For this Saturday’s dinner, we have the opportunity to meet Andy Crouch. He is a journalist with the evangelical magazine Christianity. My family and I rarely have conversations regarding this realm of matter. However, this table talk has made me realize how there is often a conflict between science and religion. It seems hard to be a person of religious faith and practice serious science at the same time. Catherine gave some insight into how one of her colleagues became a person of religious faith after diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately, her colleague survived fifteen more years while fighting with cancer. That is when she felt grateful for her life and starts to believe in God. However, at the same time, she is also a person who practices serious science, so she turned to Stephanie to seek advice on she finds a balance between science and religion. I find it interesting to learn how Stephanie acknowledges that the two institutions deal with different realm of human experience, but she finds a way to integrate both. Science investigates the natural world, while religion deals with the spiritual world — hence, the two can be complementary. This table talk has exposed me to the topic that I have rarely think about, and it propels me to challenge my presumption.
Rose Scholars Fall 2019
Endless possibilities
I am really glad that you were able to have insightful conversations about science and religion! I appreciate that you mentioned, “science investigates the natural world, while religion deals with the spiritual world — hence, the two can be complementary”. It is certainly difficult to have both science and religion coincide, especially if you work directly in the science field. Dr. Praveen Sethupathy, a professor of biomedical sciences, said in his interview with Claritas (Cornell’s Journal of Christian Thought), “people assumed that because I was an evolutionary biology, that my faith must have diluted, my faith actually became much stronger as a result of growing and wrestling in a very real way” (p.25). It’s uplifting to see that professors in the field of science can also be religious!
You brought a great point about science and religion being complementary. These two topics are not concepts that I usually mix or tend to bring up at once in a conversation. Yet, I find it really interesting to see your perspective on religious scientists and how they manage faith and facts in a balanced manner. The integration of the two institutions that you described in your reflection seemed like a difficult idea to grasp for many members of the scientific community in the past, but it is amazing to see how open-minded the field has become for everyone to openly express their beliefs.