Science And Scripture

Recently I saw some posts on Facebook where two people where vigorously debated the age of the Earth. One, evidently a (young-earth, Creation Science) Christian, contended that the Earth was 10,000 years old while the other, a science teacher, 4.3 million.  I decided to add my two cents worth.  "John," the science teacher said, "Did time begin when it was first invented and recorded by man? I would still say the cave paintings prove modern man is 50,000 years old, evolved over 250,000 years...Time being the same as is used today. And the planet is 4.3 billion years old in this theory that I would teach in a classroom, what you consider in a church is your faith."  This is where I jumped in with what follows, it because I wanted to address John's contention that science and faith are different and can't be reconciled.  Here is what I said...

John, you're on safe ground.  As Gallileo quoted, "The Bible is about how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."  The Bible was written before "science" existed.  God in his providence let Christians like Copernicus, Bacon, Kepler, Gallileo, Newton, etc, who believed that God created the universe, be at the forefront of modern western science.  They believed that through observing the visible universe, they could comprehend and understand what they observed.  They were under the conviction that a good God created it in an orderly way as evidenced by Genesis and therefore it is understandable and coherent.  It is this empirical method that has guided scientists ever since.  So the results we have today in modern science are not at various with how God's intends us to understand his creation.  Rather they are descriptive.  Of course, some of the findings of Science do need to be held tentatively, just like Marty's convictions and understanding of astro-physics. Unfortunately there are many well-meaning Christians who demand a literal reading of Genesis, and make it correspond directly to what it describes.  Instead of the literary account that it is, they make it a direct historical account. But a close reading of Genesis shows that it has subtle literary features that tip us off to its real nature. 

I contend that the very reason we can understand what we see around us, and that there is even the possibility of a “grand unified theory” is because "In the beginning, God created..."  That the processes are so uniform and enduring, speak of a God who brought order out of "chaos."  I suspect that if "chaos" were the primary “orderer” of the universe, there would only be chaos.  Even those who do "chaos theory" try to show that order comes from chaos. But they've not really figured out how, but just that is does. 

Faith is not in conflict reason or science.  We just need to bring together God's General Revelation (the created universe) and God's Special Revelation (God's Word, the Bible) and let each inform the other.  This is what Gallileo did and he got it right.  It was the medieval church of the time that got it wrong because they did not let what was being discovered about the universe, inform their reading of the Bible.  That is why they could not accept that the Sun and not the Earth was the center of the solar system.  Gallileo believed in two great books, the book of nature and the book of the Bible. That is why he got it right when he challenged the accepted wisdom of his day that the Earth was the center of the universe.  Unfortunately, many well-meaning Christians do the same thing that the medieval church did in not letting science inform their reading of the Bible and vice versa. 

Science has a bright future in spite of the frustrations, and dead-ends, seeming inconsistencies, particles that can exist in two places at once, etc .  Christians have nothing to worry about from good honest scientists, because what they discover- ultimately, when all is said and done, will not be in contradiction to the God that made the universe. Scientists should never lose heart and give up, because a good God made the universe in a coherent way that we can ultimately understand!  

"And without faith...life is not possible."

"Faith is believing in what you know is not true." Waggish wisdom at best. "Faith is believing in what you hope is true." This is getting more to the heart of the matter. It takes faith to believe some things, because everything is not obvious. Like... we all believe in gravity. We've never seen it, but we believe in it because we all seem to be held to the ground. And it's better than believing "there is no such thing as gravity, the Earth sucks."

Most of don't really understand the physics formula for gravity:



We just believe it because it works. But since we have no reason why, we take it on faith. But that doesn't mean faith is mindless or irrational. We believe in gravity, not believe we can see it or understand it, but because we see the evidence of it.

We all walk through life, seeing evidence for things and believing they exist but not really understanding why or how they exist. Take for example this text your reading. You take it on faith that your eyes are able to read this text. But do you know for sure that what your eyes are seeing is reality. No, not really. You no have way of proving that what your eyes see, really exists. But, you will keep on reading, and believing that there is a connection between what you see and that you see.

You get up in the morning, put your feet on the floor, having faith that because your stood on it last night, you can still stand on it today. You test this every moment. We are all empirical reality testers. And because your test comes up positive, you believe in the existence of the floor. And you will continue to believe until the day your feet fall through the floor. I feel (the floor) therefore I believe. My sensation is connected to reality.

Not one of us could live in this life without faith: believing in the reality of things we can neither prove or understand.

We feel love for others. Love, where does it come from? From me, from others? We don't know, but we feel it. We know it exists, because we feel the result of it. We can't explain it, we don't understand it, we just believe.

This is the way it is with faith in God. We look around and see the results of God: his creation. We can't prove how it got here, but here it is. We realize it's beyond us. It's immensity, complexity and beauty all reflect the handiwork of an intelligence far beyond our own. So even thought we can't prove his existence or even understand his existence, we believe, because we see the results of his existence.

We have this sense or feeling inside of us that there is something out there. It's bigger than me. It's more real that me. I can't see it, but it's there. Some have called this "the sense of the the numinous." We feel it, but we can't see it. But it's result are there. God's presence, the sense of the numinous, is taken on faith because our sensation is somehow connected to reality.

No one denies the reality of gravity. It is too real. It works everyday. Everyone has a sense of "something beyond." Our eyes tells us it's there, the physical reality around us speaks us it. That sense of something beyond, the wonder of what we see all speak evidence of the reality of God. Do we believe it? We should, we believe so many things that we cannot explain, or understand.

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, for anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he reward those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6.