Response On Murphy
Mert Hershberger
4211 Lynn Drive
El Dorado, AR 71730
From: PSCF 48 (December 1996): 282.
I enjoyed George L. Murphy's discussion on the influence biblical beliefs have upon physics. However, I believe he missed one of the most important interactions between faith and study: thanksgiving and worship. One's faith and study need not and should not remain independent or interact merely to give each other meaning. As we discover the vast and intricate wisdom with which God designed the universe, we should see all the more plainly that God has eternal, dynamic power and a transcendent, divine nature (Rom. 1:20). This knowledge of God's power and nature should prompt the physicist (or any other scientist) to worship and give thanks to the Lord who has condescended to come near to us.
A biblical analogy should help make this responsibility (and privilege) to worship even more plain. Not all those who helped build the first temple under Solomon believed in Yahweh as the Most High God. However, some of these pagans probably had a good knowledge of how the temple was built and the designs that were in the temple. They could build even though they didn't believe.
Later, the upper orders of priests in Jerusalem continued to go through the worship routines with technical precision. However, the ark of the Lord was not there, and Ezekiel had already had a vision of the glory of the Lord departing from the temple. The science of sacrifice continued, but the point of the activity was missed: to worship and give thanks to God. In the same way, scientists are engaged in a practical idolatry if they fail to pray for wisdom in how to interpret the data and to thank God for creating and for showing his glory to us.
May God be praised in the heavens and the earth.