Toto We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Toto we’re not in Kansas anymore.

This week marked the beginning of winter term at the community college that I am finishing up some gen ed. Courses at. Tonight was my first night in biology 102. Now I have not taken a science class (unless you count a week long birds of prey class) since my Jr. year of high school. And I have not taken biology since my sophomore year. It has been since the first semester of my sophomore year that I took the type of biology that talks about cells (instead of animal dissection and all the fun easier stuff). Needless to say it has been a while since I have been in this kind of environment.

It is not simply the type of class that made me take a step back and realize I’m not in “Kansas” or more realistically Nampa anymore. It became clear to me from the beginning of class that my instructor is most likely not a Christian, or at least not one who believes in intelligent design. As we were talking about animal cells and plant cells and how they work and the small intricacies of how it all functions I could not help but think “God, you are magnificent. How could anyone believe that this all happened by chance, or evolution. Everything has to be just so…so perfect. I don’t get it.” And I truly do not understand how one can use science to disprove God, the more I look at the universe, people, and now biology, I become more convinced of Gods existence.

I could get a sense of my instructor’s position because she kept referring to the evolutionary process, and not simply with micro evolution, but everything having evolved from something. I do not know quite how to word it in the manner of which her tone and body language would match. It was her tone and body language which gave away, or suggested her beliefs of how everything came into being. In the moment that I realized this I began to genuinely appreciate the University I went to, and Christian scientists. I now feel more blessed than ever to have learned, not just bible and theology at a private university, but also history, English, phycology, and all of those other general education requirements, because our theology and beliefs do impact everything we do and how we learn.

I believe that science and God can, and do, co-exist that science does not (and cannot) prove or disprove God, but simply that it is a window into how God has created and how magnificent, beautiful, and mind blowing God is. We can learn more about God by learning more about his creation through science, and I look forward to being able to do this, even while disagreeing on some things with my instructor…which I am use to.