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Inspiration of the Bible (5)
The Inspiration of the Bible (5)
By Mike Willis
In the material on the inspiration, I have shown two evidences of the Bible’s divine origin: (1) It wonderful unity; (2) Prophecy. In this article I am discussing the Bible and Science.
One of the clearest statements about the Bible and science was made by Carl F. H. Henry when he wrote, “No claim is made that the sacred writers, as individuals, were personally exempt from the naive world-view of their own day, nor that their writings articulate a classified and systematized science involving general laws. What is claimed is that, as the messengers of holy revelations they were lifted beyond their own capacities, and that their declarations bearing upon nature and upon man are as reliable as their teaching about God and His activity” (“Science and Religion,” Contemporary Evangelical Thought, 269).
Several points need to be made relative to Science and the Bible. (a) The Bible is not a science textbook. It does not describe things in the technical vocabulary of science but rather describes or explains things from the standpoint of man (e.g., modern men still speak of sunrise and sunset, although the sun does not rise and set). (b) For the Bible to agree with the science of 2023 would be disastrous. By 2050, the science of 2023 will be obsolete. Therefore, one should not be overly upset that science and the Bible are not in complete harmony. (c) Edson R. Peck said that the real conflicts between science and the Bible “arise whenever a scholar makes a pronouncement outside his own field of learning. When science becomes a religion, or religion dictates scientific thought, there is trouble” (“Does Science Contradict the Bible?”, Can I Trust the Bible?, Howard F. Vos ed., 51). (d) The conflicts between the Bible and science have been caused by the following: (1) Theories of science which are contrary to the Bible. (2) Faulty Bible interpretation which conflicts with scientific facts.
The superintendence of God in the writing of the Bible is seen by the lack of contemporary science in the Bible. Though Moses was schooled in all the knowledge of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22), he did not incorporate in his writings the science of the Egyptians. Daniel was “skillful in all wisdom, endued with knowledge and understanding science” (Dan. 1:4), yet he did not record any of that Babylonian science in the Bible. That the scholarship of the world in 2023 is still arguing about the science of a book 3500 years old is amazing. Most books have a life span of twenty years. Any book surviving that length of time is extraordinary. But the Bible, parts of which are 3500 years old, is still a much-studied book.
The Bible does comment about nature. Its comments are in agreement with the findings of science. (Many apologists have taken verses out of their context to find contemporary science in the Bible. These types of “proofs” are harmful to the Biblical position.) Based on creation where all men descended from Adam and Eve, Paul spoke in Athens, Greece saying, “ . . .and He made from one every nation of mankind” (Acts 17:26). All of mankind are humans, not some men closer to monkeys and others more highly developed as eighteenth century science thought. A few years later, Paul wrote to the Corinthians saying, “all flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish” (1 Cor. 15:39). Without having microscopes to analyze the flesh of the various creatures, what Paul wrote is still recognized as true. A good forensic team can identify whether the flesh and blood evidence is human or animal.
Bible believers are not unscientific, out of date scholars locked in the eighteenth century scientific practices. Many leading scientists are Bible believers, on the cutting edge of contemporary research. What these believers do not accept is worldviews that require a person to ignore science. For example, any science book will tell you that the X and Y chromosomes, also known as the sex chromosomes, determine the biological sex of an individual: females inherit an X chromosome from the father for a XX genotype, while males inherit a Y chromosome from the father for a XY genotype.
As a child, when a dog had a litter of puppies, one could pick up the newborn puppies, look at their genitalia, and know whether a puppy was male or female. For millennia, men and women have done the same thing with their own babies. Now, based on a different worldview that has no logical grounds for any ethical absolutes, a minority in our society is demanding us to ignore what the science of biology teaches about sexuality. I humbly ask, “Who is ignoring and denying modern science?” Ironically, the book written in ca. 1450 BC says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27), which is exactly what the science of biology confirms.
