Last summer I was reading through the book of Proverbs
intensively by reading each chapter multiple times and in different versions
and languages. As I read Proverbs 1:7
in French, I was struck while reading “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
la science.” Furthermore, each
time when the word knowledge is used in English, the French uses science.
As I thought it
over, I wondered why it should surprise me that science is in the
Bible. It must be that I am conditioned
by my culture to see science and religion as two separate categories that do
not belong together. By pondering this a little
more, I recognized that the writer of many of the biblical proverbs was indeed
a scientist himself. King Solomon was a
keen observer of the created world and a recognized authority:
He described plant life, from the cedar of
Lebanon to the hyssop plant that
grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds,
reptiles and fish.
Men of all nations
came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom. (1
Kings 4:33-34)
Returning to the
connection between science and faith, medieval church father Saint Thomas
Aquinas (1225-1274) saw no contradiction when he called theology “The Queen of
the Sciences.” Two other well-known
scientists of the past who demonstrated that the Greeks had faulty notions of
planetary motion (Johannes Kepler) and the properties of light (Sir Isaac
Newton), respectively were believers in God’s grandeur and gave him glory as
they made their discoveries. Kepler is
quoted as saying, “We see how God, like a human architect, approached the
founding of the world according to order and rule and measured everything in
such a manner.”[1]
There is still a
place for people of faith in science today.
True science begins with the fear of the Lord. Hymn writer William Cowper said it well:
Blind unbelief
is sure to err
And scan his
works in vain
God is his own
interpreter
And he will make
it plain.[2]
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