In the beginning: Science, faith and the resistance to change

In the so called Science-Faith conflict, more often than not, it is the resistance of the church to Galileo's theory that the earth revolves around the sun, that is cited. But it was not, and is not,  just the church that resists new ideas.  It is people, even, or perhaps especially, Scientists! I mean very smart people often have an additional obstacle to overcome when it comes to admitting they are wrong (ego). But perhaps I should speak for myself! Nevertheless, from the internet Einstein “fiercely resisted the view that the universe was expanding, despite his contemporaries' suggestions that this was the case.” In both science and faith, we all tend to interpret things though the lens of our pre-determined world views (or theology).  We will look at these things more closely later.  But here I want to talk about the resistance to paradigm shifts that occur in Science.

Thomas Kuhn in his book 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,'  documents how favourite and widely accepted scientific theories, strongly resist change by the Scientific community. One scientific revolution centred around whether the universe had a beginning (Genesis 1:1a). About a hundred years ago the steady state theory was widely accepted, including by Einstein (Google it). It hypothesized that the universe had always existed. This eliminated the obvious logic, based on  the Scientific law of cause and effect, that the existence a beginning, requires a Beginner!

Again from the internet: “When Hubble determined that the vast majority of stars and galaxies had a red shift, he created a major shift in the world view that dominated science. The universe before Hubble was thought to have eternally existed. After Hubble the presently observed universe could no longer be consider to be eternal.”

The red shift in light is similar to the Doppler shift in sound. The Doppler shift is the change of pitch that's heard when an ambulance,  sounding a siren, approaches and then passes an observer. The actual pitch of the siren does not change, but the pitch that is heard is higher during the approach, and lower as the vehicle moves away. The red shift in light is conceptually similar. It can be understood as the observed wavelength of the light being stretched, or 'shifted' towards the red part of the spectrum as a source moves away from the observer.

Please do not think I am anti-science. I am not. Many of the discoveries of Science are awesome. Science ultimately seeks for truth, and I believe, as with the steady state theory, that Science will eventually correct its errors. It might just take a very long time, and  especially, from my point of view,  when it postulates theories that contradict clear and unambiguous Biblical statements! Defending this point of view is called apologetics, and there is much to say. But there is also much to say about “clear and unambiguous Biblical statements.” I am talking about hermeneutics, the theory and practice of interpretation.  And I want to say clearly, that we have arrived neither in Science, nor in our understanding of how to interpret the Bible!

Prayer. Father help us not to be afraid of different ideas. You tell us to hold firmly to the foundations (Hebrews 10:33). But please help us to be open to refinements to our thinking, and to be willing to admit it when we are wrong, or when we don't know. And there are more things we don't know, than things we do. Grant us boldness,  but humility Lord in Jesus Name Amen