Noted scientist and best-selling novelist Alan Lightman, a Memphis native, asks what are the boundaries between science and religion, the two greatest forces that have shaped human civilization. What are the different kinds of knowledge in science and in religion? And how do we come by those different kinds of knowledge? Members of the Faith in Memphis panel respond.

From my perspective, there need not be a conflict between scientific knowledge and faith’s knowledge. For the latter, I prefer the word “wisdom” and see it as applying to the Christian faith’s experience of the nature of our human existence and the redeeming power of God’s Love in Jesus Christ. So, for example, the classic affirmation, “I know that my Redeemer liveth” is a statement from the experience of a believer that is not subject to the same kinds of empirical measurement we apply in science.