Faith & Science
PRINCIPLES
1. The Bible is truth and without error; if the Bible says it, God says it. The Bible is self-authenticating and authoritative, and does not require confirmation by science. There is however increasing archaeological evidence of the historicity of the Bible.
2. The Bible was not inspired by God as a textbook of Natural Science, Neurophysiology, or Astrophysics; understanding how prayer works is not needed in order to believe in prayer. 2 Peter 1:3-4a "His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises..."
The Bible however does not reveal all scientific truth.
3. If science asserts something that is truth, it is of God, and intended for good.
4. If science asserts something that is false, it is a lie originating with Satan, and intended for evil.
5. Most scientific truths are morally neutral.
6. MAN however may choose to use science for good (nuclear power plant) or evil (nuclear bomb).
7. God’s truth is unchanging and eternal; what is felt to be scientific truth is not. Using his modification of Galileo’s telescope, Johannes Kepler counted exactly 1005 stars c. 1600.
8. It does not honor or glorify God if we assert that which is demonstrably and unequivocally false.
9. George Ellis, South African astrophysicist who was a collaborator on the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems: “God’s nature is revealed most perfectly in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, as recorded in the New Testament of the Bible, who was sent by God to reveal the divine nature.”
To know God (and Truth), we need only to look to Jesus (John 14:6-9)
Francisco de Holanda, "Creation of the sun, the moon and the stars", De Aetatibus Mundi Imagines, 1545
G. Campbell Morgan “Christ’s Knowledge of Men”
If you and I try to study humanity by studying men (or the world) we shall never understand humanity.
If we come to know man in the light of God's revelation, we shall know how to deal with men.
C.S. Lewis in a paper given to The Oxford Socratic Club, Is Theology Poetry?
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones The Approach to Truth: Scientific and Religious
The Bible says quite plainly and frankly that man is totally incapable of arriving at a knowledge of truth by means of scientific theory, and that if he would arrive at a knowledge of truth, he must submit himself to revelation.
A.W. Tozer
The Set of the Sail
Our frantic and futile effort to harmonize the truth of Christ with psychology, philosophy and science is proof enough of a deep incertitude among us concerning the sufficiency of Christ. How eagerly we rush into print with any quotation from the lips of the Great Man of the world that admits that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
The New Testament points to Christ and says God now commands all men everywhere to repent: because He has appointed a day, in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He has ordained; whereof He has given assurance unto all men, in that He has raised Him from the dead. God validated forever the claims of Christ. He is who He said He was and what He said He was. Christ stands before no man to be judged, but every man stands before Him. Any uncertainty about Him was swept away forever when He arose from the dead, ascended into heaven and sent down the Holy Spirit as His final witness among men.
“Our Only Grounds For Boasting”
Because we Christians live on two life-levels simultaneously, the spiritual and the natural, we do, as sons of Adam, owe to philosophy and science a lasting debt of gratitude. Music, literature, art, economics, learning all contribute to our welfare and make the world a more comfortable place in which to live while we wait for the return of the Son of God and the redemption of our bodies.
To try to equate the faith of Christ with philosophy or science, or any other product of superior human minds, and to make that faith dependent upon these things, is in the light of Christs deity preposterous. Christ is enough.
St. Augustine of Hippo
Credo ut Intelligam - I believe in order to understand.
A.W. Tozer The Knowledge of the Holy Chapter 11 - "The Wisdom of God"
We shall not seek to understand in order that we may believe, but to believe in order that we may understand.
De Genisi ad litteram (The Literal Meaning of Genesis) c. 415. Translation by J. H. Taylor in Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, Volume 41.
Often, a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances...and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.
The shame is not so much that an ignorant person is laughed at, but rather that people outside the faith believe that we hold such opinions, and thus our teachings are rejected as ignorant and unlearned. If they find a Christian mistaken in a subject that they know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions as based on our teachings, how are they going to believe these teachings in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think these teachings are filled with fallacies about facts which they have learnt from experience and reason.
Reckless and presumptuous expounders of Scripture bring about much harm when they are caught in their mischievous false opinions by those not bound by our sacred texts. And even more so when they then try to defend their rash and obviously untrue statements by quoting a shower of words from Scripture and even recite from memory passages which they think will support their case without understanding either what they are saying or what they assert with such assurance. (1 Timothy 1:7, 2 Peter 3:16)
Isaac Newton
Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.
Richard Sibbes The Soul's Conflict with Itself and Victory Over Itself by Faith
God having made man an understanding creature, guides him by a way suitable to such a condition, and that is the reason why God in mercy yields so far to us in His word, as to give us so many reasons for our (faith) in Him.
Archibald Alexander “The Use and Abuse of Books”, Princeton Seminary Introductory Lectures, 1826
The Bible was not given to teach us everything, but only to point out our duty and show us the method of salvation; our other knowledge is useful and even necessary to the enjoyment of those comforts which a beneficent God allows his creatures in this world, and also to the propagation of the gospel through the world. The knowledge of agriculture, of architecture, of geometry, geography, navigation, etc., is highly useful. But this knowledge is not contained in the Bible; for it, therefore, we must have recourse to other books.
Arthur Compton, winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the Compton Effect
For myself, faith begins with a realization that a supreme intelligence brought the universe into being and created man. It is not difficult for me to have this faith, for it is incontrovertible that where there is a plan there is intelligence—an orderly, unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever uttered—-"In the beginning God."
Paul H. Carr, Ph.D., Physicist, and a member of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, in Beauty in Science and Spirit
Science is an effort to understand the creation. Biblical religion involves our relation to the Creator. Since we can learn about the Creator from his creation, religion can learn from science.
Joseph H. Taylor who received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work supporting the "Big Bang Theory"
A scientific discovery is also a religious discovery. There is no conflict between science and religion. Our knowledge of God is made larger with every discovery we make about the world.
Henry F. Schaefer III, Computational and Theoretical Chemist, author of Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence?
A Creator must exist. The Big Bang ripples and subsequent scientific findings are clearly pointing to an ex nihilo creation consistent with the first few verses of the book of Genesis.
"Scientists and Their Gods" http://leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html
(Short and highly recommended lecture)
Arno Penzias, winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics
Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.
John Piper on Creation