BOB REEVES/Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Friday, January 20, 2006 6:00 pm
Galileo looked through a telescope in the 1600s and observed the movements of heavenly bodies, gaining clear evidence that the earth and other planets moved around the sun.
His theory conflicted with certain passages in the Bible that describe the earth as the center of the universe. But Galileo went ahead and published it, believing that others, including the powerful leaders of the Catholic Church, would want to know what he had discovered.
“He knew he was right. He knew it with every fiber of his being,” the Rev. Wayne Alloway said of the 17th century astronomer in his sermon last Sunday at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church. “And, as a scientist and a teacher, he wanted to share his findings with others. He wanted to tell the world!”
But soon after that, Galileo was brought before the Grand Inquisition of the church on heresy charges. At age 70, he was accused of teaching what was contrary to Holy Scripture, a crime for which he most likely would be put to death.
History shows that he was not executed, however, because he recanted by telling the church leaders “what he knew to be a lie,” Alloway said. His words were:
“I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, a prisoner on my knees … (do) abjure, curse and detest the error and the heresy of the movement of the earth.”
With those words Galileo made church leaders happy. But, Alloway asked, “Was God happy? Was God happy when Galileo denied what he knew to be true, just because that knowledge was based upon observation of natural phenomena? Did God want the world to remain ignorant of Galileo’s astronomical observations because they contradicted what was written in the Bible?”
Alloway believes that, in fact, God wants human beings to use their minds and powers of observation to learn all they can about the world and universe.
The Bible, Alloway explained, is not a book of science. Rather, it was written to inspire people to have faith in God and understand his purposes for human life. By contrast, scientists use experimentation and observation to understand the physical or material world.
His sermon was the first in a six-part series on “When Religion and Science Converge,” focusing on the difference between scientific investigation and religious truth. In upcoming sermons, Alloway plans to cover some hot topics, such as the debate over creationism and evolution, the role of miracles in medicine, and scientific versus religious views about the origin of the universe.
Some strict biblical literalists, often called fundamentalists, argue that the world is only 6,000 years old rather than billions of years, based on the genealogies in the the Old Testament. People who believe that are likely to throw out most of the geologic evidence, Alloway said.
“Let’s not discount most science because we’re stuck with the idea that scripture is a science primer. That’s not why the Bible was written. It was written, as I understand it, to tell us about ‘why,’ not about ‘how,’” he said.
“The Bible may be God’s word, but creation is God’s work,” Alloway said. “The more we learn about the truths that science discovers (about the universe) the closer we are to God.”
Reuben Rieke, a retired University of Nebraska chemistry professor and a member of St. Mark’s, agreed that there is no inherent conflict between science and religion. Rieke, who now heads Rieke Metals, said he always had a strong faith in Christianity while pursuing scientific study. “I don’t think the Bible is a science textbook and I don’t take it literally,” he said. But, he added, “The more we understand about our world, the more fascinating and complex it becomes, and the more that strengthens my faith.”
Tim Gay, a UNL physicist who attends First-Plymouth Congregational Church, also sees no conflict. He described himself as an orthodox Christian who accepts all the basic teachings of the church about sin, grace and salvation but doesn’t take literally such biblical stories as the creation of the world in six days or the idea that the first humans were two adults named Adam and Eve.
Nevertheless, Gay said, he believes the accounts of creation and the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden are profound statements of religious truth — that God is the creator and sustainer of the world, and that human beings are subject to sin.
On the current debate about intelligent design versus the theory of evolution, Gay said he believes proponents go out looking for evidence to support creationism rather than objectively weighing the evidence of biology and the geologic record.
Those who discount evolution because it’s called a theory fail to understand that a scientific theory is something that is supported by a wealth of evidence and is not just based on faith, he said.
“The big lie of creationism is that evolution is just a theory,” Gay said. “So is Newton’s law of universal gravitation. Problems exist with both, but they represent the best scientific view that we have.”
Stu Kerns, pastor of Zion Church (Presbyterian Church in America) and a proponent of intelligent design, disagrees about the evidence for evolution. “There is no scientifically provable theory regarding creation,” he said. In fact, he believes there is just as much evidence through the complexity of nature to posit the existence of an intelligent designer (God) as there is to believe that all life evolved from primitive organisms.
“Life as we know it is too complex to have arisen by chance,” Kerns said.
That’s why he and other proponents of intelligent design believe that both intelligent design and evolution should be taught in schools.
Kerns said he agrees with Alloway that the Bible is not a science textbook, but adds that, “properly interpreted, the Bible is completely true.”
For example, he said, it’s legitimate to debate whether the six days of creation described in the first chapter of Genesis are literal 24-hour days or lengthy eons of time. But it’s not correct to believe that Adam and Eve did not exist, or that Moses and Jesus did not perform the miracles attributed to them.
“Most evangelicals would say that the Bible is not a book of science, but if properly understood it is compatible with science,” Kerns said.
People with faith in God will have no problem believing that God could create something that appears to be old, such as fossils, or is capable of acting contrary to natural law, he said. “If God is God, he can do whatever he wants to,” Kerns said.
Dale Ribble, pastor of Oak Lake Evangelical Free Church, took a similar position. “The very reason that science can discover order in nature is that God put that order there,” he said.
Ribble said he has no objection to anything scientists study, but they need to be humble about what they can know. Some scientists, he said, “eliminate the possibility that God can exist, because their science has the presupposition that God is unprovable.” Allowing both evolution and intelligent design to be studied and taught in school would help overcome that bias, he believes.
Alloway said he knows some of the topics in his sermon series are controversial, and that’s why many pastors are reluctant to preach about them.
Taking a cue from “Star Trek,” he added, “We hope to boldly go where few churches have gone before.”
Near the end of his sermon Sunday, Alloway paused while pianist Marcia Wiebers played several bars of “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
Afterward, he said that science can explain the “how” of music, such as the mechanics of the piano and the way sound waves affect listeners’ eardrums, but “does all of that science fully explain music? No way. … Can science explain the emotions you felt as you heard that familiar tune?”
Science, he said, “by its very definition, is limited to that which can be observed in the natural world. And so it follows that those who make science their religion are equally limited in their understanding of creation.”
Sermon series continues
The Rev. Wayne Alloway continues his sermon series, “When Religion and Science Converge,” at worship services at 8, 9 and 10:15 a.m. Sunday at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, 8550 Pioneers Blvd. This week’s topic is “God and the Origins of the Universe.”
Others in the series are: “Evolution, Creationism and Human Beginnings,” Jan. 29; “Medicine, Miracles and Faith,” Feb. 5; “What About Psychology and Religion?,” Feb. 12; and “Why Science and Religion Need Each Other,” Feb. 19.
Reach Bob Reeves at 473-7212 or at breeves@journalstar.com.