In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Bereshit / Genesis 1:1; ESV)
This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. While Darwin didn't develop the theory of evolution, his work on the concept of natural selection greatly contributed to making philosophical and scientific naturalism the predominant world view that it is. Philosophical and scientific naturalism claims that life emerged and developed from natural causes only. It denies the existence of the spiritual and the supernatural, including the very first statement in the Torah which I just read.
There are many people who hold to the basic tenets of naturalism (they may or may not call themselves naturalists), yet find room in their lives for religion and spiritual things. They may even give lip service to the supernatural, but their basic commitment to naturalism casts doubt on the Torah's assertion that the God of Israel is the sole, personal, and intentional creator of the universe. Sadly, we are not always aware that we are doing this.
We may claim to believe the Bible, yet reject the concept of a six-day creation by insisting that it must mean something other than what the Torah clearly teaches. Some say that the sequence of events over the six days of creation is poetical, that it is some sort of song extolling God as creator of the universe. The problem with this view is that God himself doesn't share it. In the second book of the Torah, God gives the Sabbath to the people of Israel as a sign of his creating the world in six days (see Shemot / Exodus 31:17).
Another way people try to retain a commitment to the Bible yet doubt the creation account is by saying that it is based on a primitive, non-scientific world view - that whenever the first chapter of the Bible was written, it expressed the truth of creation through the understanding of people who had no grasp of modern scientific categories. Because of this they expressed Truth via a limited understanding of the universe. Not having at their disposal the knowledge of future generations, we cannot expect them to express these things in precise scientific terms.
I concede that the Torah does not express itself in scientific terms. I also concede that the way of looking at the world has changed a great deal from Bible times until now. Those changes significantly affect how we understand and express ourselves. But when it comes to determining Truth, including the origin of the universe, what will be our basis? On whose terms shall we attempt to reconcile the Bible with science? Science is a man-made attempt to understand the physical world. The Bible claims to be the revelation of the one true God. Science has developed over time as new discoveries are made and as new ways of looking at old discoveries are put forth. The Bible is unchanging. Therefore why should we have to defend the Bible on science's terms? Instead should not science have to defend itself on biblical terms?
It doesn't help that this discussion has often not been between the Bible and science, but instead about people's agendas in the name of the Bible or science. But for those who genuinely yearn to understand the relationship between the Bible and science, it is very important to begin with an acceptance of what each is really all about. The Bible is God's revelation of all of life including the most fundamental of scientific issues, creation. Science is the analysis of God's creation. To think that human beings, creations themselves, can have greater insight into the origins and design of that creation than is contained in God's own revelation, is arrogant. At the same time, students of the Bible are not immune from this arrogance. We need to be careful not to confuse what the Bible says with our assumptions and traditions.
There is a common misconception that just because the Bible was written amidst an ancient culture far removed from our own, it is somehow inferior to ours. Why do we assume that the difference in cultures discounts what the Bible asserts? How we and the people of old look at the world has indeed changed, but does that necessarily mean that the revelation of God through the people of old is inaccurate? Could it be that instead of the culture of biblical times being inadequate to effectively speak truth to us today, it is our culture that obscures the truth that God revealed long ago?
In order to have a truly beneficial discussion about the relationship between the Bible and science, we must be unapologetic about what the Torah itself actually teaches and how it teaches it. Manipulating the Bible to make it acceptable to science, will render it powerless and will rob science and scientists of the essential corrections they need.
11 comments:
Many scientists do bad science and then create a doctrine out of fragments of evidence that they use to support their hypotheses.
Torah and science do say the same thing, when both are interpreted correctly. Our ability to truly understand G-d's creation is beyond us, yet we are given glimpses of this Truth.
check out this essay by Dr. Gerald Schroeder
http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html
Interesting indeed! All things are possible for G-d.
Shalom Aleichem,
-yohn
~Psalm 23
Bible's creation story is incompatible with science. Bible doesn't mention dinosaurs. Evolution is a fact which is observed in nature and theory of evolution explains it. Bible doesn't teach evolution, it teaches instant creation in a week. Earth is 4.5 billion years old.
"Anonymous's" comments, "Bible's creation story is incompatible with science., etc." are too simplistic, basing the Bible's perspective on what you claim it doesn't mention. When you say "Evolution is a fact", are you referring to micro-evolution (within species), which is observable or macro-evolution (between species), which is not. As for the age of the earth, I wonder how much anyone really knows about the ancient past.
This is difficult. The Biblical account is brief and so confusing when relating many details, like dinosaurs mentioned in another comment, or lightyears separating objects in space, or many geological formations. We do not want to say that the Biblical account cannot accommodate all the details. Neither do we want to say that geological and astronomical observations are not real. So there is a dilemma. Some say, I am with the Biblical account the way it sounds to me so observations of fossils and coral and so many things are not valid. Others say, I am with the observations the way they sound to me so the Biblical account is poetry or something. This is difficult.
Scientists take a naturalist approach. Nothing by authority. Everything by observation. What conclusions can be made only from what can be repeatedly observed. Repeated astronomical observations demonstrate an expansive universe. Even our local galaxy involves millions of lightyears. Millions of years for the light of the galaxy to reach us. Also millions of fossils have been observed that sensibly relate in the geological time scale. Nothing in the observations point to a six day scenario. It looks like millions of years.
Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Miraculous events do not leave physical evidence. Scientists are not going to observe anything that compels them to faith. Yet with faith you cannot look at anything without seeing God. The heavens declare the glory of God.
Doug, you say "Miraculous events do not leave physical evidence", but if the miraculous is real, then it certainly has. The existence of a creation is miraculous. The resurrection of Yeshua is a miraculous that was based on physical evidence in its day for which we have reliable documentation. Every medical miracle leaves physical evidence.
As for the deductions of scientists, they themselves know that when it comes to the ancient past and the vastness of the universe, they actually know s little and that they are guessing so much. The Bible on the other hand is a reliable source of God's revelation. I may not not fully understand the scientific implications of what the Bible asserts, but it is a more reliable source of Truth than scientific analysis.
Alan, there is somewhat artificial distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. Macroevolution is merely the result of a lot of microevolution over a long perioid of time.
Here is links to studies of speciation (new species, macroevolution):
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0030285
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7077/abs/nature04325.html
http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/JA/article.asp?DOI=b602689c
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es0515607
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2444824
http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v82/n1/abs/6884120a.html
New invention in digestive system:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417112433.htm
From single cell to multicellular:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/q239365007h43465/
Saying no physical evidence does not mean that there is no physical change when a miraculous discontinuity happens. To say no physical evidence is just that what remains looks normal. Only the ones who observe the change saw the miraculous. The Israelites left piles of stone in Jordan as a token of the miraculous for later generations who did not see it happen. The miracle did not leave any physical evidence. There is no physical mark left by the parting of the Red Sea. There is nothing that looks exceptional about Lazarus’ tomb or Jesus’ tomb for that matter, to distinguish it is a tomb where a resurrection occurred. Behe was trying to identify irrefutable physical evidence of God’s finger in cellular chemistry in his book, Darwin’s Black Box. It is not convincing. People would love for the shroud of Turin to be a physical relic of the resurrection, but it is not. The walking lame man’s legs are miraculous because they are normal. No doctor could examine many legs and find something miraculously distinct about the restored legs. They are normal. Scientist will never observe anything that forces them to acknowledge God. Yet the eyes of faith see God’s glory at every turn. “The existence of a creation” is miraculous to eyes of faith. It just looks natural to a naturalist.
Scientist have been very successful at operational science. They can do a lot of things like gps systems, and medical instruments. They can be more speculative when considering deep time and cosmological issues. At the largest scale and the deepest time it is speculative. They are not speculating about many things, the speed of light, the mass of the sun, the size of the galaxy, 200 billion stars, 100,000 light years. When they see light from 100,000 light years, (as well as light that has traveled much longer) they reasonably conclude that there has been time for the light to travel. You cannot lightly dismiss their observations. The Bible does not discuss galaxies, or glaciers. We will not get any information about them from the Bible.
It will be interesting to see in 100 years how many scientific facts turn out to be speculation.
Be that as it may, science tells us a lot less about life than many people presume. We tend to be so memorized by science and technology, when all we are really doing is perhaps discovering the mechanics of God's creative design. Fascinating, yes, but only the Bible is reliably life giving.
Science has done well with some things, especially things more blatantly mechanical, operational science. That success motivates some to feel that all is mechanical and naturalistic. Thinking and consciousness, love and identity, life and prayer would need to be mechanical but do not lend themselves to mechanical analysis. Those committed to naturalism expect these also to yield to their system of analysis.
The Messiah gives life. Not simply life, abundant and eternal. Scientists confident in naturalism do not believe it and do not want it.
Great article Alan. Here is a website that many may find useful.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
I enjoy just learning about the science without the evolutionary confusion getting in the way.
I don't see the need as some to of proving the Bible scientifically, though I believe it is important to understand that we can trust the Bible to be scientificly accurate because we can trust the Maker. Some might accuse me of circular argument, but I have yet to find logically conducted scientific investigation to counter anything in scripture.
Because of the agendas driving people, I find the science of origin study is not useful for proof. I do find it very useful for confidence building in our faith in the same way as reviewing how faithful our God has been. To see how truthful our God is builds our trust also.
Shalom,
Liana
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