Atom and Iota help children bring science and Christian faith together

Ryan Frederick’s new books for children are a brilliant way for Christian parents to explore the relationship between science and faith with their children

Ryan, tell us why you have produced these books—what’s the inspiration for them?

Well as a young parent, one of the first things you realise is that you’re seeing everything as if for the first time all over again, right? When your child starts walking, it’s not just a walk - it’s a myriad of discoveries. A pinecone, a caterpillar, even a sunset becomes brand new. My goal with these books was to take that wonder of youth and recognise it for what it is, truly wonderful, and then ask and answer: why is it wonderful?

I wanted to help children engage with the ideas of general revelation and special revelation. General revelation is enough to tell us there’s a God, he’s God, and we’re not. But we don’t yet know what he wants or who he is. That’s the Romans 1 idea, we just know in our gut: God is God and we are not. Either we recognise that or reject it, and then Romans 1 unfolds. Special revelation is God speaking, he’s told us who he is, his will, who his Son is, and he’s revealed himself in his word.

What I wanted to do was look at the wonders of science and creation and, through story, see the theology of it

I always use this example: if you’re on the subway in New York and you see a young professional, you can make all sorts of assumptions by looking at him, but you don’t really know him until he opens his mouth and speaks. That’s what general revelation is like, it gets you so far. You need special revelation for the rest.

Atom and Iota were designed with that in mind. Atom is the smallest unit of matter, so he represents general revelation—all the beauties and wonders of DNA, the cosmos, biology. He goes around saying, “Wow, look at this!” Iota, named after the smallest Greek letter, represents special revelation. He’s more the artistic one. So, Atom might say, “Wow, look at this baby and how she’s growing!” and Iota says ……