GENESIS AND SCIENCE

The book of Genesis is a divinely inspired collection of ancient writings that provide a remarkable narrative of primeval history. It is not a scientific dissertation in which one academic speaks only to another academic about his research. Instead it reflects the realities of life with all its messiness, loose ends, accidents, and contradictions. As a result it can be understood by the common reader. It is accessible to everyone. It is compelling literature about the life of God and humanity, not a dry scientific paper. The Bible, and Genesis in particular, tells us only what we most need to know about God, the world and our salvation. It reveals to us the divine origin of the species. It is not necessary to have to choose between science and Genesis. Science cannot explain everything, and the Bible does not claim to be a scientific text book.

There is an equal and opposite danger of preachers or theologians attempting to prove the truth of Genesis by trying to reconcile the teaching of Genesis with the latest findings of science. The problem is that science is always changing. Commentaries written a hundred years ago that attempted to harmonize the latest findings of geology and archeology with Genesis have been rendered redundant because of new scientific discoveries. Genesis was written several millennia before modern science. It spoke into a culture that entertained all sorts of religious and philosophical ideas. It was written to address false ideas about God, the world and salvation.

It is a mistake to try to harmonize Genesis with science. That is not why it was written. To concentrate on trying to prove the truth of Genesis in terms of scientific theory is to misinterpret the message of Genesis, and to misapply its truth to us today. There should be no conflict between the teachings of science and the teachings of Genesis. Christians have always welcomed the discoveries of science and have believed that they present no direct challenge to Christian belief. In 1865, 717 of the leading scientists of the day signed “The Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences”:

We, the undersigned Students of the Natural Sciences, desire to express our sincere regret, that researches into scientific truth are perverted by some in our own times into occasion for casting doubt upon the Truth and Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. We conceive that it is impossible for the Word of God, as written in the book of nature, and God’s Word written in Holy Scripture, to contradict one another, however much they may appear to differ… We cannot but deplore that Natural Science should be looked upon with suspicion by many who do not make a study of it, merely on account of the unadvised manner in which some are placing it in opposition to Holy Writ. We believe that it is the duty of every Scientific Student to investigate nature simply for the purpose of elucidating truth, and that if he finds that some of his results appear to be in contradiction to the Written Word, or rather to his own interpretations of it, which may be erroneous, he should not presumptuously affirm that his own conclusion must be right, and the statements of Scripture wrong; rather, leave the two side by side till it shall please God to allow us to see the manner in which they may be reconciled.

These scientists “wanted to resist the tendency to denounce science for the sake of defending scripture. Rather, they wanted to affirm science as a gift from God and to lay science and the scriptures side by side, believing that the author of both would not allow them to ultimately contradict.” (David Wilkinson, Reading Genesis 1-3 In The Light of Modern Science, in Reading Genesis After Darwin, ed. Stephen C. Barton & David Wilkinson, Oxford University Press, 2009,  p.129)

Why then has there been so much conflict between the teachings of Genesis and the teaching of science about origins? It is a question of how you interpret Genesis. Each of us comes to the Bible with a set of questions or perspectives. Sometimes we ask questions of the text that it was not meant to answer.

When we come with the belief that our interpretation of Genesis is the only valid one, and that anyone who differs is unbelieving, we make it impossible to consider other possibilities. Genesis has been interpreted in a variety of ways over two thousand years. Some people think that what they have been taught has always been the only true, orthodox, traditional interpretation when, in reality, there have been many others.

Anglican evangelical theologian J.I.Packer, expresses what I believe to be true.

I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture…but exegetically I cannot see that anything Scripture says, in the first chapters of Genesis or elsewhere, bears on the biological theory of evolution one way or another…Scripture was given to reveal God, not to address scientific issues in scientific terms, and…as it does not use the language of modern science, so it does not require scientific knowledge about the internal processes of God’s creation for the understanding of its essential message about God and ourselves. (Alister McGrath, J.I. Packer: A Biography, Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1997,p. 200)

I look at Holy Scripture from many different angles. But the most important question I ask of it is: what is God saying to us today through his Word about his purpose for my life. The fundamental questions are: Who is God? Who am I? Why am I here? What am I for? How can I give my life meaning? How do I get faith? What is this life all about? Why is the universe here? Why is there something rather than nothing? I look at Genesis from a New Testament perspective. I am look at Genesis through the spectacles of Christian belief. I believe in the truth and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. I believe that God speaks to us through these words according to our need. Without this divinely revealed truth we cannot know the answers to life’s great questions. Without the truth of the Bible we are condemned to the doubt and agnosticism of the otherwise brilliant literary critic, George Steiner. He wrote in his memoir,

All of us are guests of life. No human being knows the meaning of its creation, except in the most primitive, biological regard. No man or woman knows the purpose, if any, the possible significance of its ‘thrownness’ into the mystery of existence. Why is there not nothing? Why am I? (George Steiner, Errata: an examined life, Yale, 1998, p.60)

To the contrary, God has revealed to us the answers to those questions if we will but receive them. The Bible, is revealed truth, given to us to answer these questions, to know the meaning of our creation and the purpose of our existence. God gives us two books: the book of Nature to declare his glory and the Holy Scriptures to make wise the simple, give joy to the heart, and give light to our eyes.