A Conflict Between Religion, Science, and Reason

By Matt Birchmeier, Ph.D.

“I don’t understand how a scientist can be religious.” I distinctly remember saying those words to a colleague of mine during my time in graduate school for chemical engineering. At that time, I was very cynical about organized religions. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Please allow me to start from the beginning.

I was raised in a Roman Catholic family in a small, close-knit town, where my family attended church every Sunday. I went through all of the religion classes and sacraments. But when I got to high school, I learned about evolution, and also about the checkered history of the Catholic Church, from the warring Crusaders to the counter-Reformation. I was also critical of the supposedly “religious” people such as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker that got caught in well-publicized scandals. These ideas contributed to my doubts about the existence of God and the idea that Jesus was really God. To my analytical mind, this whole Christianity thing seemed pretty hard to believe. I didn’t think that Jesus really rose from the dead or performed all of those miracles – perhaps Jesus was really more legendary, a good moral teacher. I really didn’t feel like I could trust the Catholic Church to present the Truth to me anyway. And besides, at age 16, I felt like I had all of the answers. (And I did – all of the WRONG answers!)

It was no small matter for me to tell my parents that I didn’t believe in Jesus Christ and that I wasn’t going to church any more. My mother, the more traditional Catholic, was mortified. My father, who better understood the difficulties that I was having, recognized that they couldn’t force me to go to Church or to believe.

So I went on with my life, going to college to study engineering, which suited my scientific bent, and I started toward the American dream, with the good job and the house and the boat. During that time, I avoided organized religions. I viewed them as power-hungry social instruments filled with simple-minded people who needed this crutch to get them through life. I also knew very few really religious people. My college friends didn’t go to church, didn’t proclaim any particular doctrine; we were go-along, get-along folks. Yet, for reasons that I couldn’t explain, I still felt a need for “something more”. Even when life was going my way, I wasn’t particularly fulfilled.

When I moved to Madison, WI, for graduate school, a friend of mine told me about a Unitarian society there. She had gone there on occasion, and thought that a “recovering Catholic” like me might find it interesting. And she was correct, in that I did find it interesting. One memorable Sunday, the Reverend discussed science and spirituality, which I found very interesting. But since the Unitarians had no particular doctrine, science couldn’t contradict it. The Unitarians, however, seemed to be more interested in feeling good about themselves on Sunday mornings and encouraging “social justice” than expounding any particular doctrine – some believed in God, others did not; Jesus was a good moral teacher, but his morals were generally ignored in favor of those from other religions. I occasionally had real issues with the Unitarian teachings: when the Reverend spoke out against James Dobson’s Focus on the Family organization as “mean-spirited Republicans who would take away a woman’s right to choose [to have an abortion],” I almost walked out in protest. Even my atheistic/agnostic world view allowed me to believe that human life had some inherent value that should be protected. Clearly, the Unitarians did not have it all figured out, and I really was not satisfied, intellectually or spiritually, with what I found there.

Toward the end of my time in graduate school, I recognized that I was getting quite close to achieving that goal of the good job I wanted, with the material possessions to follow. Things were going well, but I still didn’t have any greater purpose in my life.

About that time, I got to know a co-worker who was an Evangelical Christian lady. I was amazed with the depth of this woman’s beliefs, and her ability to live and defend her faith, which was much deeper than anything I had encountered in my interactions with Catholics. This woman was clearly a REAL Christian. She recommended that I read Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. I remember how Lewis led me through my argument about Jesus being just a great moral teacher, and then he promptly prove me wrong. This sort of Christian reasoning was amazing to me. I also listened to Ravi Zacharias and his “Let My People Think” ministry on the radio. These Christian apologists were food to my mind as well as spirit. I remember listening to Dr. Zacharias talk in one of his radio addresses about Matthew 6:33, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness”. I spent that evening walking around my apartment, muttering, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness”. That was the point where I realized my need for a savior – I really needed to seek a righteousness not of my own. I could not get to Heaven on my own.

My scientific mind generally objected to this interest in religion, but I was also using my science training to evaluate the basic question, “Who was Jesus – Lord, Liar, Lunatic, or Legend?” And like any other question, I weighed the evidence, trying to be reasonably objective. I didn’t want my past dislike of organized religions to shut out any possibility that Christianity was true; but at the same time, I refused to convert to Christianity merely because my family or a co-worker might encourage me to do so. I needed facts, rational arguments, and Truth; a blind adherence to, or rejection of, Christianity would not do.

I continued my study of apologists like Lee Strobel and Josh McDowell, and worked my way through the New Testament. I was often surprised what I found there – such as Luke insisting that he was writing an “orderly account” (Luke 1:3) or Peter’s claim that “We did not follow cleverly invented stories” (2 Pet 1:16). I had never seen these passages during my Catholic days, but they were great encouragement to me that the New Testament writers were really trying to convey true events, as amazing as those events seemed.

After about six months of serious analysis of the issues, I finally ran out of arguments for why Jesus couldn’t have really risen from the dead, and confessed him as my Lord in early 2001. At that point, my selfish, materialistic side didn’t want to become a Christian. But since then, my faith has grown dramatically, as has my interest in apologetics. I still have struggles, like God’s sovereignty vs. human free will, but now I know that I have a greater purpose in life, namely to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.

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Scripture quotes are taken from the New International Version