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As a biology professor at AUBG, he teaches evolution. As a firm believer in God, he takes part in Bible study groups. How do the two beliefs coexist in William Clark's mind? 
Photo by Pavel Mitov. | - I heard that you were a preacher before you became a biologist. Is that true? I wasn’t really a preacher and I’ve never been to seminary or anything like that. I did work with a Christian Campus Organization in the United States. We had a Christian campus student club. My wife and I helped coordinate the work with students at different campuses. So we’d have conferences and Bible studies on campus and things of this sort. - Were you a biologist at that time? No, I was actually working for a non-profit Christian organization. And then I did some other things: I worked with Philadelphia Phillies for a while. It’s a baseball team, but I was working on their software design. And sometimes I worked with a local carpenter, helped build houses. But my primary job was the one with the Christian organization. - How did you decide to become a biologist and end up here? |
I have always been interested in biology and especially in environmental science. My undergraduate degree is in Wildlife Biology. I kind of kept a hand on that along the way through the readings. Then we moved to Bulgaria, with the Christian organization to work with students in Sofia. I think it was 1996 when a student from AUBG found us in Sofia offering us to come to Blagoevgrad. “There are some students who would like to have a Bible discussion – there’s no one to lead it,” the student said, and we deiced to do that. My wife and I would come twice a month to AUBG and meet the students. We’d usually have an informal gathering and discuss different things from the Bible. And I was so impressed by the students, there were a great bunch of people to be involved with. So I thought it would be great to teach here, but I needed a Ph.D. for that. I had to go back to the States to enter an American University. I was really intimidated because I had been out of school for 25 years. I thought all the kids in my class would be smart and I would feel like an idiot. But it was not that bad, I ended up having the highest grades in all my courses. And, probably, all the other students hated me for always asking questions. I got my Ph.D. and came back to Bulgaria. Initially, in 2003 I was discussing with AUBG the possibility to start up an environmental project. But when I came back in 2005 the idea disappeared. Then, [ I was asked] how about Biology? I said, O.K. - Religion and Biology don’t have a lot in common, do they? There is some conflict, or a potential conflict, but both science and Christianity focus on truth. They both focus on evidence. There are different types of evidence: in science you tend to experiment and observe, in Christianity the evidence is based on documents and history, not as much as faith. There is faith but it needs to be based on evidence. You don’t believe just because it feels right. You believe because you’ve been persuaded by a certain amount of evidence. There are some biologists who are very strong believers; even some leading evolutionists were Christian thinkers. You can be a good scientist and also a great Christian. Foundation of science was built on Christian thought. There are still some areas that are challenging evolution, but I don’t see a big conflict because neither science nor religion can offer direct proof for how things originated. Both have to act on a certain degree of faith. When I teach evolution I just teach theory and process, and students can decide whether it makes sense or not. Science and Christianity answer different questions, so there’s not necessarily a great conflict. Science tells us how things work; it tells us nothing about why. I think evolution has a lot of answers about how we got this tremendous complexity in the world. I can look at processes like natural selection and say “Wow! That’s incredible!” - What is your profession and what is your passion?
I’m interested in everything. For me, being a Biology professor doesn’t negate all my other interests. My passion in life is still understanding who God is and how all that works together. Biology is just another window onto that. Look at this complexity: for me it’s just another window on God. How I earn my money isn’t the important thing. What I want is just contact with people. Having these interesting students at AUBG is a great way to have contact with people, and also teaching is really fun.
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