ravi zacharias international ministries jus …francis schaeffer. on one particular evening in a...

THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

VOLUME 27.1

JUSTTHINKING

Can You Be aScientist andBelieve in God?

Just Thinking is a teaching resource of

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and

exists to engender thoughtful engagement with

apologetics, Scripture, and the whole of life.

Danielle DuRant

Editor

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

3755 Mansell Road

Alpharetta, Georgia 30022

770.449.6766

WWW.RZIM.ORG

HELPING THE THINKER BELIEVE.

HELP ING THE BEL IEVER TH INK .

TABLE of CONTENTSVOLUME 27.1

08A VITAL SKILLJill Carattini explores howlistening to a book canamplify ideas we may havemissed in reading andinvite us to pay attention.

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04CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?An intense conversationwith a friend promptsNathan Betts to considerhow we might better practice the art of listening to others.

03A NOTE FROM THE EDITORPaying Notice

18INVITING QUESTIONSMargaret Manning Shullreflects on the importanceof asking questions and thedistractions that keep usfrom truly hearing theanswers we receive.

10CAN YOU BE A SCIENTIST AND BELIEVE IN GOD?

22THINK AGAINAn IndispensablePrerequisite“Sometimes words and ideascan get lost in translation,even with those closest toyou,” writes Ravi Zacharias.

John Lennox responds to common misunderstandings about science and Christianity in an excerpt from his newbook, Can Science ExplainEverything?

A MAGNIFICENT TAPESTRY“The Grand Weaver Society provides an opportunity for our friends tostand with RZIM for generations to come. Members and their legacies are woven together to create a magnificent tapestry supporting the RZIM mission of sharing the hope and the beauty of the gospel.”—Ravi Zacharias

For more information on the Grand Weaver Society or to discuss planned giving, please visit rzim.org/legacy-giving or call 678.248.7400.

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JUST THINKING • VOLUME 27.1 [3]

Danielle DuRantEditor

PAYING NOTICEAS THE ARTICLES in this issue of Just Thinking suggest, real listening is a rare gift. How often we form opinions and rejoin-ders without paying notice to another human being. We speakof “being mindful,” but the focus is on ourselves, on our ownwords and intentions.

One of the most amazing gifts of the gospel is that Godstooped down to regard us and invite us to know his love. Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.Nearly two thousand years ago, a young girl named Mary wasfirst transformed by this holy visitation when the angel Gabrielannounced that the Lord was with her and she had “found favorwith God” (Luke 1:30). Mary is amazed—God has chosen her, a mere peasant girl, to bear his royal son, the promised Princeof Peace. Her amazement bursts forth in song:

My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name. (Luke 1:46-49)

Mary is astounded that God has taken notice of her. Theintimate word she uses to express this (“he has been mindful”)occurs only two other times in the New Testament. It means,“To turn the eyes upon,” “to gaze at,” and “to pay special attention.”A few chapters later in Luke’s gospel, a desperate father cries outthis same word, asking Jesus to look upon his demon-possessedson (see Luke 9:38). Jesus does, touching and healing him.

In Martin Luther’s commentary on the Magnificat (Mary’ssong), he writes,

Mary confesses that the foremost work God did for her was that He regarded her, which is indeed the greatest ofHis works, on which all the rest depend and from which they all derive. For where it comes to pass that God turnsHis face toward one to regard him, there is nothing butgrace and salvation, and all gifts and works must follow.

The wonder of Christmas is not only that God turns hisface to look upon a young peasant girl but also upon you andme. Surely, too, this is the greatest gift we can give each other.

[4] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

I REMEMBER having a discussion aroundfaith matters years ago with an intelligentperson. I met him at an event I was attend-ing with a few friends. On one particularevening, we all decided to have dinnertogether. Just from the incidental conver-sations we had before this meal, I knewthat he and I did not see eye to eye onmany issues.

After the meal finished, the threeothers got up to use the restroom while

he and I sat talking across the table. Weentered into a contentious theologicalissue, and it soon felt as though someonehad turned up the temperature in theroom. His face became red, and I am suremine was too.

Eventually he looked at me and said,“Oh I understand now. You are a founda-tionalist!” If I weren’t so caught up in theemotion of the conversation at the time, I would have asked him what a founda-tionalist is.

He quickly moved on to his nextaccusation, clothed in the form of a ques-tion: “Tell me, where did you study?”When I mentioned the two universities atwhich I had done post-graduate education,he dropped his case against me. In hind-sight, I am convinced that he was lookingto categorize me, but he couldn’t do itbecause the universities I mentioned simply would not fit the anticipated boxesto be ticked.

As I think back to that intense conversation, I wonder how I could havenavigated that situation better and howthe Christian faith might inform my frameof mind.

Many of us have been in conversationslike this in which we stop listening to theperson with whom we are speaking. LyellAsher, English professor at Lewis andClark College, proposes a meaningful anti-dote to this challenge in his AmericanScholar article. He makes the point thatinstead of listening forwhat others mightsay, we need to recover the art of listeningto others. If you have ever been on thereceiving end of the listening for conversa-tion, you know what this feels like.

When we simply listen for whatanother person is saying, we reduce thatperson down to a stereotype that we alreadyhave in our mind. This kind of listening isnot really listening. It is merely argumentformulation masquerading as listening.

When we listen to others, it is as if theposture and disposition of the conversation

CAN YOUHEAR MENOW?By Nathan Betts

Previously published online at Christianity Today (September 17, 2018). Used by permission.

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Recovering the Art of Critical Thinking


becomes open-handed. Listening to anoth-er person implicitly says, “I want to learnfrom you even if I don’t agree with you.” As Christians who are called to love ourneighbors as ourselves, this strikes me asexactly the sort of thing we are called to do.

Recovering the Art of Critical ThinkingAfter watching a certain protest in thenews recently, I could not help but thinkthat this listening dynamic or lack thereofis contributing profoundly to the great disconnect and anger in many of the cul-tural conversations today. Just think of the many protests we hear of on a weekly,if not daily, basis.

Regardless of who is right and who iswrong in each particular case, much of thedisillusionment and confusion stems fromour inability to understand each other. Inpolitics, higher education, and increasinglyin sport, the “us versus them” mentalityhaunts us. Issues that might have oncebeen talked about are simply no-go areas inclassrooms, locker rooms, and restaurants.The issues are complex, no doubt, but Iwonder if one step in the right directionthrough this volatile terrain might berecovering the art of critical thinking?

In the foreword for Neil Postman’sbook Amusing Ourselves to Death, thereare two portraits of the future painted forthe reader. One comes from GeorgeOrwell’s 1984 and the other is AldousHuxley’s Brave New World. The authoroutlines Orwell’s and Huxley’s views of thefuture and how they both shared concernswith how the truth would be handled.

As he looked into the future, Orwellfeared that truth would be concealed fromus. Huxley’s concern was that the truthwould be “drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”Postman’s book, penned in 1985, sides withHuxley’s view of the future, and as I readit, I could not help but feel that we havearrived in the moment foretold by Huxley.

Day after day in our 24/7, always-onnews cycle, we are bombarded withimages, stories, and statements that showthe outworking of what Huxley feared.Truth, it seems, is drowning in a sea ofirrelevance. Huxley believed truth wouldbe lost in a sea of irrelevance through thedeluge of information we would be inun-dated with. The important would getburied in a sea of irrelevant news.

Indeed, this is a real challenge for ustoday. But I wonder if the problem lies morein our disposition to simply not listen andlearn from others. Yes, truth is being lostin a sea of irrelevance, like Huxley predict-ed, but the bombardment of information is not the only culprit for this trend. Ithink a greater problem is that we do notreally want to think and listen to others.

Social critic Os Guinness tells thestory of a person who studied underFrancis Schaeffer. On one particularevening in a French bar room, the studentwas having a drink with a skeptic. Theskeptic asked this Schaeffer protégé manyquestions about faith. To every questioncame a response that was nearly word forword from Francis Schaeffer. Finally therecame a point in the conversation in whichthe skeptic, who had actually read much ofSchaeffer’s writing, looked at the Christianand said, “Excuse me, but do you writewith a Schaeffer pen too?”

The skeptic’s point was that while he was asking genuine questions he wasreceiving stock answers being trotted outmechanically. Each question was greeted bya ready-made response. They might havebeen good answers in another context, butthey did not seem to grapple with thequestions being asked by that particularquestioner. True and genuine thinking wasnot taking place.

I confess I am guilty of the same categorization that my friend placed uponme in that heated exchange I wrote aboutearlier. I have been in conversations withothers and have tried to figure out whereto place the other person. The problem

Christianity Speaks to the Challenge

Listening Is Hard Work


with this approach (aside from being disre-spectful and ignoring a person’s dignity) is that listening for fails to acknowledgethe real complexity of what makes up aperson’s opinion and line of argument.

More importantly, simply listeningfor what a person is going to say models anextremely reductionistic view of the humanperson. It is as if we are saying that ourconversational partner can be reduced to a mere set of lists, categories, and soundbites. But are we as human beings notmore complex and more sophisticatedthan that? Is it not the art and discipline oflistening—truly listening—that gives ourconversations dignity, worth, and civility?

Listening Is Hard WorkPerhaps one of the reasons many of us findit difficult to listen in conversations isbecause genuine listening takes morework and critical thought. Worryingly, Iam convinced that we have become skilledin learning what to think, but not as strongin learning how to think. We are good atclinging to content and conversations thatsubstantiate what we believe and whatworks within our view of the world. But assoon as we encounter a contradictoryopinion to ours, no matter how intelligentit is, we have difficulty engaging it. Thetendency is to move away or to tune it out.

Instead of listening to the other per-son who is sharing an opposing thought toours, our default setting is to place theminto a category that we can comprehend—a category that will keep our own viewsand convictions intact.

When we find it hard to understandopposing views and we enter into a modeof thought that seeks to place the opposingopinion in a category, are we not implyingthat we do not desire the truth? Yes, ourviews and convictions might survive theconversation, but the end result is that the truth, at least our desire for it, hasdrowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Recently I was speaking to a group of senior high students who were about tohead off to college. During the questionand answer time of my session, one partic-ular student expressly disagreed with apoint I made in my talk. The room slowlybecame quiet. Many students turned theirheads to the ground. As it became my turnto respond, there was pin-drop silence.The roaming microphone was then takenaway from the questioner and I began my response.

I thanked the questioner for hisquestion and comments. I then asked if wecould bring back the roaming microphoneso that he and I could continue the conver-sation. I expanded on the points I made inmy talk that he called into question, andwe had a meaningful dialogue. After thesession ended, one colleague came to meand said, “I missed some of your talk, but I loved the way in which you gave themicrophone to the person who asked the most controversial question.”

Truthfully, I would not have madethat observation on my own. But in hearingmy colleague’s feedback, it reminded methat one of the most significant ways we cannavigate tough conversations is to ensurethat each person in the conversation is heard.

Christianity Speaks to the ChallengeSo what might Christianity have to say tothese challenges? As I look at the way theLord Jesus Christ and the apostle Paulinteracted with others, I find two practicalways their interaction with others canshape how we think about conversations.

1. Be open and willing to engage withthose with whom we do not agree.There are many stories of Jesus in whichwe see him embodying this attitude. Evenwhen others come to trick him, he still listens to and interacts with them. When


the Pharisees and Herodians come to trapJesus in Matthew 22:15–22, they ask himwhether it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesaror not. Jesus responds by asking for a coin,and he then asks them whose image is onthat coin. They acknowledge that Caesar’simage is on the coin. Jesus famously says,“Render to Caesar the things that areCaesar’s, and to God the things that areGod’s” (ESV).

Matthew’s gospel continues: “Whenthey heard this, they were amazed. So theyleft him and went away.” We are not sure if these exact people ever engaged withJesus again. But just by his willingness andcourage to engage with those with whomhe disagreed, a meaningful conversationwas had.

Commentators often make specialnote of the question that Jesus asked thispolitically charged and theologically fiercegroup. He asked them a question aboutimage. In the ancient world, images denoted authority and accountability. Aninscription or a sculpture of a ruler oftensignified their ruling over a particular area.

When Jesus asks this question to thePharisees and Herodians, they immediatelyknow the answer because they understandthe power linked to Caesar’s image. Yet, as significant as that question was, what is even more striking is that Jesus waswilling to have a conversation with peoplewho had opposing views to his.

There is so much to be gleaned fromJesus’ conversational care and thought, butwe would do exceedingly well to simplypractice and live out his generous willing-ness to engage with others who did notshare in his teaching.

2. Read and understand what others are reading.In Acts 17:22–34 we read of Paul’s interac-tion with the Athenians. Paul is explainingand defending the Christian God to amixed group that included Stoics andEpicureans. Just by doing a bit of study ofthis story, we soon realize that Paul refers

to and cites poetry that had powerfullyshaped the religious belief of his audience.His method of evangelism reflects a disposition that wanted to understand the people to whom he was ministering.He was interested in how they thought. He had much to say, but he wanted to showthem that he understood them.

There are so many points to drawfrom this one rich passage of Scripture, butwe should not miss the fact that Paul’s citing of poets tells us that he had read thepoets! He had read what his conversationpartners had read. In our moment inwhich we have become severely groupishin what we read, what we listen to, andwho we spend time with, we would do wellto take notes from Paul’s speech in Acts 17.

This does not mean we shouldimmerse ourselves in literature contraryto the Christian faith. It simply means thatour reading and learning should indicate adesire to learn from others outside ourfaith conviction. Paul’s method of evangel-ism at the Areopagus can provide a guidinglight to us on this front.

These are only two points, but if weare serious about wanting to listen andlearn from others in our radically misun-derstanding time, the Christian faithshows us that a meaningful start beginswith a willingness to enter into the hardconversations. No one did this more beau-tifully than Christ. Paul shows us thatreading and engaging what our friendshave been shaped by could provide realand practical help to our understandingthem, not to mention making our witnessof Christ more appealing.

We live in a time in which listening,learning, and understanding each otherseems beyond our reach. Yet, Christianitybrings encouraging news to us here. MayGod give us the courage, the care, and theclarity to rise above the challenge of mis-understanding others and do so in his name.

Nathan Betts is a member of the speakingteam at RZIM.

“I like to listen,” mused Ernest Hemingway.“I have learned a great deal from listeningcarefully.”

Hemingway speaks of a significantvirtue, lamenting accurately, “Most peoplenever listen.”1

I wonder if he would feel differentlyif it were his books to which people werelistening.

The popularity of audio books isredefining the notion of reading, and someauthors—and readers—are unhappy aboutit. “Deep reading really demands the innerear as well as the outer ear,” said literarycritic Harold Bloom. “You need the wholecognitive process, that part of you which isopen to wisdom. You need the text in frontof you.”2

A VITALSKILLBy Jill Carattini

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Others who doggedly defend theentire experience of reading—the feel of abook in their hands, the smell of its pages,the single-minded escape of delving into astory—find listening to a book somethingakin to cheating. “You didn’t read it,” they contest. “You only listened to it”—as if this somehow means they took in adifferent story.

For those who love the written wordand printed page, for those who are elatedat the sight of a bookstore, listening toHamlet or The Count of Monte Cristo is akinto picking up CliffNotes. There is no substi-tute for books, no surrogate for reading.

I mostly agree. I find myselfresponding to the question, “Have you readsuch and such?” with a similar admittanceof guilt: “Well, I listened to it” (usuallyaccompanied with a comment aboutAtlanta traffic). And yet, I am becoming more and more convinced that audio booksdefinitely have their place in learning—with or without traffic. Auditory processingis vital to any learning.

Hemingway was right; listening care-fully is a vital skill.

I find that I pick up different facetswhen I listen to a paragraph rather than whatImight have gleaned from reading that sameparagraph. C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianityis a book I have read many times. When Ibought the book on CD, however, I foundlistening to the work an entirely different,altogether helpful experience. Interestingly,Mere Christianity began as a series of lec-tures for the radio, perhaps amplifying itseffectiveness as an audio book.

Of course, much of the Bible has asimilar origin, resonating powerfully in bothoral and written traditions. The importanceof memorization and oral tradition inIsraelite culture played a significant role inbringing the collected works of Scriptureinto being. Listening to narratives, songs,and the Torah being read aloud was anintegral part of keeping the name of Godand the history of God’s presence beforethe people of Israel. Throughout the Old

Testament, God’s people are charged withthe command to remember and to listen.“Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, theLORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Listeningcarefully was imperative to living beforethe God among them.

And it still is. In homes whereChristians are not violently punished forowning a Bible, in countries where it isnot a crime to read these sacred texts,there is a tendency to dismiss the wonderof a God who speaks. As countless transla-tions continue to emerge, it is easy tooverlook the authority of words that arestrikingly reliable as historical documents,words that continue to come into newgenerations and change cultures with newinfluence. Read aloud or studied silently,God’s word is still speaking, crying out forears to hear and hearts to search. Indeed,Christ himself, the living Word, rises fromthe pages, revealing that the Bible isalways far more than a book.

When Ezra read aloud the words ofthe law before a generation who had for-gotten, the people wept in the presence ofthe LORD and immediately fell down inworship. When the apostle Paul’s letterwas read aloud to the Roman church, itswords resounded similarly among thecrowd: “Consequently, faith comes fromhearing the message, and the message isheard through the word of Christ.” 3

If the voice of God is still speaking, ifthe kingdom is among us, the question is avital one: Who among us will listen?

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Sliceof Infinity at Ravi Zacharias InternationalMinistries.

1 See http://www.hemingwaypreservationfoun-dation.org/ernest-hemingway-quotes.html. 2Quoted in “The Pleasure of Being Read To” byJohn Colapinto in The New Yorker (May 14,2012), accessed 5 October 2018 athttps://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-pleasures-of-being-read-to. 3Romans 10:17.


CAN YOU BE ASCIENTIST ANDBELIEVE IN GOD?By John Lennox


“Surely you can’t be a scientist and believein God these days?”

It’s a viewpoint I have heardexpressed by many people over the years.But I suspect that it is often the unspokendoubt that stops many from engaging seriously with serious thinkers about bothscience and God.

In reply, I like to ask a very scientificquestion: “Why not?”

“Well,” the answer comes back, “sciencehas given us such marvelous explanationsof the universe and demonstrates that Godis just not necessary. Belief in God is oldfashioned. It belongs to the days whenpeople didn’t really understand the uni-verse, and just took the lazy way out andsaid that ‘God did it.’ That sort of ‘God ofthe gaps thinking’ simply won’t do anymore. Indeed, the sooner we get rid of God and religion, the better.”

I sigh inwardly, and prepare myselffor a long conversation in which I try tountangle the many assumptions, misun-derstandings and half-truths that havebeen absorbed uncritically from the cultural soup we swim in.

A COMMON VIEWPOINTIt’s not surprising that this viewpoint is so common that it has become the defaultposition for many, if not most; it’s a view-point supported by some powerful voices.Stephen Weinberg, for example, a PhysicsNobel Prize winner said,

The world needs to wake up from the long nightmare of religion.Anything we scientists can do toweaken the hold of religion should bedone and may in fact be our greatestcontribution to civilisation.1

I hope you didn’t miss the rather sin-ister-sounding totalitarian element in thisstatement: “anythingwe scientists can do…”

This attitude is not new. I first met itfifty years ago while studying at CambridgeUniversity. I found myself at a formal col-lege dinner sitting beside another NobelPrize winner. I had never met a scientist ofsuch distinction before and, in order to gainthe most from the conversation, I tried toask him some questions. For instance, howdid his science shape his worldview—hisbig picture of the status andmeaning of theuniverse? In particular, I was interested inwhether his wide-ranging studies had ledhim to reflect on the existence of God.

It was clear that he was not comfort-able with that question, and I immediatelybacked off. However, at the end of themeal, he invited me to come to his study.He had also invited two or three other senior academics but no other students. I was invited to sit, and, so far as I recall,they remained standing.

He said, “Lennox, do you want acareer in science?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.“Then,” he said, “in front of witnesses,

tonight, you must give up this childish faithin God. If you do not, then it will crippleyou intellectually and you will suffer bycomparison with your peers. You simplywill not make it.”

Talk about pressure! I had neverexperienced anything like it before.

I sat in the chair paralyzed andshocked by the effrontery and unexpected-ness of the onslaught. I didn’t really knowwhat to say, but eventually I managed toblurt out, “Sir, what have you got to offerme that is better than what I have got?” In response, he offered me the concept of “Creative Evolution” put forward in1907 by French philosopher Henri Bergson.

In fact, thanks to C. S. Lewis, I knewa little about Bergson and replied that Icould not see how Bergson’s philosophywas enough to base an entire worldviewupon and provide a foundation for mean-ing, morality and life. With a shaking voice,©

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and as respectfully as I could, I told thegroup standing around me that I found thebiblical worldview vastly more enrichingand the evidence for its truth compelling,and so, with all due respect, I would takethe risk and stick with it.2

It was a remarkable situation. Herewas a brilliant scientist trying to bully meinto giving up Christianity. I have thought

many times since that, if it had been the other wayaround, and I had been an atheist in the chair surround-ed by Christian academicspressurizing me to give up myatheism, it would have causedreverberations around theuniversity, and probably haveended with disciplinary proceedings against the professors involved.

But that rather scaryincident put steel into myheart and mind. I resolved to do my best to be as good a scientist as I could and, ifever I had the opportunity, to encourage people to thinkabout the big questions of God and science and make uptheir own minds without

being bullied or pressured. It has been myprivilege in the years that have followed toengage thoughtfully with many people,both young and old, in a spirit of friend-ship and open enquiry on these questions.What follows in this book are some of the thoughts and ideas that I have foundmost helpful to share with people, andsome of the most interesting and unusualconversations I have had.

THE DARK SIDE OF ACADEMIAI learned another valuable lesson that day:about the existence of a dark side to acade-mia. There are some scientists who set out

with preconceived ideas, do not really wishto discuss evidence, and appear to be fixated not on the pursuit of truth but on propagating the notions that scienceand God do not mix and that those whobelieve in God are simply ignorant.

This is simply not true.What’s more, you don’t need to have

a great deal of insight to see that it is false.Think of the Nobel Prize in Physics, forexample. It was won in 2013 by PeterHiggs, a Scotsman who is an atheist, forhis ground-breaking work on subatomicparticles, and his prediction, later proved,of the existence of the Higgs boson. Someyears before that, it was won by WilliamPhillips, an American who is a Christian.

If science and God do not mix, therewould be no Christian Nobel Prize winners.In fact, between 1900 and 2000 over 60%of Nobel Laureates were self-confessedbelievers in God.3 I want to suggest thatwhat divides Professors Higgs and Phillipsis not their physics or their standing as sci-entists—they’ve both won the Nobel Prize.What divides them is their worldview. Higgsis an atheist and Phillips is a Christian. Itfollows that the claim of those academicswho tried to intimidate me in Cambridgeso many years ago—that if you wish to bescientifically respectable you have to be anatheist—is obviously false. There cannotbe an essential conflict between being ascientist and having faith in God.

However, there is a very real conflictbetween the worldviews held by these twobrilliant men: atheism and theism.

WHAT EXACTLYIS ATHEISM?Strictly speaking, atheism simply meanslack of belief in God. However, that doesnot mean that atheists do not have aworldview. You cannot deny the existenceof God without asserting a whole raft ofbeliefs about the nature of the world.That is why Richard Dawkins’ book The

This is an editedextract from Can Science ExplainEverything? by John C Lennox (January 2019). The book is the first of a series in a joint venture with the Oxford Centre forChristian Apologetics,Zacharias Institute, and The Good BookCompany.


God Delusion is not just a one-page tractstating that he doesn’t believe in God. It isa lengthy volume dedicated to his atheisticworldview, naturalism, which holds thatthis universe/multiverse is all that exists,that what scientists call “mass-energy” isthe fundamental stuff of the universe, andthat there is nothing else.

Physicist Sean Carroll, in his best-selling book The Big Picture, explains hownaturalism views humans:

We humans are blobs of organizedmud, which through the impersonalworkings of nature’s patterns havedeveloped the capacity to contemplateand cherish and engage with theintimidating complexity of the worldaround us ... The meaning we find inlife is not transcendent…4

This is the worldview in which manyatheists put their faith.

My worldview is Christian theism. Ibelieve that there is an intelligent God whocreated, ordered and upholds the universe.He made human beings in his image,meaning that they have been endowedwith the capacity not only to understand

the universe around them but also to get toknow and to enjoy fellowship with Godhimself. For Christians, life has a gloriouslytranscendent meaning. I would like to showyou that science, far from underminingthis view, strongly supports it. We shall seelater, however, that it is atheism to whichscience gives little support. But before that,I’d like to prepare the ground by givingsome historical context for how we arrivedat this strange position of thinking thatscience and God do not mix.

LESSONS FROM HISTORYI have always had a facility with languages—mathematics and languages often gotogether. Indeed, when I was a poor, strug-gling junior academic in Cardiff, I took theopportunity to earn a little extra money formy growing family by translating researchpapers in mathematics from Russian toEnglish.

By a curious train of events, I foundmyself a few years later on a rickety Russianplane landing at the city of Novosibirsk inSiberia to spend a month lecturing andresearching at the university there.

However backward the technologicalinfrastructure was in those days of com-munist rule, some of Russia’s mathemati-cians were world leaders, and it was a priv-ilege to meet with them and spend timewith the faculty and students. But theywere utterly perplexed by one thing: that I believed in God!

I was eventually invited by the rectorof the university to explain in a lecturewhy I, as a mathematician, believed inGod. Apparently, it was the first lecture onthis kind of issue to be held there in 75years. The auditorium was full to capacitywith many professors as well as students.In my presentation, among other things, I spoke about the history of modern scienceand related how its great pioneers—Galileo,Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Faradayand Clerk-Maxwell—were all firm and convinced believers in God.

For Christians, life has agloriously transcendentmeaning. I would like toshow you that science,far from underminingthis view, strongly supports it. We shall seelater, however, that it isatheism to which sciencegives little support.

“Men became scientificbecause they expectedlaw in nature, and theyexpected law in naturebecause they believedin a Legislator.”—C. S. Lewis


When I said this, I detected anger inthe audience and, not liking people beingangry in my lectures, I paused to ask themwhy they were so annoyed. A professor inthe front row said, “We are angry becausethis is the first time we have heard thatthese famous scientists on whose shoulderswe stand were believers in God. Why werewe not told this?”

“Is it not obvious,” I replied, “that thishistorical fact did not fit with the ‘scientificatheism’ that you were taught?”

I went on to point out that the con-nection between the biblical worldviewand the rise of modern science was wellrecognized. Eminent Australian ancienthistorian Edwin Judge writes:

The modern world is the product of a revolution in scientific method …Both experiment in science, and the citing of sources as evidence in history, arise from the worldview ofJerusalem, not Athens, from Jews and Christians, not the Greeks.5

C. S. Lewis sums it up well when hesays, “Men became scientific because theyexpected law in nature, and they expectedlaw in nature because they believed in aLegislator.”6

Recent historians of science, likePeter Harrison, are more nuanced in theirformulation of the way in which Christianthought influenced the intellectual land-scape in which modern science arose, butthey reach the same basic conclusion: farfrom hindering the rise of modern science,faith in God was one of the motors thatdrove it. I therefore regard it as a privilegeand an honor, not an embarrassment, to be both a scientist and a Christian.

Here are some examples of the convictions of the greatest scientists.Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), who discov-ered the laws of planetary motion, wrote:

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.

This was no expression of mere deismsince Kepler elsewhere revealed the depthof his Christian convictions: “I believe onlyand alone in the service of Jesus Christ. Inhim is all refuge and solace.”

Michael Faraday (1791-1867), arguablythe greatest ever experimental scientist,was a man of profound Christian conviction.As he lay on his deathbed, he was asked bya visiting friend, “Sir Michael, what specu-lations have you now?” For a man who hadspent his life making speculations about avast array of scientific subjects, discardingsome and establishing others, his responsewas robust: “Speculations, man, I havenone! I have certainties. I thank God that I do not rest my dying head upon specula-tions for I know whom I have believed andam persuaded that he is able to keep thatwhich I have committed to him againstthat day.”

As he faced eternity, Faraday had the certainty that upheld the apostle Paulcenturies before him.

GALILEO“But wasn’t Galileo persecuted by thechurch?” asked another member of mySiberian audience. “Surely that showsthere is no concord between science andfaith in God.”

In my reply, I pointed out thatGalileo was actually a firm believer in Godand the Bible and remained so all of hislife. He once said that “the laws of natureare written by the hand of God in the lan-guage of mathematics” and that the“human mind is a work of God and one ofthe most excellent.”

Furthermore, the popular, simplisticversion of this story has been massaged tosupport an atheist worldview. In reality,©

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Galileo initially enjoyed a great deal ofsupport from religious people. Theastronomers of the powerful Jesuit educational institution, the CollegioRomano, initially endorsed his astronom-ical work and fêted him for it. However,he was vigorously opposed by secularphilosophers who were enraged at hiscriticism of Aristotle.

This was bound to cause trouble;however, let me emphasize, not at firstwith the church. In his famous “Letter tothe Grand Duchess Christina” (1615),Galileo claimed that it was the academicprofessors who were so opposed to himthat were trying to influence the churchauthorities to speak out against him. The issue at stake for the academics was clear: Galileo’s scientific argumentswere threatening the all-pervadingAristotelianism of the academy.

In the spirit of developing modernscience, Galileo wanted to decide theoriesof the universe on the basis of evidence,not on arguments based on an appeal tothe current ruling theories in general andthe authority of Aristotle in particular.Galileo looked at the universe through histelescope, and what he saw left some of

Aristotle’s major astronomical specula-tions in tatters. Galileo observed sunspots,which blemished the face of what Aristotletaught was a “perfect sun.” In 1604 Galileosaw a supernova, which called into questionAristotle’s view that the heavens wereunchanging—“immutable.”

Aristotelianism was the reigningworldview at the time and formed the paradigm in which science was done, but it was a worldview in which cracks werealready beginning to appear. Furthermore,the Protestant Reformation was challeng-ing the authority of Rome and so, fromRome’s perspective, religious security wasunder increasing threat. The embattledRoman Catholic Church, which had, incommon with almost everyone else at thetime, embraced the Aristotelian view ofthe world, felt itself unable to allow anyserious challenge to Aristotle, althoughthere were rumblings (particularly amongthe Jesuits) that the Bible itself did notalways support Aristotle’s view of things.

But those rumblings were not yetstrong enough to prevent the powerfulopposition to Galileo that would arisefrom both the academy and the RomanCatholic Church. But, even then, the rea-sons for that opposition were not merelyintellectual and political. Jealousy andalso, it must be said, Galileo’s own lack ofdiplomatic skill, were contributing factors.For instance, he irritated the elite of hisday by publishing in Italian and not inLatin, in order to give some intellectualempowerment to ordinary people. He wascommendably committed to what is nowcalled the public understanding of science.

Galileo also developed an unhelpfullyshort-sighted habit of denouncing in vitriolic terms those who disagreed withhim. Neither did he promote his cause bythe way in which he handled an officialdirective to include in his DialogueConcerning the Two Principal Systems ofthe World the argument of his erstwhilefriend and supporter Pope Urban VIII—

In the spirit of developing modern science, Galileowanted to decide theoriesof the universe on the basis of evidence, not on arguments based on an appeal to the currentruling theories in generaland the authority ofAristotle in particular.


Maffeo Berberini. The Pope argued thatsince God was omnipotent, he could pro-duce any given natural phenomenon inmany different ways, and so it would bepresumption on the part of the naturalphilosophers to claim that they had foundthe unique solution. Galileo dutifullyincluded this argument in his book, buthe did so by putting it into the mouth of adull-witted character he called Simplicio(“buffoon”). We might see this as a classiccase of shooting oneself in the foot.

There is, of course, no excuse whatsoever for the Roman Catholic Church’s useof the power of the Inquisition to muzzleGalileo, nor for subsequently taking severalcenturies to rehabilitate him. It should alsobe noted that, again contrary to popular belief,Galileo was never tortured; and his subse-quent house arrest was spent, for the mostpart, enjoying the hospitality of luxuriousprivate residences belonging to friends.

CHALLENGING THE WORLDVIEWThe main lesson to be drawn is that it wasGalileo, a believer in the biblical worldview,who was advancing a better scientificunderstanding of the universe, not only, as we have seen, in opposition to somechurchmen but against the resistance andobscurantism of the secular philosophersof his time who, like the churchmen, werealso convinced disciples of Aristotle.

Philosophers and scientists todayalso have need of humility in light of facts,even if those facts are being pointed out tothem by a believer in God. Lack of belief inGod is no more a guarantee of scientificorthodoxy than is belief in God. What isclear, both in Galileo’s time and ours, isthat criticism of a reigning scientific para-digm is fraught with risk, no matter who isengaged in it—a point that was not lost onmy audience of Russian academics livingunder a totalitarian regime.

Commenting on the Galileo affair(and that other much misrepresentediconic event, the debate between SamuelWilberforce and T. H. Huxley in Oxford in1860), historian of science Colin Russellconcludes:

The common belief that ... the actualrelations between religion and scienceover the last few centuries have beenmarked by deep and enduring hostility... is not only historically inaccuratebut actually a caricature so grotesquethat what needs to be explained is howit could possibly have achieved anydegree of respectability.7

John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics(emeritus) at the University of Oxford andAdjunct Lecturer at the Oxford Centre forChristian Apologetics.

1New Scientist, Issue 2578, 18 November 2006. 2 I did not know it at the time but, oddlyenough, Bergson, who was Jewish, in lateryears moved towards orthodox views of God,and, in his will of 1937, he confessed that hewould have converted to Christianity had it not been for the increasing wave of antisemitism in Europe.

3According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes (2005)by Baruch Aba Shalev, a review of Nobelprizes awarded between 1901 and 2000,65.4% of Nobel Prize Laureates have identi-fied Christianity in its various forms as theirreligious preference (423 prizes). Overall,Christians have won a total of 78.3% of all theNobel Prizes in Peace, 72.5% in Chemistry,65.3% in Physics, 62% in Medicine, 54% inEconomics and 49.5% of all Literature awards.

4 Sean Carroll, The Big Picture (New York:Penguin Random House, 2016), 3-5.

5Quoted at goo.gl/uPDpNC (accessed 1 August 2018).

6C. S. Lewis, Miracles (New York: Simon andSchuster, 1996), 140.

7C. A. Russell, “The Conflict Metaphor and Its Social Origins,” Science and ChristianBelief, 1 (1989), 3-26.


INVITINGQUESTIONS

By Margaret Manning Shull

RETURNING TO graduate school in mid-lifehas reintroduced me to the importance ofasking questions. There are the all-impor-tant pragmatic questions that involve themechanics and the specifics of variousassignments. Should one use a particularstyle guide in writing papers, for example,or what material will be covered on the nextexam? There are the questions of curiosityabout a particular topic or subject, andthere are research questions intended totake a student deeper into the minutiae ofher course of study.

I often find that questions beget otherquestions, and many are not as easilyanswered as when I first began “formal”education. Instead, I am often led fromone question to another on this journey ofinquiry that is only tangentially related tothe original question.

When this happens, I wonder whetherI am in fact asking the “right” questionsthat would generate answers. So, perhapsinquiring into the motivation behind the

questions is an even more important task.Do I simply ask out of curiosity? Am I ask-ing in order to fill my head with as manypossible answers as there are questions?Or might it be that I continually ask questions as a way of blocking answers I do not want to hear or receive?

Noise often serves as a distractionfrom truly listening. Perhaps fearful of lis-tening to the tangled thoughts within me, I can sometimes fill my days with the noiseof constant movement and activity, so thatI rarely pay attention or tune my ears tothe stirrings of my own heart and mind.

Silence can be disruptive, as I foundout intimately when I lost my husbandseveral years ago. Days would go by withoutmy having spoken audibly to anyone, savemy two dogs. I was struck by how loud thesilence had become in my own life.

Yet, I was not without sound duringthis period of my life. I began to pay atten-tion to all the sounds that made up myday-to-day existence. The din of trafficnoise, airplanes, and nautical sounds fromthe harbor all made for a symphony ofsound. Because I wasn’t speaking out loudto anyone, I was able to intentionally listento a whole new world of natural sounds. Iheard the wind in the trees and the softpatter of my dogs’ feet as they walkedacross the hardwood floors. I listened forthe distinctive sounds of a variety of birdsas they went about foraging for food or call-ing for a mate. At the time, I did not realizehow unique it was to be able to truly listenbecause I was by myself nor would I haveviewed it, as I now do, as a gift.

Paying attention to the world aroundus and asking questions are some of thewonderful qualities of being human.Anyone who has spent even a smallamount of time around young childrenknows that asking questions about everypossible subject preoccupies their earlyverbal expressions.

Whenever I begin to fret about thevolume of my questions or the apparentlack of answers for them, I recall a conver-


Anyone who has spenteven a small amount of time around youngchildren knows thatasking questions aboutevery possible subjectpreoccupies their earlyverbal expressions.


sation I once had with a colleague when Ibegan my first position after seminary. Wewere discussing the nature of heaven. Likemany, I had insisted that it would be a placewhere all questions would be answeredand all that was unclear would be madeclear immediately upon arrival.

I will never forget his response tome. “Oh no,” he replied. “I don’t think itwill be that way at all. Otherwise, therewould be no more discovery or learning;no more wonder.”

Instead, he mused about how heavenwould be a place of endless discovery andlearning. The impediments of finitudebeing removed, heaven would be verymuch as C.S. Lewis envisioned in his novelThe Last Battle. The inhabitants would be taken “further up and further in” foreternity. My friend believed that moving“further up and further in” would involvequestions, imagination, and discovery,because the capacity for learning would be limitless and endless.

Interestingly, the kingdom of heavenrevealed by Jesus looks a great deal likethis. It might come as a surprise—even tothose who claim to be Christians—thatJesus asked more questions than heanswered, at least as his life is recordedand revealed in the gospel narratives.According to author Martin Copenhaver in his systematic study of the questions of Jesus, Jesus asked 307 questions.Furthermore, he is asked 183 questions—of which he answers three.1Think of that!

It turns out that asking questionswas central to Jesus’s life and to the way he taught those who followed him. Morethan using didactic teaching, Jesus oftenexplored the reality of the kingdom by ask-ing questions. Other times, he told storiesand used metaphors. Far from presentingeasy answers, Jesus often left questionsunanswered or his teaching unexplained.

But Jesus did not ask questions orleave them unanswered in order to bemysterious or enigmatic. His questionstook his listeners deeper into wonder, discovery, and into discomfort:

Do you wish to get well? What do you want me to do for you? Who do you say that I am? Why do you call me, “Lord, Lord” but do not do what I tell you? Why do you see the speck in yourneighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 2

Significantly, Jesus’s questions wentstraight to the heart of the matter. Theywere piercingly intimate and vulnerable,as when he asked his disciples if theywanted to “go away” after he gave the verycomplex teaching about consuming hisbody and blood as recorded in John 6. Farfrom requiring immediate answers, Jesusasked questions to prompt careful andconsidered reflection, often inviting won-der and amazement: Who then is this thateven the wind and the seas obey him?

Jesus even asked the question thatresounds on the lips and in the hearts ofhumans throughout the ages: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?Andthrough his life, death, and resurrection,he ultimately answered the deepest ques-tions of our minds and hearts.

Surely, there is a time to put awayendless questions and to rest. There is atime to pause and simply to be grateful forthe human journey of discovery. But whenquestions arise and they are not easilyanswered or dismissed, there is a space forthem as well. Likewise, Jesus’s questionsinvite us closer to the One who created usto ask in the first place.

Margaret Manning Shull is an adjunctmember of the RZIM speaking and writing team.1 See Martin Copenhaver, Jesus Is the Question:The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and The Three HeAnswered (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2014),xviii. Copenhaver tallies eight direct answersfrom Jesus but notes, “whichever count yougo with, it is an astonishingly small number.”

2 See John 5:6; Mark 10:36, 51; Matthew 16:15;Luke 6:46; Matthew 7:3.


BEING RAISED IN India while my wife,Margie, was raised in Canada, I havelearned that sometimes words and ideascan get lost in translation, even withthose closest to you. Often when I amwith Indian friends or colleagues, one ofthem will make a remark in Hindi thatelicits fits of laughter among those of us who understand the language.

Margie will invariably ask, “Whatdid he say?” I attempt to translate thehumor, knowing very well her predictablereaction: a blank stare followed by, “Butwhat was so funny?”

Language and culture have that uniquecapacity to open a world of imaginationand a wealth of memory. Even though I leftIndia several decades ago, there are someconcepts the Hindi language captures forme that English cannot.

Similarly, the same word may meandifferent ideas to different people. To aprofessor of philosophy, “reason” may meana sound argument. To a high school teacherin India, “reason” may mean culturalrespect for one’s own ancestral beliefs.

So, whether we are expressing humoror discussing ultimate issues, we are wiseto heed the psalmist’s injunction: “Set aguard over my mouth, LORD; keep watchover the door of my lips” (Psalm 141:3).“The tongue has the power of life anddeath,” wrote Solomon (Proverbs 18:21). A few verses earlier he cautions, “Toanswer before listening—that is folly and shame” (verse 13).

With this biblical wisdom, we mustkeep in mind that behind every belief is a believer and behind every question is a questioner. The belief is part of theworldview, and the worldview is notalways well scrutinized by reason.Cultures carry huge connections to the past. Respect must be given.

As I observe the apostle Paul, whowas cradled within three cultures (Jewish,Greek, and Roman), I marvel at how heapproached his mixed audience. A look athis assumptions and his method at MarsHill, recorded in Acts 17, is very instructive.We are told, for starters, how he was“greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols” (verse 16).

I have said it before and it bearsrepeating, even to myself: holy anxiety isan indispensable prerequisite to significantcommunication and crossing bridges.

You see, Paul recognized that you willnever lighten any load until you feel thepressure in your own soul. That distressled him to observe and listen, to dialogue,reason, discuss, and persuade many throughthe power of the Holy Spirit. Listening is avital part of responding. The more and thebetter we hear others, the more and thebetter others will hear us. This is especiallytrue today when sensitivities run so deep.

Moreover, Paul communicated thatthe Athenians’ yearning for the divine wasa positive trait, but their systems of worshipwere not good enough if their truths werenot tested. He applauded their search forGod while also gently challenging them:

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“People of Athens! I see that in everyway you are very religious. . . . As some ofyour own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Therefore since we are God’soffspring, we should not think that thedivine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill”(Acts 17:22, 28–29).

His positive lead-in is very instructive.It is self-defeating to trample underfooteverything others hold dear before givingthem the message of Christ. My motherused to say, “There is no point cutting off a person’s nose and then giving them arose to smell.” Again, cultures carry hugeconnections to the past and respect mustbe given, even as the driving point istoward the truth. Like Paul, we must gently present the gap between what isbelieved and what is true.

Maintaining sensitivity, Paul alsocapitalized on his listeners’ lack of under-standing of their own beliefs. One of themost surprising lessons one learns incountries where culture is interwovenwith religion is that living within a certainframework all the time is, in a sense, thesurest way to be detached from it. AChinese proverb says, “If you want toknow what water is, don’t ask the fish.”

Most Hindus know little aboutHinduism’s scriptures or its developmentin dogma. Most Buddhists know littleabout Buddhism. Religion is much more aculture to most people than it is a carefullythought-through system of truth. Dare Isay most Christians know very little aboutthe teaching and history of their own beliefs.So again, to “answer before listening” andassume a person holds certain beliefsbecause they say they are Hindu or anatheist is both unwise and unkind.

When we seek to share the gospel withothers, we want to listen carefully to theirown unique assumptions and then movethem from what they know and believe towhat they don’t know and what they disbe-

lieve. Then the conclusion is inescapable:What I now believe may be good, but it’snot good enough. There always has to be apersuasive element, and that comes fromtheir familiarity with some authority andthe ability to identify with that.

Paul had before him at Mars Hillseekers after God who were “very religious,”but they were scanty in their understandingof truth. How did he meet the challenge? It was his allusion to one of their poetsthat struck and helped him find that softreach and a legitimate bridge.

Christianity is not a religion or perspective; it is God’s self-disclosure inChrist. It is built on and built through arelationship with our creator. Paul stroveardently to drive this point home. Thecrowd had gathered to hear what this“babbler” was saying (verse 18), but hismessage pointed—as ours must—to theperson and work of Jesus Christ. The ultimate question is not “What is theanswer?” It is “Who will answer?” The cry of everyone’s heart is for a Savior, aChampion, a personal Redeemer. It wasthis Redeemer whom Paul presented.

At great personal cost, Paul took the gospel to Athens. His sensitivities, his knowledge, his finding commonground, and his presentation of the uniqueanswers of Jesus built the framework ofhis message. It is little wonder that hechanged history by crossing bridges withsuch effectiveness to the known world. It is literally and figuratively true that heused the Greek language and the Romanroad. We cannot do any less.

Ultimately, the change of a person’sheart is God’s work. And in doing our part,we must ever rest in that conviction.

Warm Regards,

Ravi


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