Feedback: Science and Christianity
My recent post “Thoughts on Starting a New (Christian) Life” has generated a lot of good comments and discussion. A couple of commenters have shared some thoughts and asked some questions that I think deserve a longer and more thoughtful response than a reply to a comment would allow, so I’ll be addressing those comments in posts over the next couple of days.
Clarke Beasley wrote:
Did Jesus hold to a literal view of the creation account? (Mark 10:6)
Impossible to tell from the given passage. Jesus references a passage from scripture (Gen 1:27), and talks about the theological meaning of that passage in the context of marriage:
That only humans are designated “male and female” indicates that both genders are included in the image of God, and both are essential to fully articulate our humanity—hence the twofold blessing-instruction to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and rule. Genderedness is God’s good gift, and its abuse is a serious affront to the holiness of God, whose image humanity, as male and female, bears. (Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament , G. Beale and D. Carson)
The point Jesus makes only depends on the fact that God created human beings male and female, not how he created them. Nothing in the passage requires that Jesus held a literal view of the creation account.
If you require science to affirm Biblical doctrine (a problem in and of itself according to Habbakuk 2:4 and Romans 1:17.)
It has nothing to do with requiring science to affirm a Biblical doctrine. But we can, and do, use the knowledge that science provides to clarify our understanding of the Bible. See my response to quartet man below for further explication.
Both the passages you quote refer to living by faith, something all Christians agree that we are called to do. But faith doesn’t mean turning off our brains or denying knowledge gained outside of faith, especially when that knowledge can helpfully inform our interpretation of scripture.
you might study Chuck Missler’s series on Genesis. Be ready to invest some time, he takes 9 one hour sessions to go through creation week explaining how the passages relate to the latest in cosmological science.
I’ve looked over his material before. His understanding of science is, to be charitable, a bit shaky. It would sound good to someone who didn’t know much about cosmology or astronomy, but wouldn’t get past a second-year major in those subjects. And he starts from a mistaken premise: that the creation accounts in Genesis were written as literal, observational, scientific accounts, as if a 20th century western Christian had written them for a 20th century western audience. It’s a common mistake, one that I have been guilty of making myself. To properly understand the Bible (or any historical writing) we have to put ourselves into the time and context of the original author and audience, not bring them forward to ours. Only when we have determined what the text meant to them can we attempt to bridge the gap of time and culture to understand what it means for us. (Gordon Fee & Doug Stuart’s book How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth is an invaluable guide in learning how read and interpret the Bible in this way.)
From Quartet Man:
Human science can be faulty. What seems logical and true can be refuted and changed in the future as we learn and understand more. At one point science said the world was flat. I believe I will trust God on the issue of creation.
I used to see the matter as “God’s word” vs. “science”, but that is a misunderstanding. It’s not God’s Infallible Word against Fallible Science; it’s fallible human interpretations of God’s word against fallible science. Yes, science is sometimes wrong, but so are our interpretations of the Bible.
The most famous example is the Church’s (Protestant and Catholic) insistence that the Bible clearly teaches that the earth is the center of the solar system and that the sun and all the other planets revolve around it. It was science that showed the error of that interpretation of scripture. I believe that science has shown us a similar error in interpreting Genesis literally.
Of course, the idea that the Genesis creation accounts shouldn’t be understood literally predates modern science by many centuries. St. Augustine argued for a non-literal reading of Genesis in his 5th century work The Literal Meaning of Genesis. In that same book, he makes the following statement about how Christians should relate to contemporary science:
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [quoting 1 Tim 1:7]. (Emphasis mine.)
Augustine’s words are probably more pertinent today than when he first wrote them 1500 years ago. My primary concern in the supposed science vs. the Bible conflict is that well meaning and sincere (but mistaken) Christians do exactly what Augustine describes in this passage and drive people away from Christianity for no good reason. Unfortunately, I know that it happens because I have personally seen it happen, and the damage done by the anti-Science Christian can be difficult if not impossible to undo. We’re not supposed to be imposing a science orthodoxy test to allow people to come to (or stay in) the Church. We’re not supposed to be putting up a “proper science” fence around the Cross. We’re supposed to be welcoming people into the Kingdom with the open arms of Jesus.
