The Bible and Modern Science

At the start - some definitions are in order.

Webster's dictionary defines science as: "a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws".

Many are familiar with the "scientific method" which is: 1) Observation, 2) Hypotheses 3) Experimentation, and 4) Conclusion.

Those who use this method are often forced to revise or even abandon previous conclusions considered as "fact" or "truth" when new observations and experimentation reveal the inaccuracies of a conclusion that was once accepted as "fact" or "truth".

(As a side note: whenever the word "truth" is used in these writings it is always defined as "that which corresponds to reality".)

In 1965-66 I taught two classes of "Earth Science" at Monroe Junior High School in Tampa, Florida. I enrolled in an earth science course at the University of Florida. The professor, who was a member of the National Science Foundation, taught us that the universe began with a "big bang" six and one-half billion years ago. This age of the universe was also in the university's textbook.

The date was arrived at through observation, hypothesis, and experimentation. This conclusion was taught as a fact, as the truth.

Forty-three years later the age of the universe, that "fact", has changed. Now the same scientists and their students tell us that the age of the universe is not six and one half billion and forty-three years, but fourteen and one-half billion years old. So the difference is only eight billion years! Which is it? Both cannot possibly be true at the same time.

My prediction is that as astronomers in the future look farther out into space and as atomic scientists look farther into the smallest structures of the physical universe, the age of the universe will be declared to be much much older than we are told now. And we will be told that the new age of the universe is a fact, the truth.

Science is a constant state of change. And for scientists much of what was true yesterday is not true today. And amazingly, the general public and liberal theologians don't even question the inconsistencies.

Philosophy is defined as "the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge or conduct."

When I think of philosophers I think of the ancient Greeks - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. I think of wise old men who just sort of sit around and talk about whatever ideas come into their heads or they talk about something they observed and have been thinking about for a while. Or maybe the topic is something someone told them.

The goal of philosophy seems to be to formulate the right way to think, or to discover the right attitudes about life and death, or the right ideas even about God, if there is a God.

When the apostle Paul arrived in Athens he met the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who are described as men who "spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas." (Acts 17:20)

The Epicureans had taken a pretty good philosophy of life given them by Epicurus - "do what makes for genuine happiness" - and, in their progressive thinking, reconstructed Epicureanism into an "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" philosophy.

Zeno the Greek (Stoicism) walked the porches ("stoa" in Greek) of the pagan temples and taught a kind of fatalism that was unconditionally pre-determined by forces (the Fates or gods) one cannot see. Since there is nothing a person can do about one's life the Stoic philosophy is, simply put, "grin and bear it". (Guess which philosophy - Epicureanism or Stoicism - was more popular among the Greeks!)

The reason for these brief descriptions is to say that philosophies, without any reference point outside themselves, will be constantly changing. Where there is no God, no revelation, one is free to do what one chooses to believe and do. Just be aware that man-made philosophies are used to justify and even encourage all kinds (good and evil) of behavior or belief.

Psychology, on the other hand, is "the science of the mind or of mental states and processes".

The most recognizable name in modern psychology is Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the psychoanalyst. And for the record, at the end of his life Freud was unable to cope with his impending death. So at Freud's request Dr. Max Schur euthanized (murdered?) Freud so Freud would not suffer death because of his cancer.

Freud, the founder of modern psychology could not face up to the realities (the truths) of living. He bailed out.

Now, even though Freud's ideas form the basis of psychology, many modern psychiatrists and psychologists have rejected many of Freud's ideas. And, no doubt, future practitioners will discard many of the "facts" and "truths" of the science of "modern psychology".

The question comes to us again: How does Christian theology reconcile with the changes of science, philosophy and psychology?

Simply put, the Bible cannot be reconciled to modern science, philosophy, psychology, legalism or liberalism (previous chapters).

Jesus warned us about those who try to "reconstruct" the words of God. Jesus said that renovators of Biblical theology - both the legalists and the liberals - are building on sand, not on the solid rock of God's word, the Bible.