Do the ancient books of the Bible hold up to 21st-century science? Are we being anti-scientific if we believe Scripture? The truth is that there are many Christians involved in all kinds of scientific fields who see no conflict between studying the natural world & believing in the supernatural.
To say that science & faith can’t mix isn’t being true to science’s history. In fact, the Christian worldview of an orderly universe created by an intelligent God made much of modern science possible because we believe that nature is rational, orderly & operates by laws set in place by God. Great scientists of the past, including Newton, Kepler, Linnaeus, & Galileo were all Bible believers who saw science as a way to know & glorify God. They believed both nature AND Scripture were needed to better understand the Creator.
Men like these understood that life is not random & chaotic, as the world of that time believed. But Darwinian evolutionary theory sought to explain reality in atheistic terms based on assumptions & speculations instead of the actual scientific method. Science can only deal with repeatable experiments & offer theories about observable phenomena. So science is limited in what it can make valid pronouncements about.
That used to be generally understood. But the creation-evolution debate seems to define the entire battle between Christianity & science now. Yet nobody was there at the beginning to observe what happened or has ever observed macro-evolution taking place. So, both are ultimately matters of faith.
In Bible College I was required to take a course in “Earth Science,” which had mostly to do with geology (rocks, minerals, soils, tectonic plates, stratigraphy, etc.) taught by renowned scholar & pioneer in the field of archaeological geology, Dr. Reuben G. Bullard, who taught at both my alma mater as well as Northern Kentucky University. Everyone called him “Doc Rock.” Mind you, I was not a fan of science classes, but I appreciated his teaching so much that I paid money to audit his class on “Science & Christianity” so that I could be better informed.
I’m no expert, but I do know that scientists aren’t always scientific. We nearly revere scientists in their white lab coats, thinking them far more intelligent & infallible than mere mortals. But scientists are humans who get misled & can mislead others. They’re sinful people like anyone else who have a priori presuppositions, biases, blind spots, egos, personal agendas, & lack of training & wisdom (see Rom. 1:21-22, 25).
Often, scientists are simply parroting things that their professors taught them without having ever studied or even been exposed to counterarguments. Scientists sometimes can’t agree among themselves as theories change & new discoveries reverse prior “facts.” Scientists can make dogmatic statements as much as any theologian. We all need a bit more humility because nobody knows it all…except God.
Atheistic astrophysicist Carl Sagan was famous for his “Cosmos” PBS show where he’d say, “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” How would he know this? That was not a scientific statement but a personal belief. To say that science explains all of reality is a philosophical or, dare I say, religious statement. Science is not a sacred cow that shouldn’t be questioned.
If the Bible is true, then why isn’t it more scientific? We recognize the Bible isn’t a science textbook written with modern scientific terminology. It speaks in colloquial ways about the sun rising & setting, but that doesn’t mean it’s unscientific. We still speak that way today, but that doesn’t make us flat-earthers.
What’s amazing is that though the Bible was written in pre-scientific times, not only does it NOT contradict scientific discoveries, but those discoveries have verified that the Bible has been accurate all along, with insights recorded long before they were discovered by humans. Hints & principles can be seen about contamination, agriculture, the hydrological cycle, ocean currents, wind patterns (Job 36:27-28, Ecc. 1:6-7, Ps. 8:8); that the earth is round or spherical, & hangs in space on nothing (Is. 40:22, Job 26:7); that the stars are uncountable (Jer. 33:22); & that time, space & matter had a beginning.
The beauty of the Bible is that it was written in terms understandable to everybody no matter what culture or era they live in–not merely in the “science” of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, or modern academics. It uses the language of observation rather than precise scientific terminology.
True biblical Christianity is fully compatible with intellectually honest, open-minded science that admits the possibility of God (yes, a God who can intervene in the natural world to perform miracles). But Christianity & naturalistic science are always going to be at war because they’re based on two different concepts of reality. Christians never have to fear real science because it’s truth. But we should be wary of philosophies that masquerade as science.