Science & faith: God’s work clear in all things

Published: May 25, 2018

By Ardyn Townzen
Special to Arkansas Catholic

Ardyn Townzen

“I just don’t understand why people believe in God when we have so much scientific proof that he doesn’t exist.”

This was what one of my best friends told me when we were discussing our personal beliefs. As an atheist, he has told me multiple times he believes in science more than he will ever believe in God. And unfortunately, this is an idea that is becoming more and more popular with the more scientific developments we make.

It’s hard to remember what our lives were like before science monumentally changed our everyday lives. Before we held technology in our back pocket, before we were able to save thousands of lives by obliterating diseases, even before we knew the sun was the center of our universe, faith was the only thing that humans used to explain phenomena. That is until science helped us explain some of those occurrences.

Now, because we live in such a parallel world compared to then, it’s easy to see why we doubt God. This is especially prevalent for teenagers growing up in a world more surrounded by science than ever before, who ask themselves whether or not there is room for both science and faith.

So let’s answer it: Does science prove that there is not a god?

The concept of “proof” is science-based, but faith is what helps me believe the answer is “no.”

There are hundreds of natural occurrences around us that help me believe the world, as well as every person, was put here with a specific purpose rather than just coincidence.

Earth is literally in the perfect spot for life to survive. Any closer to the sun and we would be too close for life to survive the heat, any further and we would be too cold to live and water would freeze. The moon’s location acts as a buffer for large meteors and Jupiter is just close enough to attract larger rocks into its atmosphere rather than ours. Any change in our distance and the world wouldn’t be able to contain water, vegetation or life.

This is why we haven’t found any other planet as spectacular as ours. And it doesn’t seem like earth was simply lucky enough to be perfect for human beings. Whether or not you believe in the Big Bang or the literal seven days in Genesis, it is hard to argue that we were simply formed so perfectly by chance.

Each individual was made with a specific purpose in mind. In fact, it’s pretty demeaning to insinuate that we were all just a product of chance. Every human on the planet has their own genetic code completely different from anyone who is living or has ever lived. Our behavior, emotion, thought process, even our personality is different from anyone because we have a soul that was made in the image and likeness of God. We have a soul that makes us an individual with a specific purpose for this world.

There is a reason why some of the most amazing minds in scientific discovery are and were Catholic. They knew that what they were discovering was not meant to undermine God, but to show his work on a greater scale. There is a reason why the Catholic Church and Pope Francis allows for belief in evolution and the Big Bang Theory.

Biology, chemistry, zoology, environmental science, physics and everything else has given us the opportunity to change our lives for the better and explain how God created us. God gave us the free will to explore our world freely which is what science is. This is also why faith is so important. Faith is supposed to be believing without seeing. Just because some say that science and advancement means there is no God does not make it true.

In the end, there will always be people who say that God is disproven with every discovery, but science can never truly do that because of faith. Faith is not something you can dissect. You cannot put it under a microscope and see what it is made of. Knowledge is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you can see how our world works and just how amazing it is. But on the other hand, you also doubt whether or not it has always been like that or if it was caused by someone. Knowledge only takes us so far; faith has to pick up at one point.

Ardyn Townzen graduated from Bentonville High School in May. She attends St. Stephen Church in Bentonville.

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