THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE.
By Rev. GEORGE F. PENTECOST, D. D.
Many, especially among the younger and partly educated portions of every community, are troubled with what they term the scientific difficulties of the Bible. We can only hint at this point. Because the Bible is not a speculation as to the origin of things, but an authoritative statement of the truth from God to man, it does not follow that its revealed truth is unphilosophical. And so, because the Bible does not contain a scientific account of creation, and is not written in the terms of the modern scientists it does not follow that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate in its statements. It must be borne in mind that the Bible was written ages before the birth of the modern sciences. And had it been written in scientific language it would have been to the people then living, and even to the great mass of people now living, an utterly unintelligible book—as most scientific books are unintelligible except to the educated few.
There can be no greater mistake than to suppose, for an instant, that any well ascertained fact of science has yet been shown to be in conflict with the Scriptural account of creation. We are aware that the assertion to this effect is often made; but such assertions have never been proved. Indeed, it is becoming more evident every day that science and revelation are drawing nearer together; that is, drawing nearer, in her domain to the truth as revealed in the Word of God. But were this not so, and were it shown that there was a real and thoroughly demonstrated error in the Bible account of creation, so that we must needs honestly give up Moses and the Bible, to whom should we go for the truth? We might adapt the words of Joshua and say (xiv: 15), “And if it seem evil unto you to believe the Bible, choose ye this day whom ye will believe, whether the pantheistic or materialistic philosophers who speculated before the rise of modern science, or the atheistic, theistic, or agnostic scientists;” for there be some who say science teaches there is no God, and some who say there must be God, and others who say we can not know if there be a God. Certainly science is at present on a wide sea of discovery in many boats, guided, each boat, by the theory of its particular occupant. Two things are certain: (1) Neither philosophy nor science has succeeded thus far in impeaching the accuracy of the Bible statement; (2) they have as yet reached no common ground of agreement among themselves. So that the Christian need not, as yet, (and I am sure he never will) be in any fear from the assaults of the students of science. It is indeed no new experience for the Bible to meet the shock of skepticism. For centuries it has been the object of attack, always fierce and relentless, and for centuries it has endured and beaten back its assailants. As a granite rock in the sea meets and hurls back into the ocean the fierce waves that roll in upon it, so the Bible has met and beaten back by the power of its immovable and eternal truth all its assailants. Like a rock in the sea rooted in a great submarine but unseen formation, it has sometimes seemed to be overwhelmed by the surging fury of the waves, but it has ever emerged unshaken and triumphant; the only effect has been to sweep away some human theological structure or false system of interpretation built upon it, but not growing out of it.
In this connection it is well to bear in mind that skeptical scientists have of late become far less haughty in their criticisms of the Bible, and far more humble in their estimate of their own knowledge (as it becomes every student, whether of science or theology, to be); for says an eminent scientific writer on the rights and duties of science: “It becomes science to confess with much humility how far it falls short of the full comprehension of nature, and to abstain conscientiously from premature conclusions. The rapid progress of discovery in recent times only makes more plain to us the fact that the extension of our knowledge implies the extension of our ignorance, that everywhere the progress of our knowledge leads us to unsolvable mysteries. It would be easy to furnish illustrations from every branch of science; but geology and biology are very fertile in them.” It has seemed due to many honest but uninformed minds, especially among the young, to say so much by way of recognition of their new-found difficulties, and also by way of indicating the outline of answer.
The Bible is not a scientific, but a religious book, intended not to inform the scientific and philosophic understanding, but to instruct the religious intelligence of man in those things that make for the life that now is, and that which is to come (I Tim., iv:8). What a blessed fact it is that we thirsty mortals can drink a glass of pure water and quench our burning thirst without having to know the chemical analysis of water, or how it was originally created. We are thirsty beings, and if our thirst is not slaked we shall die. Meantime we find water is provided; it is offered to us, and we are told it will slake our thirst, that it was provided in nature for that very purpose, and without stopping to have it analyzed, we drink it and live. We thus experimentally prove it to be water, and that all that was claimed for it is true. We likewise are religious beings, and if we do not find truth, and love, and happiness, and regeneration, and eternal life, and resurrection, we shall die and perish. God’s word is brought to us; it contains truths, or at least statements and promises that stand over against these spiritual hungerings and thirstings just as food and drink stand over against the hunger and thirst of the body. We take hold by faith of these promises, and the hunger and thirst of our souls are satisfied. We know the truth of the Bible, therefore, not by metaphysical or intellectual demonstration, but by experimental proof, as real in the sphere of our religious nature as scientific demonstration is real in the realm of matter. Two and two make four, that is mathematics; hydrogen and oxygen in certain proportions make water, that is science; Christ and him crucified is the power and wisdom of God for salvation, that is revelation. But how do you know? Put two and two together, and you have four; count and see. Put hydrogen and oxygen together, and you have water; taste and prove. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Believe and thou shalt know. The last is as clear a demonstration as the others.
As a practical necessity we do not have to know the mysteries involved in our own being, and in all the provisions of nature made for our well-being on the earth. It is well to understand the chemistry of food and drink; but it would not only be unwise but might be fatal for us to postpone eating and drinking until we had mastered the chemistry. And so again we may derive great satisfaction and benefit in discovering a philosophical and scientific adjustment of revelation; but we would be consummately foolish if we refused to believe—and thus practically to demonstrate, by believing—the truth of God’s word, until we had found the philosophical and scientific adjustment of it.
Our Lord said when he was in the world, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. xi:25). God does not reveal himself and his truth to the wisdom of the philosopher or to the prudence of the scientist, but he is easily found by child-like faith. “For after that, in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. For the Jews (the scientists) require a sign, and the Greeks (the philosophers) seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ and him crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called (believers), both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.... Not in enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (I Cor., i:21-24; ii:4, 5, et seq.). While philosophers and scientists have been disputing and treading over and over again the dreary paths of pantheism and materialism, trying to put God in a crucible or under a microscope, millions of souls in the ages past, and thousands in the daily present, have been and are finding God and Christ and salvation, to the joy and rejoicing of their souls; living in the power of an endless life even here; some meeting death triumphantly even at the stake, and others peacefully passing into the presence of him whom, having not seen on earth, they have yet known by faith and the power of his presence in them.
The engineers who directed the work of the Hoosac Tunnel started two gangs of men from opposite sides of the mountain. So accurate was their survey that when they met midway in the mountain, the walls of the excavations approaching from the different starting points joined within less than an inch. The practical working of the bore proved the scientific accuracy of the survey. Man, starting from the side of his human spiritual need reaching out and upward toward God, is met by the revelation in Christ coming out and downward from God, a revelation which exactly fits and covers his need. This perfect match between the human need and the heavenly supply is the perfect proof of the Divine origin of the Bible. Just as color is intuitive to sight, harmony to the musical sense, beauty to the sense of the beautiful, so is God’s word intuitive to the spiritual consciousness. Coleridge was wont to say: “I know the Bible is true because it finds me.”
[End of Required Reading for February.]