Think Creation, Think Science: Experiencing God’s Majestic Presence in the World

Today on Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and me, Richard Beattie, will be talking about how Christians should be thinking about science. Have we been looking at science in the wrong way? Author John Van Stolen has a new book called God Speaks Science. I googled it and found a lot of articles that were from scientific magazines and so forth and found a few that asked, does God have anything to say about science? James, we're in for a treat. John Van Stolen has written about vocations versus occupation, and the timing is perfect on both these subjects. As we think of Labor Day and how we should think of our work, the correlation between arts and science and creation. Yeah, so I mean, I'm interested, John, and welcome to the welcome to the show here. It's great to have you. I guess I'm interested in just hearing a little bit about what you led you into this type of writing done, you know, The Day Metallica Came to Church, You've Written Now on God Speaks Science. And they're really interesting topics, very, you know, leaning into sort of an integration of what I would consider to be in really strong academic theology and academic thought with an extremely practical bent to them in these very particular areas. And so just talk a little bit about what led you through this, why did, what prompted you to write this type of book and where you're at right now. Yeah, well, thanks for having me, guys. I think at its most foundational level, I personally want to know God more and more and more and more. And so when I tripped on the theological tradition that I was born into the idea that God speaks through both creation and the Bible, two books, and those two books came together in a compelling way for me. Yeah, probably 20 years ago now in a synergistic, aha, oh my word, Lord, you're the author of this from the book of Isaiah, but you're also the author of this in how mountain hydrology works above the tree line in the Rocky Mountains. And when the two thises came together, God's revelation through creation and God's revelation in the scriptures, I had a huge kind of wake up call to the idea that maybe God has always wanted us to be reading these two books together, just in our personal lives, but also, you know, as a pastor and a preacher, primarily almost The Day Metallica Came to Church, Every Job a Parable. And now God Speaks Science. They're all born out of, I was a pastor, right? So I would preach sermons and I had people in our church who were scientists and doctors and electricians and who worked in multiple vocations. And so I had ready resources for researching the creation text there in our community already, got to include them in the process of writing sermons. How cool is that, right? Instead of me sequestering myself away in an office and coming up, you know, down from the mountain and sharing a 30-minute monologue, it became much more conversational. And yeah, for them, it became, oh wow, God is more at my work than I know. And for me, they became, hopefully not in a userist way, but texts. A firefighter, I had a group of firefighters sitting in my living room several years ago and I was kind of trying to read them all as I heard their stories. So yeah, it started with, I want to know you more, Lord, and has been this wonderful adventure of unpacking the book of creation's varying chapters over the years. At first it was pop culture, then it was vocation a lot. And recently it's been a whole lot of science. You know, as I read through God Speaks Science, one of the things that struck me was just the various theological traditions that you do draw from. I mean, you're looking at Calvin, you're looking at various people who have written on science and scripture. And I guess I'm wondering, you know, what, is there one particular resource that you would, you know, sort of say was really formative for you as you're writing this? Understand, you know, coming as a pastor and having all these people in your congregation. My wife actually worked in healthcare, and so as I was reading through this, there were portions of it that I was like, oh wow, this is excellent stuff for me to talk to with her about. But was there any, you know, rooting in a theological tradition that you particularly felt was just really inspirational for you? Part of me thinks I'm a theological opportunist. And so I was having these experiences and then I'd read something. I was reading at a local retreat center many years ago, a book of theological essays. And as I was reading these essays, I tripped upon one based on the thinking of Herman Bavinck, who I quote in the book, this beautiful set of paragraphs bringing together the nature of revelation through the Bible and creation. And I wept because, oh my word, I've been thinking about all these things, but he just put them into words. And how did he get this idea that God was playing out in our church a hundred years before it even happened? So some of it I tripped upon, but yeah, I'm born and bred into a reformed theological community. So, you know, the first word I said as an infant, I think was John Calvin. And it's sort of, you know, Abraham Kuyper and a lot of the reformed tradition comes natural to me. But, you know, I was forced to go to catechism and learn these things and learn the Belgic Confession. God speaks through two books. It was only when it became real that this theology and this tradition, like I have said so many times to people, like this, this amazing worldview we have here, folks, like what if we really lived into it and expect it to engage God's revelation in all that we do in all things where God is present. So yeah, a bit of both. Yeah. Well, I will say one of the, I mean, I appreciate the reference to Bavinck and to, you know, Calvin throughout. One of the books that I was pleased to see that you referenced was actually Science in the Trinity by Polkinghorne. What a great book. And I think the topic you chose to deal with there, the reconciliation of a belief in God's providence versus sort of the, man, I hate to say automation, but the self-sustaining aspect of creation, I think is really crucial. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. I was, I think I wrote in the book that every neuron in my brain was, every synapse was firing, probably a little hyperbole there, but it was when I read within the first five pages, he kind of says, you know, we've got a problem with science and faith and science says, you know, because we can understand it all, there's a determined mechanism and it just runs on its own like a watchmaker's watch and there's no need for providence or God's intervention. And yet he then goes on to make the point in simple terms that could it be that when a scientist intervenes into the natural order of things, which science does all the time, that we have a permission to believe in the possibility of a divine creator doing the exact same thing. And it, like the sparks started to fly and I thought, well, of course, and so scientists are the strongest argument for the potential of a providentially intervening God, the fact that they make more molecules, they make more out of, out of all of their experiments and all of the things that science continues to make more and more and more out of this incredibly high potential matter that God made. Every time they do that, they, they open the door to God, of course, engaging in creation in similar, maybe quite different, but very mysterious ways through them, I would argue through the scientists, the spirit of God, all good discoveries are God's good discoveries about the nature of the cosmos and maybe through them, yeah, quite anonymously. I've been writing God Speaks Science, interviewed and worked with a lot of atheists and agnostic and faith-based scientists and scientists from different faiths. Not because I'm a universalist and it's all the same, but because you know, all good Jewish rabbinical wisdom about creation as a scientist is a place where I can learn. So. Where do you really see the, so I sit on a, I sat on a forum for biblical integration in higher education and looking at how to help faculty who are in non-biblical and theological disciplines really understand their discipline from a biblical and theological perspective. And so very much at the heart of what you've written.

Here in your book, you know, how do we reframe these things so that we begin to see God more clearly in these disciplines? And one of the things we talked about was the model of integration that we would use going through those different disciplines. And I think, and don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think as I read your book, what I see is, maybe we hit the nail on the head. We'll see. But what we eventually came to were two models, one in which we would sort of pull a biblical and theological thread through all of these disciplines, where essentially, if you looked hard enough, you would find God in those disciplines, and that we could then, in doing that, as we threaded things across, that there would be ways for us to incorporate biblical and theology into most disciplines that are taught at the higher level. But then there was this other model that we proposed, which was more like a jigsaw puzzle. And the jigsaw puzzle was every one of these specific disciplines has a little corner of truth, a piece of the puzzle, so to speak, with boundaries, right? Where the observations made within that field are really crucial and contribute to our overall understanding of truth and who God is and, you know, sort of what the universe is all about. And they all fit together as we understand them, oriented around theology. And so those were our two models, sort of the thread and the puzzle. And I'm just wondering, you know, as you've gone through this, obviously you thought pretty deeply about how science reflects God to the world. How do you see some of those disciplines working themselves out and have you thought about how people might not only think about them, but also maybe teach them, frame them, talk about them as they go about engaging in those in their daily lives? I write in the book acknowledgments that several different John Templeton Foundation funded projects were the impetus for me kind of journeying into the integration of faith and science. And one of those, the STEAM grant that was run by Fuller Theological Seminary several years ago, in the process of going through that grant, I was coming up with the idea of this book and somebody local here in Calgary who teaches science. And so he wanted to start with the philosophical basis and what are the worldviews. And he was doing all this. And was then that I realized that I'm woefully bereft in terms of understanding that historical story, although it's gotten better with all the grants, but also that I am a mystic a little bit. I'm experiencing these things first and then I'm looking for theological permission, now not even rationale, theological calling to engage God this way. But it's always worked in that direction for me. So, yeah, what you say, those different models kind of resonate and I'd have to think about them a little bit more in terms of what I've done. But they weren't things that preceded the writing. It was an experience of the one through whom it all was made and then trying to make sense out of that. When I discovered a book by Sidney Greidanus, who was a seminary professor at Calvin Theological Seminary, a book he wrote about this is that. He said, I've spent my entire life, he heard me give a talk on Metallica. I didn't know he was there. I would have not been able to give that talk. But afterwards he came up and he said, I have spent my entire life, he was a preaching prof and a Old Testament theologian. I've spent my entire life trying to see the connections between Jesus in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament. And what you're doing is you're trying to seek out the connections between Christ and the scriptures and Christ and creation. And it was like a blessing almost. But I went back and read his book where he does the Old Testament, New Testament thing. It talks about all the different models for how, you know, progressively God reveals himself through the Old Testament and all these different redemptive models. There's all kinds of great things that theologians have thought about. And I thought, these are amazing thoughts. And what if I were to translate the this is that lessons written in his book to this is that in terms of engaging creation. But again, it kind of walked up to me and I tripped on it and then you run for it a little while with it for a little while and then make good notes and throw it into the book. I think if we're honest, most of us actually do that. So I think it, yeah, I mean, experience almost always precedes, you know, our real understanding things. And so, no, I appreciate that answer. And I guess I'm wondering, you know, as you said, you know, theological permission and theological calling to sort of search these things out. And what criteria do you actually use as your, you know, I was sort of fascinated. There's a couple of chapters I was really fascinated with the squid chapter. I thought it was really interesting, but also the knee chapter. So my background is in physical training. I did exercise physiology as a degree. And so oftentimes I'll find myself sort of gravitating toward the body metaphor. Part of it is that I just, I understand it pretty well. You know, that was my entire four years of undergrad, you know, figuring out how the body works, how the body moves, how muscles fit together, you know, all those different kinds of things. So there's an order to it. There's a, an analogous manner in which the church works. I mean, I think it's such a natural way for Paul to talk about the body of Christ. And, and so I think about that. And sometimes when I write on it, I think, well, I'm going beyond where Paul went. Is that okay? Right. You know, I'm now using the body metaphor in a way that Paul wasn't. Am I stepping out of bounds here? Am I doing something? And so how do you, how do you sort of think about that theological permission aspect? What are the, what are some of the, I guess, what I'm asking is how would you ever know if you went too far with it? Fair enough question. Yeah, no, it just makes me think about when I, this whole two book thing started for me with God and pop culture. And I got a lot of pushback and people were really upset and that I would talk about God and Metallica in particular. I mean, somebody called, they were so mad when I was preaching on that. They blew it. They blew a shofar into our answering machine at church and listening to the messages. And all of a sudden this horn, this sounding of judgment. So lots of problems. So, and, and even from more academic voices. Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We watch your sermons and you're, you're 50%. You're talking about that creation part and 50% the Bible. Like, can you do this? And so it's been a long defensive process. Less so when you talk about God image through varying vocations. But even less so when you talk about God having something to do with a knee. And I'm going, why didn't I do these books the other way? But so, but, but that question is always there. It's, it's God puts a boundary, I guess, on, on your imagination. And, and I don't, I mean, often in terms of science, the, the problems, the boundary has been set in the process of 10 years of preaching science and writing this book by the scientists themselves. So as a theologian talking about a song and what it means or a film, the lines are very gray and I've probably gone too far. But with science, I've, I've heard from almost every scientist I work from, I don't know if I'd go that far with that connection. And, and rightfully so. So, so they have been the ones who've brought a theological boundary. They wouldn't allow me to overinterpret the text. And then, yeah, yeah, well, you put it into a book and you send it out into the world. You find out pretty quickly if you went a little bit further and to that end, I mean, one of the most beautiful things that have happened is that like real scientists, I confess in the book, I do not have an undergrad in science. I'm not naturally empirical. I'm more of a mystical kind of person, but I listen well and hopefully represent well. But the scientists are saying this, this, like it's connecting with them. I met with one in our church sanctuary. He's a local researcher on Lyme disease and has a lab at the University of Calgary, 70 something years old. And he, he came up to me and he said, like, where was this book when I was in university? I, I kind of had to hide my, my empirical sensitivities and passions and gifts because of the denomination that I grew up in and how they saw science. So, so, yeah, long meandering answer to the question, how do you know the boundaries? The community sets the boundaries. Science sets the boundaries. I trust that the spirit sets.

Boundaries? All right, you know, maybe. Maybe we're so boundaried. Like, what? Why is this not happening in my mind, I ask. Why is this not happening in every Reformed church in our denomination? Because we believe this. I mean, if there's a theological worldview that has room for this, and if we were doing this, you think about how it could connect with the world. You're going to go out there as faith communities and begin to name where God is at work in people's knees. I mean, they can't ignore the text after you say that. And then they're going to walk on the text or skate on the text if you're talking about what makes ice slippery or breathe in the text if you're talking about the nature of the environment, et cetera, et cetera. It's just such a big, beautiful idea. Why isn't everyone doing it? And yet, not, maybe on a Wednesday night, bring the scientist in, have a conversation, and, you know, a few of the science geeky people will go to that one, but not necessarily Sunday morning from the pulpit. And yet, if the human knee is a text, if the knee was a thought in the mind of Christ through whom all things were made, before it was made, then we are called to look for what Jesus, the wisdom that Jesus embedded there. And you don't, you know, I'm not saying you can read it as black and white as you can't Colossians 1, 15 to 17, but you read it through different lenses, but we ought to be doing it. So I, you know, back to your question of boundaries, the idea of knowing the mind of Christ through creation more is so compelling, and the experience of Christ in those moments so real and often true for me that I feel like I'm on solid ground and alongside, beneath, following, surrounded by the Spirit of Christ in a way that you'll know when you're there, right? I'll say, there's a couple of things that I find interesting. Number one, I think as you do this more often and you preach on it, which you're right, is something that I very seldom hear sermons on science. usually when I hear science talk, it's more of an apologetic. It's a, you know, almost a science versus scripture or an integrationist perspective about how science squares with scripture. But you don't really hear it in the way that you've presented in the book, which is gesturing really toward worship, gesturing toward a discovery of truth and an actual experience of Christ. And I remember at one point, I believe it was Calvin, but you correct me if I'm wrong, but he talked about the scriptures sort of honing our vision or correcting our vision. And so, you know, we have this grid or filter that we can put things through that's going to keep us a little bit more in check, which is the Bible, that God's revealed word. But if that Bible doesn't transform the way we see everything else, and if we're not also allowing that everything else to tell us something about God, we're probably missing something. And so I appreciate that emphasis in your work. And I think the second thing I wanted to just follow up on, you know, so I do a fair amount of work in what I would call softer sciences like sociology, psychology, decision-making science, economics, those kind of things, and trying to pull those in and think about those in terms of biblical and theological truth, right? So these are sort of abstracted human systems. They're a little softer science than some of the things you treat in the book. But as you were talking about the different reactions you got when you wrote about Metallica versus what you wrote about, you know, science, hard sciences, it sort of brings to mind, like, do you feel like the exact, maybe not the exact, but in a very similar way as you've treated these various hard scientific topics, you know, physics, DNA, those kind of neuroscience, those kind of areas, do you feel the same way about things like sociology, anthropology, you know, the more interpretive and soft sciences that they also tell us something about how God created the world, how we relate to one another, those kind of aspects? Yeah, theoretically, absolutely. Practically, much, much less so. And I don't even know that that again was intentional, but most of what I've done is physical, hard science, right? With hard, you know, real matter texts as opposed to soft science. And part of me thinks about that very unsettling news several years ago where they couldn't replicate any of the studies done by a lot of people who are working in the social sciences. So I wanna jump on the hard science bandwagon from all these other scientists. Oh, that's not really science. It's a different kind of science, right? But yeah, maybe in the wisdom of God being led to do more on the harder side of things, it does kind of keep you on a, you know, a more peer-reviewed, replicatable understanding of the nature of the knee or the body or, yeah. And I mean, the other risk that comes to mind as you bring this up is science is always changing. That scares me a lot that something is gonna be discovered about something that I've written in the book that was understood knowledge about the nature of, you know, catalysts or whatever. And then, you know, five years from now, the whole standard model is gonna get tossed out along with every copy of every job of parable. Probably should have put some kind of caveat in the book about like, this is science as we understand it now. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I was just reading an article on, so I was reading your book and I was sort of reflecting on the things that I know of science. And I'd come across this article about a new species being discovered in Antarctica. I don't know whether you saw this recently, but it was, they call it the strawberry. I can't remember exactly, but there's a little piece of the animal that looks like a strawberry. But it has sort of these feathery tentacles like a squid. It's all white. And then it's got this little nub that kind of looks like a strawberry. And so that's what they've sort of nicknamed it, I suppose. But I found it fascinating as I was reading this article that they said they discover five to 10 new species under the Antarctic freeze every year. And I was just thinking to myself, like, this is in part why science is changing. You know, we're constantly discovering new depth of God's creation. And when you think about it, we have access to so relatively little of it. You know what I mean? The entire oceans are largely mysteries to most of us, I think, and really to science. And it's just fantastic to think about, you know, as those new discoveries come about, as scientists learn more, they should be additive, I would assume, to the way we reflect or the way we see God in that creation, as opposed to, you know, maybe occasionally they would completely shift it. But I have this sense that it'll be just additive. We'll get to learn more about God as we discover more of his creation. Well, what are you thinking? That's the first part of this broadcast on God Speaks Science, the book by John Van Stolen. We'll have more of that conversation next week on Useful to God. James Spencer's new book, Thinking Christian, can be yours by answering questions on an online spiritual growth program at the D.L. Moody Center. For more, go to jamesgspencer.com. I'm Richard Beattie. Have a great week. You know, everybody talks about life after death, but what about life during life? Hey, everybody, Greg Laurie here, and on The Greg Laurie Show, we're tackling life's biggest questions like, why am I here? What really matters? And what happens when I die? I'll discuss cultural topics with friends and experts and examine the biblical truth behind everyday issues and even share stories about my own personal spiritual journey. Listen now to The Greg Laurie Show on lifeaudio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.