I believe

I believe in science, medicine, doctors, vaccinations.

I had my first Moderna vaccination on Marcy 30, Doctor Appreciation Day. I found myself giving thanks for Dr. Fauci and all the doctors, nurses, medical professionals and hospital staff who have worked so tirelessly and courageously during this past year of pandemic. I also gave thanks and continue to give thanks for all the scientists, lab workers, researchers of every kind gathering data and racing to find treatments and vaccines while we travel together through this global experiment.

We've watched the scientific process play out in real time: Does the virus survive on food? Hard surfaces? Still air? 

Are children carriers? Can we contract it from people with no symptoms? Do masks work? For the wearer? For those around them?

There are things we know now we didn't know a year ago. There are things we still don't know, maybe never WILL know. The research matters. The humility matters too. 

My high school physics teacher, Mr. Appell, liked to lead us deep into the inner workings of theories that shaped science for decades, even centuries, then would start class off one day with a giant NG, for "NO GOOD," scrawled across the board. Copernicus. Galileo. Kepler. Months spent on each, then the giant NG as solar theories bit the dust. NG NG NG. 

Unknown East European Artist
Wood engraving

That's the way it is with science. Theories are tested. Data is studied. Some things add up. Some things don't. We balance what we know against what we don't and do our best on the wide continuum between sheer ignorance and total understanding. 

Our sermon this morning was about Thomas. He wanted empirical proof of the resurrection, and was given it, and believed, completely. History suggests he traveled through what is now India, founding churches, until he was martyred in 72 BC. 

Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." That's us, the centuries of believers, affirming faith in a resurrection we can never prove. 

This morning, after the sermon, we also had a baptism. This question is part of the liturgy:

Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God? The answer: I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,     He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit         and born of the Virgin Mary.     He suffered under Pontius Pilate,         was crucified, died, and was buried.     He descended to the dead.     On the third day he rose again.     He ascended into heaven,         and is seated at the right hand of the Father.     He will come again to judge the living and the dead

And then this:

I believe in the Holy Spirit,     the holy catholic Church,     the communion of saints,     the forgiveness of sins,     the resurrection of the body,     and the life everlasting.

Do I believe in resurrection? I do, just as much as I believe in science. Maybe more. 

That doesn't suggest I know what resurrection means, or that I could describe Jesus' resurrection body, or that I have a fully-formed vision of life everlasting. 

I've never really understood the idea that science and belief, science and resurrection, science and miracle somehow contradict each other. We are bundles of cells, nerves, emotions, ideas: some mostly physical, some mostly not. 

Yet who can show the exact boundaries between physical, emotional, spiritual? 

Who can prove causations are entirely one realm or the other?

I heard Frances Collins speak at a youth conference over a decade ago. He led the Human Genome Project and has been director of the National Institute of Health since 2009, nominated by Barack Obama, unanimously approved by the US Senate, serving under Donald Trump and recently selected by Joe Biden to continue in the same role. 

He was an atheist in his youth, devoted to science, with a PhD in physical chemistry and an MD by the time he was 27. But along the way he began to see realities that didn't line up with his scientific training. There was nothing in science to explain morality, hope, or beauty. 

I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.

For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.

Collins helped found BioLogos, an organization which explores the intersection of faith and science. The Biologos website might alarm those who hold to a literal interpretation of every part of scripture. It might intrigue those open to consider alternative perspectives. I enjoy reading the personal stories of scientists whose work in the field led them deeper and deeper into orthodox faith and used the site in my last years of youth ministry exploring questions our older students were asking. 

Tonight, April 11, Collins will be discussing How Christians can help end the pandemic. My guess is step one will be "believe the science." 

Also of interest, a podcast from last Easter: Resurrection in the time of Coronavirus. Step one: believe in resurrection. 

There is far more room on that wide continuum between sheer ignorance and total understanding than we sometimes acknowledge. Room for data, for scientific theory, for mystery, for faith. And for the humility to say "Lord, I believe, Help my unbelief."