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‘Complementarian’ Explores How the Two, Rather Than Conflict, Very Often Inform Each Other
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Science and religion, so often seen to be in conflict, often inform and complement each other. So say scientists, theologians, professors, and others of the “complementarian” school. One of its primary proponents – Dr. Robert Fay, professor emeritus of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University – is coming to Roberts Wesleyan College to examine the relationship between these distinct but mutually supportive disciplines.
His presentation – titled “Science and Religion: Conflict or Complement?” – begins at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 16, in the Smith Science Center Auditorium, located on the Roberts campus. This event is free and open to the public.
Fay, co-author of a leading general chemistry textbook and a student of the history of science, starts with the premise that science and religion (or, more specifically, Christianity) are not intended to answer the same questions, but together answer all the important questions. “I agree with Galileo’s conviction that God has revealed Himself in two books, the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture, and that these two books cannot contradict each other,” he said in a recent interview in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith.
Science and Christian faith, Fay said, “answer largely different kinds of questions. Science is concerned with the properties and patterned behavior of material systems and with cosmic history.” In contrast, he continued, Christian faith is concerned with “questions such as the following: What is the ultimate cause of the existence of the universe? Who governs the material world, or is it self-governing? What is the meaning and purpose of human life? These are metaphysical questions – questions that are not answered by science.”
Yet the connections and interdependence between the two disciplines – commonly depicted as warring with each other – are numerous and varied, according to the complementarians. “Of course, the ease of making connections between our faith and our studies depends on the subject,” Fay said. “The connection to theorems in mathematics may appear remote, whereas the connection to the paintings of Michelangelo, for example, is quite obvious.
“Even in the case of mathematics, however, there may be a connection,” Fay added. “It’s interesting to ask why mathematics – an abstract activity of the human mind – should be related to the physical structure of the universe. The physics Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner has described this connection as ‘the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics,’ and has said that it was a gift we neither deserved nor understood. John Polkinghorne has suggested that Christian belief provides a satisfying explanation: ‘The reason of our minds and the rational order of the universe are integrated because both have a common origin in the Creator ...’”
Fay, a Phi Beta Kappa scholar whose research focuses on metal complexes at the molecular and nuclear levels, said it is “significant that most of the leaders of the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries were Christians and that their Christian-worldview presuppositions about the orderliness, uniformity, contingency, and intelligibility of nature were influential in the development of modern science.”
Christianity’s contributions to science, he said, include “values of honesty, integrity, generosity, and collegiality – honesty in the recording and interpreting of data, generosity in acknowledging the contributions of others, and kindness in the way we treat our students and colleagues. Modern science was nurtured in the Christian civilization of Western Europe, and the legacy of Christian values continues to influence the way we do science.”
Conversely, Fay said, science makes its contributions to the faith: “One of the gifts of science to Christianity is that it assists us in interpreting Scripture – perhaps more so in avoiding misinterpretations of Scripture,” he said. One clear example is biblical archeology: “Archeologists use scientific methods in investigating historical matters reported in the Bible.” In addition, both disciplines share the idea “that the universe had a beginning,” he said.
While these complements exist, we need to be careful not to take things too far, Fay says. Science cannot answer biblical questions, and the Bible does not answer scientific questions – certainly not to the extent some Christians believe. Fay expresses concern about Christians who unnecessarily stoke the science-vs.-religion fire by denying scientifically demonstrated facts about the cosmos.
“At the time of Galileo,” Fay said, “the dispute was whether the sun revolves around the earth, as believed by Aristotle and Ptolemy, or whether the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun, as believed by Copernicus and Galileo. In support of Aristotle, the Catholic Church cited Scriptures, such as Ps. 93:1: ‘The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.’ Galileo famously countered: In the Bible, the Holy Spirit intends to teach ‘how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go,’ i.e., the Bible is not a scientific textbook. Basically, I think that’s right.
“A contemporary example of unwise mingling,” he continued, “would be attempts to use the biblical genealogies to determine the age of the earth. A large body of scientific evidence has established that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. This is so well established that it should not be controversial. Yet a large number of Christians think that Scripture requires them to believe that the earth is no more than around10,000 years old. This view is an impediment to the advance of the gospel and is damaging to the faith of Christian students.”
For more information about Dr. Fay’s lecture, sponsored by the College’s Division of Natural Science and Mathematics, please contact Candie Pocock at pocock_candie@roberts.edu or at (585) 594-6310.
About Roberts Wesleyan College
With an enrollment of nearly 2,000 students and a tradition of excellence since 1866, Roberts Wesleyan College is a leader among liberal arts colleges with a Christian worldview. The College offers more than 50 undergraduate programs, as well as graduate programs in education, school psychology, school counseling, health administration, health information administration, nursing education, nursing leadership & administration, social work, music education, strategic marketing, and strategic leadership. Roberts Wesleyan also offers innovative undergraduate degree-completion programs for working adults in health administration, nursing, organizational management, and teacher education.
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