But
doesn't the Bible contain statements contrary to science?
The Bible isn't a textbook on science. Its purpose Is not to explain In
technical, scientific language the world around us, but to explain God's purpose
and relation to man, to deal with spiritual things. It speaks of the world in
the language of appearance, much the way we do today. When we speak of the
"sunrise" or the "sunset," we don't mean that the sun revolves around the earth,
but that, from a human perspective, the sun appears to rise above the horizon,
or set below it. The Bible uses similar language In describing nature. So the
Bible's statements about nature are not scientific, but neither are they
unscientific. Nothing in the Bible contradicts the actual discoveries of
science.
Actually, the Bible is quite different from other religious literature of its
age. The crude, polytheistic account of the Babylonians about creation differs
completely from the record in the Bible. The Bible contains no fanciful
speculations about nature, as do the sacred writings of other religions. The
Vedas, for instance, which are the Hindu Scriptures, teach that the moon is
about 150.000 miles higher than the sun and shines with its own light. that the
earth is flat and triangular, and that earthquakes are caused by elephants
shaking themselves under it. Ptolemy, the Greek scientist and philosopher,
suggested that the earth was flat, but no such Idea is in the Bible.
Indeed, the origin of modem science rests on the truth of the Bible. Isaac
Newton and other great modern scientists believed that an intelligent God
created an ordered, sensible world, and therefore they studied nature
systematically. Other religions, which deny the orderliness and rationality of
the universe, discouraged such scientific studies, and so their scientists never
made such amazing discoveries as were made by Bible‑believing scientists. Rather
than eroding the foundation of biblical authority, science actually finds Its
roots there.
But what about
evolution? Doesn't that contradict the Bible?
This is a complex subject, and I think thorough coverage of it would require a
lengthy conversation all its own. But I can suggest several thoughts to put your
mind at ease about this.
First, scientists speak of "evolution" in two very different ways. They
distinguish these "micro‑evolution" and "macro‑evolution."
Micro-evolution refers to the changes within basic kinds of living things that
do not constitute changes from one basic kind of plant or animal to another.
Nothing in the Bible denies this.
Macro‑evolution is the idea that every present form of life developed by
entirely natural, chance processes from the original matter and energy of the
universe. From the "Big Bang" with which scientists believe the universe came
into existence, through you and me, everything has evolved, according to
macro‑evolutionary thought, by pure chance. This idea is more a philosophy than
a science. Scientists acknowledge that it cannot be proved by experiment or
observation, and that many parts of the theory‑such as the idea of natural
selection‑are so vaguely defined as to be completely untestable and therefore
not strictly scientific.
Macro-evolution is not only non‑testable, it also contradicts one of the basic
laws of physics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Macro-evolution is an idea
that depends on a natural tendency for matter and energy to become increasingly
ordered, to proceed from simple to complex, to approach maximum orderedness. No
observation of any process in the world has ever contradicted the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, that matter and energy naturally become less ordered, not more
ordered.
Macro‑evolution's idea of the origin of life—by the chance combination of
chemicals in the ancient world—is also without sound evidence to support it.
Scientists have tried for decades to synthesize life in laboratories, and even
when they begin with fairly advanced parts of life, it takes enormous skill and
perfectly controlled conditions to come even close to synthesizing life‑and the
goal has not yet been reached. What this should indicate is that it would take
tremendous intelligence to form life from the non-living world‑in other words,
that it would take God to do that, or at the very least that it cannot have
happened by chance.
One of he world's leading astrophysicists is Dr. N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, a
man from Sri Lanka who now does research and teaches at University College,
Cardiff, Wales. Dr. Wickramasinghe is also a leading mathematician and
probability theorist. Asked once what were the probabilities that life could
have been formed by chance, Dr. Wickramasinghe said they were about as plausible
as "a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747"‑a modern
jet airliner. He said his research drove him to believe that an intelligent
Creator exists because of the impossibility of the chance formation and
development of life anywhere in the universe. He said this conclusion was
despite his agnostic Buddhist beliefs. It was a difficult position for him to
take emotionally because it differed from all his earlier thought.
Evolution also says that changes in living things brought about by mutation are
often beneficial, while in fact no beneficial mutation has ever been observed,
either in nature or in laboratories. Yet evolutionists tell us that mutations
provided the changes necessary‑the changes upward in order of complexity‑for
macro‑evolution to occur. So far as science has ever observed, all mutations are
harmful, not helpful, to living organisms. But because some people believe in
macro‑evolution, they have hypothesized that some beneficial mutations must
occur. for without them, macro‑evolution cannot have occurred. This means they
are allowing their faith in macro‑evolution to determine what they think about
nature. They are not, as good scientists do, allowing the facts to determine
their thoughts about nature.
Again, the probabilities are against the macro‑evolutionists. Sir Juilian
Huxley, one of the leading evolutionary scientists of our age, assessed the
chances of making an upward change from one basic life form to another through
mutation:
A proportion
of favorable mutations of one in a thousand does not sound much, but is probably
generous .... And a total of a million mutational steps sounds a great deal but
is probably an understatement .... However, let us take these figures as being
reasonable estimates. With this proportion, but without any selection, we should
clearly have to breed a million strains (a thousand squared) to get one
containing two favorable mutations; and so on, up to a thousand to the millionth
power to get one containing a million. Of course this could not really happen,
but it is a useful way of visualizing the fantastic odds against getting a
number of favorable mutations in one strain through pure chance alone. A
thousand to the millionth power, when written out, becomes the figure 1 with
three million noughts (zeros) after it, and that would take three large volumes
of about 500 pages each, just to print! ... No one would bet on anything so
improbable happening. (Julian Huxley, Evolution in Action, New York, New York:
Harper and Brothers Company, 1953, page 41.)
Neither macro‑evolution nor special creation‑the idea that God created each of
the basic kinds of life and that there has only been variation within those
kinds‑can be proved scientifically, since both are ideas about processes that
cannot be observed‑‑evolution because it happens too slowly to be measured even
in multiple lifetimes, and creation because it happened only once and is not
happening now. But I think the advantage has to go to special creation, since it
at least is consistent with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and with the
natural tendency of all mutations to be harmful, while macro‑evolution is
inconsistent with both of these facts. And I would hate to take the leap of
faith necessary to believe in macro‑evolution against the kinds of odds I've
mentioned!
But let me suggest something else. The key question I'm putting before you is
how are you going to respond to Jesus Christ, not what you will think about
evolution. I don't think your attitude toward evolution should stand in the way
of your making a decision to trust Jesus. Although most Christians believe the
Bible contradicts the idea of macro‑evolution, many respected Christian scholars
believe the two ideas‑creation and macro‑evolution‑can be reconciled. They
suggest that God might have carried on creation over a long period of time,
creating major kinds of life at different times in history. For these
Christians, it is possible to believe both the Bible and the idea that differing
life forms came along at different times in history. They call their position
progressive creation, since they do not believe the changes In the forms of
life, or the new forms of life, came about by chance, but by the intelligent
design of God.
So I suggest that your thoughts about evolution, no matter which position you
take, should not stand in the way of your becoming a Christian.RETURN TO QUESTION PAGE
Doesn't the Bible make some statements that are contrary to evidence about
history that archeologists have found?
On the contrary, in the past century archeology has confirmed numerous
statements in the Bible that historians previously had doubted because they
found no corroborating evidence In other historical literature. For instance,
for many years historians thought the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, mentioned in
the Book of Genesis, never existed. But discoveries in the last ten years at Tel
Mardikh, or Ebla, verify the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah. Over 15,000 clay
tablets containing the daily records of the government of Ebla were unearthed,
and many mention dealings with Sodom and Gomorrah.
For centuries anti‑biblical historians believed there never was a group of
people called the Hittites. though the Old Testament mentioned them repeatedly.
These historians had found no other references to them in ancient literature.
But in the last century, numerous references have been found to the Hittites
throughout the ancient near eastern world, and parts of their civilization have
been uncovered.
I could go on mentioning other discoveries that confirmed historical statements
in the Bible, but let it suffice to say that while thousands of archeological
discoveries have confirmed the Bible, not one has ever been found to be contrary
to the history recorded in the Bible.
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