Great Commandments express the calling of scientific man, created in the image of God. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Loving God with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself can be right at home in the laboratory.