The Bulletin
of the
Church of Christ at
New Georgia
Tim Johnson, editor
August 11, 2002
In
This Issue:
School
Bells Again
By
Bobby Graham
Does
Science Really Know Why?
By
Steve Klein
School Bells Again!
All are surely aware that school time is here again. It is a happy time for children and adults who recognize the importance of educa-tion. It is likewise to be a time that tests the faith of even the most faithful child of God. The tests come from the school activities themselves, the companions with whom children are placed, and even the busy schedule brought on by school days.
Notice the list of suggestions that are designed to help us meet these tests and to over-come the trials:
1. Resolve to place God and His kingdom first, even on school nights. Bring the children to Bible study, rather than allow them to stay at home and learn the lesson of first things coming second (Matthew 6:33).
2. Encourage your children to find their con-stant companions among those who will not be spiritually detrimental to them (1 Corinthians 15:33).
3. Do not allow a busy schedule to push God's Word out of your family's schedule, whether reading it, preparing Bible lessons for classes, or in any other way (Acts 17:11).
4. Plan wholesome activities to take the place of the undesirable ones, so that your chil-dren might be able to associate with their friends and enjoy wholesome recreation (1 Timothy 4:7-8).
If these suggestions are faithfully followed, then the desirable results favored by the Lord will surely follow. On the other hand, a failure to adhere to God's Word in these matter will surely produce children and young people who have only a half-hearted interest in spiritual mailer and partial respect for God's Word.
-- by Bobby L. Graham
via Market Street Bulletin, Athens, Alabama.
"Why?" It is a question humans ask from earliest childhood. In fact, most children seem to delight in asking one why question after another, no matter what answers they receive. As we mature, we may tend to ask the question less frequently, but we also ask it less frivolously. We get serious about wanting to know "why?" Why are we here? Why do we get sick? Why do we get old? Why do we die?
Modern science purports to answer many of our why questions. From simple things like "why it turns cold in the winter" to the ultimate questions mentioned above. But the truth is that, in the absolute sense, science does not tell us why any of these things happen. Yes, it can tell us that the earth's Northern Hemisphere is colder in our winter months because the earth is tilted on its axis. In winter, we are tilted away from the sun. In summer, when the earth has orbited halfway around the sun, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, and this accounts for our hot summer weather. But this does not really explain WHY it is colder in the winter. It explains HOW. Science is pretty good at explaining how things work in the physical and natural world by cause and effect. However, I believe that science cannot fully answer the question "Why?" It cannot give the absolute REASON WHY things are the way they are. Science offers men only limited truth and power, not ultimate truth and power. This is so for the following reasons.
(1) SCIENCE DOES NOT KNOW WHY
In Job 38:3, God asks Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Neither Job nor modern scientists were there. Since the scientific method demands that an event be both observable and repeatable in order to be a proper subject of scientific investigation, modern science can say no more than Job could about "how" or "why" the earth began.
Real scientists who understand the nature of the scientific method and the limitations of it will freely admit that there are many questions science cannot answer. Dr. Vannevar Bush has been quoted as saying that "Science proves nothing absolutely, and on the most important questions it offers no evidence at all" ("Science Pauses," Fortune, May, 1965). Nobel prize winner in medicine and physiology, Sir John Eccles, put it bluntly in a 1984 article in U.S. News and World Report. He said,
"Science . . . cannot explain the existence of each of us as a unique self, nor can it answer such fundamental questions as: Who am I? Why am I here? How did I come to be at a certain place and time? What happens after death? These are all mysteries that are beyond science."But, as Eccles also said, "Many scientists and interpreters of science don't understand the limits of the discipline. They claim much more for it than they should."
(2) SCIENCE SOMETIMES DOESN'T KNOW HOW.
Some of the questions God asked Job in Job 38 can now be answered by science. For instance, it might be possible for scientists to explain how light is diffused or how the east wind is scattered over the earth (38:24). But the "ordinances of the heavens" (38:33 -- the natural laws which would explain the nature, formation and movement of planets, stars, comets, galaxies) are still a subject of much speculation among scientists. This is true despite the fact that the heavens are observed nightly by scientists and laymen alike all over the world.
(3) SCIENCE IS POWERLESS TO ALTER SOME THINGS.
Even if scientists knew all of the whys and hows concerning the stars (for instance), would they be able to change the stars? God asked Job "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades or loose the belt of Orion" (38:31). The stars that make up these constellations are unassailable by men! If scientists could explain why and how death occurs, could they keep us from dying?
When it comes to the important questions, science does not tell us why. It really cannot even fairly address these questions. Only the Bible does that! Only the One who created all things can explain to men why we are here. And He has done so. Through His messenger Paul, God has said that He "made the world and everything in it" and "made from one blood every nation of men . . . so that they should seek the Lord . . ." (Acts 17:24-27).
by Steve Klein