Science & God Don’t Clash - Mar. 11, 2025
- Cynthia Zager Godwin
- Mar 11
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 26
In this edition:
My Science Teacher Believes in God?
LA Fires Update & Video
The Abundant Life - Oh, Yeah, Where is It?
The Suffering Church
Writer’s Corner
My Science Teacher Believes in God?
When I taught science classes at a public high school, I often had students ask, during a lab or after class, if I believed in God.
My answer was always, yes. The student who asked the question would often give me an incredulous look. Then they’d say something like, “How can you be a science teacher and believe in God?”
I would answer that faith and science don’t clash. The God of the Bible governs a universe of order and rules. Those rules point back to him and show us Who he is. They are also rules we can discover.
In science we call those rules, laws. Laws of gravity, genetics, energy, cause and effect. These laws show us God is a Designer. He is someone who values order, sequence and patterns. Right there, that tells you a lot about what kind of God he is.
In fact, I'd say it's really not unusual that your science teacher believes in the God. I'm just a science teacher, someone who tells you about what people have already discovered. There were lots of famous scientists, people who added to our body of scientific knowledge, who believed in God.
You've probably heard of some of them:
Robert Boyle – discovered the relationship between pressure and volume in a gas, “Boyle’s Law”
John Dalton – discovered the law of conservation of mass in chemical reactions
James Joule - discovered the first law of thermodynamics
Johannes Kepler - discovered the three laws that govern planetary motion
Gregor Mendel - discovered many of the mathematical laws involved in heredity
Isaac Newton - discovered the universal law of gravity
Other famous scientists who were also Christians: Michael Faraday, Louis Pasteur, Samuel Morse, Francis Bacon, John Dalton, George Washington Carver.
LA Fires Update & Video
For those who would like an update on the Los Angeles area fires:
The Palisades fire burned 37 square miles
6,800 buildings, mostly single-family homes, were lost
The Altadena fire burned 22 square miles
9,400 structures, mostly single-family homes, were lost
Many undestroyed homes remain uninhabitable due to
smoke damage
For the most part, burned areas remain closed to non-
residents
Residents will also need to apply to a state fund for home insurance since it was cancelled prior to the fires
Rain induced mudslides are a constant threat
Rebuilding cannot begin until hazmat removal is completed, projected for January 2026
The Abundant Life - Oh, Yeah, Where is It?
My husband is an AWANA ("Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed") table leader for a group of sixth grade boys at our church. For those not familiar with AWANA, it meets one night a week. Boys and girls memorize scripture, have a short teaching time, a game time, and other fun activities.
A student, I’ll call Bobby, joined AWANA this year. Bobby is only eleven-years old and already he's had a very difficult life. He usually doesn’t do the AWANA homework and easily ends up off-task during meetings.
Recently, the AWANA leader was speaking on the gospel of John. That night he was talking about the abundant life Jesus has to offer and the believers enjoy. Bobby suddenly spoke up. “That’s all fine and nice. But I’m not having this abundant life you’re talking about!”
Bobby was actually listening! And he had the courage to mention, in front of his peers, that he wasn’t experiencing the abundant life the leader was talking about.
Bobby's AWANA leader talked with him after the meeting. No commitments were made that night. But please pray for Bobbly. That he decides at some point in the future, he wants the abundant life Jesus offers.
The Suffering Church
You probably won’t see this in the news. On March 9th, the Iraqi Christian Foundation, reported large numbers of Christians were being slaughtered in Syria by the current government. This happened over the past three days.
In February this year, Open Doors, reported Christians were killed in the Republic of the Congo. Militants rounded up 70 Christians from a village where many believers were known to live. The believers were taken to a church and all were killed. Please pray for our suffering brothers and sisters.
Writer’s Corner
I turned the manuscript for the first book in the series into an editor. She is really good and the novel will be so much better than it was before. She looked at everything. So, slogging through the edit there’s so much to review on the macro and micro level!
Is the overall story working?
Are the character arcs working?
Is the timeline correct?
Have I used names/places others have used that would remind my readers of someone/something else?
Do I have any misplaced modifiers? Ugh!
Are the commas in the right places? More ugh!
© Cynthia Zager Godwin, 2025
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