Nuggets from Seeking and Finding God—Meeting the Challenge (Part 2)

In contrast to the misinformation deliberately passed on by atheistic professors to university students (and believed by most of the latter), many of the most brilliant scientists in history were as firm believers in the Bible, and in Christ as their personal Savior, as was Greenleaf. If space permitted, we could quote the Christian testimonies of Johann Kepler, the founder of astronomy; Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry; John Ray, the father of English natural history, and the greatest zoologist and botanist of his day; Sir Isaac Newton, who invented calculus, discovered the law of gravity and the three laws of motion, anticipated the law of energy conservation, developed the particle theory of light propagation, and invented the reflecting telescope; Carolus Linnaeus, father of biological taxonomy; Michael Faraday, one of the greatest physicists of all time, who developed foundational concepts in electricity and magnetism; Charles Babbage, founder of computer science, who first developed information storage and retrieval systems; John Dalton, the father of atomic theory, which revolutionized chemistry; Gregory Mendel, the father of genetics; Louis Pasteur, the father of bacteriology, who established the germ theory of disease; Lord Kelvin, one of the great physicists of all time, the first to provide a precise statement of the first and second laws of thermodynamics—and a host of other great scientists, ancient and modern.

By lifelong examination of the physical universe, from the innermost depths of the atom to the farthest reaches of space, such men arrived at the same faith in Christ as did Greenleaf. To move to more recent times, Werner Von Braun, the father of space science, wrote:

The vast mysteries of the universe should only confirm our belief in the certainty of its Creator. I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.

Perhaps, however, it would be of interest to see further testimony of fellow members of Greenleaf’s own profession from across the Atlantic, who, after careful examination of the evidence, pronounced the testimony of the Bible concerning Christ to be true and received Him as their Lord and Savior. The Chief Justice of England, Lord Darling, once said that “no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.”

Lord Lyndhurst, recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, was in complete agreement with Darling. Solicitor-general of the British government, attorney-general of Great Britain, three times high chancellor of England, and elected as high steward of the University of Cambridge, Lyndhurst held in one lifetime the highest offices ever conferred upon a judge in Great Britain. Concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the light of legal evidence, and why he became a Christian, he wrote: “I know pretty well what evidence is: and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down [in any court] yet.”

Blaise Pascal was one of the greatest philosophers and early mathematicians. He laid the foundations for hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, differential calculus, and the theory of probability. Pascal declared, “I count only two men rational: the man who loves God with all his heart because he has found Him; or the man who seeks God with all his heart because he has as yet found Him not.” He left this challenge for mankind:

How can anyone lose who chooses to be a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing—in fact, has been happier in life than his nonbelieving friends. If, however, there is a God and a heaven and hell, then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends will have lost everything in hell!