My Gap

Neil Tyson is a public face for the scientific community. Hence he is asked by representatives of the religious community for his opinion about God and the Bible, which he dismisses. He apparently believes the Bible is a description of nature, not mind. He does not see in this world the expression of an all-powerful, all-loving God. Tyson makes a case out of Jesus casting a demon out of an epileptic boy (Luke 9:40-44). He says that when you have a seizure and foam at the mouth, you have epilepsy, not a demon. "There is a frontier of scientific knowledge, and the religious would say that beyond that border is the mystery of God. That is a God-of-the-gap, an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance" (quote not verbatim).

I love that Gap. My ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance is also never ending. What Tyson apparently misses in his example of the epileptic boy is that Jesus HEALED him. That was miraculous, not medicinal. Yes, in a religious experience such as the baptism in the Holy Ghost the scientists can see the neural chemicals produced and location of the synapses firing in ecstasy, but not the Gap producing it. I love that Gap.

I once stood sober-minded in a prayer by Charles Hunter, who asked simply that Jesus make the limbs indicated the right length. I WATCHED my left arm lengthen a fraction of an inch. Others had much more significant movement, but nothing has ever been more significant to me than watching my arm grow out with no movement on my part. What is the science on that Gap? I am not saying that there isn't any, but that is the gap I want to learn about. My God is God on both sides of the border, a God of nature AND of mystery. I am glad to have the pocket of my scientific ignorance diminished, and to have the pocket of my spiritual ignorance diminished, too.

A God Who loves and responds. You have got to give Him something to respond to. Please give me some science on that. I love that Gap.