We shall see how little reason we have to be proud of our knowledge when we consider how many things we are ignorant of.

  - Matthew Henry

O LORD, what is man that you regard him, or the sone of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.

  - Psalm 141:3, 4

I heard Richard Dawkins say last night that science is the only reliable source of truth about the natural world. At the same time, he also admitted that there was a great deal that science did not know and had not yet discovered.

For sure.

Like, for example, that there's more to the world than just things "natural." One of the foci of the new Test of Faith project is to challenge the idea, increasingly popular among certain neuroscientists, that everything we are and do reduces to impulses in the brain. Here's a project we can get behind. Human beings are more than just the combined weight of our stuff, and we hope that one day more people working in the sciences will discover this to be true.

When they do, it may perhaps be because of the work of people like Peter Hess, who is devoted to bringing the questions and perspectives of theology to bear on the teaching of science. ASA's God and Nature newsletter offers a most interesting and encouraging perspective on his work.

It's not too much to hope that more and more scientists will come to see that the Bible is completely reliable, that it is, in fact, the very Word of God. Don Landis explains the importance of standing on the Scripture as the Word of God and not merely as containing the Word of God. Surely such teaching needs to be foundational to any attempt to bring the faith of Christ more pointedly into the work of science.

We are all stewards of the many and varied gifts of God. Galileo understood this, and so must we. If we have undertaken our work in science because we believe God has called us to it, then we must not be reluctant to give Him the praise and glory for all we are able to do in His name.

If Christians working in the sciences can become more vocal about their faith, and more outspoken in relating their work to their love for God, this might help more unbelievers - scientists, students, and onlookers - to discover that what we believe has real power to transform lives for God.

Because what we believe - they may be surprised to learn - is really true.

T. M. Moore

Senior Theologian and Historian