This is a interesting article on science vs God. There is generally a concept prevailing among the atheists or I should say many atheists start to debate Christians with a premise that faith is baseless and science is based upon proven facts in a lab. To the atheistic philosophers God and religion is a idea and science is the fact. Somewhere along the road of history people have learnt to draw a line between science and God.
John Lennox beautifully explains why they are wrong. I tried to shortly organize this article.
It all began when Isaac newton who discovered the laws of gravity, discovered how math gave a description of how things work in a perfect order. This then led to the idea that universe was basically a mechanical artifact. Later people started to think that - it is running well on its own. With this as the foundation the idea of God started to lose power.
By the late 18th century - the idea of deism became popular. It is the idea that God exists but he does not involve himself in human affairs. This idea was followed by the era of enlightenment where thinkers replaced God with human reason.
In the 90s came Huxley who proposed a scientific church where God of wisdom is worshipped.
Lennox says the big shift during the time of Huxley and Darwin in the west from God to science was due to the moral compromise of the church which made Christianity to decline.
Then the idea that God was okay for a while but no longer necessary now came as Stephen Hawking wrote his book “the Grand Design”.
Lennox emphasizes that the idea that the increase in Science leads to the decrease in God is inadequate. He continues to say that this idea will give birth to the though that God is “God if the gaps” (I cannot explain - therefore God did it).
According to Lennox explaining the explanations is very important.
He points the statement of Richard Dawkins, an atheistic author who says God and Science competes each other as explanations and one is allowed to choose either or the other - THIS IS A FALSE CHOICE he says.
He says the philosophers who think in such a way make a huge mistake at the starting point. They have the wrong concept of God - When one says God, they (Authors like stephen hawking) would think an ancient Greek God like Zeus and connect it with the God of the bible and assume he is God of the gaps. (I cannot explain lightning so I invent a God. Later when science comes up explaining lightening, then that God disappears).He emphasizes God of the bible is not God of gaps. When bible says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” - It includes the information which we do and as well as do not understand.
I found this article very interesting. You may read and comment if you have some insights or anything you want to contribute.