"But for the last one hundred years or so it has been increasingly true of religious questions also: it is becoming evident that everything gets along without "God", and just as well as before. As in the scientific field, so in human affairs generally, what we call "God" is being more and more edged out of life, and losing more and more ground. Catholic and Protestants historians are agreed that it is this development that the great defection from God, from Christ, is to be discerned, and the more they bring in and make use of God and Christ in opposition to this trend, the more the trend itself considers itself to be anti-Christian".
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 'Letters and Papers from Prison', Macmillian books, 1953, pg 195
I love the way Bonhoeffer writes. Since I also love Anne Frank's diary---I wonder if it is something about German writers...having only read the two authors, I will need to find out.
What he says in the paragraph above hits the nail squarely on the head! I adore science, always have. I have checked out science books from the library ever since I had a library card. I read scholarly journals for fun. But. (!) But I have always thought science was one thing that created a large problem. It gives people the greatest "excuse" of not believing in God. Look how this small bit of dirt became man! Well, it did, just not in the manner we should believe.
Certainly humans have always looked for excused to not believe. Read the Bible! Yet arguing against science is one of the more difficult arguments to make when the other believes in evolution or other scientific theories. While many theories "hold water" , others leak like a rusty sieve.
I have had to make speeches in class that, by the newest "research", proved the professor wrong. Not even by choice (to argue at the teacher), but by blatant research.
Science is incredibly changeable. Yearly, or even monthly, science retracts what it has taught.
"The fool says in his heart, "there is no God." They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good." Ps 53.1
In my short life, I have not found God changeable. He is what He is, who He is, and that is that. When you read the Old Testament you will discover that there are passages upon passages that speak of His love for us. True, He expected us to be holy (and to ask His help in that, I believe) in the Old Testament, but so does He ask that of us in the New (which of course I cannot find the exact verse I want. I hate that). Science, for me, shows the depths (and the shallowest of depths at that!) of God's glorious creation. The amazing impossibilities that surround us every day. Standing outside, looking about me at the world fills me with wonder at God's hand.
"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" Ps 8.3-4 (the passage goes on to explain the worth of man to God).
God is who He is. The world attempts to shove Him out of existence by their many tricks of anti-religion, forcing sinful unholy behavior upon us, and the list goes on. We must stand firm in our faith in God, and if ever we feel it wavering in a weak moment...cry out to Him. Ask Him for strength and peace. While I may not be cured of RA regardless of asking (at this moment), I have never had Him refuse the gifts of strength and peace when I ask for it---in my recollection.
Grace and peace be among you:
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt 28.19-20
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