Aunt Matilda, as told by Oxford professor John Lennox, bakes a cake. A group of top scientists analyze it. Biochemists describe the proteins and fats. Chemists list the interaction of elements involved. Physicists talk about the fundamental particles. Mathematicians derive thermodynamic equations. Despite all they know, the scientists cannot answer one question: Why did Matilda bake the cake?
The belief that science has all the answers is called “scientism.” It pushes from the arena of thought any other source of truth. To maintain belief in scientism, one must suppress any consideration of God. One way to do that is to pose the mocking question, “Who made God?” But that begs the question by presupposing a created god, which is not the God of Christianity. Then there’s the “god of the gaps” accusation that you only need God because of what science has yet to learn. That implies God is less an explanation for what happens in the universe. Actually, the opposite is happening. Scientific discovery is offering more evidence of a Creator who designed the universe. And only He knows why.
Early scientists saw no conflict between faith and science. In fact, their faith motivated their scientific exploration. Johannes Kepler, (17th C. astronomer) said, “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order which has been imposed on it by God and which he revealed to us in the language of mathematics.” A contemporary of Kepler, Gottfried Leibniz, asked the question he knew science could never answer: Why is there something rather than nothing?
That brings us back to Aunt Matilda. Only she knows why the cake exists – her nephew’s birthday. Likewise, only the Creator can explain why the universe exists with you in it. And He does. “The heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (Psa. 19:1-2). Nature can be understood for a theological reason. God created you in His image with a rational mind so you can experience a rational universe and thereby know Him.
Professor Lennox’s ongoing project is to debunk the myth that you must choose between God and science. (See his book, “Can Science Explain Everything?”) In his characteristically affable way, he says “God no more conflicts with science as an explanation for the universe than Henry Ford conflicts with the laws of the internal combustion engine as an explanation for the motorcar.”
Science cannot explain why you exist, but God can. And does: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Join the heavens and tell the glory of God!