In my prior couple of posts, I have tried to show that a Bible believing Christian can find that the sciences as imperfectly understood as they are can still augment our appreciation of scripture.
Now, I wish to discuss how the knowledge of sciences can be used to select among the possible meanings of scriptural text. I know that many find this completely erroneous, an I understand that feeling. From my perspective, dismissing the witness of creation is as wrong to me as applying the sciences to scripture seems to be to many of my brothers.
But when one looks at all the earth sciences particularly geology, archeology, biology and including astronomy, the Earth is old. Ancient. And it is a single small planet in an immensely older universe.
One component of this discussion is whether the speed of light is constant, since at the currently accepted value of ‘c’ (the symbol commonly used to represent the speed of light) it would take longer than the age of the Earth as accepted by Young Earth creationists for the light to reach us. Often a table will be shown showing historical measurements of c and noting that the value obtained has been changing (sometimes the argument is that it is getting faster, most time the argument is that it is slowing down). What is actually being displayed is that as our abilities of measurement advanced, the error component of the measurement decreased.
Astronomers routinely note novas in this and other galaxies and observe the light pulse as it travels through nebula and measure the speed of light as it passes through. Light passing through a nebula thousands of light years away (which this happened thousands of years ago) matches the current value.
In scientific discipline after discipline, a young earth view requires innumerable largely stand-alone explanations as to why the observed universe differs from what a young Earth would be expected to ‘look’ like. But if one looks at creation in the old earth view, although there are small problems, one field largely supports the next, requiring fewer explanations and those that do come up are often conceptually small.
So, to apply this to understanding the Bible, it is important to examine the text and see how it fits with the evidence around us. When compared to modern languages, including and particularly English, Hebrew particularly ancient Hebrew is a very sparse language (fewer words covering many sets of concepts). One way this is done is to use the same word for several similar concepts. I note that the word (YOM) translated as ‘day’ in Genesis does not always mean a 24 hour day. YOM is often translated simply as ‘time’ and can have the same meaning as ‘epoch’. Limiting our consideration to Genesis, and other scriptural references may not guide us to that understanding, but by considering the evidences in creation itself, it is not beyond the pale to adopt that as the most probable meaning. This does not solve all problems by any means, but at least one can explore the Genesis account further without being cut off at the beginning.
As for other adjustments to the rendering of scripture, I read the flood account as an accurate account from the perspective of Noah and his companions. It was probably a local event. And, for archeology to make any sense at all, the Americas and the Pacific Islands were populated, and those peoples could hardly have learned about the Hebrew God, though the knowledge of right and wrong is universal even if it is not universally followed. It may be just me, but my view of the Gods love for mankind in general would be inconsistent with a global catastrophe. As far as geology, although there were floods recorded in the earth around the world, they neither line up in time, nor does the record suggest that local populations were wiped out.
I know that many will have issues with this, and it is not my intention to cause heated disputes, but I wished to show that there is no reason to war against the sciences, particularly since they are not warring against the Bible.
I close this post with a passage from Astronomer and Christian writer Hugh Ross:
Writing for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researchers Allen Hammond and Lynn Margulis made this comment about the young-universe view: “Adoption of creationist [that is, young-universe creationist] ‘theory’ requires, at a minimum, the abandonment of essentially all of modern astronomy, much of modern physics, and most of the earth sciences.”70
I’m troubled to think what may happen when the connection between cosmic size and age becomes more widely understood. If taught that a young universe is the Bible’s clear message, many seekers and nonbelievers will conclude, under the barrage of compelling scientific evidence for the universe’s antiquity, that the Bible must be accepted on a purely subjective, nonfactual basis. Thus, they may turn away from considering Christ’s claims. To put it another way, if the church demonstrates itself unreliable in interpreting scientific data, which are subject to objective verification, how can it be trusted to handle biblical statements on spiritual matters that cannot be objectively verified? Demonstrably false science gives people reasons to reject the gospel—reasons to disbelieve rather than reasons to believe.
As for sincere young-earth Christians, the tenets of young-earth creationism dictate that they must shut out science and its facts altogether to preserve their faith. How can they love the Lord our God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength if they must separate their mind from their faith? Such a separation violates the meaning of biblical faith.
This is a good example of where scientific analysis of the situation cannot harmonize with the language of scripture. All sorts of speculation, theory and supposition has been put forth to try to find some way to argue that the language of this text cannot possibly mean what it says. The reason this is done is because everything we know through scientific observation of all of the statistical regularities involved in the movements of the sun and the earth contradict what the Bible tells us took place. Since scientific observation confirms that this is an absolute possibility by all the "laws" of physics, then scripture must either be wrong or it does not really mean what it says. Do you see the problem here? As I said earlier, when scientific interpretation comes into conflict with scripture, it will never be scripture that is in error.
The sun standing still is only from the perspective of man. In order for the sun to appear to stand still in the sky, this would require the halting of the earth's rotation. It is the rotation of the earth on its axis at 1037 miles per hour that give us the rising and setting of the sun. To me this really adds to the incredible nature of the event. How do you explain the earth halting its rotational pattern without suffering the impact of the sudden collapse of gravitational forces? If the earth were to suddenly and immediately stop on its axis, everything on the surface of the earth would be flung into space, all land masses would collide resulting in catastrophic global seismic disruption and massive land tsunamis. All gravitational forces on the earth would collapse because it is the rotation of the earth that creates earth' gravity. This was most certainly not a natural event but a supernatural one. What this shows us is that creation is not ultimately governed by natural law. It is governed by the power of God who can suspend the laws of physics that regulate earth's movements and still keep everything in its place. To me, this was one of the most incredible events since the beginning of creation itself. This was an incredible non-natural event that happened just as scripture describes it, and there will nerve be a scientific explanation to satisfy those who attempt to minimalize the language of scripture. One either believes the inspired word of God or he does not. There are no middle grounds upon which to stand.
The key point in my post regarding this is that
I don't know. However, I do maintain that the natural laws are His laws and are designed to express His glory to all. Yes, He
can change them or suspend them at will, but I do not believe that is in His nature. It would be changing or suspending or ignoring a basic expression of Himself. Theoretically, each of us could lead a sinless life since all sin involves making a choice based on our own desires when we could choose to follow God. But since sin entered the world, it has not been in our nature and I know that there has only been one sinless man.