Science ‘doesn’t contradict’ Bible, NASA astronaut says

by Chris Lange

Chris Lange, FISM News

 

Amid the incessant cacophony of calls to “follow the science” by academia, politicians, and the media, one NASA astronaut recently said the endeavor, if pursued in earnest, will ultimately lead to one conclusion: there is a divine Creator.

Retired NASA astronaut Jeff Williams declared that “science does not contradict Christianity” during a recent visit to a new exhibit at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. titled: “Scripture and Science: Our Universe, Ourselves, Our Place.” Williams had been invited to the exhibit to share his experience as an astronaut and practicing Christian.

“Science does not contradict Christianity. There is no contradiction,” Williams told The Christian Post on the sidelines of the exhibit.

The contradiction comes into your philosophy going into your science. And your philosophy acknowledges a God that has either revealed Himself specifically in the scriptures of the Bible or your philosophy discounts or doesn’t allow a God. Then, you have to explain the existence of everything by chance over time.

The former astronaut and retired U.S. Army colonel said that, between 2000 and 2016, he spent 534 days in space on four separate trips and has been deeply involved in scientific astronomical research for more than a quarter of a century. Williams said that the exhibit, described on the museum’s website as an exploration of “the Bible’s role in the historical relationship between science and religion,” reaffirms his understanding that Christianity and science go hand-in-hand.

“The exhibit reaffirmed all of the elements that I believe in, in terms of my faith and also applying the faith to the question of science and Scripture,” Williams said. 

While most “scientists” in academia and the mainstream media today insist that scientific discoveries over the centuries have disproven the biblical accounting of creation, Williams points out that science, as a discipline, is actually rooted in Christianity.

“Many of the scientists in the age of science — who we all read about in our textbooks about the laws of physics and chemistry — were believers first. They were theologians first,” he said. “People like Kepler and Newton and Faraday and Maxwell, and many others. They were driven by their faith and their understanding of their calling before God to fulfill that calling,” he said, adding that early scientists were motivated to obey the first Great Commission, found in Genesis 1:28, to “subdue God’s Creation.” 

Williams also described the awe and wonder he experienced in viewing God’s creation from the vantage point of the Earth’s orbit.

Scripture, he said, “supports and informs science with the elements of the mathematical order of God’s Creation, our calling as humans, bearing the image of God, and how God has equipped us to explore and extract that order and utilize it for the glory of God and the good of mankind.” 

Williams explained that the common argument that science and Scripture contradict one another motivated him early on in his career to “equip” himself with the knowledge and understanding to be able to respond to such arguments. As a result of his extensive research and unwavering faith in the veracity of Scripture, Williams said that, when he became an astronaut in 1996, he went in “with a mature faith and understanding of the doctrines of creation.”

Lawrence Principe, who sits on the advisory board that helped facilitate the new exhibit, said its purpose is “to bring together … Scripture, religious belief and scientific investigation, and to look at the interactions between the two over time.”

Principe said that he hopes that people who visit the exhibit will gain an appreciation for the fact that, despite the “complicated history” between faith and science, “many of the questions both are trying to address are similar about life, human beings’ place in the universe, the structure of the cosmos and so forth.”

There’s a widespread belief that science and Christianity always have to be in conflict, but what we’re trying to show here is that people of faith have been involved in science, texts out of the Bible have inspired people to do science, and science has, in turn, helped us gain, over time, a better understanding of what the Bible really says.

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