Should creationists be afraid of science?

As a young person in college, the amazing discoveries in molecular biology I encountered in my General Biology class contributed to my religious awakening. They revealed to me the God who must have, and claims to have, created such wonders. I truly found God because of what I learned about biology.

Guiding authorities

One fact that especially struck me was that in this life, inevitably, and regardless of whether I wanted it or not, there would be a guiding authority giving me directions on how to live my life. However, I also recognized that I had the God-provided privilege to decide who or what would be that authority. I could choose to let human thoughts and reasoning guide my life. That is, I could let the collective wisdom of scientists, scholars, philosophers, and theologians, with all their convolution, contradiction, and dis-provability, dictate what I should believe and how I should live. I might even fool myself into believing that they were actually my choices, but I eventually recognized that they would only be my interpretation of other people’s thoughts.

Or I could choose to let God be my guiding Authority. That appealed the most to me because I had come to believe in the omniscience of God and know the God of the Bible as a loving, caring Father, much like my parents, who had spent themselves for my good. Additionally, I just could not see handing over the reins of my mind to what only reflected the faults, selfishness, and evils found in my own heart.

So I chose God, and in doing so, the Word of God (defined as both Jesus Christ and the Old and the New Testament) became the guiding authority of my life.

Fundamental pillars

Our current culture seems devoted to enthroning humanity’s thoughts on reason, culture, and the claims of Darwinian evolutionary theory as the highest authority. As a result, belief in the miracles described in the Bible is scarce, especially among those taught to accept a secular view on those subjects.

The Word of God upholds, as fundamental pillars, the reality that God is our Creator as depicted in the biblical Genesis account of a recent, six-day Creation (reiterated in the Ten Commandments presented in Exodus and Revelation 14) and that God is both our Redeemer and Judge as exemplified in the destruction brought about by the global Flood. However, at the same time, many denominations, including my own, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, believe strongly in education. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has thousands of primary and secondary schools and 118 tertiary institutions worldwide, with institutions such as Loma Linda University offering the highest academic degrees in science and medicine. However, according to a secular perspective, belief in the biblical narrative and a graduate-level comprehension of science, geology, biology, and medicine are seen as simply not compatible.

Blessing humanity

I believe, however, that the Word of God has something to say about this. For example, 1 Kings 4 essentially labels King Solomon, who was imbued with heaven-sent wisdom, as a “scientist.” It notes that he observed and described many aspects of the natural world around him. Thus, the Bible seems to sanction curiosity about the natural world and the use of the human powers of reason and intellect as ways to know our Creator better and to comprehend more fully the world in which we live, as well as means to bless humanity.

Such pursuits led to the discovery of the principles of radio waves, optical fibers, and digital communication that have blessed our personal family connections and worldwide evangelism efforts, offering more effective ways to “teach all nations.” These same types of pursuits have rid the world of smallpox and provided antibiotics, new surgical techniques, and cancer treatments that have saved the lives of millions, furthering the healing ministry of Jesus Christ. Science, especially that done as a service to God, has been a blessing to the world.

An honest pursuit of truth

We, as believers in the Word of God and God as Creator, Redeemer, and Judge, do not need to be afraid of science and should not retreat from an honest pursuit of truth, whether that be through the study of the Bible, medicine, biology, or geology. However, science should be kept in its proper place as a wonderful tool to benefit humanity and make us more effective stewards of Earth but not become the all-powerful authority of our lives. Science, by definition, is “the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.”¹ It is a human construct. It is a form of human authority and should not be allowed to supplant our reasoned choice of God and His Word as our guiding authority.

Because science is human in origin, we must always subject the conclusions of scientific thought to the authority of the Word of God if we are to comprehend real truth. I am not saying that science is not a beautiful and useful thing, only that it is a human thing. And as in all areas of knowledge, we should always practice Holy Spirit-led and Word of God-aligned discernment of interpretations of both the Bible and science.

Methodology of assessment

A tension exists between the scientists who believe that naturalism—nothing supernatural has, or will, ever take place—is the only reality, and scientists who believe in the biblical view—that supernatural events are real, were seen and testified to by biblical writers, and even occur in some measure in our own experience. Creation scientists believe that, in many instances, such as the global Flood and the original goodness of created life, evidence was left that can be discerned and described scientifically.

Thus, those of us who take the Word of God as the highest authority in our lives and simultaneously live in the world of science must actively pursue answers to the secular doubt that some scientific data appears to go against what the Bible says. We need some methodology of assessment or resolution.

I suggest the following method:

1. Be willing to live with the tension. Recognize that you might not have all the answers right now and that you might never have them. Like those described in Hebrews 11, you only “see in part” for now.
2. Have patience with not knowing and the struggles of the scientific community as we search for the correct explanation of reality. Scientific knowledge today is exponentially different from what was known sixty years ago, and much of what has been discovered during that time is more supportive of a biblical narrative than the data available then.
3. Actively engage in research that tries to better understand data that has been interpreted as against the Word of God. A deeper scientific dive into controversial areas of science has often resulted in better explanations of the data that also align with the Word of God. At times, science seemed to cast great doubt on whether there ever was a God who made humanity special and above the animals or whether there was a global Flood relatively recently. But as science progressed, suddenly, those truths of the Bible became better supported by scientific data. But please note: there are still many challenging areas.

Deal honestly with it

Even if we are not professional scientists, we can try to discern what science is really saying and what it is not saying. At the onset, we need to be willing to recognize that while most scientific discoveries are not driven by a particular scientist’s need to prove their worldview, we must, at the same time, be able to spot when it is. We need to deal honestly with data, even when it appears to contradict our beliefs, and we need to patiently hold on to the fundamental beliefs clearly explained in the Word of God even in the face of what appears to be contradictory scientific findings (Scripture repeatedly calls us to “wait on the Lord”).

Hold on to that which is true and to the reasoning that motivated us to choose God as our guiding authority: Jesus Christ is the truth, God does not bear false witness even about Himself and His actions, and God’s knowledge far surpasses our own.