See Ecclesiastes 8:16–17
The intellectual and scientific enterprise of the past several centuries has been to disprove the idea that “No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun.” When we liberate ourselves from God the Creator, then we are free to begin to become substitute gods through the power of science and technology.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods of Olympus and gave it to the human race. In literature, Mary Shelley wrote a story about a Promethean doctor who used his science to create a perfect human being. Prometheus paid a terrible price for his crime, as did Victor Frankenstein, and we will, too, if we fail to acknowledge the limits of our own competence. The fire that lights the winter night can also become the flame of our ruin.
Believing we can know what the Creator knows is foolhardy, and for the temporary good it might produce, science does not bring salvation. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Using science to better understand the beauty and complexity of God’s universe is a noble enterprise; when we forget God in our scientific pursuits, we are at risk of attempting to play God when clearly we are only mortals composed of both dust and divinity
—Eric Kampmann, Signposts
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