The heavens declare the glory of God:

This is a discussion I take great interest in so I appreciated hearing Piper’s take.

Here is something else Piper has said on the subject, this one addressing the beliefs of the leaders at Bethlehem Baptist:

Thoughts in this post were triggered by a post over at Thinking Christian.

Pretty much everyone is familiar with the debate over intelligent design – whether or not scientists should allow for the possibility that some divine being was the originator of life on earth. Christian views of intelligent design vary from traditional six-day creationists to deistic folks who feel God did little more than set things in motion and then stepped back to watch. When it comes to a particular religion, however, intelligent design is a bit more agnostic. At its core it simply proposes that some deity was responsible for life on earth.

I can understand the scientific desire to find the cause at the root of every event. I understand scientists who want to figure out exactly how life came to be on planet earth. The desire to understand How Stuff Works is what drives science and propels human understanding to greater and greater levels. And, frankly, it’s exciting stuff. It is amazing all that scientists have been able to understand about our universe – and it is exciting to think of how much is left to learn. Who knows what we will find under the next leaf? Who knows what is below the surface of Mars? Who knows what we will be able to do once we understand how various natural processes work? And on and on goes the mind that finds science fun and exciting.

Nonetheless, it is frustrating for me that scientists are, well, so often so unscientific when it comes to the possibility of God. I have no problem with scientists seeing how far they can push understanding, tracing the generation of life back as far as we can, but there is something mind boggling about scientists that refuse to admit that science might only go so far, that there might be points past which science simply cannot provide answers. What sparked life on earth? I have no problem with scientists trying to find a scientific explanation but I do have a problem with scientists who refuse to even acknowledge the possibility that science will simply be unable to answer that question.

By faith I believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth. By faith I believe he did this by his own power and he created everything according to his will. Science helps me understand some of what God did to bring about his creative intention but science itself can never prove that God did it. The most science can do is leave the question unanswered and so far it has done just that. As long as scientists can offer no clear and definite proof of how life began on earth, they should at least recognize the possibility that science will never be able to answer that question. So long as they refuse to acknowledge this possibility, they show their faith in human assumptions about origins is as great as my own faith in God.