How science works

Andrew loves science and theology (the study of God and religion) so much he got a PhD in both! His studies started in the sciences before he moved into theology, and he now works with both, together!

Andrew enjoys thinking and teaching about the sorts of questions where theology, science and philosophy meet – questions like what discovering life elsewhere in the universe would mean for Christians.

Bill grew up learning about God and science. His love for science really took off at school, when he was ‘wow-ed’ by the diversity of life he could see in a single drop of water (using a microscope). At university he studied physics, and he also took religion and philosophy classes. Out of all these different ways of understanding the world, he felt particularly excited about learning about the brain, which he felt held so many secrets about how we experience life. This led to him running a neuroscience lab exploring how our brains help us see, and make decisions.

As a Christian, he loves helping people understand how scientific knowledge like this can be a gift which we can explore alongside ideas about meaning and purpose from religious faith.

You can read more about his story, here, about neuroscience and his faith, here, or listen to him speak about his life and work through a range of short videos, each of which is less than 3 minutes long.

Elaine studies and teaches about how people think and interact with each other. She is particularly interested in exploring what scientists think about religion and has travelled all over the world to ask them. She has found out that it’s much more common for scientists to believe in God than lots of people think, and she loves to help other people think about how science and religious faith interact.

You can watch this 4-minute video to explore more about her work.

Francis led the Human Genome Project which showed us the first full sequence of human DNA (the chemical instructions inside us which help our bodies grow and function in a special, unique way). Francis is the former Director of the National Institutes of Health. He has worked closely with several US Presidents and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science.

During his medical training he was faced with some pretty big questions about what he believed about the world. These questions led him on a journey to becoming a Christian, and starting the BioLogos Foundation, which helps people think about how science and Christian faith go together.

In 2020, Francis received the very highly regarded Templeton Award which honours people who “harness the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it”. The award recognises and values the way Francis uses his scientific leadership and communication to show how religious faith can inspire really good science, and to encourage religious communities to celebrate the gift of science.

You can hear him talk about how he views science and faith in this 2-minute video, or listen to him speak about his journey at the intersection of science and faith in this 3 minute video, or this 7 minute video.

Galileo had a strong influence on the beginnings of modern physics and the scientific method. He studied all kinds of things including speed, gravity, and the principle of relativity. He invented and developed scientific instruments and used his developments to the telescope to find out more about our solar system.

Galileo is well known for supporting the idea that the earth moved around the sun, rather than the other way around. There were lots of groups of scientists and others who disagreed with him, as is often the case with new ideas and discoveries. Some Christians weren’t sure what to think about these ideas at the time as it meant some people had to rethink how they believed God had set up the solar system.

Galileo eventually got himself into trouble and was arrested by the Catholic church by offending the Pope at a time when the Church was already full of disagreement and uncertainty. Since his death, the Catholic church have officially stated that Galileo shouldn’t have been treated as he was. Even when he was under arrest, Galileo kept writing about how important both his science and faith were to him.

You can listen to historian Peter Harrison talk about Galileo’s work, in this 4-minute video, and his ideas about science and faith in this 2-minute video.

James worked with electromagnetic radiation and showed, for the first time, how electricity, magnetism, and light are connected. He is also thought of as a founder of the modern field of electrical engineering. In a survey of the 100 most prominent physicists, he was voted the third greatest physicist of all time, behind only Newton and Einstein. James was an Elder of the Church of Scotland. He said that his faith often inspired his passion for science, and prayed that God would ‘teach us to study the works of Thy hands’. He thought, and wrote a lot, about how faith and science could work together.

You can explore more about his work in this 3-minute video.

Kepler is known as a key figure in the development of modern science. He’s best known for his work in thinking about how planets move, and for some of his writings, which went on to inspire many people including Newton (and inspiring Newton’s work on gravity). Kepler developed a new version of the telescope, taught maths to people training in the church, and became the official mathematician to a number of emperors and military leaders.

Kepler’s faith was very important to him and he wrote a lot about the interactions of faith and science. His science was inspired by his belief that God had created the world in a way which could be understood through exploration and reason.

In 1595, Kepler wrote letters to another professor of mathematics. One of his letters said: “I had the intention of becoming a theologian. But now I see how God is, by my endeavours, also glorified in astronomy, for “The Heavens declare the Glory of God”.

You can explore more about his work, and ‘Kepler’s Laws’ via this 7-minute NASA video, or explore the wider story of his life and work in this 24-minute video – Johannes Kepler: God’s Mathematician.

While John was studying science at university, he became very interested in its history. He wanted to explore how science developed, and how it was shaped by different cultures and different religious beliefs – throughout time and across the world.

This led John to a career of research, teaching and writing about historical relationships between science and religious faith. He discovered that these relationships are not simple, and are not (as many people think) always negative. John’s research and teaching, shows how religious scientists are often motivated by their faith, and religious thinkers and scientists often drive each other forward in their search for ‘the truth’

You can read a bit more about his work here, or listen to a 2-minute video of John talking about how science and religion can interact when we think about the origin of life.

John Polkinghorne used physics and maths to explore some of the deepest levels of our physical universe. He changed from teaching physics to study to become a priest in the Anglican church and had a huge influence in the growing field of science and religion. He taught and wrote lots about the interactions of science and religion.

John loved to help people think about how both science and faith can help us to explore life’s big questions, and thought that “the question of the existence of God is the single most important question we face about the nature of reality”.*

You can explore more about what John thought about science and faith through a range of short videos, each of which is less than 4 minutes long.

* Polkinghorne (1994) The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker.

Jona is interested in exploring how we can make and use really tiny things called nanomaterials to find new ways of doing things – like detecting diseases, cleaning up water and making electricity from sunlight. He is passionate about work which can be used to help people, but he also loves just exploring the world he believes God made, and being ‘wow-ed’ by how things work! His faith is important to him and he loves to help people think about the wonderful excitement of both science and faith.

You can read more of Jona’s ideas in an article he wrote about ‘Studying Chemistry as a Christian’, here.

Faraday’s faith shaped the way he thought about science as well as other aspects of his life. He firmly believed that God had created everything according to ‘laws’ which could be explored and discovered through science. Some people thought that the Bible could teach us about science, but Faraday disagreed with this idea. Along with many others throughout history, he thought that science was a gift from God, to help us understand ‘the book of God’s world’ and would not, therefore, disagree with the Bible (‘the book of God’s word’) which was meant to tell us different things about God.

This way of viewing the world motivated Faraday’s scientific work. He had almost no formal education, but, while doing an apprenticeship with a bookseller, he read every book on science in the bookshop and went to as many public lectures as he could. His important work included inventing the concepts of magnetic and electric field lines, the first electrical generator, and improving understanding of the laws of electrochemistry, light and magnetism.

You can read more about his story, and work, here.

Boyle was known as a natural philosopher (the name given to people who studied the natural world using philosophy and scientific ideas before modern science was developed). Many people think of him as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of the modern experimental scientific method.

Boyle studied and wrote a lot about theology (the study of God and religion) and how science might help us think about God. He also supported those who were translating the Bible into various languages to be available all over the world.

Ruth has always loved finding out how things worked. Growing up in Scotland with her parents who were both Christians who studied the sciences, she was encouraged to explore and ask questions about both science and religion. Ruth spent several years, studying how eyes develop in baby zebrafish, which can help us understand more about how all kinds of animals (including humans) develop. But, although she really enjoyed this, she felt called to step out of the lab and do something different.

Ruth had always believed that science and faith could go hand-in-hand, but her time in the lab taught her just how positive the relationship between science and faith could be, and she wanted to share what she had learned.

She now works at The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion – writing books, giving talks and creating positive science-faith conversations in churches. She hopes to encourage people, particularly other Christians, to explore how love for God goes with a love of science.

You can hear Ruth chatting about science and faith in this collection of videos, each under 2 minutes-long, and answering people’s questions in this 6-minute video.

Since he was a toddler, Tom loved exploring the world, looking at anything he could find under the microscope bought for him by his Grandmother (who studied plants and was also a preacher in a church). He grew up with both science and religion being important to him and his family, and he felt passionate about helping people build bridges between different ways of exploring the world and our big questions.

Tom loved to explore how our physical world works, especially how molecules behaved in different conditions when weird things seemed to happen – like in slimes, foams, and when you mix oil and water. He made discoveries which changed the way scientists think about all kinds of different substances, and never stopped encouraging people to ask big questions.

Tom enjoyed bringing engineers, biologists and physicists together to tackle questions about the physics of life. He also loved bringing the study of science together with philosophy and religious faith.

Tom believed that the Bible gives us wisdom to help us live well under God, so we can tackle real issues and use our knowledge, including science, to love people, and God’s creation, well.

You can listen to Tom talk about ‘The Wise Scientist’ in this 6-minute video, and answer peoples’ questions in this 10-minute video clip.