God of empty spaces

People should be aware of what they do and what they believe in. As a scientist (applied scientists are scientists too!), my profession requires me approach life with a critical eye (perhaps not critical enough)...I read a book by a Christian physician/biologist who talked about evolution and how many scientific concepts that we know today were once simply explained as "God". Or "because the Bible said so". I have here a very good example...

Example: Defeat of the geocentric model
People, at one point, sincerely believed that the Earth stood at the center of the universe. The "heavens" of the Bible was understood as physical sky and space and thus must be perfect. Perfection meant perfectly circular orbits. Earth has to be the center because God paid special attention to us. When the telescope became available to astronomers, they realized that their data doesn't quite fit...so instead of addressing their assumptions (ie Earth is at the centre, and all orbits are perfectly circular), they introduced "epicycles" (circles in circles) to explain orbital movement. Way to throw Occam's razor out the window...

...each planet had been provided with from 40 to 60 epicycles to represent after a fashion its complex movement among the stars. Amazed at the difficulty of the project, Alfonso is credited with the remark that had he been present at the Creation he might have given excellent advice.

- Wikipedia, from Encyclopaedia Britannica
supposedly of Alfonso, an European king
who commissioned the mapping of orbital bodies

Several big names in physics history colour our understanding of the world in this subject...

• Nicolaus Copernicus (heliocentric model)
  
• Tycho Brahe (empirical observations of astronomical movement)
  
• Johannes Kepler (laws of planetary motion)
  
• Galileo Galilei (Attempted to prove heliocentric model, with the publishing of 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems', 1632, which was the climax of the 'Galileo Affair').

Most of you would know that Galileo's works was not well accepted, and that he was under house arrest until his death. The Catholic church did not accept heliocentric theory until the 1700s.

The purpose of the Bible
It is stories like this that propels the belief that science and faith cannot coincide. However, I could also point to the inherent system of science as a point of issue. When photon was discovered to be quantized (thus disproving Newton's classical mechanics), scientists were skeptic.

My deeply held belief is that if a God, anything like the traditional sorts, exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a God. We would be unappreciative of those gifts...if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves.

- Carl Sagan
Agnostic, astronomer

I appreciate this quote. It's like the Parable of the Talents. I was handed curiosity to learn (though, I admit, I can only read so much on EMG...when will this KIN course end?!). Events like the Galileo Affair arises from a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Word.

It is important to remember that the Bible is not scientific textbook. It doesn't tell us how rainbows happen (light refraction in rain droplets). Why the Jews shouldn't eat pork (sanitation). How wind can blow the Red Sea apart but not the people that's walking through it (How could the wind stop the upstream water...and the downstream water doesn't drain away and form "wall of water on their right and on their left"?! Exodus 14, if you're interested).

Instead, the Bible is designed to reveal the character of God. It is to teach us morality. It gives us stories of the people before us. I'm pretty sure that most of us will not be building a stone wall around a city (Nehamiah). Or work 14 years to get a wife (Jacob). Or lead a 300-men charge (Gideon). These stories do not directly apply to us and must be read in context (actually, off the top of my head, Nehamiah's life is probably most similar to us in modern life).

It is important to be reminded that if God wants something done, it'll get done. There is no moral difference between a career profession as an engineer or as an physician (my advice to those people: what do you like more? Commitment counts a bit more here. Not saying callings doesn't exist, but that's another topic). The Bible talks about morality. Right and wrong. It was not designed to be a science text.

God of empty spaces
It's easy for us to attribute things we don't understand to God. Indeed, God is sovereign. Ultimately, all things happen because He allows it so. But whether or not I believe in the Big Bang or evolution does not change my belief that God stands behind it. Whether or not I believe that First and Second Timothy is actually written by Paul does not change my belief in the inerrancy of the written Word.

But what happens when our understanding of science furthers a bit? For instance, if I fell ill and was hospitalized. People came over and prayed and the illness left. I would probably be quick to say that it was God. But lets say they discovered that I was exposed to the illness before but the antibody is just slow acting. Would I say "It was the antibodies"? Or would I still say "It was God"? If I changed my mind and say it was only the antibodies (ie I would've recovered regardless of God's intervention), what have I just done? God no longer has a hand, and I've just lost a bit of reputation as a Christian, because I was so sure it was God...but now I'm not so sure...

There is nothing wrong with asking questions. If I was a Young-Earth Creationist and it turned out that Big Bang was actually the correct answer...the problem was with my understanding of the world, and has nothing to do with God. Thinking about these things are not trival. One must know what he or she believes in, before they can talk to anyone else about it, including themselves.