Increase our faith
The first thing I want to look at is; just what is science?
The dictionary definition is - "The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena".
The first thing to highlight is the 'theoretical' part. A theory is an idea that can be demonstrated and repeated by experiment. This still doesn't make it an absolute truth, just something which can be repeated and explaned. One the other hand, a miracle is an action or event that can't be explaned by any sort of theory. We'll look at examples of both later in the year.
A few hundred years ago anyone who could make something fly was thought to be a magician, performing the dark arts. Yet science tells us that anything lighter than air or if we use enough energy we can make an object fly.
Science is a way to explain these phenomena. What wasn't understood was often called 'magic'. Science was thought to be the path to enlightenment, but people being people, science is also used to baffle and confuse.
What do I mean by that?
When it comes to thinking about God, science is sometimes aimed at confusion. Some people can't cope with not knowing (or at least, admit to not knowing), or even worse having to look up to someone who knows more than they do. Take the age of the earth as an example. When I was at school the text books said that the earth was 600,000,000 years old. Now 600,000,000 anythings is impossible to comprehend. We couldn't count that far in our lifetime. They may be 600,000,000 grains of sand on a particular beach, but I'd just have to take someone's word for it. Yet for each failed explanation of the theory of evolution the age of the Earth seems to grow. I was at a recent geological meeting a few months ago and they now siad the Earth was 4,800,000,000 years old. Which either means a) I'm a lot older than I think, b) someone is using a different calendar to the one I'm using or c) someone has a problem with their maths. (As an aside, I wonder how old they say the Earth is now?)
Yet science can be important to us. If nothing else it can helps us understand the safety aspects of things like electricity and moving objects. It reduces the mysticism and fear of the super-natural, such as those thing attributed to devils and evil spirits in the past.
Soloman was someone who devoted part of his life to looking at "all things that are done under heaven", to trying to understand how things worked. Yet for all his wisdom, and while he even recorded his own conclusion in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 ;
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.Unfortunately he still didn't follow his own advice.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
As we mentioned above, science can't explain everything. Some of what we know we have to take on faith, just as science has to rely on theory.