Do spiritual values have any relevance to chemistry? Is belief in God compatible with a career in the laboratory? Are the phenomena of chemistry governed by divine law? Many believe that the physical sciences and the realm of religious and spiritual insight are totally unrelated. Is this true?
Among the instructions that Christ Jesus gave his disciples shortly before his ascension were the words, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."Mark 16:15; It is the mission of the Christ to save the world, and it is evident that Jesus intended his followers to further this mission by bringing the Christ, Truth, to bear upon every aspect of the human condition. If this is to be brought about in the broadest sense possible, we cannot omit a field of human endeavor as important as chemistry.
The importance of chemical technology is obvious; it pervades our lives. But chemistry is no less important as a part of human culture. As a scientific discipline it occupies a vital, pivotal position between the fundamental bedrock of physics and the exploding frontiers of the biological sciences, connecting these two great fields. Indeed, chemistry is the science of connections—the study of the ways in which atoms are connected together to form molecules, and molecules assembled together into the forms we see in the physical world—of how bonds between atoms are formed, broken, and re-formed in new ways.
