If Christians don’t rethink the Bible’s teaching on the relationship between biblical revelation and scientific knowledge, we will persist in our failure both to keep our children in Christ and reach intellectuals with the Gospel. Likewise we will also fail to produce Christian scientists.
Creation Texts Must Reconcile with Science
The Bible makes
bold claims pertaining to both the natural order (science) and our
relationship to it. For example, Psalm
19:1 declares as true that both the starry heavens above and the array of
living creatures and inanimate things below, in themselves, “declare the
glory of God.” The positive
assessment this verse assigns to nature’s witness boldly underscores its’ innate
trustworthiness. Furthermore, Romans
1:18-20 warns that it is sinful to suppress truths derived from our observation
of nature, specifically as they pertain to God’s existence.
The Bible also, everywhere and
without exception, assumes[1] as valid the Law of Non-Contradiction which holds that
contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same way and at
the same time. Also, Scripture demands
our obedience to truth in this sense, both in our consciences and in all social
interactions.[2] Consequently,
young-earth creationism (YEC) cannot be correct if it rejects
evidence the universe is billions of years old based on data that is shown to
be unassailable. Even in legal courts, testimony
must reconcile with facts and not vise/versa. Indeed, despite YEC claims, the Bible never asserts
its truthfulness by shunning knowable facts, but rather urges us to affirm its
truth by testing it in light of the facts of science and history.[3]
Scientific facts DO NOT undermine the Bible. Indeed, the text of Genesis 1 harmonizes far
better with Big Bang Cosmology (BBC) than it does with the YEC interpretation.[4]
Scientists Too Must Reconcile their
Views with Science
Yet it is not only Christians who must check their
sources, but also scientists! They too are
vulnerable to error even in their own fields.
Just like the rest of us, they have biases and shortcomings. So they too must heed both the principles of scientific
methodology[5] (SM)
and the validity of their data in order to ensure their conclusions are correct. Yet many, (not all) of them corrupt their perceptions
by insisting on the non-provable materialistic presumption that God
(and other soulish beings) cannot exist. This bias leads them to evade all
scientific indicators of that beginning, solely because it logically infers
the reality of a transcendent[6]
personal God. Materialists also deny
that humans (“soul-less machines”) have rational minds even while they absurdly
laud the insights of its champions (which contradicts their very own tenet).
Scientific Forces Cannot Possibly Have Created our Universe
While scientific data gives virtually unassailable evidence
that our universe began out of nothing at the BB,[7] the cause of that beginning cannot have been a
scientific force. Since prior to
its zero-volume singularity there existed neither matter, nor energy,
nor space, nor time,[8] nothing material could conceivably have
created it.[9] Physicalist’
cosmologists seek to evade this problem by resorting to abstract conjectures
as opposed to testable and measurable evidence.[10] Yet this ploy disqualifies
their “solution” from being scientific since conjectures, by
definition, don’t have verifiable facts to validate them. Science therefore cannot establish
that the cause of nature is itself. Its’
cause can only logically be God, the transcendent[11] Creator.
To be continued...
[1] Aristotle clarified but did not invent the
principles of logic. Renford Bambrough, ed. The Philosophy of Aristotle.
(Mentor, 1963) p. 160f.
[2] Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.
(Thomas Nelson, 2001) lists over 900 biblical references which affirm this concept
of truth.
[3] Request my paper, “The Pervasive Employment of
Apologetics in the Bible,” at my email address, gjensen549@gmail.com.
[4] See my two papers, “How Genesis 1:1 Easily
Accommodates the Big Bang,” and “15 Clues from Genesis 1 that Creation is
Ancient.” Op.cit. (3).
[5] Ernst Nagel describes SM as “the persistent
critique of arguments [using] tried canons for judging the reliability of
the procedures by which [evidence is] obtained, and for assessing
the probative evidence on which conclusions are based.” In summary, although
there is no single set of principles that apply to every context, SM calls for
methodical care. J.P. Moreland. Christianity and the Nature of Science. (Baker,
1989), pp. 57f.
[6] To “transcend” is to stand entirely outside creation.
See my paper, “Was the Big Bang the Big Beginning?” Op.cit. (3).
[7] Hugh Ross. The
Creator and the Cosmos. (RTB, 2018), pp. 85-107. ** William
Lane Craig. Reasonable Faith.(Crossway, 2008), pp. 126-150.
[8] William Lane Craig. Reasonable Faith.
(Crossway, 2008), p. 140, states, “A watershed of sorts seems to have been
reached with Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin’s formulation establishing that any
universe which has on average over its past history been in a state of cosmic
expansion cannot be eternal in the past but must have a spacetime boundary.”
[9] Frank Tipler. The Physics of Christianity.
(Doubleday, 2007), p. 2, says that “Many physicists dislike [an absolute
beginning] because it requires the universe to begin in a singularity. That is,
they dislike it because the theory is consistent only if God exists.” .
[10] Hugh Ross. The Creator and the Cosmos. (RTB,
2018), pp. 85-107. ** William
Lane Craig. Op.cit. (8), pp. 126-150.
[11] To transcend is to stand entirely the system or circumstance that is under consideration.
No comments:
Post a Comment