Issues of faith and science brought 84 Seventh-day Adventist scholars and leaders to a conference in Ogden, Utah, August 23 to 29—the first in a series initiated by the world church leadership and supported by an action of the church’s Executive Committee in September last year.

Often referred to as a conversation, the International Faith and Science Conference was designed as a dialogue on questions of science and theology that impact Adventist understanding of the biblical account of the origin of earth and life.

Other regional meetings will convene next year in different parts of the world, and the series will conclude at a second international conference in 2004.

The initial proposal stated that “the Church’s understanding of origins affects and informs other dimensions of its life. Therefore there is wisdom and value in the Church exploring the theological and scientific implications of various views of Genesis 1-11.”

The conference was held both to affirm the church’s belief in God as Creator as revealed in the biblical account, and to begin a dialogue on questions, issues, and diverse views that exist about the origin of the earth.

“As a church we don’t come to these discussions with a neutral position,” said Pastor Jan Paulsen, world church president, in his remarks to the conference. “We already have a very defined fundamental belief in regard to creation. We believe that earth and life on it was created in six literal days and that the age of earth since then is a young one.”

Pastor Lowell Cooper, a church vice-president and chairman of the conference organizing committee, commented on the church’s decision to hold a conversation on a topic that is often is expressed in terms of a tension between science and faith. He said that “for some [believers] the answers to questions about origins are a certainty. To others the answers are more elusive and call for investigation and discovery through scientific research.”

Cooper also referred to reports in the public media concerning the rapid advances in scientific knowledge that are generally framed within certain assumptions about origins. “These realities bring into greater prominence, within the Church, the questions of how to reconcile the differing explanations of origins offered by faith and science,” he added.

The conversation saw a wide spectrum of scholars representing several scholarly establishments of the church, including the Geoscience Research Institute, Biblical Research Institute, as well as Loma Linda University and Andrews University. The group also included church leaders, theologians, and researchers representing Adventist international faith community.

The Ogden meeting began with a celebration of the Sabbath and the reminder that the great controversy in the universe serves as the “meta-narrative,” or foundational concept, for the Adventist experience and understanding of life.

According to printed material from the conference, the Adventist view of life and our world is in direct tension with the modern science worldview that explains existence on the basis of wholly natural and random events over long ages.

Paulsen said that “the issues ... are there in the church, they do not go away simply by not addressing them. We need to talk about these things. I am convinced that our shared passion for the church would help us, with the Holy Spirit’s presence, to protect and care for the church, to keep the church sound and strong, and to be loyal in truth to our Lord, keeping in mind that His affection for the church knows no boundaries.”

Participants in the conversation emphasized that it is not only important to understand the realities of differing views on the issue of origins, but also that a conversation itself is valuable to the church. “Having the faith and science conference with focus on creation was in part difficult, but very necessary,” Paulsen said. “More good comes from having it and talking about difficult matters than from running away from them. It is necessary that we learn to talk together.”

Describing the conference, Dr. Timothy Standish, research scientist at the Geoscience Research Institute in California, said: “It’s a way of learning what’s going on in the church, what the issues are, struggling with those issues, and not necessarily coming up with glib solutions to everything, but at least understanding, identifying areas where we are clearly in agreement and where we can affirm our faith together as this community of believers in the creator God.”

The conference expressed the importance of the dialogue on education processes in Adventist schools. Among others, Dr. Mutuku Mutinga, president of the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton, in Kenya, emphasized the importance of the exchanges at the Ogden Conference on issues of faith and science in a classroom setting.

“At this meeting here, there are many scientists who are researching,” Mutinga said. “That’s very healthy, because with more research, more findings will come, and when we come together as scientists and theologians and discuss them we can come to some kind of understanding and [arrive at] a position where we as Christians can guide the young people coming to the church in what the church stands for.”

While the Ogden conversation represents only a beginning in the series, the Organizing Committee says attendees at the conference: 

* Experienced close spiritual fellowship and a productive dialogue among scientists, theologians, and church leaders in a spirit of openness, honesty and respect.

* Explored an increased understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of various views and positions with respect to integrating the information of science with Scripture.

* Recognized the seriousness and breadth of differences concerning questions of origin that are present in the Seventh-day Adventist community.

* Developed mutual respect for the spiritual commitment and professional competence of colleagues in other disciplines.

* Identified key issues of faith-science interface that affirm or challenge the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of origins.

* Explored how to live a life of faith despite the lack of answers to every question.

* Identified questions and topics that yet need to be addressed in future discussions of this kind.

In 2004, a larger international conference of scientists, theologians, and church leaders will gather and prepare a report about the conversations, which is expected to be presented to the administration of the world church.

Until then, conversations will continue and will aim at increasing clarity regarding the church’s understanding, witness, and communication about the biblical account of creation. The Ogden conversation has contributed to a positive atmosphere for open communication among theologians, scientists and church leaders.

In the words of one participant, Dr. John Brunt, theologian and senior pastor of the Azure Hills Adventist Church in Southern California, “the minds of people differ and each one presents different aspects of the truth. God alone has all the truth and we all see it impartially, as Paul says, through a glass darkly. And I think God doesn’t want just unison, He wants harmony.”

“I believe that the church’s message should have harmony.”