Father, give us faith .
For many years I've tried to reconcile the Bible's teachings with today's science, and I don't think it's only me. As I taught Ecology and Earth Science a while back, it may have further compounded the problem by looking for examples to fit in with the subject on hand. The problem arises when we look at science being an absolute and the Bible as some sort of indirect reference. I remember giving a bible study on the journey out of Egypt a few years back. The discussion topic after my talk centred around the miracles that occurred during that period. There are those who seem to go to such an extent to explain miracles in more mundane ways.
Common amongst these are
So how does this affect us?
Everybody lives their lives around faith, and I mean everybody. Faith is simply the expectation that things will happen, and/or have have happened according to what they expect. It's down to trust. Science says that when we throw an apple into the air it will fall down to earth. We (and they) trust that this will happen time after time. They've even called it the Law of Gravity.
Then there's theories and hypothesis. They haven't been proven, but how many people are willing to live their lives believing that such things are true? Unfortunately quite a lot, and often in very subtle ways. There's plenty of evidence to disprove evolution, the perceived age of the world, the 'Big Bang' theory, etc but we find things that influence our perception. I recently treated myself to the 'extended' version of the original Star Wars Trilogy. Apart from the extra scenes and special effects there was one thing that stood out and that was the idea of 2-dimensional explosions in space (copied from Episode II). Why? Because the solar system is thought to revolve around a point in a 2-dimensional way. By having this concept in our subconscious, it's much easier to put 2 and 2 together. (Although sometimes everybody comes up with 7.3!)
As mentioned above, Science comes up with laws. Laws of physics, laws of chemistry, laws of almost everything else. But are they laws, or just guidelines?
I mentioned the 'law of gravity' above. Does that mean we must always have our feet on the ground? The answer is no. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
To God gravity is just a guideline. Any there are many more. Has light always split when passing through a lens (or drop of water)? Again the answer is no. Prior to the flood there was obviously water and sunlight, yet the was no rainbow, not until then. Can someone walk on water? Can someone raise the dead? Can someone turn water into wine? Again all answers that science says can't be done.
Yet the Bible records that they have been done, by them who saw it with their own eyes.
I think unfortunately I had joined those whose tend to try to ratify the Bible with science as if science is right and the Bible gets browney points for giving an example which fits. Whether we choose the side of science or the side of God it takes faith. To those around us it may seem foolish, but to us it is a matter of life and death. 1 Corinthians 1:20-25 has this to say;
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
The world around us still requires such a great faith in science that they overlook such a powerful record that the Bible gives. We have to hope and pray that we can have such a great faith as theirs.