Challenges to the Bible’s trustworthiness (1): complexity and science
Isn’t the Bible really big and hard to understand?
Well, yes, the Bible is a big book. I know it can be intimidating, especially if you are someone who doesn’t read much. How can you trust something you cannot really understand? It seems too much, too complicated.
But let’s pause and think about this for a moment. The basic message that God tells us in the Bible is not complicated to understand. We have all kinds of records of people being saved after hearing the gospel message explained once. We see this at Pentecost, with the Philippian jailer, with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts. Children’s ministry teachers can explain the gospel that Jesus died for sinners to small children. We mustn’t think that just because God has given us a lot of detail in the Bible, that it is too difficult for us.
We do need to admit that there are some complicated things in the Bible. The apostle Peter made this comment that the end of 2 Peter:
15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
(2 Pet. 3:15-16 ESV)
If Peter thinks that Paul sometimes wrote things that are hard to understand, that should encourage us! Romans 9-11 is complicated. Trying to be clear on what Peter means by the spirits in prison in 1 Peter 3 or what Paul means by the baptism of the dead in 1 Corinthians 15 is difficult. God is so great, and understanding everything about God is impossible for limited people like us. But what we do know is true, and we can grow over time to know God better than we do now through his word. If you’re new to the Bible, I recommend you start with Mark or Luke. And over time, expand to read widely and understand more and more.
The message of the Bible is clear enough that people can be saved after one conversation. It is deep enough that we won’t know everything there is to know after a lifetime of studying it. We need to have the right perspective here. Instead of being overwhelmed at the size and complexity of the Bible, we should appreciate how clear so much of it is. And we should consider how kind God is in giving us so much information about himself. What a blessing, that we have so much to know and learn about our gracious God!
Doesn’t science contradict the Bible?
This objection over comes up when you mention the Bible. And it is close to my heart, as I have been trained as a scientist. This objection is often connected to issues around evolution, most loudly by people like the biologist Richard Dawkins. They claim that the big questions of life are answered by science, not religion. And they claim that the Bible is not scientific, that it has been disproven and superseded by what we now know from science.
Logically, science and religion are not enemies at all. What we have in science and in the Bible belong in different categories. In fact, it is Christianity that led to the growth in modern science. It is what the Bible teaches about the world being created by God to be a certain way, a God who loves order, that means science is possible. We can uncover natural laws and all kinds of truths about the world because God made it to be regular and observable. On the other hand, the Bible is revelation, something shown to us, not something we can discover for ourselves by observing it. No microscope or piece of scientific equipment will enable you to see God or to understand his plans. You cannot understand sin or God’s salvation offered in Jesus by thinking it out; you need God to tell you. So science will never replace the need for the Bible.
John Lennox makes this point in his great illustration about a cake. Imagine someone brings in a cake made by their Aunty into a room of scientists. They all look at and study the cake. The chemists can tell you what elements are in it, the physicists are interested in the forces binding it together, and the engineers are keen to see how it is all connected. Yet none of them can tell us the purpose of the cake, why it was made. Who do you need to talk to in order to find that out? The Aunty who made it. Likewise, only God can tell us the purpose and plan. Scientists can discover true things about God’s world, but not the core issues that the Bible reveals to us.
At times, scientists have really been doing philosophy, not science. When it comes to making a case for the origin of the world, or evolution, often the argument is not just from observation and the scientific method. It involves a theory, an extrapolation, and some assumptions. We don’t need to afraid that science will disprove the Bible. You don’t need to worry that something will be dug up by archaeologists tomorrow that will show it all to be untrue. If the Bible is true, we don’t need to fear questions! I have heard from some people that they got into trouble with their pastor or priest for asking too many questions. That is a tragedy. Ask whatever you want! If Christianity is true, and the Bible is true, there is an answer to all the questions.
It might surprise you to know that the majority of prominent Nobel-prize winning scientists are religious. Science and religion should complement each other, not be enemies. Don’t avoid working and studying in scientific fields as a Christian. We need Christians working in these areas, like in all areas. God has given us a world to explore, and he has also revealed things in the Bible we could never discover by ourselves.