Let’s say Smith wants to make sure he receives all his packages from UPS.
So he cuts a two-inch slot in the front door of his house and instructs the UPS driver to slip all deliveries through the opening.
What do we think of Smith’s method?
Obviously it’s too narrow.
Smith may receive a few of his goods through the tiny aperture, but he’s likely to miss out on most of what’s sent to him.
In the same way, the person who says, “I’m not going to believe in God till he proves himself to me scientifically” has narrowed the range of acceptable revelation to an overly slender slot in the front door of his thinking.
After all, it could easily be the case that God wishes to reveal himself to humanity in a variety of ways outside of science.
God could use beauty, art, history, philosophy, theology, miracles, ethics and personal experience to disclose himself to his creatures.
This list doesn’t negate the validity of science, but it does suggest that science will catch only a few of God’s deliveries to us, while missing out on many more.
* * *
It seems to me that Christianity is “trustworthy” if taken on its own terms, if taken as a wide-spread revelation from God that is sprinkled into all the disciplines, including science.
But it may not be convincing to a skeptical person who restricts God’s
deliveries to the narrow realm of microscopes, test tubes and beakers.
