An honest question
Does faith conflict with science?
Key points
- Short answer: Most Christians, including most Lutherans, don’t think so.
- What Jesus did: Jesus taught with the natural world all around him.
- The Lutheran view: Luther taught that God works through ordinary means: through farmers, doctors, parents, and, Lutherans would add, through the order the sciences study.
The short answer
Most Christians, including most Lutherans, don’t think so. Science asks how the world works. Faith asks who made it and what it is for.
What Jesus said and did
Jesus taught with the natural world all around him. He talked about seeds that grow while the farmer sleeps, “though he doesn’t know how.” He talked about wildflowers, birds and the weather. He treated creation as God’s good work, worth looking at closely, and never asked anyone to stop looking.
A little longer
Many of the people who shaped modern science were Christians, and many scientists are today. The idea that the universe began in a “big bang” was first proposed by Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest and physicist. The founder of genetics, Gregor Mendel, was a monk. Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project, is a Christian who writes about faith.
For most Christians, the Bible’s opening chapters are not a science textbook. They were written thousands of years before modern science. They tell us who made the world, that it is good, and that people matter to God. Those claims don’t compete with the age of the universe or with evolution.
Science is very good at answering questions about what can be measured. It doesn’t claim to answer whether life has a purpose, why there is anything at all, or how we should treat each other. Faith speaks to those.
Where Christians disagree
Some Christians read Genesis more literally and believe the earth is young. They are a minority in the wider church, and a smaller one in the ELCA. Christians also debate how God acts in a world that runs on natural laws.
How Lutherans see it
Luther taught that God works through ordinary means: through farmers, doctors, parents, and, Lutherans would add, through the order the sciences study. Lutherans in the ELCA read Genesis for what it says about God and us. They generally see no conflict with evolution or the age of the universe.
Where it is in the Bible
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Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Read Genesis 1:1
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
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Psalm 104:24 The variety of creation, made in wisdom.
Read Psalm 104:24
24 O LORD, how many are your works! In wisdom, you have made them all. The earth is full of your riches.
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
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Romans 1:20 Something of God can be seen in what he made.
Read Romans 1:20
20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse.
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
What do these words mean?
| The word | It means |
|---|---|
| Faith | Trust in God. Lutherans say it is a gift God gives, not something you work up. |
| Psalm | One of the 150 prayers and songs in the Bible’s book of Psalms. |
Tap a word for more. All 228 church words: the glossary, A to Z
Where to go next
Other questions people ask
Written by Digital Lutheran Church, a small, free website from the nonprofit Hope for Americans, in the tradition of the ELCA. Bible passages are from the World English Bible.