While on holiday in Austria
recently I met with a member of the Faraday Institute of Science and Religion at Cambridge
University. With both of my children studying
in the area of science it was encouraging to meet with a leading scientist who
found his Christian faith not just compatible with his study of science, but also enriching of it.
Both science and theology involve
a pursuit of truth, but many assert that their pursuits are divergent and
detached, one concerned with facts and the other concerned with opinion. In reality it seems that both science and
faith connect with both opinion and fact, and indeed enrich one another. So, for example, the fine-tuning of the
universe that enables life to exist enhances my view of God as a wonderful
creator. The Christian faith is based on
factual truth when our eyes turn to the incarnation of Jesus – a real man set
in time and place, the creator taking on the form of the created.
Having a holiday in the Austrian
Tyrol afforded me the opportunity to lift my eyes to the mountains once more
(not much that I could call a mountain in Didcot other than the inbox for my
emails!) and to see through eyes of faith the handiwork of the creator God, and
marvel again that he came down to earth to make his love known to the world.
