Lions and Tigers and Stephen Hawking. Oh My!

To no one's surprise, the news today is rife with the news of Stephen Hawking's declaration that it was gravity, not God that created the universe. In fairness to Hawking, this latest declaration was just a logical outcome of work that he had already been doing concerning the origins of the universe. Has anyone stopped to consider that Hawking makes this declaration as a physicist and not as a theologian? Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, of the UK, offers an insightful rejoinder to the whole discussion: "There is a difference between science and religion. Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation. Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean. They are different intellectual enterprises." The truth of the matter is that this latest scientific pronouncement does little to change the beliefs of people on either side, and that is as it should be. Having said that, folks who take the creation story in Genesis as literal fact will have trouble with it. They will get lots of airtime on the major TV networks, I am sure. The television networks never consult mainstream theologians and biblical scholars, because those folks will not feed the frenzy with hyperbole. Instead, they will calmly reason that we are talking about apples and oranges here. Faith has never been about proof, though one may be hard pressed to find folks who crave the limelight who agree with that statement. Faith is about living with our realities in light of a belief in a loving and creating God. The element of mystery is essential to faith, for it keeps the element of the transcendent about it. I always loved science in high school and college, and have never had a problem with science and theology co-existing. Why must we feel that one must somehow make sense of the other? Though recently I heard someone excoriate the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews' assertion that "faith is the evidence of things not seen" I still agree with the concept. Faith is evidence, not proof. Why can't we live with that?