SR2: Meeting God

On 31 July 2000, God spoke to me (Why I am a Christian). It changed my life powerfully. I have no doubt that it was God. It is as sure to me as meeting Einstein in person, and realizing he is not a figment of pop culture or a conspiracy theory. God is real!

Excitedly, I shared my experience with many people, and met painfully with a lot of skepticism. I have come to understand that people have a right to decide what they want to believe. They have every reason to think that I was superstitious, misguided or naive, because my experience challenges their fundamental beliefs. But I also realized that their doubts do not lessen my experience in any way. I feel like the blind man who was healed by Jesus (John 9). The pharisees came to question him. The blind man replied that he does not know the answers, but said, "One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"

Over the next two years, many more miracles occurred in my life. God continued to speak to me. I learnt a lot from Him. But in the back of my mind, I wondered how I could reconcile God with my scientific beliefs. I thought I had to give up being a mathematician.

A WRITING PROJECT

In 2002, I went to Stanford. In our writing class, we were given the chance to do a research project in any topic we want. It was the perfect opportunity for me to confront my philosophical dilemma. But I was afraid of what I would find. I didn't want to lose God because He was the best thing that happened to me. He told me to be strong and courageous. He told me to be honest in my search. He said that believing halfway or believing falsely is worse than not believing at all.

After much research (Science and Religion essay), I learnt where my old worldviews came from. I had taken the technical boundaries of Science, and made them the fundamental boundaries of the Universe. The scientific method is:

1. making hypotheses
2. making observations through experiments to test these hypotheses
3. making predictions about the past or the future using proven hypotheses

About the third point, predictions about the past include discovering the origins of life or the origins of the universe. Predictions about the future include knowing what will happen when we put certain mechanical, electronic, chemical and biological parts together, giving us inventions such as rockets, computers, plastics and medicine.

Meanwhile, in a parallel way, the main scientific arguments against God are:

1. There is no need for a God hypothesis.
2. God cannot be observed, so He cannot be real.
3. The Bible contradicts the laws of science: its miracles, and its accounts of the origin of life and of the universe.

I will summarize my thoughts about the above three arguments. Stay tuned.

[To be continued...]