Is science right and the Bible wrong? Think again

Editor’s note: In a Voices essay last week, pharmacist Richard E. Faust of Surry argued that we are at a new spiritual beginning, with a sense of awe and wonder made possible by scientific knowledge rather than biblical revelation. Read his essay at bangordailynews.com, clicking on “Religion,” then “Religion voices.” This week, a retired Bangor physician, Dr. Michael R. DeVita, director, Source of Life Ministries-Healing Rooms of Maine, responds.

It never ceases to amaze me how supposedly intelligent educated people limit truth. It is even more amazing, though very sad, that some choose to take their limitation of truth and teach it to others as if that is all there is.

Some even editorialize about it in the newspaper. They seem utterly unable to comprehend that what they know and what they believe does not, by any stretch of the imagination, represent all there is to know about any given subject.

Somehow they seem convinced that their opinions and conclusion are correct, and that’s it. How sad. These folks really speak and write as if their pea brain’s worth of knowledge and their limited understanding represents the entire and full meaning of a subject and “that is the end of the matter.”

Again, how sad. It is a known fact that even the most brilliant of us uses less than 10 percent of the brain’s capacity. I learned in medical school that if we study hard for eight hours we use up the energy contained in one-half of a peanut.

I remember years ago in college a debate that went something like this: There was a thesis proposed and logically presented in the strict Aristotelian form. The conclusion was that it was impossible to walk out of the doorway of a room because as you tried to leave you always had halfway left. No matter how many times you went forward, you always had halfway left to go.

It was a perfect syllogism and logically correct. The purpose of the lesson was to demonstrate that an opinion can be put forth according to the rules of logic with a valid conclusion, but the conclusions can still be not true. Both the major and minor premises must be true for the conclusion to be both valid and true.

The debate was won by the one opposing this thesis when he just got up and walked out of the room. The proposition was logically correct but experientially ridiculous. It did not represent the fullness of reality that goes beyond opinion and logic and reason.

To my learned colleague, may I please say that I hope he does not consider himself to be just the sum total of

neurophysiologic biochemical central nervous system interactions. All that complicated stuff is what we are made of and how things work. From this we can find out what goes wrong in any given disease process.

In this way, all this knowledge is good and useful. I sincerely hope that he does not really believe that “who he is” is the person that he is – “an individual different from every other individual – past, present and future” – is not merely a capricious variation of biochemical, physiological and psychic responses.

The things we know, the things we feel, the way we understand what we know and feel, these are all dependent on the stuff of neuroscience and psycho-science, but none of that has anything to do with who we are as persons or with our destiny.

I hope, for his sake, he comes to understand, while he still can, that he has a destiny, and his destiny is not just to return to the dust from which he came or to become food for worms. If one does not understand or believe the things of God and the message of Jesus, please realize that there is something that you do not know or understand.

The “things of the spirit of God and the message of Jesus” cannot be understood with the natural mind. They need to be experienced. I can study about bungee jumping and understand everything about the physics of the stretch of the cord, but until I jump off the bridge with the cord around my ankles, I do not know bungee jumping.

To put it another way, my professional career was in the field of obstetrics, and I know all about pregnancy and childbirth from a scientific standpoint.

Not only that, but as an OB specialist, I was a custodian of the birth process, standing by as a safeguard for mothers-to-be. I can testify to you that I know nothing about having a baby since, as a male, I have not given birth.

It is one thing to know about or to have heard about someone, but entirely different to meet that someone and form a personal relationship. Please stop trying to say this doesn’t exist simply because it is outside of your limited scope of knowledge and understanding. I have been all over the world and I can testify to you and all who read this that the things of the spirit of God are real and experientially undeniable. As a physician, now retired after 35 years of practice, I can say with confidence that supernatural heavenly events, instantaneous healings and immediate recovery from diagnosed “mental illnesses” are real.

I have seen these phenomena many times in many countries and I believe that I am a reliable witness. I know and understand well the healing processes of the mind and body, and I know what I have seen, and I am not deceived. The ideas you put forth come too late for me.

I have seen the truth even though I understand only a little of it.

In conclusion, please know this: “When you see something happen, when you witness it with your own eyes at least, you have to believe it’s possible.” The things of the spirit of God are real. If one reads the Bible as “only a book,” it may contain contradictions and other objections that literate people have pointed out, but the spiritual meaning and understanding of what is written there goes beyond knowledge, opinion, time and space.

Whether those who profess to believe in God live according to their faith is not a valid reason to say the objects of their faith do not exist. Maybe my friend should expand his understanding of these things before he claims that they are false, untrue and don’t exist.

Michael R. DeVita of Bangor is a retired obstetrician-gynecologist and ordained minister. Reply to letters@bangordailynews.net. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.