For believers, there can be no contradiction between faith in God and scientific discoveries. God is the Supreme Being, who had no beginning, and will have no end. He is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-mighty. God is love.
This perfect and infinite love found expression in the creation of universes and all within them. Humans have theorized the method by which our own universe came into being. They have dubbed it: "The Big Bang".
This theory could be perfectly true, or way off the mark. Only God was there. Only God knows for sure.
One area that is often viewed as conflicting, is the theory of evolution, versus the creation account in the Book of Genesis. Evolutionists believe that humans evolved from monkeys.
They contend that, over a period of thousands of years. one branch of the primate family began to walk upright, to become more and more intelligent, and to develop the ability to communicate. They continued to evolve, gaining additional intelligence and skills, until they became the first recognizable human beings.
Many Christians today can agree with many of the facts of evolution. The only stipulation we would add is that somewhere in the evolutionary process, God took two of these creatures, one male and one female, and breathed into each of them an immortal soul.
These were our first ancestors. We came from the earth, our physical bodies originated in the animal kingdom, but as children of God, we alone possess souls which will live forever. Our soul, our essence, the part of us that thinks and knows and loves, is eternal. It will spend eternity in the home of God our Father: Heaven or in hell.
It is recognized by most mainline Churches today that the Bible, up until the time of Abraham, is largely legendary. There was no written language to record events. Stories were passed orally from generation to generation, probably around campfires during the long dark evenings in the camps of the nomadic tribes of Israel.
Bible scholars try to extract the nuggets of truths which these stories contain. In the Genesis story these are generally agreed to be : God breathed a soul into our first parents, elevating them forever above the beasts of the earth.
Subsequently. these first humans chose to disobey a rule they had been given. Because of their disobedience, they and their descendants are marked with the stain of original sin, are prone to fall easily into other actual sins, and are sorely in need of a Saviour to restore their right relationship with God.
Since God is the Creator of each matter that Science examines, there can be no discrepancy between scientific discoveries and religious faith. God is the Author, and He is gradually disclosing the secrets of His handiwork to humanity.
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, speaking to CNN from Rockville, Maryland, on April 6th., 2007, expressed his position in this way:
"I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between these world views...I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship
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