Board index ‹ Science and the Bible

[Nanu Nanu]

How is science important to the Bible or what role does it play in reading the bible If some argue science distorts its explanation?

[jimwalton]

The Bible doesn’t say anything about “science.” “Science” wasn’t really a “thing” until the Renaissance, even though some ancient civilizations, like Greece and China, and Rome to some extent, did practice what we would call science.

Nonetheless, God’s mandate to rule the Earth and subdue it in Genesis 1.28 is a scientific mandate. If we are going to be responsible in our care over the Earth and be good stewards of it (rule and subdue), we have to know as much as possible (science) and use that knowledge to take care of the Earth (environmentalism). Also, the mandate to rule and subdue includes using the Earth judiciously for our lives, which would include things like hydroelectric power, mining, solar power, fossil fuel harvesting, using trees for heat and construction, etc.

So in all of those senses, science it important in the Bible. It’s how we do what God gave us to do.

As far as what role does it play in reading the Bible, about the only role it plays is helping us understand the points the authors were trying to make. Their science was much more primitive than ours, obviously. For that matter, every era’s science is regarded as primitive in later generations. Any science in the Bible is a mode of communicating something about God or something about us, but the scientific statements themselves are not authoritative. They are authoritative in what they are teaching us about God, not in what they are teaching us about science. So we have to read them both with their cultural and theological context in mind.