Does Science Support The Bible?

INTRODUCTION

Two major areas of scientific inquiry can in principle either support or undermine the Bible, namely, what science tells us about the nature of our universe and planet and what it can tell us about the history of our universe and planet. Biblical theism describes a God who is immediately responsible for all physical reality, with the laws of nature seen as descriptions of God’s customary way of caring for his creatures (as in Col 1:17). Biblical theism also affirms that God sometimes works in extraordinary (or supernatural) ways to shape and care for his creation (Gn 1:1). The challenge is, can the biblical and scientific pictures of our universe and planet be harmonized?

OUR REMARKABLE HOME

One of the most surprising scientific developments of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has been the discovery of the many remarkable features of our universe and planet that are essential to make it such an ideal habitat for life. First, we need a sufficient diversity of elements, combined with a relative abundance of certain critical elements, to make possible the production of complex “molecular machines” capable of processing energy, storing information, and replicating molecules such as RNA, DNA, and protein. Second, at least one element in this complexity of life must be capable of serving as a ready connector, reacting with essentially all elements to form bonds that are stable but not too stable to be broken during “reuse”; carbon is such an element. Third, we must have an individual element or compound that is liquid at certain temperatures on planet earth and very abundant and that can serve as a universal solvent. This liquid must be capable of dissolving most elements and/or compounds essential to the chemistry of life; that describes water. Fourth, we need long-term sources of energy that fit with the chemical energy in the carbon bonds so that this energy can fuel the chemical reactions we find in the carbon-based, chain molecules that are essential to life.

At least fifty such requirements have been identified, all necessary for life to exist in our universe.

GOD’S REMARKABLE DESIGN

God has satisfied the many requirements for life in three remarkable ways: the elegant mathematical form that is encoded in nature and that we call “the laws of nature”; the fine-tuning of the nineteen universal constants (e.g., the speed of light, the gravity force constant, the mass of the electron, and the unit charge); and the unbelievably demanding initial conditions that God had to set. For example, the ratio of the strong force constant to the electromagnetic force constant must fall within a window of five percent of the actual ratio if we are to have elemental diversity and a star like our sun that gives a long-term, stable source of energy. To match the energy of the light from the sun to the chemical bonding energy in organic compounds, six of the universal constants have to be carefully tailored to each other. The speed of light (c), the mass of the electron (m_e), the mass of the proton (m_p), Planck’s constant (h), the gravity force constant, and the unit charge must have carefully matched magnitudes that satisfy the following algebraic equation:

m_p²·G/[h c]>~[e²/{hc}]¹²[me/mp]⁴

Remarkably, these six constants do have exactly the right relative values for the energy from the sun to be matched precisely to that needed to facilitate critical chemical reactions in organic molecules.

Many scientists have remarked with admiration about this amazing characteristic of our universe. For example, the famous English astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle commented, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has ‘monkeyed’ with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”

Possibly the most impressive scientific achievement of twentieth century was the discovery of DNA, upon which is encoded the information of life. That such a remarkable information storage system exists, and that the DNA molecules have somehow come to be encoded with the precise information needed for life, is the climax to an amazing testimony from science of God’s providential care for us in his creation. For example, for the accidental origin of the cytochrome-C molecule to have the required sequencing of the various amino acids has a probability of only 1 in 10⁶⁰.

These findings from recent science give an even more profound significance to Paul’s testimony in Rm 1:20 that God’s divinity can be seen even in the invisible elements of His universe.

CAN WE HARMONIZE GENESIS 1 AND SCIENCE?

While the scientific discoveries of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have strengthened belief in a Designer/Creator, highly publicized conflicts between science and the Bible such as the Scopes “Monkey Trial” have eroded confidence in the biblical inferences about natural history found in Genesis 1–2. This conflict is the result of unsubstantiated scientific claims and unnecessarily limited interpretations of Genesis 1–2 (whether they be of the liberal or conservative variety).

The unsupported claim from science is that the origin of life and its progression from simple to complex forms are achieved by molecular selection and mutation/natural selection respectively. While this synthesis of mutation/natural selection adequately explains how organisms become more adapted to their environment and how incremental improvement in existing characteristics might occur, it seems incapable of explaining the origin of multicomponent systems, such as the human eye. New multicomponent systems would have no advantage from natural selection until the individual parts had already evolved to an advanced stage of development. Yet without natural selection to guide this development, it is almost impossible to imagine how complex, multicomponent systems can originate. Biochemist Michael Behe has dubbed this process “Darwin’s black box”—a whimsical term for a device that does something but whose inner workings cannot be seen and sometimes are not comprehensible.