When I Consider the Heavens, the Works of Your Fingers
In my freshman year of college at the local state university, I took two semesters of astronomy for my science core requirement. They were my favorite courses during my time there. I found the sheer enormity and variety of the universe fascinating and exhilarating. However, although I knew why I found it so incredible, I never understood why my classmates and professors did, since they viewed astronomy through the lens of Big-Bang cosmology and evolution. To me, if it all came to be through chance, then it is vain to study or appreciate it for anything more than the doodles of a chimpanzee.
Nineteenth-century Dutch Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) foresaw this disconnect between Christians and their atheist counterparts. In Wisdom and Wonder, released in 2011 by Christian’s Library Press, Kuyper appraises common grace’s role in science and art. In this essay, I will review some of Kuyper’s thoughts on science. Next week, I will interact with his thoughts concerning art.
The Foundation of Science: God’s Wisdom
Where does science come from? Is it merely man’s tool to help him understand the world around him, or is it more? Kuyper argues that science finds its sole foundation and source in God’s wisdom. Scripture is clear that Wisdom accompanied God at creation (Prov. 8:22-31), and that God created the universe through the Word (Jn. 1:1-4; Col.1:16-17) [1]. God created the entire universe out of His wisdom. Kuyper defines this as His uninfluenced thought: “It was not the case that there existed an immeasurable mass of matter that God’s thinking attempted to process, but rather divine thinking is embedded in all of creation” [2].
In creating the world with wisdom through the Word, God created us in His image. Thus, not only did we receive personhood at creation, but also holiness, righteousness, and wisdom. As a result, we are able to “pry loose from its shell, as it were, the thought of God that lies embedded and embodied in the creation, and to grasp it in such a way that from the creation [we can] reflect the thought which God had embodied in that creation when he created it” [3]. Kuyper writes that our capacity for wisdom entails three truths:
1. The full and rich clarity of God’s thoughts existed in God from eternity.
2. In the creation God had revealed, embedded, and embodied a rich fullness of his thoughts.
3. God created in human beings, as his image-bearers, the capacity to understand, to grasp, to reflect, and to arrange within a totality these thoughts expressed in the creation [4].
These three truths are the basis and lifeblood for true human science. At the point we begin to reflect or uncover the thoughts of God in creation, science begins.
If we view science as a large building under construction, God’s wisdom alone serves as its foundation, and mankind is able and bears the responsibility to build up its walls and battlements. We work together in the task of uncovering God’s thought in creation. Because no one person possesses all genius or all talent, we each work the little section before us. Others may rearrange and reshape our work with new information, but we each help to build up the construct. Thus, when we as Christians approach science, we must begin with the knowledge that God’s wisdom is the foundation and structure to all science. Any science that denies this wisdom may possess correct observational data, but will draw from that data suspect conclusions at best and absolutely incorrect conclusions at worst (e.g., Darwinian Evolution, Big-Bang Cosmology).
Only when we view science over a vast amount of time can we begin to perceive the enormity and beauty of its edifice. And though we work together in the construction of this building, none of us know what the final product will be. Only God holds the blue print. While we are capable of unveiling God’s wisdom in His creation, can this ability be detrimental to us spiritually? And will this knowledge lead us only to folly and misery?
Mankind’s Ability to Grasp Truth: Knowledge
After exploring God’s wisdom in science, Kuyper turns to man’s knowledge. The Bible clearly states that man’s knowledge is folly to God, and either leads him astray or increases his sorrow (cf. Isa. 47:10; Eccles. 1:18; 1 Cor. 3:19). Does this then suggest that science leads us astray and is nothing more than foolishness? No, for the Bible is clear to distinguish between excellent and false knowledge. While the former is wonderful, the latter leads to sin. The difference lies in the root of said knowledge. As we find in Proverbs 1:7, excellent knowledge is rooted solely “in the fear of the Lord, grows forth from the fear of the Lord, and finds in that fear of the Lord its principle, its motive, its starting point” [5].
In modern science the difference between true and false knowledge does not lie in the performance of investigation, but in the manner of investigation and first principles. In other words, since sin has darkened our understanding, if we attempt to reach scientific knowledge without the benefit of regeneration, we are “bound to acquire a distorted view of things, and thereby reach false conclusions” [6]. Still, sinful man is not wholly blind to the truth.
God’s common grace reveals truth and wisdom in nature even to unbelievers. We have only to look to the masterful strides made by the Greeks and other ancient heathen in mathematics, physics, and philosophy to see evidence of this. Common grace has allowed a second branch of science to appear that is correct in its data, but wholly incorrect in its spiritual analysis—namely, modern atheistic science.
Although sin has darkened our ability as humans for knowledge and reason, it has not obliterated it. Even the least gifted person intellectually can solve rudimentary problems. However, sin does obfuscate the “true context, the proper coherence, the systematic integration of all things” [7]. Hence, while we can view objects externally, we are incapable of completely observing their essence and connection to God’s wisdom.
The reason for this is sin, which has darkened our capacity to know. Before the Fall, Adam’s knowledge was unaffected by sin. As a result, Kuyper writes that Adam was able to immediately perceive “the nature of each animal, and expressed his insight into the animal’s nature by giving it a name corresponding to its nature” [8].
Adam thus was able to grasp the concept of a thing together with its essence. Otherwise, his naming all of the animals in such a quick manner would not make sense. If he had not had this ability, he would have already forgotten the first animal’s name by the time he got to the fiftieth animal. Kuyper writes that the resulting “word existed in an organic connection with this concept…Science was an immediate possession for Adam, but for us science is bread we can taste in no other way than in the sweat of our spirits, by means of difficult and strenuous labor” [9].
While Adam was able to name things according to their very essence and nature, we are not capable of that. Our knowledge is darkened. The best we can do is descriptive (e.g., electricity, telephone, telegraph). And although we can arrive at some small insights into a thing’s essence through much observation, postulation, and recalibration, we are incapable of naming things, like Adam, with respect to their essence or connection to the whole of creation.
Although sin has caused science to become laborious, we still retain some measure of Adam’s immediate understanding. We term this wisdom—or practical knowledge. This entails the ability to perceive the underlying causes and effects of a given situation. Wisdom also entails the ability to make the correct decision in a situation. For example, some people are capable of giving wise advice or acting in a wise manner without understanding the science behind the situation. While wisdom offers an innate understanding of a things context and the ability to judge the things that differ, it cannot construct a knowledge of the whole. This is left to another offering of common grace: science.
Conclusion
My atheistic professors at the public university did not devote their lives to the study of astronomy just because of random beauty. Even though they didn’t recognize it as such, they loved astronomy because the mastery of the universe reflects God’s wisdom and beauty. Sadly, though we had the same data, they had a different understanding of the starting point and thus drew different conclusions. I often think of them when each fall semester arrives. They will be teaching a new group of students about the universe and its genesis in an enormous random bang. How sad to have the whole picture before you and miss the most inspiring aspect.
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[1] “The Greek phrase used for ‘the Word’ is ho logos. Logos means reason. Since reason can be dormant for us until it comes to full clarity in the spoken word, this phrase is not translated, ‘In the beginning was reason.” by, ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ This expresses that God’s reason is to be pictured not as existing in a dormant state, only to come to clarity, but altogether differently, as being one with his being in full clarity from eternity to eternity.”
Abraham Kuyper, Wisdom and Wonder, Nelson D. Kloosterman (trans.), Jordan J. Ballor and Stephen J. Grabill (eds.) (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian’s Library Press, 2011), 38.
[2] Ibid., 39.
[3] Ibid., 41.
[4] Ibid., 41-42.
[5] Ibid., 51.
[6] Ibid., 52.
[7] Ibid., 55.
[8] Ibid., 57.
[9] Ibid., 58-59.
April 19, 2012
Thanks for this review of Kuyper’s content on the intersection of faith and science. We are pleased more people will now be able to read it as a result of the translation work.