Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles? An MIT Professor Answers Questions on God and Science
Overview
Plasma physicist Ian Hutchinson has been asked hundreds of questions about faith and science:
- What is faith and what is science? Are they compatible?
- Are there realities science cannot explain?
- Is God’s existence a scientific question?
- Is the Bible consistent with the modern scientific understanding of the universe?
- Are there scientific reasons to believe in God?
In this comprehensive volume, Hutchinson answers a full range of inquiries with sound scientific insights and measured Christian perspective. Without minimizing challenging questions, he explores how science and Christianity are mutually supportive and intellectually consistent.
Both God and science truthfully address our curiosity and destiny. Find answers to your deepest questions.
Key Features
- Explores the connection between science and Christian belief
- Addresses common questions raised by believers and unbelievers
- Contains transcribed questions and answers from Veritas Forums
Contents
- A Spiritual Journey
- Are There Realities Science Cannot Explain?
- What Is Faith?
- Do Scientists Have Faith?
- Does Reason Support Christian Belief?
- What Is Scientism?
- Is There Really Spiritual Knowledge?
- Creation and Cosmology
- Do Miracles Happen?
- The Bible and Science
- Of All the World’s Religions, Why Christianity?
- Why Does God Seem Hidden?
- Is There Good and Evil?
- Personal Consequences: So What?
Top Highlights
“So, clearly, the big questions are an almost universal ‘construct of humans,’ and because humans do in fact desire meaning, a nihilistic view that the questions have no positive answers is dissatisfying. Of itself, our desire does not prove there are satisfactory answers; but it is part of what Augustine called the restless heart, human desire for God.” (Page 25)
“To understand science’s limits, we need to be clear what we are talking about. The word science has broadly two meanings. The predominant meaning up until the sixteenth century was the meaning of the Latin word scientia, which referred to any kind of systematic knowledge. The second meaning, which predominates today, is that science refers to the study of nature. That meaning is generally implied when we talk about God and science.” (Page 17)
“It was more of a reorienting and expansion of priorities, outward from self-centering and self-absorption toward caring for others, and, to a degree, outward from focus on abstract ideas toward personal relationships. Even today, my natural inclination is, and possibly always will be, toward ideas more than people, but following Christ did help me avoid the excesses of abstraction that might otherwise have narrowed my life.” (Pages 9–10)
“Evolutionism in effect simply reiterates that naturalism offers no meaning, no objective reasons to justify morality, and no explanation of where things ultimately come from. Evolutionism’s answers offer mechanisms for how current moral opinions might have arisen, but not justifications for why one should accept and practice them. That is what is meant when one says that science can address how but not why.” (Page 26)
Praise for the Print Edition
In this concise volume readers will encounter a remarkable array of topics relating to science, faith, theology, and philosophy that any thinking person should welcome. Hutchinson fields the questions capably and offers thoughtful answers that will provide stimulating insights on these fundamental issues. The book will arm Christians to confront their own deepest questions and those pressed on them by an unbelieving world. It will also provide non-Christians with a sound entryway into the rationale of Christian belief.
—John H. Walton, professor of Old Testament, Wheaton College, author of The Lost World of Genesis One
Scientific thinker Stephen Jay Gould famously declared science and religion to represent non-overlapping magisteria. Here Ian Hutchinson, a top scientific thinker, insightfully explores the limits of science and faith and where their claims intersect. A valuable yet delightfully readable voice at the intersection of philosophy of science and philosophy of religion, offering scientifically and theologically plausible arguments structured around many of today’s important questions.
—Craig S. Keener, F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary
The questions Ian Hutchinson has been asked, and which he answers in this book, are the questions I have been asked and attempted to answer. Hutchinson is a scientist and a Christian, and has a pastoral heart for those who have deep and enduring questions about the Bible and science and these questioners don’t want pat and simplistic answers. Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles? belongs on the shelf of every pastor, every youth pastor, and anyone who teaches the interface of science and faith. It’s that valuable.
—Scot McKnight, Julius R. Mantey Professor of New Testament, Northern Seminary