I’m reading The Genesis Debate right now, a three-views book exploring the different views on the length of the days of Genesis 1 and 2. It’s been an enormously frustrating read in almost every conceivable way, but I’ll save the explanation for that for a review once I’ve finished it. For now I’ll simply say that both the 24-hour view (which they keep saying isn’t young-earth, although I can’t for the life of me discern any differences) and the day-age view have proven to be highly unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons.
But as I read I keep coming back to one question - how are we to understand scientific knowledge in light of the supremacy of Scripture as the highest source of knowledge? To place scientific knowledge on the same level as biblical knowledge seems irresponsible (this is one of my frustrations with the day-age presenters in the book). However, to plug one’s ears and refuse to listen to overwhelming scientific evidence for an old earth (as the 24-hour-view presenters seem to do) seems equally irresponsible.
So here’s the question - How are we to consider scientific data that seems to contradict Scripture?
I think we have to reject both extremes as described above, but if we are to reject those two views, how then do we think rightly about science and scripture? Or, perhaps another way to frame the question, how are we to understand the relationship between general revelation and special revelation? In what ways is special revelation preeminent over general revelation?
Comments
This entry was posted 1 year, 8 months ago on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 9:36 pm and is filed under fides quarens intellectum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I think no one is commenting because we’re all as stuped as you
(stuped? stooped?) The young-earth/old-earth thing particularly.
I’d just submit that I’m not sold on this dilemma because I think the bible is about Truth and science is simply about making theories that work. Then again, I don’t know many people who like that idea, so I’m not sure its helpful.
I think the key is that Holy Scripture is not the source of all knowledge. What I mean by that is that it does not have answers to all of life’s questions. There is a lot of mystery out there. Does that make scripture less Holy? No. Can the Bible still be our Holy book and God’s Word without being literal in all instances? Yes. Can it be God’s word and still be written by humans? Yes. Can it even be inaccurate scientifically at times? Yes. Can it be our Holy Book and reliable as God’s Word if it was passed down orally first, then copied over and over again before the church decided on the canon of scripture? Yes. And that’s even before all the various translations and translated versions that we have now. But it is still Holy Scripture.
Science and and the Bible answer different questions. When was the last time the scientific community claimed that’s its central focus and theme was Christ Jesus and His Incarnation, with all that that entails? Probably never, though certainly some scientists have those interests.
The Bible may contain scientific elements and historical elements, but it was not written to hold up to our standards for scientific or historical study. They are different, with the Bible communicating a Truth so big that it is often beyond our understanding, scientific methods and all. How will science ever explain the virgin birth? And if it can’t are we going to throw it out? Of course not, that would be heresy.