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Scientists on Jesus
No man can be made happy and enjoy immortal life but through the merits of Jesus Christ the Redeemer, the Son of God, and by the study of His doctrines and the imitation of His example.
Tycho Brahe (1546-
Preface (in Latin) to Astronomiaæ Instauratæ Mechanica, p. 12
I believe only and alone in the service of Jesus Christ. In him is all refuge and solace.
Johannes Kepler (1571-
Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves. Thus without the Scripture, which has Jesus Christ alone for its object, we know nothing, and see only darkness and confusion in the nature of God, and in our own nature.
Blaise Pascal (1623-
[I believe in Jesus Christ's] passion, His death, His resurrection and ascension, and all of those wonderful works which He did during His stay upon earth, in order to confirm the belief of His being God as well as man.
Robert Boyle (1627-
We must believe that he is exalted to the right hand of God (Acts 2:33) or is next in dignity to God the Father Almighty, the first begotten the heir of all things and Lord over all the creation next under God, and we must give him suitable worship…
We must also believe that Jesus Christ shall come to judge the quick and the dead, that is to reign over them in justice and judgment untill he shall subdue all rule and all authority and power, and all enemies be put under his feet ...
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-
This second coming of the Lord Is effected by means of a man to whom the Lord has manifested himself in person, and whom he has filled with his spirit, that he may teach the doctrines of the new church from the Lord by means of the Word.
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see ...
Benjamin Franklin (1706-
The holy life of the apostles and of the other primitive Christians, appear to me an irresistible proof of the truths of the religion of Christ. . . . It is only motives, therefore, that spirits can be determined to that which is good ; now, what motives could be proposed to the apostles, and other disciples of Jesus Christ, to embrace a virtuous life, more powerful than the instructions of their Divine Master, His miracles. His sufferings, His death and resurrection, of which they were witnesses.
Leonard Euler (1707-
Sublimity is the characteristic of the future state in the religion of Jesus. The highest degree of hope or of fear must be awakened by it … Of all the religions which have operated upon the human mind, Christianity alone has the consistent character of perfect truth; all its parts are arranged with the most beautiful symmetry; and its grand effects have been constantly connected with virtuous gratification, with moral and intellectual improvement, with the present and future happiness.
Humphry Davy (1778-
I shall see Jesus who created all things; Jesus, who made the worlds; I shall see Him as He is!... I have had the Light for many years, and oh! how bright it is! I feel so safe, so satisfied!
David Brewster (1781 –1868) Scottish physicist and inventor of the kaleidoscope
Last words as reported by his daughter Margaret Maria Gordon in The Home Life of Sir David Brewster (reprint -
Since peace is alone in the gift of God; and as it is He who gives it, why should we be afraid? His unspeakable gift in His beloved Son is the ground of no doubtful hope.
Michael Faraday (1791-
The success of the T. del Fuego mission … is most wonderful, and shames me, as I always prophesied utter failure. It is a grand success. I shall feel proud if your Committee think fit to elect me an honorary member of your [South American Missionary] Society. [After being challenged that no human being ‘existed too low to comprehend the simple message of the Gospel of Christ’].
Charles Darwin (1809-
(Darwin continued to make an annual donation of £5 to SAMS.)
But in the infinitude of His love to our fallen race, God offers to each of us individually a free and full pardon, and life now and forever, if we only believe on Jesus Christ, His Son, whom He sent to suffer in our stead — to die that we might live — if we rely and rest entirely on Him as the all-
https://archive.org/details/shortbiographies07lond
By the incarnation, the human nature was taken into the Divine; and though sinless Himself, the Son of God suffered death, the appointed penalty of transgression, in order that through His blood we might have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. By the human and the Divine natures being united in Him it was not possible that He should be held down by death, and He arose from the dead, the first fruits of them that slept; rose, however, not to the natural human life in which He was crucified, but to a mysterious, supernatural, higher life, of which the redeemed are in due time to be partakers.
George Gabriel Stokes (1819-
Think what God has determined to do to all those who submit themselves to His righteousness and are willing to receive His gift. They are to be conformed to the image of His Son, and when that is fulfilled … there can be no more condemnation, for this is the praise which God Himself gives, whose judgment is just. So we ought always to hope in Christ, for as sure as we receive Him now, so sure will we be made conformable to his image.
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-
Letter to his wife, 23 June 1864, quoted in Raymond Flood, Mark McCartney, Andrew Whitaker, James Clerk Maxwell: Perspectives on his Life and Work (Oxford: OUP 2014) , p 269.
If we estimate the greatness of a man by the influence which he has exerted on mankind, there can be no question, even from the secular point of view, that Christ is much the greatest man who has ever lived.
George John Romanes, British psychologist and zoologist (1848-
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16942/16942-
The Mosaic religion had been a Father religion; Christianity became a Son religion. The old God, the Father, took second place; Christ , the Son, stood in His stead, just as in those dark times every son had longed to do.
Sigmund Freud (1856-
I have, in effect, fingerprinted God in the heavens. I found a Creator continually on the job. I bear witness that the teachings of science are extraordinarily like the preaching of Jesus in that nature is at bottom benevolent and good.
Robert Millikan (1868–1953) American physicist
Cited by Merlin Neff, Merlin L. 1952 in The Glory of the Stars ( Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association 1952), p. 20. http://www.academia.edu/2739607/Scientific_GOD_Journal#
Jesus knows our world. He does not disdain us like the God of Aristotle. We can speak to Him and He answers us. Although He is a person like ourselves, He is God and transcends all things.
Alexis Carrel (1873–1944) French-
See http://www.academia.edu/2739607/Scientific_GOD_Journal#
If you believe that Jesus has cured this man, he will do it a second time. And if he can't do it, you don't suppose that I can do it better than Jesus?'
Carl Jung (1875-
As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene . . . Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrase-
Albert Einstein (1879-
http://www.academia.edu/2739607/Scientific_GOD_Journal#
For me the outstanding example of these noble men is Jesus. His teaching and the example of his life form the most reliable guide that I have found for shaping my own actions. It is because I accept his leadership that I call myself a Christian. I see him as the Everest among the world’s many high mountains. As I know Jesus he shows in his life those qualities that seem to me of highest value: love of neighbor as expressed in helpful service, hope for the future that inspires his followers, faith in God and fellowmen. Born of this love and hope and faith is his noble self-
Arthur Compton (1892–1962) American physicist
Compton, Atomic Quest: A Personal Narrative (New York: Oxford University Press 1956), p. 344-
One of the greatest evidences is the long series of prophecies concerning Jesus the Messiah. These prophecies extend hundreds of years prior to the birth of Christ. They include a vast amount of detail concerning Christ Himself, His nature, and the things He would do when He came – things which to the natural world, or the scientific world, remain to this day completely inexplicable!
Robert Morris Page (1903-
http://clearvisionbiblestudies.com/4july/RobertMorrisPage.html
The miracles of human history are those in which God has spoken to men. The supreme miracle for Christians is the Resurrection. Something happened to those few men who know Jesus, which led them to believe that Jesus yet lived, with such intensity and conviction that this belief remains the basis of the Christian Church two thousand years later.
Sir Nevill Mott (1905-
The imitation of Jesus is the way to save your life, I think. Beyond that I don’t know.
Arthur Schawlow (1921–1999) American physicist and inventor of the laser
See Denis Brian, ed. The Voice of Genius: Conversations with Nobel Scientists and Other Luminaries (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Publishing 1995), p. 242. See http://www.academia.edu/2739607/Scientific_GOD_Journal#
God deliberately reduced Himself to the stature of humanity in order to visit the earth in person, because the cumulative effect over the centuries of millions of individuals choosing to please themselves rather than God had infected the whole planet. When God became a man Himself, the experience proved to be nothing short of pure agony. In man’s time-
Wernher von Braun (1912-
As a Christian I begin to comprehend what life is all about through belief in a Creator, some of whose nature was revealed by a man born about 2000 years ago.
Antony Hewish (1924-
In wrestling with what they believe to be their experience of the risen Christ, the writers are driven, in their different ways, to speak of Jesus in a quite extraordinary manner. They know that he was a man living in Palestine in their own times, yet in the accounts they give they often seem driven to employ not only obvious human categories, but also to use language that is only appropriate to deity. … The New Testament very seldom out and out calls Jesus God (the confession of Thomas in John 20:28 is perhaps the clearest example), but its pages manifest a continual tension between the use of human and divine manners of speaking about him. The problem thus posed is unresolved in the New Testament itself, but succeeding Christian generations had to address it and eventually the Church was led to the distinctive and extraordinary doctrinal concept of the incarnation, the affirmation of the presence of deity in the life of this first-
Polkinghorne, Theology in the Context of Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 2009), pp. 133-
Jesus, if he existed . . . was surely one of the great ethical innovators of history. The Sermon on the Mount is way ahead of its time. His ‘turn the other cheek’ anticipated Gandhi and Martin Luther King by two thousand years.
Richard Dawkins (1941-
But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.
For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.
Francis Collins (1950-
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html?eref=rss_topstori es