Published in the Lay Notebook, 1980

International Council for Biblical Inerrancy

 

The Bible andScience

Robert C. Newman

 

 

The Bible is under attack today by many who march under thebanner of science.  "The Bibleis outdated," they say. "Its stories of creation, the fall, the flood and miracles are justmyths invented by ancient men. Today we know better."

 

Do we really know better?  True, our physical standard of living is much higher than inBible times, but has modern science solved our personal and socialproblems?  Can we believe that thetwentieth century, with Communism, Hitler, Idi Amin and other evils, is animprovement?  Has social sciencesolved the problem of crime?  Haspsychiatry shown substantial progress in curing mental and emotional disorders?  Real advances have certainly been made,but some have introduced us to menaces that threaten to destroy civilizationand perhaps mankind.  Science doesnot seem to be the cure-all that some have advertised it to be.

 

Is science opposed to the Bible?  That depends on what sort of science you are talkingabout.  Many believe in what we maycall a "closed universe" science.  This kind of science assumes that everything happens underthe control of natural law. Therefore, everything can be explained by natural law. Even if Godexists he could not interfere. Such an anti-supernatural view of science obviously opposes the Bible'steaching that God created and continually upholds the universe and that he mayand often has intervened in it for man's benefit or judgment.  But "open-universe" science,which allows for divine intervention, doesfit the biblical revelation.  Thiswas the view of most of the founders of modern science, many of whom wereprofessing Christians, and is the view of many contemporary scientists, whetherChristian or not.  In fact,biblical Christianity itself was an important factor in the origin of modernscience, providing belief in an orderly universe created by a dependable Godwho has commanded us to help make life more pleasant for those around us.

 

What about details? Could the Bible be God's Word about spiritual things but still containhistorical or scientific errors? At the very least that would be strange – a revelation whichclaims to be from the God who created the universe and controls history, butwhich makes mistakes in science and history!  It certainly would be a stumbling block for prospectiveconverts.  Even though I am no mechanic,if I took my car to a garage where the mechanic pointed to the carburetor andsaid, "Your battery is dead," I would look for another garage!  If we cannot believe the Bible when itspeaks of earthly things, how can we believe it when it speaks of heavenlythings? (cf. John 3:12).

 

But if the Bible is inerrant in scientific details, why doChristians who believe in its inerrancy disagree about Bible-sciencerelationships?  For the samereasons that Christians disagree on things like baptism, church government andprophecy.  We are finite in ourunderstanding.  Moreover, we havedifferent backgrounds, temperaments, likes, dislikes and approaches.  Some Christians adapt science to fitthe Bible; others adapt the Bible to fit science; still others attempt to makeeach fit the other.  Sciencecontinues to change as new data is discovered.  Bible interpretations of minor matters also change withdiscoveries in archaeology or ancient languages.  None of us knows either science or the Bible completely, andwe see our own views change as we grow older.  Our responsibility before God is to do the best we can withwhat we know and use it to seek to understand God's Word and God's worldbetter.

 

Vindications of the Bible's Science

 

Though faith will continue to be necessary until we see theLord, God has already provided us with some direction and encouragement byallowing modern science to make discoveries which demonstrate the Bible'sscientific accuracy, far beyond that of other ancient writings.

 

Although science had existed in earlier societies, it hasalways been destroyed by occultism and mysticism (as in ancient Greco-Romanculture) or by religious authoritarianism (as in medieval Islam).  Moreover, science never becamepractical in these cultures because the manual labor need to build itsdiscoveries into a technology was considered fit only for the lowestclasses.  In contrast, the biblicalChristianity of the Reformation emphasized the universe as a creation of anorderly God who operates according to natural laws (Jer 31:35-36).  It saw manual labor as honorable (Eph4:28; 2 Thess 3:7-15), thus encouraging the marriage of science to technology.

 

The Bible pictures the universe as beginning at a finitemoment in the past.  Cosmologistshave frequently resisted the idea of a beginning, but scientific evidence hascontinued to accumulate indicating that this is correct.  The Bible also sees the universe asimmeasurably large (Ps 8:3-4; Jer 31:37), with an uncountable number of stars(Gen 15:5; 22:17; Jer 33:22).  Thiswas a rare idea in antiquity but is fully vindicated today.  It is striking that in Job 38:31 Godspeaks of the "chains" of the Pleiades and the "cords" ofOrion.  Today we know that boththese constellations are among the few which are gravitationally-bound stargroups, rather than merely unrelated stars that happen to be in the same directionfrom earth, as is the case with most constellations.  Such examples can be multiplied.

 

S. I. McMillen, a Christian medical doctor, has noted howbiblical quarantine (Leviticus 13) was used by the church during the MiddleAges to stop the Black Plague. Before that the physicians were stumped.  Disease spread in hospitals as recently as 150 years agobecause doctors did not cleanse themselves after touching dead bodies, asrequired by Numbers 19.  McMillenalso notes how circumcision helps prevent cervical cancer, though this effecthas only been noticed in recent years by statistical differences in theoccurrence of this cancer between Jews and Gentiles.  Circumcision was to be performed on the child's eighth dayof life (Gen 17:12), and it now appears that this is the best day in thechild's whole life for the blood to clot.

This is not to say that there are no tensions betweenscience and the Bible.  But wewould expect that, since we do not understand everything in the Bible or in theuniverse, we will probably not understand how the Bible and science are to bereconciled at every point.  But ifthe Bible is God's Word, as abundant evidence indicates, then there must beagreement between the proper interpretation of the Bible and the actual natureof the universe.

 

Evolution and Creation

 

Chief among these problem areas is the creation-evolutioncontroversy.  Evolution is quitegenerally accepted in science, education and government, where divine creationis often ignored.  Bible-believers,however, must accept creation, whether or not they believe God used evolutionas a part of his creative activity.

 

As a matter of fact, an important reason why evolution is sowidely accepted is that secular education is based on naturalisticassumptions.  If naturalism isaccepted, then (given that life has not always existed on earth) life must havearisen by natural processes, in other words by some sort of evolution.

 

But there are immense problems with evolution.  For example, the simplest living cellcontains so much organized information necessary for its functioning that wewould need 100,000 books the size of an encyclopedia volume to print itall!  Atheistic evolution has only random processes to account for this complex order.  Is this likely?  It is highly unlikely, asmathematicians have pointed out. Imagine training monkeys to type on special electric typewriters whichhave only thirty-three keys (all capital letters plus punctuation) at a rate ofthree characters per second.  Ifthe monkeys choose letters at random (as monkeys usually do), to type merelythe two words "ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA" would require 100 thousandbillion billion monkey-years!  Howthen could the organized information in even the simplest living cell comeabout by random choices even in extraordinarily long periods of time?  At the very least, living thingsdemonstrate a complexity that would have required a God to guide the process ofevolution.

 

Orthodox Christians do not agree on whether God created byfrequent or only occasional intervention, whether the Bible requires us tobelieve creation was relatively recent (a few thousand years ago) or ancient(some billions of years ago), and whether the fossil record and the details ofGenesis 1 refer to the same events. Thus, we have young-earth creationists, restitution creationists,progressive creationists and theistic evolutionists, any of which may believein an inerrant Bible.  Some of usmust be wrong, but this paper is not the place to settle these questions.  In the meantime, we can agree thatatheistic evolution faces serious problems which can only be solved by aCreator.  We can agree in pointingto that Creator and that book, the Bible, in which his design for us isrecorded in words each can understand.

 


Other Problems

 

Liberal theologians have regularly pointed to the incidentof Jacob's sheep in Genesis 30 as an example of a scientific error.  They say the Bible teaches that Jacobcaused striped, speckled and spotted sheep to be born by having the ewes lookat striped, speckled or spotted sticks. In fact, however, the Bible only teaches that at first Jacob thought thesticks were producing the result but that later he learned that God producedthis effect by using striped, speckled or spotted rams (Gen 31:10-12).  The Bible here agrees with moderngenetics and even corrects Jacob's false ideas!

 

Another problem passage is Job 37:18.  Elihu appears to say the skies are"strong as a molten mirror." Some might suggest that Elihu is only saying they look that way. Others might think Elihu is wrong, but the Bible is mrely recording hisstatement (though Elihu is notone of the three friends God corrects in Job 42:7).  Personally, I think we have a bad translation here, eventhough it appears in all English versions I have seen.  The word translated "mirror"is not the usual biblical word for mirror, and it nowhere so occurs in ancientHebrew.  How do we know it means"mirror"?  Actually, analmost identical word means "appearance."  Morover, "strong" may be translated "mighty";"molten" may be rendered "poured out."  The word translated "skies"may be rendered "clouds." Thus, we have at least two possible translations:

 

            1.Can you , with Him, spread out the skies,

                        Strongas a molten mirror?

 

            2.Can you, with Him, spread out the clouds,

                        Mighty,with an appearance of being poured out?

 

The first of these translations pictures a scene atcreation, the second an everyday weather phenomenon.  If we look at the context, Job 37 says nothing about thetime of creation, but speaks repeatedly about the weather.

 

Another problem area concerns the location of heaven.  Since the bible regularly uses"up" with heaven, many Christians have thought of it as out in spacesomewhere.  This is the point ofthe Russian cosmonaut's mockery when he returned to earth saying he had notseen God.  However, a careful studyof the biblical material on heaven suggests  that it is all around us but is invisible, perhaps becauseit occupies another dimension. This is suggested by God's speaking from Mt. Sinai though he is inheaven (Exod 20:21-22; Deut 4:12, 15; Neh 9:13), of clouds being regularlyassociated with God's appearances, and of Jesus suddenly appearing inside aclosed room (Luke 24:36; John 20:19). It appears that the biblical view of heaven is not primitive at all, butvery sophisticated.

 

As Bible-believing Christians, we do not have to be ashamedto confess our belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.  After all, that is what the Bible claims for itself.  We do not need to limit inerrancy tospiritual matters, though these are the things most important and mostemphasized in Scripture.  Since ourGod is the Creator of the universe and the Controller of its history, we shouldexpect his word to be right about science and history.  If gifted scientists like Isaac Asimovand Robert Jastrow can communicate complex ideas of modern science in languagelaymen can understand, we should not be surprised that God has used simplenon-technical language to include some profound scientific truths in the Biblefor our encouragement in a scientific but doubting age.

 

During my college days many doubts about the truth of theBible were raised.  One of thereasons I switched from science to theology was to find out for myself  whether the Bible will stand searchinginvestigation.  I have not beendisappointed!

 

 

For Further Reading  (*author not evangelical)

 

*Abbott, EdwinA.  Flatland: A Romance of ManyDimensions.  New York: Barnes and Noble, 1963 reprint.

Anderson, J.Kerby and Harold F. Coffin.  Fossilsin Focus.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977.

England,Donald.  A Christian View ofOrigins.  Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972.

Hooykas, R.  Religion and the Rise of ModernScience.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.

*Jastrow,Robert.  God and the Astronomers.  New York:  Norton, 1978.

McDowell,Josh.  Evidence That Demans aVerdict.  Arrowhead Springs, CA: Campus Crusade, 1972.

McMillen, S.I.  None of These Diseases. Westwood, NJ:  FlemingRevell, 1963.

Newman, RobertC.  "Astronomy in theBible."  Lecture available oncassette.  Hatfield, PA:  Biblical Theological Seminary.

Newman, Robert C.and Herman J. Eckelmann, Jr.  GenesisOne and the Origin of the Earth.  Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity, 1977.

Schaeffer,Francis A.  Death in the City. Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity,1969.  See especially chapter 9,"The universe and two chairs."

Schaeffer,Francis A.  No Final Conflict. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1975.

Thurman, L.Duane.  How to Think AboutEvolution and Other Bible-Science Controversies.  2nd ed.  Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity, 1978.