"all my tubes and wires and careful notes"

so we are eating some delicious food at a place that specializes in providing that during the luncheon hour, and my friend leans back in his chair and posits something that has obviously been growing within him for awhile.

"i think science is crowding out God." he says

then he proceeds to make a case for it. the things that have been traditionally attributed to God are being explained, one by one, by science. examples flow like sweet wine as he paints a picture of this God person being effectively relegated to superintending little bits of almost completely irrelevant void.

it's funny how two people can draw entirely different conclusions from the same observational data... factor faith and theology into things and the polarity increases.

in this case, as in most, i think science is used best to somehow reinforce what we already suspect to be true. so whereas, my friend embraces the void and is quite comfortable with the incredible shrinking god, i embrace the presence and am quite comfortable with the increasingly revealed God. scientifically speaking, in the end it's all theory and one theory is as good as the next, right? we can't prove God any more than we can disprove God... especially if we have room in our theology for ongoing revelation.

what i mean is this: in my view, God doesn't cease to be involved in things simply because we come to understand a bit more about how they fit into the large 3D jigsaw puzzle called 'physical reality.' the fact that we can see a connection between this and that event only threatens the theology of the man who expects God and God's actions to be completely mysterious, completely invisible, completely unexplainable... but where is that written down?

if one holds to the idea that God is involved, whether actively manipulating objects or simply setting wheels in motion, then the explanation of the movements of those objects or the rate and rotation of the wheels and how they fit with others in a giant clocklike construction of mindblowingly intricate cogs is really cause to marvel and exult.

the psalmist speaks of ascribing to God all glory and honour due his name. through even unpardonably sloppy science, my own humble words of praise are simply a bit more informed.

and i like that.
selah