The Bible and Science
What is the Bible?
Is the Bible a science book?
Does the Bible have answers about science?
The Bible: Old Testament & New Testament
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The Bible is comprised of two main parts: The Old Testament and the New
Testament. The word “testament” means “contract,” “covenant,” or
“agreement”
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The Old Testament contains books of history, prophecy, and poetry. Books
of the Law can be a separate category, or can be part of “history.”
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The New Testament is made up of gospels, letters from apostles, called
epistles, one historical book (Acts) and one prophetical book (Revelation.)
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The Bible is designed to tell a story of the history of God’s people, while
imparting spiritual truth and guidance to believers.
Is the Bible a science book?

I believe the Bible was not meant to be a science book, but a spiritual book.
II Timothy 3:16 clearly states that the Bible is inspired by God so that it is
profitable for instruction in righteousness not instruction in science. Trying
to use Genesis One as a science text is like trying to use a screw driver for a
hammer.

The Bible is a wonderful guide for understanding science, since God would
not contradict Himself, however.

The Bible has evidence of dinosaurs, geological formations, catastrophic
events (i.e. the flood), and astronomical explanation that predates scientific
accuracy (e.g. the world is not flat!)
CREATION SCIENCE


Since the Bible is interpreted by comparing and contrasting Scriptural texts,
there is disagreement about the age of the earth among creationists and
between creationists and scientists.
Is there an
Creation Science investigates:

the age of the earth,

the origin of species and Intelligent Design

Explanation of catastrophic events: the flood

Explanation of the fossil record

Astronomy, Oceanography, Meteorology, etc.
Intelligent
Designer?
Warnings to Christians:

Each Christian should study for himself and be persuaded in his own mind
which view of Creation is right after looking at each.

If my view is different than yours, we can agree to disagree. We should not
fight among ourselves thinking we are the only one right, and everyone else
is wrong.

There are many good Christians who believe any of the three views of
creation. Our Salvation does not depend on which view of creation we
believe. The Bible says to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved" not believe in Young-earth creation or Day-age theory and thou shalt
be saved.
Three main views of creation:
Young-earth
creation
Old-earth creation
Theistic Evolution
Young-earth creation

Most Young-earth creationists view the earth as less than 20,000 years old.

They view the days of creation as literal 24 hour days.

They reject the findings of modern science by reinterpreting most of geological history as
a result of Noah's flood. Man and dinosaur lived together therefore, Noah must have put
dinosaurs on the ark.

There are a number of Young-earth Creationist groups. The revival of the Young-earth
Creationist started with the publishing of the book The Genesis Flood in 1961 written by
John Whitcomb and Henry Morris.

http://www.bibleandscience.com/science/creation.htm
Old-earth creation:
Most Old-earth creationists believe that the earth is very old about 4.5 billion years old, and the
universe is some 15 billion years old. Many try to harmonize the Bible and science by reinterpreting the Bible.
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Gap Theory:

Day-Age Theory:
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Intermittent Six-Day Theory:
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Six Days of Divine Revelation Theory:
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Six Days of Divine Decrees Theory:
The Gap theory is based on the belief that there is a wide gap of time between Genesis
1:1 and Genesis 1:3; between initial creation and most likely a destruction and re-creation.
This theory states that since Psalm 90:4 says that a day is as a thousand years to
the Lord, the age of the earth could be multiplied by thousands.
This theory is based on the idea that each day of creation was
separated by vast lengths of time, thus the age of the earth is quite old
This theory states that God revealed to Moses on six
different days that which was done in creation, but not that they were actual 24-hour days of creation.
This says that God’s decree are outside space & time so
we can’t place an “age” on how long each decree of his has taken.
Theistic Evolution

Theistic evolution states that God used the process of evolution to create
the world.

For example, in Genesis 1:11 it says “Let the land produce vegetation: seedbearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to
their various kinds.” And it was so.”
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Also, Genesis 1:20 says “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let the birds
fly above the earth, across the vault of the sky.”

And, Genesis 1:24 says “Let the land produce living creatures, according to their
kinds; the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild
animals, each according to its kind.” And it was.
None of theses verses actual says that God physically created these plants & animals.
Creationism and Intelligent Design Theory
Design theory—also called design or the design
argument—is the view that nature shows
tangible signs of having been designed by a
preexisting intelligence. It has been around, in
one form or another, since the time of ancient
Greece.
The most famous version of the design
argument can be found in the work of
theologian William Paley, who in 1802 proposed
his "watchmaker" thesis. His reasoning went
like this:
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot
against a stone, and were asked how the stone
came to be there; I might possibly answer, that,
for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain
there for ever. ... But suppose I had found a
watch upon the ground, and it should be
inquired how the watch happened to be in that
place; I should hardly think the answer which I
had before given [would be sufficient].[1]
There must be an intelligent designer . . .
To the contrary, the fine
coordination of all its parts would
force us to conclude that
… the watch must have had a
maker: that there must have
existed, at some time, and at some
place or other, an artificer or
artificers, who formed it for the
purpose which we find it actually
to answer; who comprehended its
construction, and designed its use.
[2]
Just as the watch had a designer, so must
the eye with which we see . . .
Paley argued that we can draw the
same conclusion about many
natural objects, such as the eye.
Just as a watch’s parts are all
perfectly adapted for the purpose
of telling time, the parts of an eye
are all perfectly adapted for the
purpose of seeing. In each case,
Paley argued, we discern the
marks of an intelligent designer.
Design in nature points to God.
Although Paley’s basic notion was sound, and
influenced thinkers for decades, Paley never
provided a rigorous standard for detecting
design in nature. Detecting design depended on
such vague standards as being able to discern
an object’s "purpose." Moreover, Paley and
other "natural theologians" tried to reason from
the facts of nature to the existence of a wise
and benevolent God.
All of these things made design an easy target
for Charles Darwin when he proposed his
theory of evolution. Whereas Paley saw a
finely-balanced world attesting to a kind and
just God, Darwin pointed to nature’s
imperfections and brutishness. Although
Darwin had once been an admirer of Paley,
Darwin’s own observations and experiences—
especially the cruel, lingering death of his 9year-old daughter Annie in 1850—destroyed
whatever belief he had in a just and moral
universe.
ID is the modern term of Intelligent Design

Following the triumph of Darwin’s theory, design theory was all but banished
from biology. Since the 1980s, however, advances in biology have convinced a
new generation of scholars that Darwin’s theory was inadequate to account for
the sheer complexity of living things. These scholars—chemists, biologists,
mathematicians and philosophers of science—began to reconsider design
theory. They formulated a new view of design that avoids the pitfalls of previous
versions.

Called intelligent design (ID), to distinguish it from earlier versions of design
theory (as well as from the naturalistic use of the term design), this new
approach is more modest than its predecessors. Rather than trying to infer God’s
existence or character from the natural world, it simply claims "that intelligent
causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of
biology and that these causes are empirically detectable." [3]
Footnotes
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[1] http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/p/pd-modeng/pd-modengidx?type=HTML&rgn=TEI.2&byte=53049319
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[2] Paley, p. 3.
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[3]
http://www.arn.org/idfaq/What%20is%20intelligent%20design.htm#_ednre
f3