Science in Christian Perspective

LEARNING, SCIENCE, AND FAITH
Gordon R. Lahrson

From: JASA 16 (December 1964): 116-117.

The center of the Great Commission is a call to "make disciples of all nations." Yet the depth and scope of the discipleship are dependent upon the disciple, whose first credential is that he is a learner.

. . . Why did Jesus not choose the so-called scholars of His time to be His disciples? Could it be that many of the religious intellectuals of His day thought that they had all the answers? No one unwilling to be a learner could matriculate in this university.

. . . The learner may have intellectual doubts and questions, but Christ invites him, as He did Thomas, to come along. Although Thomas was baffled by many things, he did not wait until he had all the answers to his doubts before he trusted. And because he trust ed, there came a day when he could say, "My Lord and my God." . . . the evidence comes through the venture. . . . This is the basic error of the skeptic, not that he questions or doubts, but that by his skepticism he closes the door to the venture. We learn as we trust. "We walk by faith and not by sight," said Paul.

We live at a time when there is increasing emphasis on what men learn by the scientific process. To be sure, God has made an ordered universe which demands our rational and ordered response. But the God in whom the disciple trusts is not confined to a scientific formula. He is revealed in Christ as Redeemer, who saves the disciple from his sinful, selfish nature, from the horrible pit of self-gratification. He is revealed in Christ as Lord who summons followers. -Dr. Gordon R. Lahrson, European Representative of The American Baptist Foreign Mission Societies, in The Torch, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 1-3, July 1963. Reprinted by permission.