I became a Christian while I was in high school. My friends often asked me, “Isn’t believing in God unscientific? Why would a student of science choose to believe in God?” My answer was something like this: science deals with how, while religion deals with why. For example, suppose you ask why the kettle is boiling. I can explain the scientific process behind it, of how the electrical current turns into heating energy, which increases the temperature of the wafer molecules; since the heating element is at the bottom of the kettle, water molecules near the heating element will transit into gas form earlier, hence forming bubbles. Still, the answer can be as simple as I want to have a cup of tea. We are dealing with problems from two different perspectives, so there should not be any conflict. However, deep down in my heart, I am dissatisfied with this answer. I know there has to be a better answer to satisfy both my heart and my intellectual curiosity.
I became interested in the interaction between science and theology when I entered Cambridge University for postgraduate study. The same year, Stephen Hawking published his book A Brief History of Time. Discussions about his book were all over the campus. I must admit I never bought nor read his book in its final form because I was one of those early computer hackers who knew how to download and read the lecture notes on which his book was based.
Around the same time, I met Professor John Polkinghorne, a renowned high-energy physicist who later became an Anglican priest and taught in the theology school at Cambridge. At Cambridge, a graduate student can sit in on any lecture if the lecturer consents. With his consent, I spent two terms sitting in his class, and it turned out that more than half of the students in that class were people just like me. Professor Polkinghorne had a profound influence on my thoughts on science and theology. I told him during a one-on-one conversation that I wanted to translate his books into Chinese (my mother tongue), but he encouraged me to write one myself. It has been a while since we had that conversation, and since then, many books have been written on science and theology, so the project was put on hold. I didn’t think I had anything original to say. Two years ago, I was asked to give a series of Sunday school classes on science and theology. This allowed me to revisit the subject and study it more carefully, and I found something new and original to say.
I’m not a biologist or a cosmologist. I’m just an experimental physicist looking at things at the practical level. This web site is not about integrating our Christian faith with science or interpreting the creation account in the Book of Genesis. My main concern is not about creationism, the origin of the universe, and human beings. This book aims to see whether we can use science to gain insights into how God interacts with the world. By understanding how He works with the physical world, I hope you can see that believing in God is not irrational. He is not a distant God who created the world and let it run freely on its own, nor is He a God who only comes back now and then to fix things when they go wrong. The God I worship is a God who loves us deeply, interacts with us all the time, listens to our prayers, and provides a place for us in heaven. God created a desire in our hearts to understand where we come from and where we are going. Both science and theology seek to address the human need to answer those questions and gain a deeper understanding of the universe from different perspectives. I do not see theology as a direct competition with science. Instead, it should help us find answers that our hearts and minds desire.
Recently, there has been much discussion about cross-cultural theology. This field of study focuses on understanding how the Christian faith and teachings can be effectively communicated and contextualized in different cultures. The goal of cross-cultural theology is to develop a theology that is relevant and understandable to people from diverse cultural backgrounds while also remaining faithful to the teachings of Christianity. In the same way, we need to have a theology that is suitable for communicating the Christian faith to the scientific community.
I make no apology for assuming that God created the universe using the Big Bang or for using a process similar to evolution to create humans. The Big Bang and evolution are scientific theories that differ from scientific laws. A scientific theory is a hypothesis that seeks to explain something using observed facts. While anyone can create a scientific theory, not everyone can create a physical law. The exact mechanism by which God created the world and human beings is not critical to the main arguments of this book. Evolution is a good working model that can explain many things, but it may not be the whole truth. I still have many reservations about evolution. When we discuss how God interacts with the physical world, I will present some objections and explain why I believe God created the world through a process similar to evolution. Even if you disagree with evolution, I hope you will be patient and allow me to explain my thinking. I also hope this book will help you better understand how God interacts with people.
Recently there is a lot of discussion on Artificial Intelligence but I don’t see a lot of discussion on AI and theology. I will have a few articles here discussing how AI can bring new insights into the discussion of science and theology.
The content is originally written as a book. I’ve chopped it up into multiple stand-alone articles. The beginning of the book is the earliest post while the end of the book is the last post. While the best way is to read from the first post to the last post. You should be able to pick up any article on its own. If the arguments require previous discussion on an earlier post, a link to the post will be provided.