Reconciling science and faith: Confession #69

By On July 7, 2011 · 11 Comments

For centuries the church and science have been at odds, and reconciling the two can be extremely difficult and for some impossible. I am currently dealing with a setback in my own life that is helping me to deal with the tension in my own mind and heart.

This past weekend I injured my right middle finger playing volleyball. The injury is relatively small, but for me its a big deal for two reasons. The first is that any finger injury can be problematic for a surgeon and the second is that I am getting old enough to suffer weekend warrior injurues.

I ruptured the extensor tendon in my right middle finger. In simpler terms, I am unable to fully straighten out my finger. The injury is also called a “mallet finger.”

Mallet

Thankfully the injury is simple to treat. My torture, I mean treatment, for the next weeks is a brace that prevents me from bending the joint at the tip of that finger.

I stare at my finger constantly, waiting for it to heal. It works just like boiling water, staring only makes it take longer.

My care and treatment for the finger represent both a belief in both God and science. The splint keeps my finger straight, placing the tendon in the correct position while the healing process happens.

The idea almost sounds absurd. Just hold your finger straight for 2 months and the ruptured tendon heals. But it  is a scientifically proven fact. As long as I keep it straight, the biology just happens in an incredibly predictable manner.

I am also trusting God, and not just in a “God made the science” way. I have prayed to him asking him to heal it. The science is predictable, but that same science predicts that there is a small chance that I could have problems with it such as stiffness or incomplete healing.

Even doctors do not completely understand what happens enough to guarantee results. So I pray and ask God to heal it.

Does the brace mean that I don;’t believe that God can heal it? no. Does my prayer suggest that I do not trust science? No. I just need both and I see them working together and not as conflicting cultural issues.

And for those of you who only see an obscene gesture in the photo, it is an incredibly humorous inconvenience, isn’t it?

How do you resolve faith and science? Leave a comment here.

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  • http://homekettle.wordpress.com David Nilsen

    A friend of mine in high school had a small accident and sanded off the tip of his middle finger during shop class. He spent the next two weeks flipping off every teacher who asked to see it. They never caught on. High comedy.

    • http://jeremysconfessions.com Jeremy Statton

      When I show people they are initially startled and then quickly relieved.

  • http://bernardshuford.tumblr.com Bernard Shuford

    Great post, doc :)

    I don’t know how to resolve this.  The need to resolve it is genuine but I don’t know that I can.  

    Several years ago, I went through a phase of reading apologetics stuff, and it nearly destroyed my faith.  Until then, I had simply ‘believed” that Christians could explain scientific stuff pretty easily, and that a basic belief in God gave us a bit of turf on which to stand while we made our explanations.

    Then I read some things that creationists and other “Bible believers” (usually that’s a self-directed term with insulting implications…) wrote, and I was so incredibly disappointed that I’ve really never recovered.  I mean, there is no way on earth that any “scientist” would be even slightly swayed by most of the arguments that the creationists regard as so convincing and conclusive.  Home runs in their mind seemed to me to be outs before they even got to first base.

    So, to an extent, I’ve given up on resolving and reconciling.  Somehow, I still believe that God made it and he controls it.  Sometimes he “controls” it by simply letting it work in the way he designed it to work, not by some supernatural interference.  Sometimes, I believe, he controls it by simply knowing that it will work out in a certain way and giving us the grace to handle that certain way, even when it doesn’t feel good.  And sometimes, he does things that simply defy all explanation, even though there sometimes really is an explanation.  (In other words, there’s nothing supernatural about leaving home at a certain time, but being delayed just enough to avoid a horrible accident may FEEL like something supernatural occurred.  Or, in the case of your finger, maybe it will heal more quickly but the doctors will still keep you in the brace for the full time just because statistics say that they should.)

    Trusting God doesn’t always bring answers.  Believing the Bible doesn’t mean I can sit down with an atheist and PROVE him wrong.  (Embarrassing the guy isn’t the same as proving him wrong….)  Being a Christian doesn’t mean that I ignore the fact that, somehow, light from stars that are billions of light years away can still be seen on earth.  (No, being “created with the appearance of age” doesn’t necessarily convince me. It’s scientifically impossible without that great supernatural interference, but I’m not denying that it COULD have happened that way.  It’s just not a home run answer for me.)  When I trusted Christ as my Savior, I didn’t suddenly have magical satisfaction granted to me that all the answers are suddenly right.  

    Faith vs. science may never truly reconcile for me.  I don’t know.  I once felt that they were not enemies.  I once thought that there was no true colllision of science and faith, that it was just a matter of belief vs. unbelief.  

    There are things, though, where that just doesn’t work. 

    • http://jeremysconfessions.com Jeremy Statton

      Thanks for sharing. I have many of the same feelings. At one point the church imprisoned Galileo for describing what he saw. He accurately observed the world God had made and the church felt he was A heretic for it. It would be naive to think the church isn’t doing the same today about something.

      I wanted to identify the tension because it is definitely there. I don’t think we can completely resolve it because we do not fully understand God or the science. I don’t think we should try too hard to resolve it either.

  • Kenike

    Sorry about your finger, Jeremy! 
    Our Sunday School class just finished discussing the book “Thank God For Evolution” by Michael Dowd. He discusses  ”how the marriage of science and religion will transform your life and our world.” I didn’t read the book but attended the classes for several months–we watched his DVD, which he encourages people to copy and hand out to others to spread his “thoughts.” We had many interesting discussions. Let me know if you’d like me to get a copy for you. Many good insights and lots of food for thought.
    http://thankgodforevolution.com/

    • http://jeremysconfessions.com Jeremy Statton

      Thanks for the info. I’ll check out the website.

  • Doug Abbott

    Nice post.  Good luck with the healing and I think the “science” of the healing is just our way of understanding God’s beautiful design.  Be sure to enjoy the patience and life experience your injury bestows upon you.

    • http://jeremysconfessions.com Jeremy Statton

      You are right that I need to be sur to learn from this. I have to be honest that I don’t like it at all. I complain about it. I should be thankful that it can heal, and I am. But I complain because it’s a pain in the butt.

      If nothing else I am learning to use my left hand better. That makes you a better arthroscopist, right?

  • http://www.jamiesrabbits.com Jamie

    Love the photo first and foremost. I’ve always thought science and faith make a lovely couple. They may fight at times and even give the other the silent treatment, but they always seem to work it out.

    Maybe because one has a Dad who created the universe and he won’t take any in-law crap.

    • http://jeremysconfessions.com Jeremy Statton

      Its becoming quite common for me to show people my hurt finger. If only more families stopped the in-law shenanigans.

  • Pingback: Lessons from a ruptured tendon | Jeremy Statton's Confessions of a Legalist

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