Younger Christian scientists have a crucial role in knocking down the “zombies” of atheism amid a clear trend revealing Generation Z is waking up to believe in a relationship between faith and science, according to scientist and apologist Sharon Dirckx.
She spoke on the subject of ‘Explaining God Away: Christian Belief in a Scientific World,’ a plenary session held at the European Leadership Forum 2024 in Wisla, Poland on May 28.
Dirckx serves as an adjunct lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics in Oxford, England. She has a PhD in brain imaging from the University of Cambridge and is a well-known apologist.
Dirckx said that think-tank Theos commissioned a Communicate Research poll 15 years ago, which recorded 42 percent of U.K. adults agreeing with a statement from atheist scientist Richard Dawkins made in a 1996 speech to the American Humanist Association that “faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the Smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”
At the time, Dawkins said he felt “greatly encouraged” at the poll, adding that “our whole consciousness-raising effort is succeeding.” However, the poll was redone more recently using the same question and that figure has dropped dramatically to 20 percent, according to Dirckx.
“Opinions on science and God are changing and they are actually changing most rapidly amongst young people amongst Generation Z depending on which part of the side of the Atlantic you are from,” said Dirckx.
“People born between 1997 and 2012 are in strong disagreement with the statement that you can't be a good scientist and be religious,” she added.
“Isn't that encouraging? Young people actually think differently about this. That's going to shape how we talk about this in all of the different settings that we're in, it’s going to shape all kinds of things.”
Dirckx encouraged younger scientists with a Christian faith to focus on their research, to “gain a reputation in your field” but also to “speak into the debate” about belief in God and science: “The work is not finished yet. The landscape is shifting, but we still need people to chip away at the wall and to bounce down the zombies.”
She believed that the intellectual landscape questioning the balance between faith and science had shifted, and opined that even Dawkins had become more conciliatory in his views.
The apologist said people needed to know that intellectualism did not require a choice between spirituality and the material laws of nature, within the understanding that God, as revealed in the books of the Bible, created the Universe.
“It's so interesting that the landscape has shifted. In the ancient world, the physical world was explained in spiritual terms, natural phenomena was explained in terms of divine action, the action of the gods of nature. But now in the modern world, we're trying to explain the spiritual world purely in physical terms, but those terms are not sufficient.”
Dirckx, with a professional interest in brain studies, referenced the study of neurotheology, looking at the intersection of neuroscience and theology. For example, examining what happens inside the brain when we pray.
Dirckx said the sum total of all that generates the “conscious you” involves more than non-conscious neurons. She queried how the latter can generate a conscious mind.
She acknowledged the “mind growing problem” was not a new scientific quandary – it has been discussed since ancient times. In her opinion though, consciousness does not involve merely having a brain.
“Yes, we have a brain thankfully with all of its neurons and chemicals and electrical activity and hormones, but we also have a mind with its thoughts and feelings and emotions and memories. There's a ‘you’ and you have an inner life, you have a self and there's a ‘me’, and actually measuring activity and your brain doesn't access that for us.”
Dirckx gave an imaginary example of someone wanting to study the experience of attendees at the leadership forum. She recalled moments from last year’s event such as people singing in worship with different languages, “a very powerful moment of international unity.”
Scientific studies could use materialistic methods to examine the experience, such as an MRI scan or EEG tests recording brain activity. Those would reveal data from the brain but not give the proper living experience of attending the event: meeting old friends, attending workshops, hearing teaching, praying and crying together.
“We can measure all the data we like from your brain but that can't tell us what it's like to be you. And that is why material processes are not enough to capture the human mind.”
Dirckx emphasized that Christianity formed the basis for modern scientific discovery in the western world. She said that in the time of the Roman Empire a volcanic eruption would be interpreted as the god Vulcan venting his anger.
Scientists now would explain it as merely natural effects of pressure changes in the Earth.
“And so some spiritual explanations have been overtaken by scientific ones and that has led to the perception that [not] just some spiritual explanations are irrelevant, but all spiritual explanations are irrelevant. But that is not the case.”
She used an illustration for comparison that the existence of Jeff Bezos, executive chairman and founder of Amazon did not conflict “with the processes, procedures, and website that undergird Amazon.”
“And it's no different with God and science, or faith and irrationality. The truth is everybody has faith in something. Everyone trusts something or someone and we never exercise that faith in an unthinking way. We always exercise our faith or trust on the basis of the evidence to support it.
“We trust people in our lives that have a proven track record. We have a low level of trust if we've been let down. And it's the same with Jesus. When people put their faith in Jesus in the first century, it was not an irrational blind leap into the dark.
“It was a response to this living, breathing, thinking, amazing, extraordinary person who treats people like no one else had ever seen and people [felt] safe on that basis. And of course they do that today through all the different ways in which we see God at work in the world, and on the basis of the reliability of scripture as well, and on miracles.”
