Science and faith meet

Over the past decade I have been developing the practice of ‘wondering questions’ and curating safe and inclusive spaces for people of all ages to wrestle and engage with the big questions of faith and of life. I have been greatly helped in this by one of our congregation members, Professor Emeritus of Zoology Mike Clarke. Of his approach to science Mike says:

“A scientist’s goal is to strive to get a truer and truer understanding of how the world really works. Replacing one idea, hypothesis or theory with an even better one, as we inch slowly closer to the truth about how the world works. Finding new ways to test our hunches (hypotheses) requires great creativity. You don’t get scientific breakthroughs and revolutions by simply doing what has always been done before. As a scientist you are constantly searching for creative new ways to view a problem, in the hope that it might lead to new insights into how the world really works.” (1)

We have been blessed to be able to develop Messy Science sessions along with professional scientists who take both their faith, and their work as scientists seriously. Mike and others have encouraged us to not just use science experiments as object lessons, but as ways to encourage children and adults to ask deep and enquiring questions about the world around them. This in turn creates an environment where it is safe for disciples to ask questions of their faith in a robust and resilient manner. Mike says:

“When it comes to teaching children about the nature of science and faith, I try to highlight five things, depending on age:

1. the extraordinary universe God has created is wonderful, complex and knowable
2. that great creativity is needed by scientists to understand the extraordinary universe God has created
3. that you can be a scientist and at the same time be a Christian
4. that science addresses HOW questions, and faith addresses WHY questions. BOTH are important, answering the HOW question does not answer the WHY question.” (2)

From my own perspective, I have seen this approach to encouraging questioning and enquiry at work in the life of my own daughter, who has a deeply enquiring mind. Sophia, then aged 7 ½, informed me that she could no longer believe in God, because “of the Big Bang”. If the scientific explanation she had been taught at school was true, then God could not be, she reasoned. We had discussed this, and I helped her to think about the different kinds of questions science and faith wrestled with. I encouraged her to ask questions, and to talk to people she respected at church, and school about it.

A year and a half later, after hearing stories at Messy Church and engaging with people she trusts, she informed me that she does believe in God, and explained how she had come to this conclusion. Who knows what other hurdles she will face in her faith development, but certainly this creative thinking approach helped her to come to an answer which was satisfying to her then 9 year old mind. (3)

(1) Professor Mike Clarke, Professor of Zoology, LaTrobe University, 27/6/20.

(2) ibid.

(3) This reflection is adapted from a piece by Rev. Sandy Brodine, originally published in Messy Discipleship: Messy Church perspectives on growing faith, edited by Lucy Moore, BRF, Abingdon, 2021. pages 85-87.