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Throughout
my professional career as a college professor, I have had many
direct and indirect opportunities to share my faith with colleagues
and students. On one occasion, a graduate emailed me after he had
settled in at his new job with a pharmaceutical company. Being alone
and on his own, he was struggling with his faith and having to
answer some tough questions for the first time in his life. One of
the questions he asked me during this discourse was how, as a
scientist, I could have faith in a God I could not see or prove
exists. He saw the two, Scientist and Christianity, as being
incompatible, yet he had witnessed my faith in action. I include
here a portion of my response to his questions as it highlights one
of my approaches to Faith.
What
an honor to have one's faith recognized and acknowledged. I was
blessed by your e-mail. I understand your struggle with faith/belief
prior to “understanding"; I also have struggled with that.
What has helped me is to realize how much we exercise faith everyday
without even realizing it. As a scientist, we make assumptions about
the systems we are studying and operate "in faith" that
our assumptions are correct. Until we encounter a consistent
observation that contradicts our assumption, we continue to believe
in or accept the original hypothesis. In a nutshell, that is the
scientific method. I can (and have) apply the same approach to my
Christian faith in several ways.
First,
I accept the basic premise that God exists and is interested in
being an active part of my life.
Second,
I recognize that if I accept the first premise, that God exists,
then I need to accept several other things:
- That the Bible is his inspired word and provides one, of many, ways for
God to communicate with me
- That
a relationship with God is not a one sided affair, and that God has
a responsibility/promise on His half of the relationship to
communicate with me, make His will known to me, and to reveal
Himself to me. The scripture is clear that "God will never
leave us or forsake us ..."
These two assumptions
(Bible is God’s word and God has a responsibility) require faith,
yet at the same time open the door for me to apply the same
scientific reasoning/methods that I do in my research, to my
Christian experience.
Here is my logic, If God
is real then I can hold Him at His word and all the promises in the
bible are redeemable. If even one of the promises fail, then we can
conclude that our original hypothesis (assumptions) are false. So
far, God has NEVER failed to live up to his stated word. Now, it
goes way beyond that. My initial step of faith was very scientific
and cut and dry. The wonder of it all is that after that initial
step, in which I challenged God to fulfill his side of the
relationship and reveal himself to me, since he was real, he did
just that. At that point, I began to experience God in a personal
way and my evidence for His existence and authority in my life only
deepened. God wants us to test the scriptures and challenge Him,
since in so doing, we provide a means by which he can bestow His
grace to us. I can now state firmly that there has been more than
enough evidence in my life and the lives of my family and friends
that I can conclude that Christ is real and is my constant companion
and friend.
Growing up in the home of a
bi-vocational Nazarene Preacher and public school educator has
taught me the value of a personal relationship with my Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ and the necessity to always “seek ye first the
Kingdom of God and all His righteousness”. I learned at a young
age that all Christians are called into a life of service. I have
tried to answer that call by being a Christian professional and an
active church lay-leader. I have serve in my local church as the NYI
President, NMI vice president, middler Sunday School teacher, board
member, chair of the finance committee, and treasurer.
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What I
Believe
