The fundamental question is why would God create the natural world to be this open to human scientific investigation…being first orderly but second intelligible to humans alone amongst all other living organisms?
Material things can be collected, broken-up into smaller pieces, measured, weighed, analyzed under a microscope, and quantified into groups and categories.
Elements of personal relationships such as truth, friendship, love, integrity, honesty, faith, and trust cannot be numerically analyzed and quantified into empirical categories.
It is puzzling to Christians that some scientists cannot see design in nature…but it shouldn’t be.
Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn. 14:6)…but His ministry on earth can be so badly misunderstood and misinterpreted that He is rejected to the radical extent of ending-up on a Roman cross of execution.
On a graduated scale of 1 to 100…the number 1 being worst and number 100 being the best…the ignominy of the cross and the glory of the resurrection spans the entire spectrum of possible decision-points regarding the life of Jesus Christ.
If anything in science, philosophy, and theology calls for the deepest thought into the fundamental purpose of our world and our lives…this needs to be at or near the top of the list.
If some religious elites in Jerusalem can devalue the life of Jesus as to be so worthless as to be disposable through crucifixion, yet God the Father thinks so highly of Jesus Christ the Son of God to qualify Him as the suitable Passover Lamb of God atoning sacrifice for sin…this then illuminates the incredible range of possible points on the continuum line that can differentiate between absolute truth at number 100 and absolute falsity at number 1.
Enumerable points of relative misinformation fall part-way between 1 and 100 on this graduated spectrum-line.
If people can delve this deep into the workings of the phenomena in the natural living and non-living world through science…and still come away as skeptical unbelievers in the existence of God…what does this say about the difficulty inherent in identifying genuine truth when concepts like truth are spread-out over a range of possible option-points on spectrum-lines?
What does this say about the data in scientific hypotheses that are in essence skeletal explanatory networks that start-out having numerous options for answers…awaiting the light obtained through scientific investigation?
It should come as no surprise that Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation begins about the same time as the modern Scientific Revolution…producing the unintended consequences of divisions, factions, and schisms in Christendom[1] that are in clear contradiction to New Testament teaching (Jn. 17:20-21; 1 Cor. 1:10-13)…but are a wealth of possible avenues to explore in search of genuine truth.
The sophisticated issue in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1-5) is not about having or not having the knowledge of good and evil…but at its root is about both the trustworthiness and the accuracy of God’s word that was called into question by Satan in the holographic spiritual form of a talking serpent.
All of these things…theism or atheism in science, the doctrinal differences between the various denominations and factions within Christianity, the ideal virtues of self-government exemplified in the Preamble to the United States Constitution, and the enumerable cultural issues debated in modern societies…must be played-out to their fullest in every area of human life.
The “new atheists” of recent times like to elevate science over faith…but faith in the biblical context is exponentially more important than anything science discovers…because faith/trust within personal relationships in the context of eternity is exponentially more important than the facts of science that currently can be interpreted to lead to the competing worldviews of naturalistic materialism or theistic intelligent agency.
The life-script and ministry of Jesus spans the breadth of interpretation of ignominious rejection by men to the glorious acceptance of God the Father…encompassing all possible points along the spectrum-line…revealing our vulnerability as non-divine beings in attempting to discover absolute truth.
This illuminates one of the fundamental purposes underlying the existence of this universe.
If we as humans do not know everything, and God does…the only thing separating us from enlightened well-being is our stubborn insistence upon going our own way in autonomous rebellion.
This is the primary issue under consideration and “at trial” in every aspect of human life, and that ironically raises faith/trust above science in relative importance for modern mankind.
From the book Pondering Our Creation: Christian Essays on Science and Faith.
[1] A Conversation about Martin Luther with Eric Metaxas and Pastor Chuck Swindoll, published Oct. 31, 2017 on You Tube.
The Cross in the Christian Life 