Q: Why do we need another book on Creation Science?

A: Creation Science is a very broad topic and there are indeed many great books covering the entire spectrum of views. However, only a small fraction of these actually attempt to integrate science and theology into a single worldview that doesn’t sacrifice one for the sake of the other. The few books that are written from this perspective are usually very academic and can quickly drown their readers in a sea of technical and theological jargon.

Beyond the Firmament is written for “regular” folks who don’t lose a whole lot of sleep over things like the bacterial flagellum or how many different ways you can say “day” in Hebrew, but instead struggle with the bigger questions of science and faith – like how do we relate the transcendent and timeless Word of God to the tentative and empirical nature of our scientific experience? And how can we trust either of these sources of revelation when they both seem to be painting different pictures of the universe? The technical details are there for those who are so inclined. But for most of us, these philosophical issues are where the rubber meets the road. Believe it or not, these kinds of “ultimate” questions have some very practical answers.

Q: Why don’t Christians just let the world worry about science and focus on more spiritual things?

A: Christians are called to be “salt and light” to a world that has become dark and tasteless. This means getting involved in every aspect of our civilization – including the natural sciences. In fact, throughout history, science has flourished in monotheistic cultures that recognize God as the sovereign governor of the material universe. There was a time in Western civilization when the greatest scientific minds were believers. Men such as Newton, Galileo, and Kepler all glorified God through their study of nature.

Over the past few hundred years, this trend has reversed itself. We now find that many Christians have abandoned the natural sciences as “worldly” pursuits. Some of us may even stereotype scientists as pin-headed atheists with the emotional capacity of concrete, or we accuse them of fabricating godless theories that discredit anything supernatural, yet we all benefit from their amazing discoveries. I believe that this unfortunate reaction is fueled by a general misunderstanding of how science works, and how the Bible relates to the natural world.

Q: I’m not a professional scientist, nor do I have much interest in the sciences, so why should I read Beyond the Firmament?

A: At the root of the modern controversy between science and religion is our approach to revelation – or how God speaks to us. God speaks to us primarily through His written Word (the Bible), but He can also speak to us through His Creation (nature). When it comes to the Bible, many Christians have trouble seeing it through ancient eyes, and by default we tend to filter God’s written Word through a grid of post-Enlightenment modernism. As a result, we often find ourselves reading things into the text that the authors themselves would have never imagined. Combine this lack of historical perspective with a general ignorance of scientific principles, and it’s no wonder we Christians have the trouble we do.

The simple fact is, whenever we come across an apparent disparity between these two sources of knowledge, we have obviously erred in our understanding of Scripture, of Nature, or both – since God is incapable of contradicting Himself. Beyond the Firmament examines the scope and limitations of both special and natural revelation and recommends constructive ways to approach these kinds of problems. For this reason, even those who have little interest in the natural sciences might still find the book helpful to their understanding of Scripture.

Q: Do you believe that the Bible is the written Word of God?

A: Absolutely! Paul tells us in II Timothy 3:16 that “All Scripture is God-breathed.” But exactly what that means is not always so obvious. It’s easy for us today to think of the Bible as some kind of “66-volume encyclopedia” that floated down from heaven directly to 21st century Christians through a hole in the clouds. But when the ancient biblical authors wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God’s transcendent, eternal, and universal truth was “packaged” for delivery to a specific people who existed in a specific time and in a specific place. Looking past the “wrapping paper” to see the priceless gift inside can indeed be challenging.

Our doctrine of biblical inerrancy tells us that somehow in the providence of God, the human authors were allowed to leave their mark on God’s Word without compromising its inspired message to us. How should this affect our interpretation? Well, we know that God obviously makes use of finite men and their imperfect language, but what about their culture, their customs, and their cosmology? How much sense can the Bible really make if we fail to understand its ancient context and instead filter it through our 21st century Western culture, customs, and cosmology? An even bigger question is how much binding authority do these passing ancient Near-Eastern cultural quirks have over us today? These are tough questions with difficult answers, but if we are to properly understand and apply the Bible for our time, we have to ask them.

Q: Do you believe that the Bible is able to provide modern Christians with accurate scientific information about the universe as we know it today?

A: Yes – as long as we are asking the right kinds of questions. However, not every question has a straightforward “biblical” answer. While the Bible clearly speaks to every area of life, including science, we sometimes must use general revelation to help us discern the “technical” details that would have obviously had no meaning in an ancient Near-Eastern context. Genesis clearly gives us a theology of creation that has sweeping philosophical ramifications for our scientific worldview, but constructing detailed scientific theories about the nature and structure of the observable universe by proof-texting various Scripture passages probably goes beyond the original intent of the Bible. I think we have to be careful here. Once we start making scientific claims based solely on the Bible without any reference to the testimony of nature itself, we are in danger of putting the Lord our God to the test.

Now obviously our claims of faith are not totally without risk. The apostle Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15:17 that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.” This was a very risky statement for a Christian to make during the first century. Had the Pharisees or the Romans produced evidence that disproved the resurrection, such as the dead body of Jesus, it would have surely ended the Christian religion. Creationist claims are also not without risk, but we should choose our battles thoughtfully and carefully – and avoid making foolish claims that stand to gain nothing but seem to risk everything. Many Christians today assume that “if the earth was not created in six 24-hour days, then our faith is futile.” It would serve us well to first command a solid grasp of the entire spectrum of God’s revelation before making such claims in His Holy name.

Q: I’ve always felt that only Scripture should be used to interpret Scripture. Isn’t it dangerous to allow extra-biblical knowledge to influence our interpretations?

A: It certainly can be dangerous. We’ve all seen sad cases of fundamental Christian doctrines being flippantly discarded because of a misguided attempt to incorporate extra-biblical knowledge. But it can also be dangerous to completely close ourselves off to the testimony of nature and read the Scriptures in a vacuum. For example, Isaiah 55:12 says that “…and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” If we are not informed by our extra-biblical experience with actual trees, how else would we know that this verse is a literary device and not divinely inspired botany? And since Isaiah also must have known that trees do not have literal hands based on his experience with nature, it seems reasonable to assume that he intended this verse as a literary device rather than a statement of scientific fact. But these things are not always so easy to determine.

A more challenging example would be Psalm 104:5 which tells us that God “set the earth on its foundations; [so that] it can never be moved” or Ecclesiastes 1:5 that says “The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.” Moreover, the stars are frequently described as “running their courses” through the heavens (Judges 5:20).

During medieval times, many Christians mistakenly used such verses to build a biblical case that the earth is fixed at the center of the universe and the sun, moon and stars all revolve around it! Now you might assume that these verses were also intended as literary devices, just as we might casually say the sun “rises” or “sets” today. But understand this: modern astronomy did not exist in the ancient world. In fact, before Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo (1564-1642) discovered that the earth actually revolves around the sun, it was “common knowledge” for thousands of years that our planet was fixed at the center of a relatively small universe.

Unlike Isaiah’s trees with clapping hands, these verses probably were intended to be accurate literal descriptions of the heavens and the earth by ancient standards of simple observation. So why don’t Christians today still take them literally? Because we have all incorporated extra-biblical knowledge about the solar system into our scientific worldview! If we had only allowed Scripture to interpret Scripture, then we never would have questioned that the earth was fixed at the center of the universe.

Q: Allowing science to influence how we read the Bible seems like a dangerous “slippery-slope” that can eventually lead to all sorts of abuses. Why should Christians consider any scientific theories if they are clearly opposed to a plain reading of Scripture?

A: Unfortunately, these issues are not so black-and-white. On the one hand, we certainly don’t have to accept everything science tells us without question; but on the other hand, we shouldn’t reject something just because it may have been unknown to the biblical authors. If you look at the history of scientific development, you will quickly see that if a slippery-slope does exist, Christians have already been navigating this incline for over 400 years!

In his commentary on Genesis 1:16, the great Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) calls Moses “unskillful” for describing the moon as a great light after it had just been discovered that the moon only reflects the light of the sun and produces no actual light of its own. But rather than concede that the Bible contains falsehoods, Calvin reminds his readers that “Moses wrote in a popular style things which without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand” and that “the Holy Spirit had no intention to teach astronomy.” He went on to say, “astronomers investigate with great labor whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend. Nevertheless, this study [modern astronomy] is not to be reprobated, nor this science to be condemned, because some frantic persons are wont boldly to reject whatever is unknown to them.”

So even the Protestant Reformers, who had a high view of Scripture, sometimes allowed the biblical authors to be culturally bound by their times on matters of science. Ironically, when Calvin wrote these words, he still firmly rejected any idea that the earth moves, echoing the official positions of the Church and of contemporary astronomy at the time (see his commentary on Psalm 93:1). He even preached that “those who assert that the earth moves and turns” are “possessed by the devil” and “aim to pervert the order of nature” (sermon no. 8 on I Corinthians). As much as I love and respect Calvin, these kinds of statements are terribly short-sighted. Science is a constantly moving target and is always subject to new data and evidence. As it turned out, Galileo was born the same year that Calvin died. Over the next few hundred years, Christians eventually found a convenient way to update their concept of the universe without compromising any theology – so much for “perverting the order of nature.”

Even though we can’t actually feel or see the earth moving without sophisticated instruments, we ultimately put our faith in the astronomers over common sense and the plain reading of Scripture. So what exactly happened here? Did Christians forsake the Bible for science? Did the Church open a “Pandora’s Box” of biblical criticism? Or, could it be that these issues are a little more complex than simply accepting a literal interpretation of Scripture over what sinful man proposes?

So rather than pretend, that as conservative Bible-believing Christians, we should never allow extra-biblical knowledge to influence our interpretations of Scripture, Beyond the Firmament seeks to establish some guidelines as to how this is done so that the precious doctrines of the Christian faith are not inadvertently sacrificed on the alters of scientific discovery. Since we already do this to some extent, it is better to meet these challenges head-on than to keep pretending that they don’t exist.

Q: If Christians can’t trust the Bible when it comes to the literal scientific details of the cosmos, how can we believe anything that the Bible says?

A: This is probably the most important question because it strikes at the heart of biblical inerrancy and infallibility. We obviously believe that the Bible is given to us without error, but we seldom stop to ask ourselves, “Without error with respect to what exactly?” If we allow the biblical authors to draw from their own incorrect views of the cosmos, then how can we be certain that they are truly speaking God’s thoughts on spiritual matters? In fact, conservative Christian groups such as the Association for Biblical Astronomy (www.geocentricity.com) and the The Fair Education Foundation (www.fixedearth.com) say that the Church’s capitulation to the scientific claims of Copernicus and Galileo opened up the entire Bible to scientific rebuke. In order to combat these “worldly” scientific philosophies, they have chosen to believe that the earth really is fixed at the center of the universe just as the Bible describes it, and that modern astronomy is a grand hoax!

This might seem like a gross overreaction to a relatively simple problem, but their motivations are well intentioned. In fact, they are the only group of creation scientists who are consistent in their literal application of Scripture to the study of nature. They simply conclude that “if God cannot be taken literally when He writes of the ‘rising of the sun,’ then how can He be taken literally in writing of the ‘rising of the Son?’” For them, the resurrection of Christ is inextricably tied to an ancient view of the universe. But is that necessary? What are the consequences if they are wrong? A narrow view like that might work if you are a dentist or a taxicab driver, but if your job is to launch satellites into orbit, you might need to take the motion of the earth into consideration! Should Christians that work for NASA abandon their faith just because the Bible describes a geocentric universe? Of course not!

Consider the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. It was formulated in 1978 by more than 200 evangelicals, including folks like J. I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, and R. C. Sproul. It says the following:

“We affirm that canonical Scripture should always be interpreted on the basis that it is infallible and inerrant. However, in determining what the God-taught writer is asserting in each passage, we must pay the most careful attention to its claims and character as a human production. In inspiration, God utilized the culture and conventions of his penman’s milieu, a milieu that God controls in His sovereign providence; it is misinterpretation to imagine otherwise.”

“So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be observed: Since, for instance, nonchronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and acceptable and violated no expectations in those days, we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers. When total precision of a particular kind was not expected nor aimed at, it is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.” (emphasis mine)

So for any passage of Scripture, the question must be asked, “What is the truth at which its authors aimed?” In the case of those verses that describe the ancient solar system, it is clear that their purpose was not to provide a detailed theory of modern celestial mechanics. Otherwise, some might argue that God knows less about the solar system than we do. Clearly this can’t be! So the doctrine of inerrancy demands that we take these things into consideration – otherwise we falsely accuse God of either ignorance or deception.

The great protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) unfortunately said of Copernicus, “This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but the sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth.” We can avoid these embarrassing situations by distinguishing the transcendent truths of the Bible from the passing cultural forms used to convey those truths to us. This same principle of accommodation can be consistently applied to other passages of Scripture that also seem to be giving us scientific information about the physical universe. Beyond the Firmament explores some of these possibilities.

Q: What do you think about the Intelligent Design movement?

A: In principle, I agree that all of creation displays the handiwork of God. In fact, Paul tells us in Romans 1:20 that “…since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

For Christians who believe that God created the heavens and the earth from nothing and sustains their very existence by His hand of providence, intelligent design is a given. In fact, nothing in the natural world happens outside of God’s sovereign design. But this is a foundational truth believed by faith, not a scientific theory contingent on empirical evidence. We don’t need a scientific doctrine like “design theory” to tell us this! And neither will “design theory” convince a hardened atheist to accept theism. So what exactly is it that the Intelligent Design movement is trying to accomplish anyway?

Many folks in the Intelligent Design movement have confused the transcendent concept of design with the material mechanism of assembly. This unfortunately tends to perpetuate the false notion that God can only interact with His creation by a miraculous disruption in the laws of nature.

Consider this example: the Bible tells me that God conceived of my existence from the foundations of the world. But this truth doesn’t necessarily imply that I appeared on earth ex nihilo without any natural history. God obviously ordained both the ends and the means to my eventual existence. In terms of science, I owe my material being to a nine-month process that began with a sperm and an egg, and proceeded by reassembling pieces and parts from other plants and animals (or whatever else my mother ate) into something that would ultimately bear the Image of God. As far as I know, the entire process was a “natural” one. That is to say that my physical assembly can be entirely accounted for by the continuous operation of the laws of nature (via God’s providential governance) acting on pre-existing matter in an unbroken chain of material cause-and-effect.

This “naturalistic” explanation might sound somewhat unspiritual, but we know that chemistry and biology can’t give us the whole story – only the technical details. Psalm 139:13 tells us that we were all “knit together in our mother’s wombs” by the hand of God. Is this a contradiction? Not hardly. We need both the material and the spiritual accounts in order to have the total picture.

What this clearly shows us is that God’s creative action is not in competition with the material mechanism by which these actions are achieved in the fullness of time. And when it comes to the actual assembly of those things which God designs, nature can sometimes leave us many clues as to how these natural processes might have unfolded. By this same reasoning, a mysterious lack of such clues would be a strong indication of creation ex nihilo. But whatever story these clues can tell us should not be in competition with what we already know to be true from Scripture – that God is the Creator and Sustainer of the material universe. I think that some in the Intelligent Design movement, no matter how well intentioned, get so caught up in fighting the culture war that they lose sight of the sweeping extent of God’s creative power.

Q: Do you believe in the Big Bang or the theory of Evolution, or that the Bible teaches them?

A: That is a loaded question. For starters, it assumes that scientific theories of natural history carry the same weight as theological beliefs – which they clearly don’t. As Christians, we are accustomed to speaking of our faith in terms of “ultimate” truths that are foundational to a biblical worldview. But in terms of science, there really are no ultimate truths so to speak. Everything is based on assumptions, all theories are tentative, and we always have to make room for new discoveries that can completely overturn what was once firmly believed.

Science is an empirical faith. Our Christian faith, on the other hand, is much different than this. Since God is unchanging, His Word is timeless, and special revelation has ceased, Christianity is not typically subject to new discoveries. But this “tentativeness” is absolutely necessary for science to be able to change and adapt to new information.

So to say one “believes in” a scientific theory is actually too strong of a statement. I “believe in” Jesus Christ – that He was God in the flesh, and that He was crucified, died, and was resurrected so that we might be saved from our sins. This is a foundational truth that does not depend on anything else to be true. Scientific theories like the Big Bang and Evolution are human constructions that merely attempt to explain the facts of natural history by the continuous operation of the laws of nature. In a few hundred years, they will probably be replaced by other theories that work better. Therefore, accepting them on the testimony of Scripture would be just as short-sighted as rejecting them on the testimony of Scripture.

So the answer to the question is “no” – the Bible does not teach the Big Bang or Evolution, but neither does it teach that the earth revolves around the sun. I’m afraid these scientific theories must be judged by how well they explain or how badly they contradict the available evidence, just as was done with the theory of a moving earth. That’s the way science works. To find out what a scientific rendering of creation might mean to the Christian faith, you’ll just have to read the book!

Q: So when can I purchase my copy of Beyond the Firmament?

A: The book is scheduled to be out in March of 2007. You can find it online at Amazon.com or in some local bookstores.

***Update: Click HERE***

 

© 2009 Gordon J Glover