In This World You Will Have Tribulation

Today’s readings all seem to stress the inescapable reality of conflict in the Christian life.  Exodus 1 shows us the Israelites groaning under bondage in Egypt.  Thinking ahead, we realize that their bondage is not physical only; their behavior in the desert will prove that they are enslaved to their own idolatry as well.  Deliverance from both types of slavery will involve the deepest conflict.

 

In Job 18, Bildad is warming to the theme of Job’s ungodliness.  I feel some sympathy for Bildad and the others; Job’s angry rejection of their efforts to help him drives them into ever-greater self-righteousness.  I would have responded similarly.  But for Job, the experience is one of utter misery.  Bereft of all normal pleasures, he can’t even find sympathy among his friends.

 

In Luke 4, Jesus wrestles with the devil in the wilderness.  I find it hard to fast for a meal; he fasted for 40 days and then faced temptation.  Then he returns to civilization and begins to preach, and immediately his words spark angry controversy.  One might have expected the coming of the Messiah to be accompanied with joy on all hands; not so.

 

Finally, in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul has to enjoin the church to engage in discipline of one of its members, hardly a pleasant undertaking. Having received grace, we want to extend it; but God does not want grace offered where it is already being rejected.  One imagines the tensions within the church: the recriminations, anger, self-righteousness, and sorrow.

 

And so, this is the world we live in.  We yearn for a better one, one without inner and outer conflict, without oppression, suffering, loneliness, rejection of truth, indulgence of one’s own and others’ sins.  One day, God willing, we will be there.  But here we must expect tribulation.  If we are in distress, it doesn’t necessarily mean we are out of God’s will; it may just mean that we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ. 

Civil Rights and Civility

Amid the anger and outrage that have attended the passage of Proposition 8, I would like to register another emotion: sadness.  I hurt for gay and lesbian folk who feel wounded by this process. I am disappointed that many have chosen to express their aspirations in the language of civil rights, a language that all but forces them to treat their opponents as bigots.  I grieve over the loss of civility that inevitably results from this choice.

Is same-sex marriage a civil right?  The claim might be more persuasive if its pedigree were longer.  When Martin Luther King, Jr. attacked segregation, he was able to draw from the deep wells of the Bible and the Declaration of Independence.  We know that many Jews and Christians have been racists.  We know that the Founders were inconsistent.  But the Bible regards all humans as of equal dignity in the sight of God, with no hint that skin color is of any importance whatsoever.  And the Declaration reflects this tradition with its assertion that all are created equal.  King shamed white Americans by proving that racist segregation was a betrayal of the values they claimed to hold dear.

The same is true of older laws forbidding interracial marriage.  Although prejudice runs deep, a ban on the mixing of races cannot stand up to the insight that skin color bears no relation to human worth, or to the ability of a man and a woman to fulfill the purposes of marriage. 

There is no similar tradition by which it can be shown that same-sex marriage is a civil right.  Marriage has always been heterosexual in nature, for the simple reason that if it were not, society would have little concern with it as an institution.  Sex between men and women produces babies, and society has a legitimate interest in seeing that those babies are raised by their parents.  Virtually all civilizations have found it important to enshrine in custom or law the obligations of parents to children and therefore of spouses to one another.  From a social and secular point of view, this is the chief significance of marriage. 

Marriage is not primarily about satisfying the desires of adults or providing them with benefits.  It is society’s way of reinforcing the natural bonds between children and their biological parents. That some couples are childless does not change the fact that marriage as a socially important institution is built around the procreative potential of human sexuality. Homosexual relationships are excluded, not by bigotry, but by definition. That is why we search in vain for defenses of same-sex marriage more than a couple of decades old.

The advocates of same-sex marriage are not really asking for marriage, since marriage implies heterosexuality.  Instead, they are demanding the authority to redefine marriage for all of society, without regard to the consequences—foreseeable and unforeseeable—such a momentous change may bring.  This cannot be viewed as a civil right.  Everyone has a right to eat an apple.  Everyone has a right to reject the apple and eat a pineapple.  No one has a right to demand that from now on, pineapples must be declared a variety of apples. 

Marriage is a legal contract entered into by a non-related male and female for certain clearly specified purposes.  Anyone who is willing to enter such a contract has a civil right to do so.  But no one has a right to enter into a very different sort of relationship and then require the world to rearrange its categories so that that relationship may be called a marriage. Such a demand has no basis in tradition, reason, justice, or law.  It is manifestly not a civil right.

Because same-sex marriage is not a civil right, it is inappropriate for advocates to insist that their opponents can only be motivated by hatred.  This position is not only illogical but also highly destructive, because it leads them to demonize people who, in the great majority of cases, have absolutely no desire to demonize them back.  We have siblings, children, and friends who are homosexuals; what possible reason could we have for hating this class of people?  Is it really so hard to understand that among the supporters of Proposition 8 there are many who would defend to the death the legitimate rights of gays and lesbians, yet who honestly believe that changing the meaning of society’s most fundamental institution is unwise and dangerous? 

The decision to present same-sex marriage as a civil right no doubt strikes proponents as the best way of winning converts.  Nobody likes being called a bigot.  If, despite the intellectual vacuity of the argument, citizens can be persuaded that the issue really is civil rights, then perhaps same-sex marriage can win the popular support it craves. 

But the tactic may backfire.  The more proponents clothe themselves in righteous indignation and vow harsh retribution to those who voted for Proposition 8, the more credibility they give to the fear that if same-sex marriage indeed prevails, opposing views will be ruthlessly suppressed. Observing the fury of this movement since the election, it is very hard to take seriously its promises that same-sex marriage won’t be promoted through the public schools, or that no effort will be made to use the law to silence religious or other opposition.

If they genuinely care about truth and justice, leaders in the drive for same-sex marriage would do well to abandon the language of civil rights before it poisons the discussion still further.  They should admit that what they are asking for is completely unprecedented, and they should make their case openly and fairly, without resort to misleading analogies to the movement to end racism.  Let them explain why it makes sense to redefine the age-old institution of marriage.  Let them explain why this change will bring benefit, not harm, to society. 

And please, let them lay off their accusations of hatred, homophobia and bigotry, understanding that many of us who oppose them also love them.  Drop the false claims of civil rights, and there is still a chance that this can be a civil debate.

A Note About These Sermons

Yesterday I preached the first half of a sermon on the meaning of the days of creation in Genesis 1. In due time I will put a version of that sermon here. However, several people have asked for PDF files of all of these sermons, and I want to make them available to everyone who is interested. Just e-mail me at david@ccac.ws, and I will send them to you.

The Age of the World: the Scientific Consensus–Sermon #4, on Faith and Science, 2/4/07

May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works (Ps. 145:31).

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made (John 1:3).

Introduction
This past week I read an essay by two proponents of young-earth creationism. These are godly and learned men. I have heard one of them speak on other subjects, and he is a good theologian, with a deep knowledge of Scripture and the history of interpretation. But I am not impressed by the way these men approach the days of creation in Genesis 1.

Here, essentially, is what they say: “The simplest, most straightforward reading of Genesis 1 is that the days of creation are 24-hour days. This is also the position most Christians and Christian scholars have taken through the ages. As for modern science, well, scientific theories come and go. Darwinism has deep problems, and so do all the sciences that buttress it. We take our stand with Scripture and the history of the church. Time will prove us right.”

Well, I don’t think so. What I want to do this morning is explain to you why the vast majority of scientists believe the earth and universe are very, very old, and why it is highly unlikely that this opinion will change. I am not a scientist, but I think I have a decent, layman’s grasp of these matters. I think this knowledge is something every Christian should have.

Understand this: my argument is not that theologians are always wrong, and scientists are always right. My argument is that sometimes scientists are right. It was so in the case of Galileo. I believe it is also so in this case.

Why, then, do most scientists say that the earth and universe are ancient?

Dating the Earth and the Solar System
The main method used to date the earth and the solar system is radiometric dating. The details are complicated, but the main idea is simple. Radioactive isotopes are isotopes, or forms, of various elements that give off radioactivity. The parent isotope decays gradually into a daughter isotope. The rates of decay depend on the isotope—the half-life of Potassium 40 (40K), for example is 1.25 billion years, while that of Uranium 235 (235U) is .704 billion years—but the rates are constant. That means that once we know the half-life of an isotope, or the length of time it takes for half of the original amount of the isotope to decay, we can measure the age of the rock the isotopes are found in by examining the ratio between parent and daughter isotopes.

Are the rates really constant? Yes. Scientists have tried to vary the rates of decay by heating isotopes, subjecting them to high atmospheric pressure, placing them in magnetic fields, varying the force of gravity on them by changing locations from mountain tops to the depths of mines, and in various other ways; yet all without producing any significant change in the rates.

Radioactivity was discovered at about the turn of the 20th century, and so the use of radioactivity in dating has had almost a century of development. At present, scientists have a very high level of confidence in dates obtained by this method. Sometimes a rock can be dated by more than one isotope pair, which yields even higher confidence in the results.

When radiometric dating is applied to earth rocks, the oldest rocks are found to be about 4.0 billion years old. Crystals from Australia have been dated to 4.4 billion years. Scientists think the earth is older than this, but that the oldest rocks may no longer be in existence.

Radiometric dating has also been used on rocks brought back from the moon. Most moon rocks that have been tested have been dated to between 3.2 and 4.0 billion years, but some have been dated to 4.5 billion years.

Scientists can also use radiometric dating to study meteorites. Meteoroids are bits of debris left over from the development of the solar system. Those that fall to the earth are called meteorites. Most meteorites are about 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old. Based on this evidence, scientists think that the solar system began forming somewhere around 4.56 billion years ago, and the solid bodies of the solar system formed about 4.55 billion years ago.

This date can be confirmed by a second dating method. Surface disturbances on the sun, which can be measured using Doppler effect imaging instruments, give scientists a good understanding of the interior structure of the sun. When that information is combined with stellar evolution models, an age for the sun can be calculated. The current estimate of the sun’s age, based on this method, is 4.5 billion years. This calculation is completely independent of radiometric dating.

Dating the Milky Way Galaxy
What about the age of our galaxy? The Milky Way Galaxy, you remember, is this huge, pinwheel-shaped structure about 100,000 light-years across and consisting of 200 to 400 billion stars. Astronomers use three methods to estimate its age. The first, based on observations of burnt-out stars called white dwarfs, puts the age of the galaxy at about 12.7 billion years. The second, independent of the first, is based on observations of stars near the center of the galaxy in what are called globular clusters. It yields a date for the galaxy of between 11.5 and 14.0 billion years. The third, completely independent of the other two, is based on an understanding of how the elements have been formed, and yields a date of between 12.5 and 13.0 billion years, with a margin of error of about 3 billion years. Three different methods—yet all indicate that the galaxy is somewhere around 13 billion years old. I checked Wikipedia yesterday and found that as of 3 years ago, the estimate the scientists have the most confidence in is 13.6 billion years, plus or minus 0.8 billion years.

Dating the Universe
Can the universe itself be dated? The answer seems to be “yes.” Back in the 1920s, Edwin Hubble was working on the 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson, outside of Pasadena, when he made some remarkable discoveries. First, he discovered that points of light that were previously thought to be stars are actually very distant galaxies. The universe is a lot bigger than anyone thought before then.

Second, from studying the light from those distant galaxies, Hubble realized that they are moving away from us and from one another, and that the farther away a galaxy is, the more rapidly it is receding. The best explanation of this fact is that the universe had a beginning. There was a time when the universe burst into being, and it has since been expanding.

This idea was not a welcome one to scientists at the time. Most preferred to believe that the universe is eternal. One astronomer referred to this theory derisively as the “Big Bang” theory, and the name stuck. But virtually all astronomers now believe that the theory is correct. It was confirmed by the discovery, in the 1960s, by two scientists at Bell Laboratories, of background microwave radiation that is believed to be a remnant of the Big Bang.

(Incidentally, the Big Bang theory accords well with Christian theology, because it is essentially a physical description of creation from nothing. Physicists can talk about what took place a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, but they can say nothing about what preceded it.)

Now what about the age of the universe? It can be calculated both from the current expansion of the universe—by extrapolating backward to see when the expansion began—and from the microwave radiation. These two methods are independent of one another. The first gives a date between 13 and 15 billion years, and the second a date of 13.7 billion years.

So—two methods for dating the solar system, leaving us with a date of about 4.5 billion years; three methods of dating the galaxy—around 13.6 billion years; and two methods of dating the universe—about 13.7 billion years. The methods are independent of one another, and the numbers are very consistent. [All dates given to this point are from G. Brent Dalrymple, Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies: The Age of Earth and its Cosmic Surroundings (Stanford University Press: 2004), or from Wikipedia.]

Other Indications that the Earth is Old
But we don’t have to stop with these measurements of the ages of the universe, the galaxy, and the solar system. There are other indications that the earth is very old.

God has supplied the earth with data-recording instruments. The one we all know best is tree-rings. If we can count a tree’s rings, we can tell how old the tree is. We can also tell something about the years it has lived—which ones were dry, and which were wet.

There are other, similar instruments. Ice and snow form annual layers in the arctic regions. In Greenland we can obtain ice cores that go back 100,000 years. In Antarctica, scientists have extracted a 2.25 mile-deep ice core that records snowfalls going back about 420,000 years.

Another type of data recorder is sediment. Lake Baikal in Siberia contains a high-resolution sedimentary record dating back about 800,000 years.

Magnetism produces a data recorder. Polarity changes in the earth’s magnetic field leave records in magnetic materials that align themselves with the magnetic field as they are being deposited in sediment. Oceanographers have mapped magnetic variations dating back nearly 200 million years (Gonzalez and Richards, The Privileged Planet, 30).

Then there is coral, which grows by annual layers. There are places where we have 400 million years worth of coral growth. Because coral also produces daily bands, we can determine that 400 million years ago earth’s rotation rate was faster and days were about 20 hours long (Ross, A Matter of Days, 183).

In other words, we have many, many different lines of evidence, all independent of one another, pointing to a very great age for the earth and the universe. Should we regard all of this science as nothing more than a passing fad? I don’t think so. The evidence that the earth and universe are old is so massive that virtually all scientists accept it. That is not going to change any time soon. It is likely that some of the numbers I have given will be revised as our understanding grows. It is possible that some will be radically revised. But it is very, very unlikely that you will pick up a newspaper someday and read a headline declaring that scientists are now convinced that the universe is actually only 10,000 years old. That would be like an announcement from historians that the American Civil War never occurred.

How Can Believers in a Young Earth Respond?
How, then, can those who believe the Bible requires belief in a young earth respond to this evidence? The two theologians I mentioned at the beginning have responded by ignoring the evidence, remaining ignorant of it. This is irresponsible, at least in men who claim to be doctors of the church. Sticking one’s head in the theological sand is not a serious strategy for dealing with advances in human knowledge. Apart from this, there are only two real possibilities.

The first is to get busy, learn the science, and look for errors in it. There are many young-earth believers who are doing this. They are publishing books and articles in large numbers, hoping to debunk modern science. It is easy to be fooled by this into thinking that the conclusions of modern science are very tentative and uncertain. If you visit web sites like Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research, and read books by Henry Morris and Duane Gish, but don’t read books by mainstream scientists, you can imagine that the young-earth people are proposing very reasonable alternatives to scientific theories. But there are some things you need to know.

First, the young-earth creationists themselves admit that they have never succeeded in convincing any scientists of their views on the basis of science. In other words, people become young-earth creationists only by becoming convinced that the Bible requires it of them—not by looking at the scientific evidence. The science all points in the other direction.

Also, the specific attacks the young-earth people have made on science have all been unsuccessful. They have claimed that the geological column and fossil record can be explained by Noah’s Flood. No geologist who has not already accepted their reading of Genesis accepts this claim. They have said that the speed of light is decreasing, and so the stars are not as far away as astronomers believe. But the only evidence they can give for this idea has a much simpler explanation: early measurements of the speed of light were not very accurate and yielded higher values than are now accepted. No physicist doubts that the speed of light is constant. They continually attack radiometric dating—but thousands of scientists have been perfecting that dating method for decades, and the research supporting it is very extensive.

In addition, we need to see that for the young-earth creationists to be really successful, it would not be enough for them to raise a doubt here or there about the methods of modern science. Instead, they would have to radically rewrite virtually all of modern physics, astronomy, and geology. They would also have to find a reasonable alternative explanation for ice accumulation, sediment, and coral growth. That is a very tall order. If the young-earth scientists can pull it off, they will deserve multiple Nobel prizes—but I’m not holding my breath. I think it is far more likely that we will see a foot of snow here in Los Angeles next August than that scientists will conclude that the earth is, after all, young.

The “Appearance of Age”
The second approach young-earthers can take is to say that the science really doesn’t matter. God could have so created the world that the science really does point to great age even though, as we know from the Bible, the world is very young. Just as God created Adam as a mature adult, who would have appeared to be perhaps 30 years old if we could have seen him when he was first created, so also God could have created the universe to appear to be 13.7 billion years old. He could have created it with the appearance of age.

This argument arises so frequently in discussions of this topic that it is necessary to deal with it in some detail. The argument is logically flawed, and it has devastating theological and practical consequences.

The logical flaw lies in the analogy between Adam and the universe. It is a bad analogy, because the “appearance of age” in the two cases is completely different. Think of it this way. Suppose you could indeed travel back in time and see Adam just 5 minutes after he was created. And suppose that upon seeing him you said to yourself, “Yep, he looks to be about 30 years old.” What would be the basis for that judgment?

The basis for your judgment that Adam appeared to be about 30 years old would be comparison. That is, in your lifetime you have seen thousands of men, and you have come to have a pretty good idea of what men look like at different stages of life. By comparison with the other men you have seen, you would judge Adam to be about 30.

Now, how many universes have we seen? One. So when scientists say that the universe appears to be 13.7 billion years old, they aren’t saying that they’ve looked at lots of universes and this is the way a universe looks when it is that old. What they are saying is that the universe appears to have 13.7 billion years of history. It appears to have been here for 13.7 billion years. Events have been occurring in the universe for 13.7 billion years. That is something very, very different from judging age by comparison.

Fixing the Analogy
We can fix the analogy. Here’s how. Suppose again that you could go back in time and see Adam just 5 minutes after he was created. This time, suppose that you took along with you some doctors and diagnostic equipment so that you could check his body and mind to see if he appeared to have actually lived for 30 years.

If anyone wants to examine me, they’ll pretty quickly conclude that my body has been around the block a few times. I have scars where I have had stitches. X-rays would show that both of my arms have been broken and have healed.

Would we expect to find the same with Adam—that he had scars from wounds he had never received, or that his x-rays showed evidence of bone breaks that had never occurred? Would a scan of his digestive tract find evidence of food he had never eaten?

Or what if we talked with Adam five minutes after he was created? Would we expect to find that he remembered things that had never happened? Would he remember being ten years old, though had never been ten years old? Would he remember going through adolescence, though he had never gone through adolescence? Would he remember what he had for dinner the night before he was created?

The answer to these questions is, “No! Of course Adam would not remember things that had never happened!” Why not? Isn’t God powerful enough to give Adam a mind full of false memories? Of course he is. He could do that. In principle, God could have created you and me just five minutes ago, and all our memories of events before that time could be false memories implanted in our minds by an almighty God. God could do such a thing—but he wouldn’t—because it would not be congruent with his character to act in that way. God does not lie. He does not deceive.

The Memories of the Universe
Now here is the great problem for the “appearance of age” argument for a young earth: the earth and the universe are full of memories. When we look at starlight we are not just seeing light; we are seeing a memory of the event—the nuclear fusion or other form of stellar combustion—that produced that light. When did the event occur? As many years ago as the star is light-years distant from us. If the star is a billion light-years away, then the event occurred a billion years ago. We are seeing a billion-year-old memory.

Or take an example from the earth. Using ice-cores from Antarctica or Greenland, scientists can learn how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere 100,000 years ago. Air is trapped in the ice, and it can be studied for its content. The ice preserves memories of earth’s ecosystem from the distant past.

(Incidentally, this information is very useful to scientists who are trying to evaluate the impact of human activity on global warming. If God really wants us to be his representatives and stewards on earth, it makes sense for him to give us this kind of historical perspective on the atmosphere. Previous generations didn’t need it, but we do. Isn’t it interesting that just as we have arrived at a point where we need the information, we have also learned where to find it? Is this coincidental, or is God helping us to fulfill our God-given role as his image-bearers on earth?)

These are just 2 examples of the world’s memories, but there are many others. Astronomy, geology, and paleontology are sciences that deal almost exclusively with memories. Could they be false memories? Is God powerful enough to make the universe with false memories? Of course he is! I had a sixth-grade teacher who believed that God put the dinosaur bones in the earth just to fool 20th-century scientists. If it were just a matter of God’s power, then her idea would be perfectly reasonable. God has the ability to do such a thing. But he would not do it! It would not fit his character to act in that way.

Although proponents of the appearance-of-age argument certainly don’t mean to accuse God of lying, that is the actual, inevitable implication of their doctrine. If the universe’s memories are not memories of real events, then they are lies.

The young-earthers say, “Hold on; that’s not fair. God has told us in his Word that the earth is young; therefore he expects us to recognize that he has made the world with the appearance of age. He isn’t lying.”

But apart from the interpretation that the days of creation must be literal 24-hour days, is there anything in the Bible to suggest that God has filled the world with illusions? Is there anything to suggest that he has made parts of the world opaque to rational investigation?

No. Scripture indicates that God wants us to regard the world as real. God calls us to rule over the earth. He gives us minds capable of grasping the order of the world. He wants us to study and learn. Where does he tell us that our reason will serve us well in every area of inquiry except that of events more than 10,000 years old? The Bible makes no such statement. Apart from the dogmatic insistence that the days of creation must be 24-hour days, there is no basis whatsoever for supposing that God has made the world to appear older than it really is.

A Wedge Between Faith and Science
Furthermore, if we pursue this idea that God made the world with the appearance of age, we drive a wedge between faith and science. We make people feel they have to choose between the two. You can believe in Christianity, or you can believe in science, but you can’t believe both.

What this means is that fewer and fewer scientists will become Christians. How can a scientist accept a faith that tells him that everything he has learned in his study of nature is a fraud? What would a scientist find attractive about a God who creates a world that isn’t real, a world in which scientific discovery does not result in true knowledge?

It also means that fewer and fewer Christians will become scientists. How could a Christian go into astronomy if her church taught her that the light that appears to be a record of real events in real stars is in fact nothing of the sort? Who wants to study illusions?

I do not believe that the appearance-of-age argument can be redeemed. It is a terrible idea. Forgive my vehemence, but I think this is a lie from hell. It’s hard to imagine an idea better calculated to produce contempt for the Christian faith. Our God does not behave in this way. If he did, he would not be worthy of our worship.

If you feel strongly that the best interpretation of the Bible is that the earth is young, then you have an obligation to learn the science and look for errors. Deal honestly with the evidence. Please do not accept the notion that God faked the history of the universe!

Conclusion
As for me, I think the universe is old. I think we have far more evidence of that truth now than the church had when it finally accepted the Copernican model of the solar system. It is time to stop contending for a young earth.

I do fully appreciate the problem. I agree that the simplest reading of Genesis 1 is that the days are normal days, and normally (though certainly not always) we should opt for the simplest reading. I agree that most Christians in most eras have believed that the earth is just a few thousand years old, and normally (though certainly not always) we should stick with the wisdom of the ages.

But we have to make a choice. We can say a) the Bible is just wrong, b) the world studied by science is not real, c) God contradicts himself, or d) we have been misreading Genesis 1. Of these options, I find only the last acceptable.

Because I believe this, I am confident that the abandonment of the literal 24-hour day interpretation of the days of creation will not result in theological loss, but gain. God is giving us the outside information we need to refine our understanding of Genesis. It may be a painful process, and it may take time, but the end result will be that we will possess more truth.

At the same time, we will also be able to enjoy the wonder of God’s gracious condescension in allowing us to peer into the history of the universe.

God didn’t need to give our planet a clear atmosphere and place it in an ideal location for the development of astronomy. He didn’t need to leave us the red shift and the background microwave radiation that enable us to deduce the Big Bang. He didn’t need to place accurate timekeepers in rocks. He didn’t need to create the data-recording mechanisms of ice accumulation, sedimentation, and coral growth. He did these things because he wanted us to share his joy in his works.

When I was a little boy, my grandfather used to make me toys of wood. He was immensely skillful in woodworking, and he was also very creative. I still own some things he made.

But what I enjoyed even more than the toys themselves was the privilege of watching him work in his woodshop. He had a lathe, several power saws, and a good assortment of other tools. I remember watching him and trying to understand his methods. Although he died when I was just eight years old, those memories (true memories, by the way!) stay with me.

Through the development of science, God is inviting us into his workshop. He wants us to see him at work. He wants to put his arm around our shoulders and say, “Take a look at this: can you figure out how I made this? Can you discern how I brought the galaxy together? Can you determine how I went about stocking the earth with coal, oil, iron deposits, and the other things your civilization needs?” Inside the workshop there are people who are admiring the workmanship and making rapid progress in understanding it, but many of them don’t know the Workman. Outside there are people who know him, but they have convinced themselves that the work isn’t real. Surely it is time to bring these groups together.

Let’s come into the workshop, and let’s be sure we keep the door open for others to join us. The Psalmist says, “May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works” (Ps. 145:31). May we also rejoice in his works!

I had planned to talk next week of how we may interpret the days of creation if they are not 24-hour days. I believe I will reserve that message for 2 weeks from now. Next week we expect more guests, and I do not want them to feel confused by the discussion. Next week I will talk about what all Christians agree we should learn from the opening chapters of Genesis. In other words, next week no controversy! We’ll just revel in what Genesis tells us about the Creator, the creation, and our own significance as creatures made in God’s image.

The Age of the World: the Young-Earth View–Sermon #3 on Faith and Science, 1/28/07

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Exodus 20:11).

Introduction
I have said thus far that the study of science is good, and that because both nature and Scripture come from the same God, we may be confident that they do not conflict with one another. I’ve also said that when we encounter conflicts between science and theology, we have no choice but to study both fields to find out where we have gone astray.

Over the past week some people have expressed amazement at these ideas and have asked if I am the first to think them up. Sorry—I’m not that creative! The Bible itself teaches us that creation is a sphere for divine revelation. It also teaches us that human beings can and often do make errors in the way they read Scripture.

One can also find very clear statements of these ideas as far back as Augustine in the 4th Century. Read the earliest modern scientists—writers such as Francis Bacon and Galileo himself—and you will find the same doctrine. Read the great Princeton theologians of the 19th Century, men like Hodge and Warfield, and again you will find stress on the ideas that nature and Scripture complement one another, and that we must study both if we wish to interpret either properly.

Unfortunately, due to certain developments that I can’t go into today, these ideas became obscured in the first half of the 20th Century, with the result that many Evangelicals fell into the terrible idea that in order to affirm the authority of the Bible, they must stand willing to deny the testimony of nature. One of the goals of this sermon series is to get us back to an older, more biblical understanding of the matter.

This morning I want to begin tackling a contemporary conflict. How old are the earth and the universe? Most scientists say that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and the universe is roughly 14 billion years old. Some Christians insist that the Bible teaches that the earth and universe are only a few thousand years old. Why do the two groups arrive at such different conclusions? How can this conflict be resolved?

I do not hold to the Young-Earth position. However, I want to start by explaining that position. And I hope that those of you who do hold that position will let me know if you feel I have not presented it fairly. We can never make progress in resolving controversies if we are willing to misrepresent another person’s position. We have to listen so carefully to one another that we are able to state the other person’s views accurately and sympathetically, even if in the end we disagree.

The “Days” of Genesis 1
Young-Earth Creationism generally begins with the claim that the 6 days of creation that are described in Genesis 1 must be literal, 24-hour days. Young-Earth Creationists know that the word “day” is sometimes used in a figurative sense in Scripture. It sometimes means something like “era,” as for example in the phrase, “the day of the Lord.” But they point out that the first 6 days of Genesis 1 are days with evenings and mornings; this argues strongly for believing that these are literal days. Furthermore, Exodus 20:11 teaches that one reason why Israel was to observe the Sabbath was that God had made all things in six days and then rested on the seventh day. If the Israelites were to work for six literal days and then rest on the seventh, literal day, then it must be that God’s workweek, on which this pattern was based, was also a week of literal days.

Of course, many people have objected that the days of creation couldn’t have been literal days, since the sun wasn’t even created until the 4th day. But the Young-Earth Creationists answer that God created light before he created the sun. God doesn’t need the sun in order to have days.

Now, if the days of creation were indeed literal, 24-hour days, then that means that the creation of the earth occurred just 5 days before the creation of Adam and Eve. And the Bible includes genealogies that lead back to Adam, which means that we should be able to date the creation of the earth with some accuracy.

For a long time most Protestants accepted the view that the creation of the world occurred in the year 4004 BC. This estimate was based on the work of Anglican Archbishop William Ussher in the 17th Century. Few people accept this date today, because they have recognized that the biblical genealogies contain gaps. This is not just a guess; it is something that becomes clear when we compare genealogies. If Person A is said to be the father of Person B, that could mean that he is really his father, or that he is his grandfather, great-grandfather, or even more distant ancestor. This doesn’t mean that there are errors in the genealogies; it means that they were written often for the purpose of showing lines of descent, rather than to list each and every generation.

But even if we allow for gaps in the genealogies, it is impossible to imagine that Adam was created billions of years ago. At most, we can say that he lived a few tens of thousands of years ago. And if the days of creation are literal days, then the universe itself can be at most a few tens of thousands of years in age.

The Problem of Animal Death and Natural Evil
Another important Young-Earth argument arises from Paul’s statements in Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21 that death entered the world through Adam’s disobedience. Young-Earth Creationists understand this to mean not only that human death entered the world when Adam fell, but that animal death also is a result of the Fall. They support this idea by pointing out that in Genesis 1:29-30 God gives humans and animals permission to eat plants, but nothing is said about the eating of animals. It appears that originally, before the Fall, humans and other animals were all herbivores. For this reason, Young-Earth proponents find unacceptable the modern, scientific picture of the history of the earth, in which creatures were dying for billions of years before humans were even created.

Similarly, when God created the world he proclaimed it “good.” But modern science says not only that there was death before Adam fell, but also that there were many things that we think of as natural evils: there was disease and suffering among animals, and there were disasters like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. How can these things be called “good”? Young-Earth Creationists think it far more likely that the scientists are simply wrong, and that all of these evils arose only after the Fall. They find confirmation of this idea in the fact that Scripture seems to view nature as having been affected by human sin. After Adam and Eve fell, God cursed the ground (Genesis 3:17). Paul says that now nature has been subjected to futility, and it groans as it awaits the liberation that will come only with the full redemption of the children of God (Romans 8:20:21).

The Weight of Church History
Then there is the matter of church history. It is true that some ancient interpreters did not read the days of creation literally. But most Christians have understood them as literal days, and some of those who did not were people who tended to adopt very loose, allegorical interpretations of other parts of Scripture. Our Protestant forebears, up until the early 19th Century, almost all understood the days of creation to be literal days.

Young-Earth Creationists don’t deny that God can still shed new light on the meaning of biblical texts. But they say that we should be very, very slow to reject an interpretation that has been held by most Christians in most periods of history. They feel the weight of church history is very definitely on the side of those who say that the days of creation were literal days, and that the universe is a few thousand years old.

The True Nature of Science
But what about the testimony of science? Isn’t there a lot of evidence that the earth and universe are very old? Young-Earth Creationists have three answers to that question.

The first answer is that science is not nearly as objective as many people suppose it to be. Scientists approach their work with a set of presuppositions, and often those presuppositions determine the conclusions the scientists reach.

For example, the majority of scientists today are not Christians but materialists, who believe that the natural world is all that exists. They are not open to evidence that God has worked in the world in extraordinary ways. They are biased in favor of the belief that everything we see in the natural world can be explained naturally. Most of them are Darwinists, and Darwinian evolution is possible only if the earth has existed for a very, very long time. Most of them are biased against the idea that there could have been a worldwide flood in the time of Noah, and so they look at the evidence of the Flood and instead see evidence of gradual process covering long eons of time. Their anti-biblical presuppositions determine their scientific conclusions.

To make matters worse, to advance professionally in the sciences a scientist has to publish papers and achieve academic tenure, but the editors of science journals and the committees that vote on tenure are biased against scientists whose ideas are considered unorthodox. When a Young-Earth Creationist or even a proponent of Intelligent Design attempts to get a foot in the academic door, the guardians of the modern scientific consensus slam the door as quickly and as hard as they can.

What all this means is that we have to be very skeptical of many things that are presented to us as established scientific facts. In many cases they are just opinions and theories, and they are maintained only by the systematic exclusion of pertinent evidence.

The Possibility of Reconciling Science with a Young Earth
The second Young-Earth answer to the scientific consensus flows from the first. If the real scientific facts were made known, we might well see that science can be reconciled with the biblical truth that the earth and universe are young.

Young-Earthers argue that the geological column, and the fossil record, may be explainable in terms of Noah’s Flood. Most scientists believe that the dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago, but Young-Earth Creationists argue that they became extinct at the time of the Flood.

Young-Earthers argue that modern methods for dating the age of the earth and the universe may be incorrect. They believe that radiometric dating is fatally flawed. They argue that light may have traveled faster in the past than it does now, with the result that astronomical distances may not be as great as most astronomers believe. Young-Earth scientists devote a tremendous amount of time to trying to debunk modern science.

And Young-Earth Creationists have yet a third response to modern science: they argue that God could have intentionally created the world to look older than it really is. God created Adam as an adult. If you went back in time and saw him, you would think him to be about 25 or 30 years old. In the same way, God could have created the universe to look 14 billion years old, even though it is only a few thousand years old.

One way or another, the modern scientific consensus that the universe is very old is simply incorrect. The Bible is perfectly clear on this matter, and we need to accept its testimony.

The Importance of the Issue
To proponents of Young-Earth Creationism, this issue is very important. It is, at least for some, a first-level theological issue, one on which no compromise is possible. I was recently browsing in a bookstore and read a bit of a book by one very prominent creationist, John Morris. Morris says in that book that he is not yet sure whether acceptance of a young earth should be a requirement for church membership, but he is very sure that it should be a requirement for church leadership. Nobody who does not accept this important doctrine should be permitted to become a pastor, elder, or deacon. In recent decades many churches, colleges, and seminaries have written this doctrine into their statements of faith. Anyone who wants to be associated with those institutions must agree that the universe is only a few thousand years old.

Why is the matter so important to the Young-Earth Creationists? Two reasons. First, there is the slippery slope argument. If you admit a non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1, then you will probably also begin to read other parts of the Bible in non-literal ways. In the end, you may wind up denying that Jesus was literally born of a virgin or literally rose from the dead. Once we start down this slope, there is no stopping place short of full-blown theological liberalism. It is necessary to defend the Bible here, at this point; otherwise, we will be in danger of losing the entire faith.

Second, it seems clear to Young-Earth Creationists that those who oppose their position are guilty of elevating science above Scripture. In essence, people who don’t accept the biblical doctrine that the earth is young are saying that science trumps Scripture. Science should be given the authority to determine which parts of the Bible we may or may not believe. But this is inconsistent with the truth that the Bible is the written Word of God. Scripture cannot be placed under any other authority. We don’t judge Scripture; Scripture judges us, and it judges all of our other knowledge.

For Young-Earth Creationists, then, this is really all about defending the Bible from its cultured despisers. They see themselves as drawing a line in the sand and saying to the restless, irreverent mind of fallen man: “Thus far you may go, and no further! The Bible has spoken; we believe it; and we will not be intimidated by your science or your scorn.”

A Brief Response to Young-Earth Creationism
As I said at the beginning, I do not hold to the Young-Earth view. I do, however, have respect for it. I have to confess that at one point I didn’t, but as I have studied more and gotten to know more people who hold this position, my respect has grown. Their position is internally consistent. It attempts to do justice to Scripture, the history of interpretation, and the scientific evidence. Some of the charges the Young-Earthers level against the scientific community are true. For many years they were a lone voice calling attention to significant scientific problems in Darwinism. And the Young-Earth proponents have demonstrated great courage in their willingness to stand by a position that is ridiculed throughout the wider culture.

Nevertheless, I do believe that this position is wrong. I think that we have much reason, both biblical and scientific, to doubt that their reading of Genesis 1 is right. I hope to speak on that topic two weeks from now, and give what I believe to be a better interpretation of the days of creation.

In addition, while I agree that science is a human activity and that many loud spokesmen for the scientific community are enemies of Christian faith, I think we nevertheless have an obligation to carefully assess the scientific evidence for an old earth and old universe. And if we find that evidence to be strong, then it is quite appropriate to allow that evidence to influence the way we read Genesis.

Remember again the Galileo affair. Initially, the Roman Catholic Church took a position very similar to that of Young-Earth Creation. It said, in effect, “Galileo, we don’t know just why you are wrong, but we know you are wrong. The Bible teaches that the earth stands still and the sun moves. Your denial of this truth is an attack on Scriptural authority.” Later, however, as more evidence accumulated through the work of men like Kepler and Newton, Christians came to see that it was their reading of Scripture that needed to be changed. Progress in science led to progress in biblical interpretation.

Would anyone claim today that the Christians of that day were wrong to allow the new astronomy to change the way they read the Bible? Was that a case of elevating science over Scripture? Should we go back to claiming that the earth stands still on its foundations and the sun revolves around it? Of course not.

It’s really not very helpful to think in terms of the Bible being above science, or science being above the Bible. We need to think in these terms: Scripture and nature are both from God—from the same God!—and they can’t contradict one another. There is no need to exalt nature above Scripture or Scripture above nature. When we have problems, those problems lie in our science or our theology or both.

Some say, “Well, nature is fallen, and so we should be more skeptical of scientific conclusions than theological ones.” But the record is very plain: we are capable of making mistakes in both science and theology. We are also capable of making progress in both fields—especially when we allow science and theology to inform and influence one another.

In the end, there is just no way around our obligation to look at what science has learned about the age of the earth and the universe. We could decide that the evidence is not weighty enough to warrant a change in the way we read Genesis. But we must not draw that conclusion before we have carefully evaluated the evidence. God wants us to read the Book of Nature as well as the Book of Scripture. Next week we will try to understand why the vast majority of scientists believe the universe is billions of years old.

When Science and Theology Conflict: Sermon #2 on Faith and Science (2/21/07)

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
…
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple… (Psalm 19:1-2, 7)

What should we do when we find our theology and our science to be in conflict? This has often been a painful problem for Christians, especially in the 150 years since the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. What should we think of the theory of evolution—is it compatible with biblical faith? Was there really an Adam? What of Noah’s Flood—did it cover the entire globe, or just a small area? How old are the earth and the universe—billions of years, or just a few thousand? Questions like these have plagued generations of believers.

A Crucial Faith Claim: Nature and Scripture Cannot be in Conflict
I want to begin by making an assertion that may at first strike you as very strange. If the Christian faith is true—and most of us have good reason to believe that it is. We have strong historical grounds for believing in the Resurrection of Jesus, and we know his presence in our lives–If the Christian faith is true, then nature and Scripture cannot be in conflict.

Nature is from God. He created it—all of it. The devil never created anything. In Colossians 1:16 Paul insists that all things were made by Christ and for Christ. Consequently, nature is a sphere in which God reveals himself. As the Psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”

Scripture is also from God. In the same Psalm David says that “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple…” “The law” refers to the written Word of God.

Turn to the New Testament, and you find Jesus treating Scripture as completely authoritative. In many cases he settles arguments by quoting directly from the Old Testament. In his mind, what Scripture says, God says.

This is also the doctrine of his apostles. Peter wrote, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). Paul wrote, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” (2 Timothy 3:16).

We do not need to believe that God dictated the Scriptures. The writers used their own thoughts and wrote in their own idiom, yet as they wrote God superintended the process so that they wrote what he wanted written. The Holy Spirit carried them along. God breathed out the Scriptures.

Now, if the God who made the world were a different God from the one who gave us Scripture, then we might expect contradiction between nature and the Bible. But the author of Scripture is also the Creator of the universe. This means that there cannot be any genuine conflict. Historically this has been expressed by saying that God speaks to us in the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature. Since both books have the same author, they will not conflict with one another.

Nevertheless, Science and Theology Can Be in Conflict
“Well, that’s all fine and good,” you say, “but of what use is such an abstraction to us? Isn’t it clear that there are conflicts?”

Yes, there are conflicts, but they are not conflicts between nature and Scripture. They are conflicts between science and theology. The distinction is very important.

Science is our human effort to understand nature. Human beings are fallible. Scientists can make mistakes and often do. Look at the history of science; it is full of mistakes! There have been periods when most scientists have believed things they have later realized to be false.

What of theology? Theology is our human effort to understand Scripture. Human beings are fallible. Theologians can make mistakes and often do. Look at the history of theology; it is full of mistakes! There have been periods when most theologians and most Christians have believed things they have later realized to be false.

The distinction between nature and science on the one hand, or Scripture and theology on the other, is a crucial one. If we keep it in mind, we will understand almost immediately how to respond to the conflicts that trouble us.

Some people respond by saying, “Religion is all very vague, a matter of personal opinion. Science, on the other hand, is objective. In any conflict between theology and science, I will stand with science.” The problem with this approach is that it forgets that science, too, can err.

Others respond by saying, “The scientists are mostly a bunch of atheists, and they are studying a fallen world. I will take my stand on the pure Word of God.” The problem with this approach is that it forgets that our understanding of the Bible may be mistaken.

What then? Isn’t it clear that when we encounter a conflict between science and theology, we must take time to study both disciplines? There can’t be a conflict between nature and Scripture; that would imply that God was contradicting himself. Therefore, the error must lie in our science, our theology, or possibly both! There is no evading the hard work of examining both fields to see where we have gone wrong.

Common Sense, Aristotle, and Scripture
Let me tell you an instructive story. Up until the 16th Century, just about everyone in the West believed that the sun revolves around the earth. There were a few of the ancients who suggested otherwise, but the vast majority of people accepted some version of the Ptolemaic model of the universe. In this understanding, the earth is at the center of things, and the moon, sun, planets, and stars are embedded in crystalline spheres that move around the earth.

Why did people believe this? Three good reasons. First, common sense. If the sun is not moving around the earth, then the earth has to be spinning; otherwise we would not have night and day. But does it feel as if the earth is spinning? Certainly not. If it were spinning, then wouldn’t we expect to have a wind in our faces every time we faced east? And wouldn’t we expect that an object tossed straight up into the air would come down several feet to the west of where it was thrown? Common sense tells us that the earth is not moving.

A second reason for believing this account of things was the authority of Aristotle. Although he lived several hundred years before Christ, Aristotle’s prestige was extremely high in the later Middle Ages. It was felt by many, especially in the universities, that Aristotle’s was the final word on many matters, including the relative motions of the earth and sun. If the Philosopher said the earth stood still, it must be so.

But there was a third reason why people accepted this idea, and this is the one that interests us this morning. People believed that the earth is motionless, and that the sun moves, because they were convinced that the Bible teaches that it is so.

Where in the Bible do we find this teaching? Well, Psalm 93:1 says that “the world is established; it shall never be moved.” Clearly there are parts of the world that do move, so the text must be speaking of the earth.

That seems to be confirmed by Psalm 104:5: “He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.” It’s really rather plain, isn’t it? God set the earth on a foundation, and it is immovable.

Furthermore, the Bible teaches that the sun does move. Ecclesiastes 1:5 says, “The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.” Psalm 19 speaks of the sun as being like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber. Nobody would suggest that the bridegroom is standing still and the chamber is moving! Clearly, then, it is the sun that is in motion. And in the book of Joshua we read of a day when the sun stopped moving in the sky—which clearly means that apart from that day, it does move.

Because we have all grown up knowing that the sun revolves around the sun, we may find it difficult to place ourselves in the position of those who lived under the influence of the Ptolemaic system. We have read these texts of Scripture and not even worried about them. But at one time they seemed to powerfully confirm the observations of common sense and the teaching of Aristotle. The earth is stationary. The sun revolves.

Copernicus and Galileo
But then came Copernicus and Galileo. Copernicus was an astronomer and mathematician who is claimed by both the Germans and the Poles. He lived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Astronomers of the day knew that there were difficulties with the Ptolemaic system. For example, there are times when the planets seem to change direction in the sky. These difficulties could be explained using the Ptolemaic system, but only with great effort. Copernicus showed that the motions of the heavenly bodies could be more elegantly explained if one posited that the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun.

Because Copernicus didn’t have any new evidence to present, most people did not take his theory very seriously. But he was followed by Galileo, who did find evidence.

Galileo is sometimes credited with inventing the telescope. He did not actually invent it, but he perfected it. He learned to grind his own lenses, and he made much better telescopes than anyone else had to that point. He trained his telescopes on the heavens, and he made some startling discoveries.

He discovered, for example, that the moon has mountains. Aristotle had insisted that the heavenly bodies must be perfect spheres, but plainly it was not so. If Aristotle was wrong on that score, where else might he be wrong?

Galileo looked at Jupiter and discovered that it had moons. The Ptolemaic system, which made earth the center of the orbits of all other heavenly bodies, had not predicted such a thing. He looked at Venus and found that it goes through phases, just as the moon does. This was consistent with the Copernican system, but not the Ptolemaic. He even looked at the sun—not directly, but by projecting an image of the sun onto a sheet—and he studied the movement of sunspots over the course of a year, concluding that the best explanation of that movement is that the earth does indeed circle the sun.

The Reaction to Galileo
Galileo began to speak and write of his discoveries, and pretty quickly he found himself in trouble. People who dislike Christianity tend to tell the story as if Galileo were a brave secular scientist who was silenced by the oppressive forces of organized religion. That’s not quite right. Actually, Galileo was, so far as we can tell, a very sincere Roman Catholic who didn’t believe that his discoveries threatened Christianity in any way. And there were other Roman Catholics—and I believe Protestants as well—who were quick to defend his views. Also, historians are generally agreed that Galileo brought some of the trouble on himself, by unnecessarily offending and even ridiculing his opponents—including the Pope!

Nevertheless, it is true that Galileo was ill treated. The Roman Catholic Church brought him before the Inquisition, forced him to retract his ideas, condemned him to live out his life under house arrest, and put his book about the solar system on the list of banned books, where it remained for 200 years.

In effect, there were Christians who said something like this to Galileo: “Galileo, we are not sure just where you have gone wrong. It may be that your telescope has produced false evidence, or it may be that you have interpreted the evidence incorrectly; we don’t know. What we do know is that you are wrong. The Bible teaches clearly that the earth does not move, but the sun does. If the Bible says it, then you are obligated to believe it.”

That sounds pretty reasonable, doesn’t it? The Bible is the Word of God, our final authority in matters of faith and morals. Even when it speaks on scientific matters, we expect it to speak truthfully. It seemed that the Church was simply demanding of Galileo the reverence that is due to Scripture.

There was just one, small problem: Galileo was right, and his opponents were wrong. The earth is not stationary. The sun does not revolve around the earth.

How the world came around to the Copernican system is a story we don’t have time to pursue. My impression is that this didn’t happen fully until after the work of Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton. I believe that Newton played an especially important role, in that his laws of motion made it possible to understand the Copernican system in the broader context of a new, non-Aristotelian understanding of gravitation and motion. People were finally able to let go of Aristotle’s physics when they had a better alternative. But however it happened, it eventually became clear to all that it is the earth that moves around the sun.

Did Scripture Err?
What then of those passages in the Bible? Should we conclude that the Bible was in error? I don’t think so. The passages that speak of the sun’s movement are written from the perspective of an observer on the earth. To such an observer, the sun does appear to rise and set. In fact, we still speak that way today. When the weather forecaster says, “Sunrise tomorrow at 6:43 AM,” nobody jumps up and accuses him or her of error. Scripture cannot be viewed as misleading or errant simply because it uses normal human language to describe familiar events.

But what of the verses in the Psalms that say that the earth does not move? Look closely, and you will see that the Psalmists are speaking, in poetic language of course, more of God than of the earth. Their point is that God’s created order is firmly in his control; it cannot be shaken or destroyed by any hostile power. They are not trying to answer astronomical questions, but to affirm God’s sovereign control over his world. It was natural for Christians in earlier generations to imagine that those verses did answer their questions about the structure of the solar system, but in reality they were never written for that purpose. There is no need to conclude that the Bible is in error. What was in error was the interpretation of the Bible that was popular in that time.

But how did we come to see that that interpretation was wrong? This is an important point. Please listen closely! We didn’t learn that by simply studying the Hebrew Bible more intently. We learned it because of advances in astronomy. Progress was made in both science and theology when we took the time and trouble to study both.

Conclusions
Let me draw the threads of this discussion together quickly, by calling your attention to several conclusions. First, as I said last week, God wants us to study nature. Science is a noble undertaking. It is a good field for the Christian to go into. Galileo served God and humanity well by doing what he was good at.

Second, I insist again that there can be no conflict between nature and Scripture, because both are from God. This statement cannot be conclusively proved, but it is a reasonable faith assertion based on the unity and honesty of God. He doesn’t lie or contradict himself, and so all of his works must be coherent with one another.

Third, when we encounter a conflict between science and theology, we have no choice but to study both closely, in faith that eventually we will find our error and discover important new truths. Conflicts of this sort should not shake our confidence in either the Bible or nature. They should remind us of our human fallibility and move us to work harder at understanding.

Fourth, the work of resolving these conflicts can take time. While we are doing it, we should not abandon either our faith or our science. We should proceed with patience and caution. We should avoid making rash judgments against those who think differently from us. We should avoid claiming certainty which we do not in fact possess.

We human beings are impatient. We like to feel that we have everything wrapped up; we dislike loose ends and hate to admit our ignorance. But that impatience often leads to mistakes.

To anticipate where I am going in this series, I believe that those who study the history of life have tended to fall into a serious mistake. Biologists since Darwin have been so eager to claim that they know where life came from and how it has developed to its present complexity that they have been unwilling to admit the very great difficulties in Darwinian theory. They have condemned as ignoramuses all who raise questions about evolution. Yet the progress of science itself has made those questions increasingly urgent. It is probable that a greater reverence for Scripture might have preserved scientists from prematurely declaring the issue closed.

On the other hand, I think Young-Earth Creationism (YEC) has also oversimplified matters. In its eagerness to preserve the most literal interpretation of Genesis 1, it has rendered a hasty and ultimately unconvincing judgment on the evidence of the physical sciences. In many respects, the YEC error is the very error made by the church in Galileo’s day. I’ll begin investigating this matter next week.

You may disagree with me on one or both of these points, and that is fine. I am certainly not claiming infallibility for myself. The point I want to make is that finding the truth takes time and effort. Fortunately, we have every reason to believe that we can indeed make progress in resolving these conflicts, provided that we keep firmly in mind the truth that both Scripture and nature are from God, and their testimony will ultimately be seen to be consistent.

Does God Approve of Science? Sermon #1 on Faith and Science, 1/14/07

And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:26-28).

Introduction
I want to spend the next several weeks talking about the relationship between science and Christian faith. In doing this, I must ask your indulgence on two counts. First, I know that not everybody is interested in this topic. I would really have preferred to talk about these matters in some other context than Sunday worship, but I just can’t find a good opportunity. If you don’t enjoy hearing about science and faith, please keep in mind that there are others who do. In fact, for some people it is crucially important, because their ability to believe the gospel depends in part on their being able to find satisfying answers to the questions I will be raising.

In addition, I must state up front that I will be talking about some matters that are controversial, not just within American Evangelicalism in general, but even within our own congregation. For example, I know that there many of you who are proponents of the view that the earth and universe are only a few thousand years old. I don’t hold to that position. I am not going to ask you to agree with my views, but I do ask that you listen to them respectfully. It has always been my position that this is a matter on which we may safely have disagreement within the church. We need to agree on things like the deity of Christ and the means by which we may be saved, but we don’t have to agree on the age of the earth. Still, I think the issue is important enough to talk about. Please be patient and hear me out!

I want to begin by asking a very simple question: “Does God approve of science?” Does God want us to study nature and seek understanding of it? I believe he does. I believe this can be shown from Scripture, from nature itself, and also from history.

Biblical Warnings Against Worldly Knowledge
At first glance, however, we might think that the Bible discourages study of the world. It never speaks directly about science, but it does warn us repeatedly to be wary of worldly knowledge. For example, in 1 Corinthians 3:19 Paul tells us that, “the wisdom of this world is folly with God.” What part of modern knowledge is more highly regarded today than science? Could it be that to God our science is folly?

Or again, in Colossians 2:8 Paul warns us not to be taken captive by philosophy and empty deceit. Science used to be called “natural philosophy.” Is it possible that Paul is warning against the very attitudes and activities that underlie the scientific enterprise?

Or to take one more text, Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that he decided to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul seems to be denying the value of all knowledge not directly related to the story of Jesus.

Some Christians have indeed concluded from verses like these that all knowledge about things other than the Bible is at best useless and more likely ungodly. There are sections of the Church that have adopted a strongly anti-intellectual stance and look with great suspicion on science.

But it is highly unlikely that Paul intended these statements to be taken in this way. Paul was himself a highly learned man. He did not oppose education. What he opposed is our natural human tendency to allow our learning to come between us and God. In our pride we suppose ourselves so intelligent that we do not need the simple word of the gospel. And in our rebellion against God we develop ideas that oppose divine revelation. This is what Paul is warning us against—not the pursuit of knowledge of the natural world.

Science and the “Cultural Mandate”
All right, then. The Bible does not oppose the study of nature. Are there any indications that it approves of it? Some passages are very suggestive. Let’s begin with those that are less clear, and move to those that are more so.

In Proverbs 25:2 we read, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” Some interpreters think that since the proverb mentions kings, it is concerned only with a king’s responsibility to learn the principles of true government. That is quite possible. But I am inclined to see a bit more in the verse than that. It appears to say that human leaders are expected to seek understanding of truth, and that God has deliberately so designed the world that finding truth requires effort. Why does the passage specify kings? Well, one possibility is that in a subsistence economy, very few people apart from the king would have had the leisure to engage in what we might consider scientific pursuits.

First Kings 4:29-34 speaks of one king who did just that: “And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. … He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.

Generally in the Bible, “wisdom” refers to an understanding of how to know God and live a life that is pleasing to him. But notice that Solomon’s “wisdom” also extended to the natural world. Solomon was apparently what we might call an amateur naturalist: he spent time observing plants and animals, trying to learn all he could about them. He was held in high regard for the knowledge he acquired in this way.

This leads us back to another, much earlier passage. In Genesis 2:19, we read that Adam was given the responsibility for naming the animals. This could mean simply that he was to assign names at random: “Oh, I don’t know—let’s call this one an ‘elephant’!” Generally, though, in the Bible naming is an exercise in authority over the person or thing being named, and names are assigned according to that person or thing’s nature or destiny. “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” So Adam’s mandate to name the animals could imply that he was supposed to observe the animals and give them names that would fit their natures.

But the best place to go to discern God’s attitude toward what we call science is the passage in Genesis 1 where God gives human beings their mandate to rule the earth:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:26-28).

Theologians often refer to this passage as the “cultural mandate.” In it God charges human beings to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. This means more than that they are to have children. It means that they are to develop the social world by building families, churches, cities, and governments. In addition, he tells them to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over its creatures. They are to till the soil, build buildings, create art, and design computers.

But how can this mandate be fulfilled without knowledge? It cannot. The call to fill the earth and subdue it is a call to study the earth and its powers. Without something akin to science, the mandate cannot be carried out.

In other words, although Scripture does not tell us directly that we are to become scientists, nor does it define science for us, it does give us good reason to believe that the study of the natural world is a part of the mandate God has given to human beings as his representatives on earth. The Bible indicates that God approves of science.

Nature itself Shows Signs that God Wants Us to Seek Understanding
Interestingly enough, nature itself shows signs that God wants us to seek understanding of it. In their book, The Privileged Planet, Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards discuss about a dozen pieces of evidence from nature that suggest that God designed the earth as an ideal platform for the study of the universe. Let me give just three of their examples.

Scientists have known for some time now that the moon is critical to our ability to live on the earth. The moon stabilizes the earth’s rotation on its axis, giving us regular seasons and limiting temperature extremes. The moon also governs the ocean tides, which themselves play an important role in the earth’s ecosystems. But scientists have also recently recognized that the moon has played an extraordinary role in scientific discovery.

The moon is 4000 times smaller than the sun, but it is also 4000 times closer, so that from our perspective the moon and the sun appear to be the same size. This means that on occasion, earth-dwellers are treated to total solar eclipses, when the moon passes between the earth and the sun and perfectly blocks out the disk of the sun. During two such eclipses in the 19th century scientist made the first spectrographic studies of the sun’s chromosphere. This led to the discovery of helium and to an understanding of the composition of the sun and other stars. Much of what we know about the stars we first learned during those total eclipses.

If the moon were larger or closer than it is, then the sun’s chromosphere would be completely blocked during an eclipse; we would not be able to see or study it. If the moon were smaller or more distant, the eclipse would not be total and again the chromosphere would not become visible to us. It is extraordinary and wonderful that the very size and distance that make the moon so critical to our own existence also provide us with the opportunity to observe total solar eclipses.

Incidentally, a total solar eclipse also played an important role in the confirmation of Einstein’s theory of relativity. In an eclipse in 1919, Arthur Eddington photographed stars that could be seen close to the sun during the eclipse. Study of the photographs showed that the light from the stars was bent by the sun’s gravity, just as Einstein had predicted.

A second example is our atmosphere. Seven planets or moons in our solar system have atmospheres, but only the earth has an atmosphere that can support complex life. Interestingly, the kind of atmosphere that is necessary for life—an atmosphere made up primarily of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen—is also the best possible atmosphere for scientific discovery, since it is transparent to those portions of the electromagnetic spectrum that reveal the most about the universe. Our atmosphere protects us from portions of the spectrum that would harm us, but it allows us to look out into the heavens and see objects that are billions of light-years away. You would not be able to do astronomy on Venus, because the atmosphere there would completely prevent you from seeing even the sun. Of course, the Venetian atmosphere would also kill you!

A third example, also from astronomy, concerns our place within the Milky Way Galaxy. It turns out that we live within a relatively narrow zone in the galaxy where complex life is possible. Closer to the center of the galaxy the levels of radiation would make life impossible. Out at the edge of the galaxy there probably are insufficient quantities of heavy elements to form earth-like planets.

But it also turns out that our place in the galaxy is almost ideal for astronomical observation. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, with a bulge in the center and long, pinwheel-like arms radiating outward. If our solar system were located within one of those arms, there would be so many stars relatively close to us that we would have no view of deep space. However, we are located between two arms. We are able to see the galaxy and determine our place within it, and we are also able to look outward and see billions of other galaxies beyond.

As I say, Gonzalez and Richards give many more examples of this nature. It seems that God has fine-tuned the conditions of our planet, not simply to allow our existence here, but also to give us an ideal platform for scientific discovery. From nature itself we can see that God wants us to study the universe in which he has placed us.

Why Science Arose in The West
Scripture and nature both suggest that God approves of science. We come to the same conclusion when we study the history of science.

Many human societies have studied nature and developed technology, but there is only one society that has given birth to modern science, at least in the sense of an organized, persistent, observation-based inquiry into the natural world. That society is the West. Historians tend to agree now that one big reason for that is Christianity. Christianity inculcated certain assumptions about the world that made the rise of science much more natural here than elsewhere in the world. In their book, The Soul of Science, Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton enumerate several of those assumptions.

The first of these may strike us as almost too obvious to be significant: the assumption that nature is real. But Pearcy and Thaxton point out that Hinduism teaches that the everyday world of material objects is not real; it is maya, illusion. It is hard to imagine how science could develop under such teaching. Christianity, however, teaches that God made the world—and so it has real being.

Christianity also teaches that the creation is good. Ancient Greek thought viewed the material world as the sphere of evil and disorder. The Greeks made every effort to avoid manual labor; because they thought it degrading dirty their hands in matter. It is not likely that experimental science could ever have gotten very far in such a culture. Among Christians, however, there has been a belief that the world is good and work is good. Protestants, especially, have taught that every honest and useful job is a means by which we may glorify God. This attitude contributed to the rise of science.

It is also significant that, unlike many pagan religions, Christianity sees nature as separate from God. The world is created by God; it is not itself divine. This means that we are not doing something irreverent or impious when we study or even dissect parts of nature. Nature is a proper object for human research.

Again, Christianity provided the assumption that since nature is the product of the divine mind, it should display the characteristics of order, dependability, and mathematical elegance. The world was not cobbled together from pre-existing elements; instead, God created all things from nothing and thus according to his own plan. We should expect nature to be rational.

In addition, because God also created us and gave us a mandate to rule the world, we should expect that our minds are capable of grasping nature’s rationality. Apart from the belief in a Creator, this assumption makes little sense. Einstein once said that the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible. But the Christian is not at all surprised that the world is comprehensible; in fact, we would be surprised if it were not. This assumption has been a spur to generations of scientists, including those who have long since abandoned the Christian faith.

Christianity also teaches that God is both all-wise and all-powerful, which means that he created the world exactly as he pleased. But that in turn tells us that if we want to understand how the world works, we must study it. We cannot assume that the our preconceived notions of how things are put together are correct. We may start with such notions, but we have to test them by investigating the world outside of our minds.

A final assumption is that God has called us to serve him and one another by “subduing” the earth. Christianity buttresses science with a sense of moral responsibility. God wants us to glorify him by growing in our understanding of his works. He also wants us to serve people by creating technology that can make life better.

Conclusion
Does God approve of science? Yes! The Bible encourages the study of the world; nature is divinely ordered to enable us to make progress in understanding; and history shows that Christianity has played a critical role in the development of science. Christians should never fear science, nor should we feel an hesitance about participating in it.

Of course we know that all human knowledge can be misused, and certainly scientific knowledge is no exception. We also know that some people make an idol of science; many leading scientists today insist that scientific knowledge is the only real knowledge available to human beings, and in this way they oppose God.

Nevertheless, in itself the study of God’s world is a lawful activity and a good one. We should be interested in its development, and if we have the gifts, we should contribute.

And—and this is a theme I will take up next week—we should approach conflicts between theology and science with confidence that they can be resolved. The God who gave us the Bible also gave us the world. Ultimately, there cannot be any real conflict be/ the teaching of the Bible and the things we learn from nature. More on that next Sunday.

Trying to Get Back to Blogging!

In September things got busy. My hands also got sore. And I had not yet told anyone about my blog, so there was no demand!

I would like to try to start up again. But for the time being I will discontinue the series on homosexuality, and instead put up postings relating to my current sermon series on science and faith.

Homosexuality, Marriage, and God’s Vision for Human Sexuality – 3

An argument often made by those who wish to change Christian attitudes toward homosexuality is that the Bible nowhere explicitly forbids loving, committed sexual relationships between two persons of the same sex. Texts that denounce homosexuality, we are told, are aimed solely at exploitative relationships or at ritual prostitution, and therefore have nothing to say to consensual homosexual unions.

I think this argument is badly flawed. As I continue this series, I will examine the various texts that address homosexuality and show that they do indeed address consensual relationships. I will also point out that there are absolutely no texts that speak positively of homosexuality.

For today, though, let’s just notice that when the Bible first introduces the ideas of sex and marriage, it does so in a way that leaves no doubt as to God’s intentions. God means for sex to be enjoyed within the confines of lifelong, monogamous heterosexual marriage.

Here is the passage from Genesis 2: “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ … So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:18, 21-24).

What does this passage teach? First, it reinforces the teaching of Genesis 1 that men and women are of equal value in the sight of God. The woman is a “helper” fit for the man; this does not mean that she is inferior to him, but rather that she is designed to be a proper companion to him in the work of representing God on earth.

Second, marriage is the joining of one man and one woman in a “one-flesh” union that becomes the nucleus of a new family. The reference to the husband and wife becoming “one flesh” implies more than sexual relationship alone. A husband and wife join their hearts and minds, their property, their life purpose. They become a unit, the beginning of a new family. But the idea of the “one flesh” union certainly does include sexual relationship. Sexual intercourse both expresses and deepens the joining of their lives on all planes. It is also the means by which humans fulfill God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28).

In Old Testament times, the exclusivity of marriage was compromised by the patriarchs and kings, many of whom had multiple wives. Divorce, too, is a deviation from God’s original intent. But in the teaching of Jesus that original plan is emphasized: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:6-9).

Here, then, is God’s prescription for marriage and for sex. Marriage is the union of one woman and one man for life; sex is the physical expression of that union. When we understand this, we will not be surprised to find the Bible prohibiting all sex outside of marriage. Nor will we be surprised to find that homosexual relationships fall outside of God’s good plan for the human race.

Homosexuality, Marriage, and God’s Vision for Human Sexuality – 2

To make sense of the Bible’s teaching on sexuality, we need to start at the beginning. In Genesis 1 we read of the creation of human beings. Verse 27 reads, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

This verse tells us some very important truths. First, human beings are creatures. God made us, and we are responsible to him for our lives. Because he is our Creator, we should expect God to give us guidance for our conduct, and we should not be surprised if his guidance sometimes takes the form of commands. The Bible has no patience for the idea that human life came about by purely natural and amoral forces. God made us, and he has established both the environment in which we are to live and the moral standards by which he will judge us.

Second, God places special value upon human life. No other creature is said to be made “in God’s image”; this honor belongs to human beings only. Just what the phrase means is a matter of ongoing debate. My own view is that it implies two things. The first is that human beings are God’s representatives on earth, his vice-regents who are responsible for the care and cultivation of the earth. The second thing implied by “the image of God” is that human beings have been given the faculties we require to fulfill that responsibility. We have self-awareness, the ability to make moral distinctions, the capacity to grow in understanding of the world around us, the ability to form deep relationships with God and with one another, and the power to create culture and technology. In other words, God has given us a mandate to represent him on earth, and he has given us the tools we need to live out that mandate.

Third, it is also clear from this passage that sex is God’s idea. God made us male and female. Together we are “man” (Hebrew adam). Men and women have equal value in the sight of God, but we are also created different. We are complementary to one another. And that complementarity is no accident; it is God’s design.

All of this is pretty basic teaching, but it is important. From the very beginning of the Bible we are led to expect that there will be some rules attached to our experience of sex. God is our Creator, and he has every right to tell us what is right and what is wrong. He furthermore has a high purpose for us, a purpose that must have some connection with our being created as male and female. Just what that purpose is, and how it is to be guarded by divine command, will become clear as we read further.