Can Science Be an Invitation to Worship?
In some ways, the microscope and the telescope have played an indispensable role in shaping the scientific reductionism of our age. By magnifying what had previously seemed impossibly distant, these two devices greatly exaggerated our sense of mastery over the universe we inhabit. Certainly, this line of thought tends to bring into sharp focus a serious source of distrust toward the hard sciences on the a part of many believers—namely, the notion that they’ve displaced religion and made God an “unnecessary hypothesis.” From Bertrand Russell and Carl Sagan to Stephen Hawking and Neil Tyson Degrassi, loads of celebrated public intellectuals have added their support for this claim. Hawking himself was confident that the scientific enterprise would someday yield the coveted “theory of every thing.” In this sense, the temptation just isn’t simply to rule God out as an unnecessary hypothesis. No, the good temptation is to attempt to occupy his throne—to usurp the creator.
Certainly, these are grave temptations, and little question modern science has a definite tendency to help and abet them. Still, this seems a slightly odd approach to greet the vast expansion of our horizons that the trendy scientific enterprise has occasioned. What if we saw microscopes and telescopes not merely as goads to idolatry but as a substitute as force multipliers for wonder? What if we viewed them not as scientific instruments alone, but additionally as instruments of worship? The psalmist proclaims, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and their expanse declares the work of his hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to nighttime reveals knowledge (1-2). Our technological advances have revolutionized our ability to see this divine “speech.” One recent example can be the astonishing images from the Webb telescope.[1] From the oceanic vastness of space to the minute intricacies on display within the microscopic realm, the glory of our Lord’s good world has never been more vivid.
Discovering Beauty on a Grand Scale
C.S. Lewis bristled on the thought of individuals calling his three sci-fi novels (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength) the “space trilogy.” (If that’s you, now you realize higher.) The reason for that is that the word space connotes emptiness and vacuity. There are two broad responses to the colossal scale of our universe: wonder and terror. Considering the vastness of space, a author like H.P. Lovecraft produced a vision of “cosmic horror,” construing humanity as a feeble race marooned in a universe that was equal parts indifferent and hostile. In newer years, the tagline for Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien captures this vision well: “In space nobody can hear you scream.” The universe could also be seething with malign entities and hostile types of alien life, but in the long run we’re alone, our planet an infinitesimal speck in an unfathomably vast cosmos.
A direct challenge to this interpretation arrives in Out of the Silent Planet:
A nightmare, long engendered by the mythology that follows within the wake of science, was falling off him. He had read of “Space”: behind his pondering for years had lurked the dismal fancy of the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness, which was imagined to separate the worlds. He had not known how much it affected him till now—now that the very name “Space” seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance by which they swam.[2]
For Lewis, the vastness and breathtaking intricacy of the universe inspires wonder and reverence. The immensity of our cosmos constitutes an affront provided that we overestimate ourselves. That is, if we attempt to play God, the vast cosmic landscape makes a mockery of our feeble efforts. In this sense, something as grandly ambitious because the “golden record” on Voyager 1 and a pair of that’s meant to operate as an emblem of human achievement for the advantage of possible alien beings only brings to mind the celebrated final lines of Percy Byssche Shelley’s Ozymandias: “Nothing beside stays. Round the decay/Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare/The lone and level sands stretch distant.”[3] Here, we would say, “The lone stars stretch distant.” But if Christ is indeed on His throne, the boundless majesty of our universe inspires not fear and alienation but wonder and worship.
Finding Beauty in a Grain of Sand
Time to herald one other Romantic poet. William Blake opens Auguries of Innocence with an exhortation to “see a World in a Grain of Sand.”[4] This evocative phrase serves as a fitting metaphor for the abounding richness and complexity of the microscopic realm. Thanks to the increasing sophistication of our microscopic technology, we are actually ready to not only affirm Blake’s insight, but to really see the “world” in a grain of sand. For that matter, we’re capable of glimpse many “worlds,” each containing minute expanses invisible to most individuals down the ages. Our Lord has seen fit to disclose these marvels for such a time as this.
When the sciences are understood as tools for exploring the intricacies of the natural world, whether on the macro or the micro scale, it becomes clear that they needn’t threaten Christian faith. Far from it, by illuminating the microscopic and macroscopic realms, they may also help us to proclaim the exuberance of God’s created order. Seen on this light, the distrust Christians sometimes feel toward the sciences is correctly directed at scientism—not science. Whereas the scientific enterprise is a strong tool for exploring and understanding the world around us, scientism is a worldview that’s dogmatically committed to the notion that science explains every thing. Ironically, the statement “science explains every thing” just isn’t itself scientific. Indeed, how would one confirm it scientifically? The more sensible view is that science acts as a force multiplier for our sense of wonder at God’s good world.
[1] Available online: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/
[2] C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (New York: Scribner, 2003), 34.
[3] Available online: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias. You can read in regards to the contents and the vision behind the “Golden Record” here: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/
[4] Available online: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence
Photo Credit: Image created using DALL.E 2024 AI technology and subsequently edited and reviewed by our editorial team.
Kenneth Boa equips people to like well (being), learn well (knowing), and live well (doing). He is a author, teacher, speaker, and mentor and is the President of Reflections Ministries, The Museum of Created Beauty, and Trinity House Publishers.
Publications by Dr. Boa include Conformed to His Image, Handbook to Prayer, Handbook to Leadership, Faith Has Its Reasons, Rewriting Your Broken Story, Life within the Presence of God, Leverage, and Recalibrate Your Life.
Dr. Boa holds a B.S. from Case Institute of Technology, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from New York University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in England.
