Science & Faith - No Conflict

Although I have always enjoyed it, these past few years, I've been reading even more on the "relationship" between science and faith. I guess I've been spurred on by the new wave of atheism that has made its way to bookstore shelves (think Richard Dawkins' God Delusion for starters). Just recently I read a great anecdote by the Brit, G.K. Chesterton:

I remember once arguing with an honest young atheist, who was very much shocked at my disputing some of the assumptions which were absolute sanctities to him...and he at length fell back upon this question, which he delivered with an honourable heat of defiance and indignation: "Well, can you tell me any man of intellect, great in science or philosophy, who accepted the miraculous?" I said, "With pleasure. Descartes, Dr. Johnson, Newton, Faraday, Newman, Gladstone, Pasteur, Browning, Brunetiere - as many more as you please." To which that admirable young man made this astonishing reply - "Oh, but of course they had to say that; they were Christians." First he challenged me to find a black swan, and then he ruled out all my swans because they were black. The fact that all these great intellects had come to the Christian view was somehow or other a proof either that they were not great intellectuals or that they had not really come to that view.

I took that quotation from Dale Ahlquist's Common Sense 101: Lessons From G.K. Chesterton. As my pal Kevin says, there was "plenty of grist there for my mill." (Readers, do yourselves a favor and visit Dr. Kevin Vost's website.) And while I'm at it, let me throw out a few more excellent reads on faith and science: