I’ve noticed a disturbing trend recently which isn’t a ‘recent’ trend at all.  It’s a trend that’s been occurring since The Englightenment and the dawn of modern science.  It’s the trend that attempts to “prove God” using scientific evidence. I don’t (think I) have much to say on this so I’ll keep it short and sweet, just to point out how counter productive this is.

But First…

I must mention where my recent ‘noticing’ have come from.  One source will get credit (my brilliant wife), one will get it’s usual scolding (my local church) with the understanding that they are doing the best they can to spread Christ to those in my community, and one will get my recommendation for a ‘must read’ book.

Dumbing Down God’s Story

It all started recently with the last in that list,  a book called The Lost World of Genesis One.  A Lutheran pastor (believe it or not) recommended this ‘non-standard’ look at creation to me and it completely blows away modern approaches to the story you find in Genesis 1.  I’m not even going to attempt to do it justice here (seriously, go read it) but, i’ll just touch on one point very generally.  It makes the case that the Bible is theology and isn’t interested in science. In doing so, it points out how all the debates about creation/evolution, fueled by religious fervor are doing nothing but harming the “God-ness” of our Creator.  The creation story is about an even greater miracle than we give it credit for and, instead, we ‘dumb it down’ by making it something we can ‘prove’ with science. Lesson number one is that ‘proving’ God with science is not only a pointless exercise , it’s one that completely misses the point that God is trying to show us. (for details on why I say this, again please pick up that book).

Proving God is Disproving Him

The more glaring and ‘ah ha’ moment came from the mouth of my wife (and no, I’m not saying this just to get in her good graces).  My church is currently doing a series entitled “More Than A Story”.  The point of the series is to ‘prove’ (via apologetics) that the Old Testament isn’t just a bunch of nice stories that teach us a lesson…instead, that they really happened the way the Bible describes (showing that God can do great things, I suppose).

Each week we hear a story and then hear ‘proof’ of why it must be true.  After this weekend’s story of Jonah, I was talking with my wife about a reference made in the sermon to a modern story about a man getting swallowed whole by a shark, and surviving.  The reason this was in the sermon was to ‘prove’ that the Jonah story could have happened just as described.  But then my wife said something that stopped me in my tracks and is (currently) making me reassess everything I think about an “apologetics” approach to evangelism.

She said: “Why would you prove that God did something by showing that it could happen, any day, through the natural ‘forces of nature’?“  Isn’t the whole point of the story to show the miracle and all powerful-ness of God, ?  That He can do anything he wants, anytime He wants, regardless of nature?  Doesn’t ‘proving’ that God did something through everyday science/medicine effectively diminish and disprove the need for Him?

I was speechless (which doesn’t happen often). She was exactly right.

So Why?

Why, then, do we try so hard to ‘prove’ God through science and logic.  It’s effectively the exact same approach that people take trying to disprove Him.  They say “look! Science accounts for this, we have no need for God”.  If we can prove it with science, logic, measurements, and rock-solid proof, didn’t we just hide the supernatural hand of God behind a bunch of weak-ass human evidence?

The entire field of apologetics is now suspect in my mind.  Apologetics attempts to prove, through logic, history, science or other human proofs, that God exists and that he makes sense.  While I acknolwledge that God does indeed exist, I will believe until the end that, if we think he ‘makes sense’, we don’t really know who He is.  As soon as we think our human logic can put Him in a box of understanding, we’re ignorant.

So, I propose this:  We let God speak for himself. We stop building creation museums that attempt to ‘prove’ a young earth.  We stop calling Intelligent Design ’science’.  We stop pulling stories from tabloids to ‘prove’ the Bible.  We give God a little more reverence than all that.  We start to acknolwedge (even to those who demand “proof” before conversion) that we can’t give them enough evidence to convict them…that only His Spirit can do that.

Let’s stop trying to prove God before we accidentally disprove Him in the process.