LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 227

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IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

Chapter V
Practical Applications
1. Introduction
Science provides both opportunities and challenges for thoughtful Christians in a variety of vocations. How should students respond to being taught
a theory in apparent tension with their faith? How should teachers present a
controversial scientific idea? How should scientific investigators understand
their responsibilities? And how should non-scientific laity respond to the
claims made on behalf of the scientific community by the media and popular
books and articles? In this chapter, we will begin to address these questions
by discussing how each of these vocational groups might handle some representative (and in some cases, intentionally provocative) examples. In the
process, some general principles and rules of thumb will be offered to guide
Christian reflection. This chapter does not attempt to speak definitively, but
rather encourages an ongoing and constructive discussion in Bible classes and
other Christian education venues.310 It is particularly helpful if the discussion
includes both theologically and scientifically trained individuals.311

2. Students

and that all of the diversity in the body plans of various creatures derives
from descent with modification from a common ancestor via natural selection (so-called macro-evolution). Both in textbooks and in the presentation
of many instructors, the impression is given that this is something nature did
all by itself, and that, while the student may choose to believe in God, He can
have nothing to do with the scientific explanation of the origin and diversity
of life.
Unsurprisingly, but unfortunately, many students react to such claims
in a number of unhelpful ways that reflect the inadequate solutions to the
question of how Christ relates to culture, an issue discussed in chapter 1 of
this report. They may come to see science as simply a threat to their faith, as a
rival religion or ideology, and thus as something that must be ignored or completely rejected (Christ against Culture). Or they may come to think that the
faith must simply be modified so that it is compatible with what any widely
accepted scientific theory claims (Christ of Culture). Or it may be thought that
the faith must somehow be united with the science (Christ above Culture) or
that Christians must improve on the science so that it properly reflects Christian truth (Christ the Transformer of Culture).
However, in one way or another, all of these approaches represent (or
risk) a failure of Christian critical engagement. As Gene Edward Veith argues,
there are more constructive ways for Christians to respond to problematic
ideas, whether from the sciences or from other disciplines.312 Before responding in any way to a claim made on behalf of science, we should get some
critical distance and ask some questions:

A common enough experience for Christian students in high school and
college is to be presented with a scientific theory that appears to conflict with
their faith. Probably the most common examples derive from evolutionary
claims about the origin and diversity of life, for example the assertions that
life arose from non-life via undirected natural processes (chemical evolution),

(1) To what extent has a purely scientific theory or observation been combined with non-scientific ideologies or philosophical assumptions?
(2) Can we distinguish and disentangle the science from the ideology
and the philosophy, and if so, how much of our disagreement is primarily with the latter and not the former?
(3) Even if we still think that the purely scientific claim is overstated
and/or false, is there an element of truth in it?

310
Specialized Bible classes on the scientific vocation would be one starting point. See, for
example, Robert Weise, Playing God (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002); Adam Francisco and Jesse Yow, Off the Edge: Faith, Science, and the Future (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 2003); and Angus Menuge, Science and the Savior: The Calling of a Scientist (St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 2004).

(4) Can we distinguish domains and applications where the claim is
useful (and perhaps true) from others where it is more questionable
(perhaps because it is untested, or even untestable, in those areas)?

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It is unfortunate that advanced scientific training has become highly secularized, and
Christian science educators and professionals are often not provided classes in the history, philosophy, and theology of science. While some do compensate for this by significant outside
reading, the ideal solution is for the church and its universities to provide resources (books,
websites, conferences, seminars, etc.) to assist Christian scientists in these areas, allowing them
a safe place to think through the intersection of their faith and their scientific work. For this
same reason, faith and science classes in Christian high schools and colleges, presentations and
discussions at national youth group meetings, district and circuit level pastoral convocations,
and conferences for Christian scientific educators and professionals would all be beneficial
ways to foster healthy interaction. A book that attempts to model such interaction between scientists, theologians, and historians and philosophers of science is Menuge, Reading God’s World.
One of the most accessible integrations of the history, philosophy, and theology of science is
Pearcey and Thaxton’s The Soul of Science.

By considering questions like these, a Christian student can achieve a
good balance between several vocational objectives. Students are called into
the world to serve their neighbor. One reason they should learn about the
world’s theories is that their neighbor will be exposed to them; such learning
is therefore necessary to understanding the neighbor’s thinking. We cannot
312

See Veith, “The University of Babylon,” chapter 3 in his Loving God With All Your Mind.

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talk to our neighbor about an issue we do not understand. If she sees evolutionary theory (for example) as a reason to reject God, the gentleness and
respect required of Christian witnesses (1 Pet. 3:16) should motivate us to seek
to understand the theory that has led to her rejection.

phies in tension with a Christian worldview. In these ways, a critical sifting
of a scientific claim that rejects its non-scientific pretensions to ultimate truth
and notes which parts of it are (and are not) supported by evidence, can be
combined with a constructive use of the theory whenever it is demonstrably
beneficial for the neighbor.

Christian students should also learn about these theories so that, by asking such questions as above, they begin to sift them and to separate out true
and false, scientific and ideological, useful and speculative. They are called
to be in the world, but not of it, so while learning about the world’s ideas and
theories, they should also maintain a healthy critical distance from them.
For example, Christian students of science can point out that it is simply
not true that any scientific experiment demonstrates abiogenesis (the emergence of life from non-life), and they can note that the strongest evidence for
evolutionary theory derives from examples of microevolution (e.g., increased
resistance to antibiotics and pesticides). The case for macroevolution, on
the other hand, is much more speculative, and not demonstrable by direct
observations or experiments. They can also point out that the assumption that
nature produces life and its diversity all by itself is fundamentally philosophical, not scientific: it reflects the philosophy of naturalism, according to which
nature is an autonomous machine sufficient to account for anything which
occurs within itself. Thus anyone who believes that the world was created by
God, that God is providentially at work in the world, and that He intervenes
in that world through special miracles, must reject this philosophical assumption.
That does not mean Christian students are, or should be, closed to all
empirical investigation of the existence and diversity of life. A Christian scientist can develop models of the observable evidence without supposing that
those models can settle all the philosophical questions about the ultimate origin and governance of the world. And if some scientists suggest that evidence
points to the non-existence of God, there is no reason Christian scientists
cannot dispute this, either by critiquing the limitations of that evidence, or by
offering other evidence that points in the opposite direction. It is obviously
unfair and ideologically biased to claim that scientific evidence can be used
to support atheistic conclusions but cannot be used to support theistic ones.
Apologetic arguments about science seem unsuited to provide “proof” in
some ultimate sense, since science by its nature is a fallible study of a contingent universe. Such arguments are highly valuable, however, in showing that
thoughtful Christians can make room for faith in a scientific world.
At the same time, within those domains for which evolutionary theory is
useful (and perhaps true), such as understanding micro-evolutionary change
in malaria or HIV, Christians intent on a medical career should certainly learn
this information, as it may help them in treating patients or in fundamental
lab research for more effective drugs and potential cures. Using some aspect
of a theory that is helpful is not the same as endorsing all that the theory
claims, or all that is claimed for it by proponents of ideologies and philoso-

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In this way, Christian students of science can balance two important
objectives. They can remain faithful, refusing to make a scientific theory into
an idol by giving it the ultimate allegiance owed to God alone. They can also
develop an appropriate and authentically scientific attitude, one which both
properly emphasizes the limits and fallibility of scientific understanding,
while at the same time also thoroughly masters current scientific models
and the best ways to use them to produce helpful results. There is no reason
to choose between being a faithful Christian and developing an exemplary
scientific attitude. If young Christians understand this, it will encourage more
of them to pursue scientific vocations.

3. Teachers
For this reason, a critical goal for Christian science teachers must be
to encourage their Christian students to see that they can pursue scientific
careers without compromising their faith. Indeed, the Christian teacher has
a responsibility to avoid imparting an anti-scientific perspective to students.
Rather, the practical blessings that have accrued to humanity from science
and scientists deserve emphasis from Christians because of the centrality of
love for the neighbor in Christian theology.
Scientific advances in medicine are an obvious beginning point for the
Christian teacher to encourage students toward scientific vocations. Science’s
steady progress against infectious diseases, infant and maternal mortality,
disruption and disease of vital organs, and countless other human scourges
and illnesses is so widespread, and its theoretical and technological advances
have become so commonplace that we often fail to realize the enormity of
their benefits. Moreover, the theological truth that we are saved through
faith in Christ alone dare not lead us to disparage the importance of human
intellect, research in science and other fields, and the growth of knowledge
in general. Central aspects of the scientific method—for example, the importance of privileging evidence over assumptions and the value of critical,
careful, objective research and thinking—are vital for every intellectual
enterprise.
Rather than discouraging scientific careers and learning, teachers can
model integration of faith and learning in their teaching. They can also adopt
a pedagogical style that helps students to see how they can learn about a scientific claim or theory without either uncritically dismissing or uncritically
embracing it. In the process, they will also model good educational practices
that allow students to examine all sides of an issue, and avoid indoctrination

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2016 Convention Workbook