In our world today many believe that once one dedicates their life to the pursuit of science they can’t take the Bible literally.
Back in 1990 I was invited to share an apologetics message and my testimony on Princeton University campus about how I was once an atheist and how I came to Christ and that I never read the Bible as a former student at Princeton. A student came up to me after my talk and asked me what could someone have said that would have made me consider reading the Bible back then.
I shared the following quote: “We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever.”1 And I then asked the student if he knew who said this – I shared that it was Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest scientist of all time.
Back in the early seventies when I went to Princeton my belief system, as an atheist, was that you couldn’t be a scientist and believe the Bible since I believed they were mutually exclusive. If someone would have shared that Isaac Newton quote with me back then I know exactly what I would have said to them. I would have said that they were a liar since no way Isaac Newton would have made such a statement. But I was always open-minded and if this were true, I know I would have checking it out since you would have created such dissonance in my mind because how could such a great scientist have said such a positive statement on the Bible.
About six months after giving my talk at Princeton I was invited to share another apologetics message with a church on long Island, New York. I shared some similar thoughts on science and the Bible and the incident with the student at Princeton, whom I shared the Isaac Newton quote. I also told the congregation that night how as an atheist back then I believed there was just no way a scientist of the stature of Isaac Newton could have shared such a positive statement on the Bible. My belief system just wouldn’t allow for that.
I then began to share a few more fascinating facts about past scientists and the Bible that I never would have believed to be true, if I was told them, as a student at Princeton.
For example, Robert Boyle, considered to be the founding father of modern chemistry, devoted a large amount of his own wealth to Bible translation work. As a student at Princeton I knew who Robert Boyle was but I never would have dreamed he would have spent his own funds for Bible translation work – it would have totally clashed with my belief system that the Bible and science were mutually exclusive.
Then there is the great scientist Lord Kelvin. Kelvin helped lay the first transatlantic cable, helped formulate the first two laws of thermodynamics in mathematical terms, and was elected at age 22 to Glasgow’s University youngest professor ever – it was his habit to open every one of his lectures with prayer. Back in the early seventies I just couldn’t believe that a scientist would pray because I didn’t believe that there was a God to pray to.
If you would have then told me, as an atheist college student, that Samuel Morse, who invented the telegraph used a quote from (Numbers 23:23), “What hath God wrought,” for his first message on his invention, you would have made me very uncomfortable. In addition, if you would have shared with me he once said the following: “The nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the evidence of the divine origin of the Bible, the grandeur and sublimity of God’s remedy for fallen man are more appreciated, and the future is illumined with hope and joy,”2 you would have basically dismantled my entire belief system.
Finally, I shared with my church audience that night about Johann Kepler who is regarded as the founding father of physical astronomy. In addition, he formulated the first three laws of planetary motion, and when asked when he was searching the far reaches of the universe what he was doing said: “I was merely thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”3
Well, if someone would have told me about these five great scientists, Newton, Boyle, Kelvin, Morse, and Kepler, as a student at Princeton University, and their strong belief in the Bible, you would have totally destroyed my entire belief system. But Satan made sure I knew nothing of this when I went to Princeton.
My friends I am not saying that if I knew about these great scientists and their respect and love for the Bible as a student at Princeton that I would have become a Christian back then but I sure would have checked all of these things out. For if they were true, then I clearly would have had to abandon my belief that you couldn’t be a scientist and a believer in the Bible at the same time. And just maybe I would have begun my search toward knowing and believing in Jesus much earlier than I did.
1 https://www.christianquotes.info/quotes-by-author/isaac-newton-quotes/
2 https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/the-amazing-morses-sam-and-jed-11630271.html
3 https://faith-seeking-understanding.org/tag/thinking-gods-thoughts-after-him/
SO glad you turned to God and your search for Jesus when you did Curt!
It is good to see how God can use even the testimony of others to speak to our own lives. Good word brother. Keep being a bright light for Jesus!