The relationship between science and faith is like the relationship between two neighboring countries. At times they are allies. That is the scenario they both hope for. It is the way things should be. Science, which looks at God’s world, should not be in conflict with theology, which looks at the Bible. But at times conflict sets in. The countries find reasons to quarrel. Some disputes can be settled by arbitration. Occasionally, though, they go to war.

When that happens, not every citizen necessarily agrees with his mother country. One side may be mostly in the right, or both sides may be quite wrong. Thomas Aquinas’s synthesis of faith with Aristotle had certain strengths and introduced many good things. But in fundamental ways it was seriously flawed. The theologians of the church were thus locked in, preventing science from moving beyond Aristotle to a more reasonable view.

The collision could have been avoided had both sides been more willing to look for common ground. That could only have happened if there were more humility and more tentativeness about cosmologies. The Bible is God’s Word but it does not present an iron-clad, timeless cosmology, one that fits in with a particular philosophy. It is not that kind of book. It’s a covenant book. Certainly it speaks truly even when it touches on areas that are considered the domain of science. But it is not a science textbook and must not be read as though it were. And it must be honored for the text that it is.

Faith and science are ultimately friends, if we’ll only go about them honestly.

When I was a high school student, we had a religion course in which the instructor assured us that we could no longer believe the biblical account of the world. The reason is that the biblical account has the earth as the foundation. Ancient peoples believed that human beings were the center of everything. Further, the biblical account speaks of a three-decker universe, with the heavens above, the earth at our level, and the ocean below. Clearly, he taught us, this ancient view has been dispelled by “science.”

It was only years later, when I decided to read the Bible for myself, that I realized things were not as my teacher had said. According to the Bible the earth is not a foundation, though it is created, like everything else in the universe. Nor does Scripture put humankind at the center. God is at the center. Certainly the main activity described by the Bible is on earth. The whole story of redemption is about human beings, not other beings, not even angels. So of course the earth is at the “center” in this sense.

But there is no biblical idea whatsoever of a three-decker universe. When occasionally three-decker language is used, it is simply to describe the big picture, not to establish a contrived earth-centered cosmology. It’s an obvious anthropomorphic perspective from which most of us operate on a daily basis. The Bible is no more a commitment to a particular cosmology than a navigator who charts a ship’s location based on the sun and the stars “out there.”

When the biblical writers meditate on the creation, they are not speculating on the laws of physics. They are not attempting a unified field theory. With respect to the cosmos, as Calvin noted, there is undoubtedly accommodation going on. No, the biblical authors, rather, are in awe of the wonder, the vastness of it all. They are struck by the insignificance of the human creature:

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3–4)

This is the furthest thing from a man-centered world. It does answer the question, though:

You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor (verse 5).

But the writer is rather astonished at this, not complacent. Whatever cosmology the Bible may contain, it is nothing that “science” has to reject, or replace with something more enlightened. Observations of the natural world are meant to drive us to worship the Creator.

Perhaps the heart of the message in these considerations is this: Humility, gratitude, worship, will do more to bring reconciliation where it is needed between the Bible and scientific work than any other practice. Test yourself to see if these are your heart commitments. Some issues are hard, and much work needs to be done. But faith and science are ultimately friends, if we’ll only go about them honestly.

This piece is adapted from William Edgar, The Face of Truth: Lifting the Veil (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2001), 72–5. Used with permission of the publisher.

Read More On Cosmology, public theology, Science and Faith, Science and the Bible

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