Interrogating the Church, 02 – Faith and Science

I grew up hearing many people disparaging science, especially evolution, as contrary to God, the Bible, faith, and religion in general. I’m pretty sure you have heard and seen the same. It is not simply a position we have inherited extending back to the Scopes Monkey Trial. It goes back to the days of Galileo, Copernicus, and before. Most every momentous new discovery has been attacked as a threat to society, to faith, to our understanding of the world. This is not really about faith in God. It is rather about clinging to a belief system.

Most anyone will readily accept that they have limitations. There is only so much that we know, only so much that we can know, only so much we can understand. Accepting and stating that is simple. It is a bit harder, however, to recognize where those limitations lie. It matters little if we are talking about our understanding of the world around us or our understanding of God, the Bible, and other matters of theology.

I recall being taught about the scientific method in my evangelical school. At the same time that we talked about the process from a hypothesis to testing to theory, the very same teachers talked about how the theory of evolution could not be correct. As far as they were concerned, it was incorrect due to the manner in which they interpreted the Bible. Their arguments were not scientific inquiries. They were religious dogma. Meanwhile, some of us disagreed with their manner of Biblical interpretation and saw no conflict with listening to what the current state of the science had to say.

My perception was that if God indeed created the world, then it was within the bounds of science to study that world and learn about its makeup, processes, governing rules, and answer the questions of how, when, and where. On the other hand, the Bible was a different category of inquiry based not on the processes of science, but of revelation. It was written by pre-scientific people from very different perspectives than what science brings to the world.

If we look to the Bible to speak to all questions of truth, including those which are the domain of scientific inquiry, then we will have consistent conflict. Science continually shifts its perspectives, builds on previous understandings, and moves on in developing better understandings of the world and its workings. The Bible, as dynamic as it may be, remains a static text. Our understanding of it may also grow, but it will be limited to what the text already says. If our understanding of the Bible requires it to consistently tell the truth in every word and every context, it cannot address the ever-changing nature of scientific discovery.

When we do not have a need to protect the Bible and our theology from science, however, all of that conflict disappears. For this, we must look at the Bible differently from so many common perceptions in the evangelical world. The Bible does not tell us how God created the world. If we try to press it for a process, we find a conflict between the accounts of creation in Genesis chapters one and two. If we accept what the Bible attempts to teach us in those same chapters, however, the conflict disappears both between the two accounts and with scientific discovery itself.

There is no need to throw out the Bible in light of scientific inquiry around evolution, the earth revolving around the sun, and our place within a galaxy cluster. We need not ignore what science can teach us about disease, medicine, and mental health. Those are simply the result of discovering how the world of God’s creation works. The purpose of faith and the Bible have a very different focus. That focus is on learning to love one another, better understanding what God has revealed to us, and becoming what God intended for us to become. There is more than enough there to keep us too busy to worry about challenging science or protecting God from scrutiny. After all, if God is indeed creator, God can stand up to whatever scrutiny science can deliver.



— ©Copyright 2023, Christopher B. Harbin 



http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

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