Science Is Silent on the Supernatural

Our culture is becoming more and more secular. An increasing percentage of people now identify themselves as atheists, and while a majority of Americans still claim to be Christian, many no longer believe the basic doctrines of the faith. I think these folks still call themselves Christian because if they told the truth, they’re worried they might not get any Christmas presents.

A recurring claim by non-believers is this: “Science has proven there is no God.” In fact, if you type that statement in a Google search, you get over 45 million results. So it’s a very popular argument nowadays to say there is scientific proof for atheism.

But does that really make any sense? Here is the definition of science, taken right out of the dictionary: “Science is the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena.”

Did you catch that last phrase? Science can only study NATURAL phenomena. The existence of God, life after death, Heaven and Hell, and the spiritual world are all SUPER-natural phenomena. So modern science is really silent regarding religious topics. Questions of faith are simply outside of science’s realm.

If you want to investigate religious questions, to claim that science is the right tool is like saying you want to mow your lawn, and the best thing to use is a trombone. I mean, it’s downright silly.

The popular claim is that science has searched for the existence of God and came up empty. It has found no evidence of God. Well, duh! Science can only speak about natural things, while God is supernatural. Because science finds no evidence for something it is, by definition, incapable of studying, does not prove anything. It certainly does not prove that God is not real, nor that miracles are impossible.

However, modern science has indeed given us some important knowledge regarding the existence of God. Science has discovered just how complex life is. Not too long ago, back in the 19th century, people truly thought biological life was fairly simple. Back then scientists had recently discovered that living organisms are made up of cells, but they really thought the cells were simple blobs of protoplasm.

Now we know cells are incredibly complex, a veritable city of activity, all in miniature. The DNA molecules within each cell nucleus contain a vast database of information, more complicated than a computer software program. And the countless chemical interactions that occur within each cell minute after minute are amazingly intricate. One slight malfunction with these processes and the cell would die.

So science has been very helpful regarding the question of whether God exists. Science has shown that life is so complex and intricate it’s mathematically impossible for living organisms to have come into existence in our world by accident. And of course, the claim that life came into existence by accident is the first and most fundamental doctrine of atheism.

If science shows that life could not have come into existence by accident, how then did it get here? Well, good question, isn’t it? It sure seems like we ought to consider whether a divine, supernatural Creator was involved.

If people choose not to believe that God exists, well, that’s their choice. After all, each of us has free will and we can decide for ourselves what we truly believe. And even though our culture is becoming more and more secular, whether God exists or not is not determined by popular opinion. 

But if someone sincerely decides that God is not real, he or she must not make the claim that modern science has proven there is no God. That would be the same thing as going outside and mowing your lawn with a trombone.