Science & The Bible
Ask Me Anything
Week 8: Science & The Bible
Questions Asked: How do science and the bible differ and why?
In a 2014 Ted Talk given by Dr. Denis Lamoureux discusses the relationship between science and faith. He holds a PhD in both evangelical theology and evolutionary biology and argues that science and faith are answering two entirely different questions. It is a false dichotomy to pit science and religion against each other because science deals with the physical world and natural processes and faith deals with spirituality. His Ted Talk, "Beyond the 'creation vs. evolution' debate" was in response to the Ken Ham and Bill Nye debate that happened in 2014, and sparked a lot of controversy and debate about faith and evolution.
A lot of this conversation will be dependent on the lens in which we read and interpret the bible. There are a variety of ways to interpret including: inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility. Inerrancy and infallibility both stem from a literalist interpretation, therefore a large number of protestant spaces fall under the literalist interpretation. In fact, it wasn't until the Reformation that we begin to see the idea that the Bible is error free. Before this, people openly acknowledged and didn’t try to argue away discrepancies, because they didn't believe that they took away from their belief. However, a major issue was that Catholic priests held the authority for interpretation, and Luther believed everyone should be able to access and interpret the bible.
Biblical literalism started to gain more prominence in the 1920s and 30s. This was a little bit after Darwin's evolutionary theory was widely discussed in the U.S., there were many societal changes happening, and the protestant church was split on how to deal with it. There was a big debate in the Presbyterian church over issues such as the Bible's authority and the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Modernists, who believed that there was room for interpretation of the Gospel under modern day circumstances and issues, took over mainstream Christian culture, dominating seminaries and Christian publishing houses. Fundamentalists split off, started their own private seminaries and publishing companies, and began to hold tighter to biblical literalism.
There is a sharp rise in inerrancy and infallibility in the 70s and 80s after the Civil Rights Movement. An early version of the progressive church, called the emerging church, began after the Civil Rights Movement. As a response to the emerging church, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy was released. The Chicago Statement asserted that the Bible was inerrant, or faultless and inarguably correct in everything that it teaches (in any form of translation). Inerrancy believes that the original manuscripts were completely God’s truth and don’t contradict each other. What is interesting is that this is primarily believed in U.S. spaces. Protestantism in the U.K. does not hold biblical literalism in the same way.
Biblical inspiration is the idea that the authors of the Bible were inspired by God and that the Holy Spirit is required to help derive meaning from the scriptures. The United Methodist Church (UMC) believes in biblical inspiration. The following information is pulled from the UMC's website, UMC.org.
“We hold that the writers of the Bible were inspired by God, that they were filled with God's Spirit as they wrote the truth to the best of their knowledge.”
“We hold that God was at work in the process of canonization, during which only the most faithful and useful books were adopted as Scripture.”
“We hold that the Holy Spirit works today in our thoughtful study of the Scriptures, especially as we study them together, seeking to relate the old words to life's present realities.”
The Bible's authority is, therefore, nothing magical. For example, we do not open the text at random to discover God's will. The authority of scripture derives from the movement of God's Spirit in times past and in our reading of it today.
Evolution vs. Creation was one of the central arguments for the protestant church during the early 20th century, when the protestant church split between modernists and fundamentalists. It is fascinating to me, that it is still a big debate today. In the Ted Talk, Dr. Lamoureux discusses the creation story and gives some context around the ancient scientific understandings in the text and the poetic composition of Gen. 1-2:4. This is the first listed of two creation stories in Genesis, and is the story that lists the creation where God creates a different thing each of the six days and rests the seventh.
There is a difference between truth and fact, and Christians who read the bible literally take this creation story as 100% truth and fact. Something can contain truth without being fact, but things that are factual also hold truth. We can find important truths without reading the bible as a textbook. Context is very important. The creation stories are some of the oldest in the bible, and the first creation account, Gen. 1-2:4, was a poem written to show the power of God compared the Babylonian creation story. Ancient scientific thought held that there was an ocean in the sky that was separated from the earth by a solid sky. Ancient Egyptians had iconography depicting Nut, the Goddess, arching over the earth to separate the heavenly waters from the Earth. Rabbinic thought commonly held and believed that the sky was solid. Ex. 24:10 depicts a pavement of sapphire in the heavens, Mesopotamian texts depicted the same thing. It is a fairly modern notion to believe that the sky is not solid. We can see these ancient understandings of science in scripture, and largely we can look at these and all agree that the sky is not made of sapphire pavement. Yet we read these passages claiming it is literal. When we read it with that context in mind, we gain truths, and don’t have to hold it as a factual account of events.
Resources:
Beyond the "creation vs. evolution" debate | Denis Lamoureux | TEDxEdmonton
NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
Crew Guide - What to Know Before Reading the Bible
Discussion Questions:
1. What are some arguments that you have heard between science and the Bible?
2. How did today's crew help you understand these differences better?