Science and Christian Faith: 科學與基督徒信仰：過去，現在&#3328

The book of "Science and Christian Faith: Their Relationship in the Past, Present and Future" is a book dealing with natural sciences and my personal, evangelical Christian faith, their relationship in time of past, present and future." It is a semi-science popular reference book.

In Western civilization, Christianity and science are historically two Rocks. Christianity was borne when Jesus commenced his ministry among the Jewish people. In a short period of time, Christianity was popularized by his disciples; and extended to the other parts of the world. So, we have Christianity and her ecclesiastic doctrines; and his followers as Christians and Christian Church.

In 16-17th centuries, modern experimental sciences were borne. Three Christian scholars, i. e. Nicholas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilea first formulated the helio-centered universe. Thereby, Christianity was the mother of experimental sciences. In addition, Galileo even suggested a metaphor of Two Books, explaining the mutually explainable relationships between science and faith. Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church made a mistake by condemning Galileo as heretic, then to house arrest and consequently died of old age. This left a bad taste in the mouth of scientists. With this, a schism between Christian faith and science was created.

In 1858, Charles Darwin published his "Origin of Species" with an "evolution theory". The "War Hypothesis" between these two scholarly disciplines was proposed by two American scholars. Several American atheists contributed their efforts to make the conflict being even worsen. All these have been extended to the 21st century.

Beginning in early years of 20th century, eminent scholars such as Albert Einstein, John Polkinghorne, Bernard Ramm and many others endeavored d to build bridge of mutual understanding and reconciliation between the two camps. Einstein said that "All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life from the sphere of mere physical existence, and leading the individuals towards freedom." The US National Academy of Sciences endorsed Einstein's conviction.

In recent years, British and American scholars and theologians, following both Galileo's metaphor of two books and Einstein's conviction (as given above) have continued to build bridges of mutual understanding and conciliation between science and Christian faith. My book on "Science and Christian faith" is written as wee contribution to this noble undertaking.