Biblical Language
"The Bible deals with religion; it should be accepted as a book of religion, not as dealing with scientific facts. If you want facts as to this world, you will find them in science, not in religion. Read your Bible, and accept it as a book of religion; but when you deal with reality, you must go to science for the answer, not the Bible."
The speaker was a high school teacher, a faithful member of a denominational church. She was apparently rather proud of the fact that she had "solved" the religio-scientific problem for herself, and was eager to share her point of view with the members of her biology class. This teacher is typical, no doubt, of many thousands of teachers in our day — sincere people who have neither the attitude nor the scholastic equipment for a true resolving of the question, and who have removed the difficulty by a highly superficial (and unrealistic and incredible) effort to "divorce" science and religion. They live in two worlds — worlds which are incompatible. Science, they say, deals with "facts," while religion deals with "spiritual values." We are not to look for "facts" in religion, only for "values."
This shallow and impossible solution to the problem is no solution at all. It is a solution attempted by religious modernism, but which in reality is only a sedative to soothe and lull the mind and heart of the unsuspecting while a thorough operation removes the last vestige of true faith from his soul. For the obvious and inescapable element here is that the Bible claims to deal in facts — not fancies, dreams, illusions, or myths. The Bible claims as a FACT that "God created the heavens and the earth." Now, either God did create them, or he did not. If in reality God did not "create the heaven and the earth," then in that particular statement the Bible recites a falsehood. No amount of explanation or interpretation can change that And if the Bible is false in one statement, we have no ground of assurance at all that it may not be false in other statements — or even in its entirety!
Two Errors
Two fundamental errors have contributed greatly to the horrible conflict between "science" and "religion." One has been made by the scientists, the other by the orthodox believers. The scientist has all too often been brash and impulsive in declaring that certain theories, hypotheses, or conjectures are "established facts of science" which contradict Bible statements. And the believer has all too often confused his interpretation of the Bible with inspiration, and has been ready to reject immediately any data which seems to violate his "interpretation" of Biblical language. For example, James Ussher (1581-1656) an Irishmen who was Archbishop of Armagh, worked out his famous chronology which placed the creation date at 4004 B. C. And Lightfoot, the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, followed through with Ussher's work and came up with the firm declaration that Adam was created on Friday, October 23, 4004 B. C. at 9:00 A. M. forty-fifth meridian time!
W. M. Smart in his "Origin of the Earth" (1951) lists no less than ten different scientific theories as to the origin of the earth, each of which has been held, or is currently held, by world renowned scientists. Obviously, when some scientist (?) makes a positive statement that "science contradicts Genesis as to the origin of the earth" he is completely UN-scientific. For one thing, "science" does not speak with a single tongue as to the origin of the earth; for another, Genesis makes no statement at all as to HOW the earth was created — it only tells WHO created it. And when some believer (?) contends that the world came into existence 4004 B. C., and that any data suggesting an earlier date is false, he is confusing his own "interpretation" with what the Bible actually says.
Biblical Language
When God revealed himself to man through language, he either had to speak in scientific terminology or else in the popular language of the man of the street. It is clear that he adopted the latter course. Indeed, any other would have been preposterous. For if he had chosen to speak in "scientific" terms, from which age would the vocabulary have been chosen? It was highly scientific in the days of the ancient Greeks to speak of the four elements as being fire, air, earth, and water! Would God choose the scientific vocabulary of ancient Greece? or would it be modern science's vocabulary with its proliferation of polysyllabic words, phrases, and symbols?
He chose neither. Instead, his eternal truth was clothed in the ordinary language of the man in the street — language that can be understood and comprehended by men in any age and of any culture who will take the time and trouble to make an honest effort to determine what is written. The sun "rises" and "sets," a man writes "upon the tablet of his heart;" when he is overwhelmed, an arrow may "strike through his liver;" his bones may be filled with either fire or oil! All of which is easily understood by the honest student. But try putting some of those things into scientific language and see how many understand it!
There can be no separation of science and scripture. There can be no dualism by which a man can blind himself to truth when he comes to a study of the Bible and move in a area of fantasy and make-believe. All due allowance must be made for both science's vague uncertainties and for the Bible's indefiniteness as to methods; but when every concession has been made by both science and theology, there must remain a common core of hard, solid truth which is in the field of both. It is indeed true that "science deals in facts and the Bible deals in values;" but it is also true that the only thing that gives "value" to the Bible values is their root and foundation in TRUTH. And any religion which shies away from truth (be it geological, biological, astronomical, or philosophical truth) is NOT the religion of the Bible. The truth of God in nature and the truth of God in revelation are one; they cannot be divorced.