The Bible and the Natural World

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The Bible is not a scientific textbook, and it does not claim to be. Its purpose is to reveal God and salvation (2 Timothy 3:15). It speaks as ordinary people speak, in the language of observation, as when we say "sunrise," and it often uses poetry and figures of speech. But when it does touch the natural world, believers argue, it does so with a restraint and accuracy remarkable for ancient writings, free of the myths common to surrounding cultures [13].

A Universe with a Beginning

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). Ancient myths often described an eternal, cyclical cosmos. Genesis announces a beginning. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Hebrews 11:3). Modern cosmology also concludes that the universe had a beginning. The Belgian priest and physicist Georges Lemaitre, who proposed what became the Big Bang model, saw no conflict between his science and his faith. Christians differ on how to read Genesis 1 (see Chapter 11), but all agree that the cosmos is created, contingent, and ordered.

Statements Ahead of Their Time

Believers highlight the following passages for their striking agreement with later discovery. They are best read as observations, not as proofs on their own.

The earth hangs in space. "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing" (Job 26:7). Many ancient cultures pictured the earth resting on pillars, turtles, or an elephant.
The shape of the earth. "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:22). The Hebrew word means a circle or sphere; interpreters debate whether it describes a disc or the globe.
The stretched-out heavens. Isaiah 40:22 says that God "stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain." Some read this repeated theme (also in Job 9:8 and Psalm 104:2) as an anticipation of an expanding universe, though others see only poetic language.
The water cycle. "All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again" (Ecclesiastes 1:7). Likewise, God "maketh small the drops of water: they pour down rain according to the vapour thereof" (Job 36:27), and He "calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth" (Amos 9:6).
Circulating winds. "The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits" (Ecclesiastes 1:6) reads like a description of atmospheric circulation.
Springs in the sea. "Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?" (Job 38:16). Some point to the undersea vents discovered in the late twentieth century.
Countless stars. "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them" (Genesis 15:5), and "the host of heaven cannot be numbered" (Jeremiah 33:22). Ancient astronomers catalogued about a thousand visible stars and believed that was all there were. Today's estimates run to billions of galaxies.
Wearing down. "All of them shall wax old like a garment" (Psalm 102:26). Believers note the parallel with the physical tendency toward decay (the second law of thermodynamics), a theme Paul also touches in Romans 8:21.
One human family. "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26). Genetics confirms the close unity of the human race, and the verse stands against ancient and modern racial hierarchies.

Health and Hygiene

The Law of Moses contained public-health measures that anticipated modern practice by thousands of years: isolating the infectious ("he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be," Leviticus 13:46), washing after contact (Leviticus 15), and burying human waste outside the camp (Deuteronomy 23:12-13). Compare these with the medical practices of the time. When the Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis insisted in 1847 that doctors wash their hands to prevent childbed fever, he was widely ridiculed. "The life of the flesh is in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11) is a statement modern physiology endorses. Believers add that the Bible never recommends bloodletting; that practice came from Greek medicine.

The Biblical Roots of Science

The Bible teaches that the world is real, good, orderly, and knowable, because a rational God made it: "Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?" (Job 38:33; compare Jeremiah 33:25). Historians such as Rodney Stark and Peter Harrison argue that this worldview helped lay the groundwork for modern science [14]. Johannes Kepler, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, and James Clerk Maxwell were all believers who saw their work as exploring God's creation. Maxwell had Psalm 111:2 inscribed on the doors of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge: "The works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork" (Psalm 19:1). Believers do not fear scientific discovery; they expect it to harmonize with Scripture when both are rightly understood.

CHAPTER 7