Science and religion are not in conflict, for their teachings occupy distinctly different domains…..

Pope John Paul II wrote in 1996

 

"Science and religion are not in conflict, for their teachings occupy distinctly different domains…..

 

The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise---"

 

Science attempts to discover how things are done while the Bible conveys what has been done. Science does not involve itself with "who" and the Bible does not involve itself with "how."

 

Christians believe that God controls history, but they do not object when historians talk about a natural cause-and-effect process. Christians believe God controls the weather, yet they do not denounce meteorologists who produce their weather maps day after day based on the predictability of natural cause-and-effect processes. Why can't evolution be thought of in similar terms?

 

The fact that embryology or meteorology do not identify God's role or that many embryologists and meteorologists do not believe God has a role makes no difference. Christians can accept the results of embryology and meteorology, regardless of the beliefs of the scientists, as processes that Christians believe describe in part God's way of working. Christians do not organize campaigns to force academic institutions that train meteorologists or embryologists to offer the theological alternative of God's role. Why do Christians' respond to evolution differently?

 

Could it be the stories of the creation and the flood are allegorical? The Bible says sin was brought in the world by Adam but also tells us Adam was the third to sin. A serpent with free will was the first, Eve was second and Adam third. Sin was not brought into the world by man but by another member of God's creation a, serpent.

 

If the flood was world wide who did Noah preach to for those 120 years? Who warned those folks who were thousands of miles away from where Noah lived?  If God's creation does not evolve how do we explain the various races and the millions of species?

 

The police would scoff at the notion that crimes can be solved only when they are witnessed directly. The simple fact is we can learn about the past by applying good old-fashioned detective work to the clues that have been left behind.

 

Wouldn't the same rules apply to science? We may not be able to witness the past directly, but we can reach out and analyze it for the simple reason that the past left something behind. That something is the material of the earth itself.

 

Christians need to leave "how" to science and concentrate on "what."