Scientists are the most arrogant people in the world. And yes, I make that claim arrogantly.

For the past 3 years, I have been pursuing a degree in Health Sciences, hoping to be enlightened in some way about how the human body works. And don’t get me wrong, I have! I can tell you plenty about electrical conduction in the heart, the chemistry of muscle contractions, and the mechanisms of antibacterial resistance. But at the end of all that, do I really know anything with absolute certainty?

In my Genetics class, we did a case study on a woman named Santhi Soundarajan. You may have heard of her- she was stripped of her silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games after genetic testing determined that she was actually a male. How can this be? Santhi has a uterus, ovaries, and a female body shape... And yet, according to her karyotype, she’s a male. I won’t try to explain all of the science behind how this is true, but basically she had the chromosome we associate with “maleness”, without the gene that causes male characteristics.

So here I am in genetics, basically presented with knowledge that challenged everything I thought I knew about sex determination. That got me to thinking... Are there people out there whose hearts beat stronger on the right? Mammals that can breathe without oxygen? Zygotes that can be formed with only one parent?

While our current understanding of science would say no, how do we know that exceptions to our laws don’t exist? Who made the laws of science, anyways? How is it that our world is so intricately woven together to function, and why do we care so much about understanding how it works?

To me, the only comfort I can find in this massive universe is that there is a perfect God who created it. Now, notice that I did NOT deny science in that sentence. I simply, but boldly, affirm that I believe in an all-powerful, omnipotent God who created and sustains the universe. Without Him, I don’t believe that anything would exist, or that we’d have a reason to seek it out. 

Why do we study science? Is it really to have a greater or more complete understanding of our world? Studying science has not given me such an understanding. If anything, I have found the opposite. Before I knew about pregnancy and fetal development, I was content in my understanding of it. Now that I have explored some of the research about it, the only thing I understand completely is that we hardly understand anything. 

As it says in Romans 1:20, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." As Paul observed long ago, we can see God through what He has made. The thing is, though, as I've seen in my pursuit of knowledge of God and of science, we can never know it all. David writes in Psalm 40:5 "Many, LORD my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare." No matter how much we strive to understand our world or our God, we can never fully comprehend Him.

Biochemistry, physics, genetics, physiology... You can get a PhD in any of these fields. However, after dedicating years of your life to any of them, you have AT BEST a very thorough understanding of ONE of its parts. For example, the human genome contains 20 000+ genes, and a geneticist can spend his whole life studying one of them. 0.0005% of the possible genetically active sequences. And that’s only in humans! We still have yet to identify and explore the genes of BILLIONS of species. Your life’s work as a scientist might only cover 5.0 x 10^-12% of the possible knowledge that exists in ONE domain.

Again, I’m not denying that science has its uses. Much of what we do in a day depends on science. And I think it has the ability to greatly improve the way we live. However, I also know that putting your faith and trust in science can be overwhelming and disappointing. Instead, I choose to live and serve the God who designed what we strive to understand. Science, without God, is a lost battle. So I choose to put my science-student arrogance aside, and simply seek to understand God through His creation.