Question: Doesn’t science contradict the Bible or disprove God?
Answer: Space prohibits a thorough answer here, however I’d like to mention a couple of items. To begin, it should be noted that many of the scientists who first developed principles leading to the scientific method, were creationists (ie. They believed that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”, Gen. 1:1).
Scientists included in this category would be Kepler, Pascal, Newton, Faraday, Mendel, Pasteur, Kelvin, and others. With that belief in place, they understood the material world as something worth studying. With God in control of the universe, they assumed that the universe made sense. It was not “random chance”, but had a purpose given by its maker. Without this basis, it is questionable whether/when modern science would have started. Science is based on the assumption of cause and effect. Every event must have a cause. Scientists like Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and others distinguished between primary and secondary causes.
A primary cause explained events that happened only one time, and have no natural explanation. Secondary causes are natural laws that direct the way things normally operate. Primary causes and secondary causes must be dealt with in t
wo different ways. Secondary causes may be observed or tested repeatedly in the present. The conclusions are verifiable or falsifiable.
Primary causes however, demand that we try to understand events that occurred in the past, and are not repeatable. Like forensic science, the cause must be understood from the present effect, but not from observing it repeat itself (One cannot ask a murder victim to ‘die again’, so that we may observe how it occurred). How everything came into existence (including life itself) is in this category. No one was ther
e to take pictures, and no one can repeat the event. We must make assumptions about the primary cause based upon our observation of the effect.
This is where our second issue comes in: intelligent design.
As we observe the effect of this universe and life itself, we see specified complexity. A chain of random polymers may be complex, but has no specific purpose or message (eg. HFIDLS IEUDN HSCID). On the other hand, specified complexity exhibits order with a clear purpose (eg. THESE WORDS HAVE MEANING AND PURPOSE). As you can tell, one of these sentences reflects random chance, and the other, intelligence. Matter is one thing, but information is another, and information implies intelligence. To quote author Phillip Johnson, “…complex, specified information of the kind found in a book or a biological cell cannot be produced either by chance or at the direction of physical and chemical laws.” From our universal experience in the world, specified complexity points to an intelligent primary cause.
To say it another way, everything we see in our world displays the hand of an intelligent Creator. David said it like this, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.” (Psalm 19:1-2)
Does science contradict the Bible or disprove God? On the contrary, in field upon field science gives powerful evidence for the truth of God and His Word.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.
Pastor Linzy Slayden, Friendship Baptist Church, Owasso, Oklahoma
