Science and the Bible

Don’t get excited. I’m not really very far going down this path.

But it is clear that both science (an aspect of general revelation) and the Bible (the product of special revelation) must, as they illumine the works of God, be in agreement. Where there is disagreement, the issue is one of interpretation, not essence. Our biases impact our interpretation of scripture, and so we might get it wrong. As well, our biases impact our interpretation of scientific data, and we might get it wrong. The fundamentalist Bible believer runs the risk of assuming that his interpretation of the Bible is infallible. It is not. And the equally fundamentalist devotee of science runs the risk of assuming that the interpretation given to natural phenomena is infallible. It is not.

So, the two forms of revelation, though in essence infallible, are as observed and interpreted open to error and therefore must inform one another.

I was reminded of this while researching commentary on Psalm 93 which says that under the reign of God, “…the world is established; it shall not be moved.”

About this, John Calvin, writing in the middle of the 16th century, about the same time that Copernicus published his work removing the earth from its position at the center of the universe, says this:

“The Psalmist proves that God will not neglect or abandon the world, from the fact that he created it. A simple survey of the world should of itself suffice to attest a Divine Providence. The heavens revolve daily, and, immense as is their fabric, and inconceivable the rapidity of their revolutions, we experience no concussion — no disturbance in the harmony of their motion.”

Charles Spurgeon, writing 300 years after Calvin and Copernicus, comments on the same passage saying this:

“Society would be the football of the basest of mankind if God did not establish it, and even the globe itself would fly through space, like thistle-down across the common, if the Lord did not hold it in its appointed orbit.”

Neither man was interpreting scripture improperly. They were, however, seeing it through a different conceptual grid which had been effected by scientific inquiry and discovery. I simply find the contrast here interesting, and it serves as a reminder to me that fundamentalists of both the biblical and scientific types ought always be aware of the glasses they wear.