Does the Bible Agree with Science?

You want to know the truth about creation? You want to know the God of creation?

Go to His Word. No mistakes about anything physical, spiritual, historical, or prophetic. It's all here from the Creator. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. The Bible has been described as an armory of heavenly weapons, a laboratory of infallible medicines, and a mine of inexhaustible wealth. Yet, not everyone sees the Bible that way. In the realm of science in particular, a line has been drawn between the Bible and reputable scientific study. But just how incompatible with science is the Word of God?

Is it really incompatible at all? Today, John MacArthur helps you consider the connection between scripture and science in ways you may never have considered before. Get ready for a compelling message that John calls, Does the Bible Agree with Science?

And now here's John. I want to talk to you on the subject of science and scripture. Obviously, we live in a society today that wants to say that science contradicts the scripture, or the scripture really contradicts science. Scripture is primitive and uninformed, and lacks the sophistication necessary for us to believe that it really is the book of truth that it claims to be. This is a popular thing to do to pit the Bible against science.

But let's be clear about one thing to begin with. Science can say nothing about origins. Science can say nothing about how the universe came into existence, because no one was there. Science is basically observation.

You look at something and you draw conclusions. No one observed creation. No one was there, except the Creator. So we have only one account of creation, and it's an eyewitness account of creation by the Creator. And for science to say anything about creation is for science to be very unscientific. To step out of its observation category into origins is to say that science was there, or some scientific evidence was there that discounts what the Word of God has to say. The truth about creation is given in Genesis 1, 2, and 3. That's the divine account by the Creator Himself.

That's all we have. And that is really a great place to start when you talk about science, and whether or not science tackles the scripture with any sense of integrity. But let me approach it this way. Whoever created the universe and everything that is in the universe understands how it works perfectly. He has to if He's the Creator, and has since He created it not needed to wait for some human beings to explain scientifically the world He created.

He's not looking for information to advance His understanding or ours. The Creator knows, and the Creator has revealed the truth on the pages of His revelation in the Bible. And since the Creator designed everything, created it, and sustained it, He understands it perfectly. For example, He knows the earth is spherical. He knows the earth turns on an axis.

He knows it is suspended on nothing. He knows it is sweeping through space in a fixed rotation and orbit on a more massive scale than we can ever comprehend. In fact, He knows that the whole solar system is in orbit around the sun, and that the sun is in a massive incomprehensible orbit through the universe, dragging the entire solar system with it.

Whoever created the universe knows the galaxies, all of them, the staggering reaches of space, the countless stars and galaxies beyond any possible observation. He knows the cycles of air. He knows the cycle of water. He knows all the facts of chemistry.

He knows all the facts of biology. So if He wrote a book, if this Creator knowing all that wrote a book, it would be accurate. Supposed divine and holy books that are historically inaccurate, morally inferior, spiritually muddled, and scientifically wrong did not come from the true God. The true Creator is infinitely intelligent. He is an information and communication supergenius. And since the whole universe and all life in it depends on the formation of communication of that information accurately, we expect the book from the true Creator not to say ridiculous and untrue things, and it never does.

If God is anything, He is the ultimate information expert, since everything that lives, lives based upon coded, implanted information of incalculable complexity designed by God the Creator and the ultimate communicator. So the Bible never says things that are not true, since the whole of Scripture claims to be, from Genesis to Revelation, written by God. It claims to be the inspired revelation from God. It claims to be true. It claims to be accurate in everything it says. It claims to be without error.

It claims to be authoritative. It claims to be God-breathed, 2 Timothy 3.15. That is, it is the very expression of God. Then we would assume that it would be accurate, because God is not only the powerful Creator, but He is infinitely perfect and cannot make a mistake. Now, look, the Bible is not a textbook on science or the technicalities of science. But wherever the Bible intersects with science, it gives you the real truth.

The Bible contains reality. It is true and accurate when it speaks scientifically as much as when it speaks spiritually. True science can have no argument with Scripture.

That's the point. True science can have no argument with Scripture. True science reflects reality, and the Creator knows reality. And in His book, when He speaks of reality, it is just that.

It is true. So never has science proved the Bible to be wrong on any issue, and never will that be possible. Now, again, Scripture, not science, is the ultimate test of all truth. That's why the Bible warns in 1 Timothy 6, 20 about science falsely so-called. Scientific knowledge that opposes the Scripture, or Romans 1, which talks about men who profess to be wise, but have become fools because they have rejected God who is the Creator.

And judge. Though the biblical account conflicts with evolution, it's not the biblical account that's in error, it's evolution. Naturalistic evolutionary theory is not the truth. And, by the way, that's becoming pretty obvious today because of more contemporary scientific discoveries.

So back to the point. All creation truth is from the Creator as recorded in Scripture. All geological, astronomical, biological, scientific data fit the Bible. True science has no argument with Scripture.

Genesis 1 to 3, as I said, tells us exactly the truth about creation, and that establishes the fact that the Bible tells us the truth about everything. Modern scientists, now long past Darwin, have in a very unscientific move decided that they're going to be irrational, and they're going to be amoral when it comes to the Bible. They want to say that chance is the Creator, accident, coincidence, a kind of randomness, I guess you could say. They want to believe in blind luck that everything came out of nothing, produced in an intricate complex of ecosystems, microcosms, macrocosms, complexity, all interacting successfully by accident.

There is not a more significant absurdity in the thinking of humanity than that, that nobody times nothing equals everything is insanity, that all of this complexity came out of nowhere, nothing, nonintelligence is a fool's paradigm. The Bible is the Word of God. God speaks in the Bible to explain how He spoke everything into existence.

The only source of information is an intelligent person. Intelligence is behind everything that appears to be intelligent. That is why John 1 says the Creator is the Word, because everything that was created was created by being spoken into existence. It was spoken because it is not just matter and power, it is information that must come from the ultimate divine mind. Evolution said matter and energy and time lead to life.

Reality says intelligence and information and energy and matter equals life. God speaks, and His Word becomes the information that makes things live. About ten times it says in Genesis, God said and there was, God said and there was. Divine information coming from the divine mind brings everything into existence. All that to say, the Creator is the master of information. When He speaks in creation, everything comes into existence perfectly coded. And, by the way, He created everything at one time. There was only six days of creation, and He was done creating. That creation perpetuates itself, obviously. Plants and seeds, human beings have children. But all the forces for all the perpetuation are bound up in the original information passed on to the next generation. Now I've been talking to you about just some of the basics of the universe.

Let me get a little more specific. If you just look up, you see clouds. Once in a while it rains. You see streams and rivers, and you see an ocean. But you wouldn't necessarily know by just looking that God created all the water at the time He created in Genesis. There's no more water than God created. How do you explain that? It was hard for science to figure it out.

They were actually puzzled until the 17th century. They believed that somehow water was kept down in subterranean reservoirs until some scientists in the 17th century began to realize there was what they called a hydrological cycle that they described as evaporation, transportation, precipitation, and irrigation. Evaporation, hmm, water from the ocean evaporates by the power of the sun, is collected in the clouds, held in the clouds, carried over the land.

In precipitation it falls. In irrigation it hits the rivers and the streams, runs back to the ocean from which it again evaporates and is condensed in the clouds, and the cycle keeps going. That's the hydrological cycle.

There's no new water being created. It takes the form of steam in its evaporation. It's embodied in the clouds in its condensation. It's taken over the land in its precipitation, or even over the sea. It falls again, and the cycle continues as it goes to the sea and evaporates. Seventeenth century they began to understand that. They might have read Isaiah 55, 10 centuries ago, because this is what Isaiah wrote, for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout and furnish seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth.

It shall not return to Me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. So Isaiah said, as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, water the earth and then return, so My word follows that kind of pattern. That's the hydrological cycle.

It comes down, waters the earth, goes into the sea, back to the clouds, and the cycle continues. Then there's astronomy. Modern astronomy wasn't really born until the seventeenth century, and the most amazing fact of modern astronomy is the essential infinite size and variety of the physical universe. We now know that this is so vast, the created universe, that it's beyond all possible comprehension. But that's exactly what Scripture tells us. Without speaking scientifically, it nonetheless says this, Psalm 103, For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. When God wanted to illustrate how far He moved our sins away, He wanted us to know that He was removing them infinitely far away, and He used the universe as an illustration.

Just a couple of other thought. What about geology? Geology is the science of the earth, and one of the factors of geology is what is called isostasy.

It's an interesting thing, always been interesting to me. It's the study of the balance of the earth. I know when you roll a round basketball, it just rolls perfectly.

Try to roll a football. It's all over the place, and it's all over the place because it's not balanced. The earth rotates.

The earth spins. It has to be in perfect balance. It has to be balanced so that where there are valleys, there are compensating mountains.

Where there is material that is heavy, there has to be compensating balance where the material may be lighter. The valleys deeper must correspond to the mountains higher. This is basically the study of geophysics, isostasy, the balance of the earth, so that it doesn't rotate like that, and every second or so we're all being thrown up into the air.

Listen to what Isaiah said. Behold the Lord God, chapter 40, verse 12, who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, marked off the heavens by a span, calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales. God knows the perfect symmetry of the weight of the earth so that it is perfectly balanced to be perfectly rotating. In Psalm 104, verses 5 through 8, it says of God, He established the earth on its foundation so that it will not totter, it will not wobble. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place which You established for them.

That's the balance. And geology has a sub-science called geodesy, and that deals with the shape of the earth. It is clear that it is round or spherical. The ancients thought it was flat, and they thought that if you sailed too far, you'd go through the gates of Pericles, they thought was at Gibraltar, and you'd drop off the edge of this flat place and into nothingness.

But the Bible was very clear. Isaiah 40, verse 22 says of God, It is He that sits on the circle of the earth, the circle of the earth. Job 38, 13, and 14 says, He turns the earth as the clay to the seal. It means it rotates on an axis. It's a circle rotating on an axis. The clay to the earth, what does that mean, or the clay to the seal?

In ancient times, you signed your name by having like a small roller pin that you had your name embedded on, and you rolled it over soft clay to sign your name into that clay. That's the earth rotating on an axis. We could talk about meteorology, that's the wind. It was Galileo in the 17th century that realized there were circuits of the wind, literally circles of wind. That's exactly what it says in Ecclesiastes 1.6, the wind runs in circular patterns. No scientist before Galileo was aware that air had weight, Job 28, 25. God established weight to the air. Well, that's a lot to think about, I know.

I hope it's helpful. You want to know the truth about creation? You want to know the God of creation? Go to His Word. No mistakes about anything, physical, spiritual, historical, or prophetic. It's all here from the Creator.

Let's pray. Thank You, Lord, for delivering us the truth about everything. Thank You for Your Word, and Your Word is true. It is true when it speaks of Your nature. It is true when it speaks of Your creation. It is true when it speaks of Your world and everything that is in it. It is true when it speaks of Your Son and His work of salvation. It is true when it speaks of the gospel and the offer of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ. It is true when it gives us the promise of forgiveness of sins, the life of God in the soul of man, and the promise of eternal heaven. It is true from the first word of Genesis to the last word of the Revelation. Your Word is true, and You have revealed all we need to know to love You, to serve You, to proclaim You. And may we come to know You better. The more we study Your Word, the more the majesty of Your revelation becomes clear to us, and in that, our praise and our worship of You is enriched. To that end, we ask that You would lead us for Your glory.

In the Savior's name, amen. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His lesson today on grace to you is titled, Does the Bible Agree with Science? So John, as we've seen today, there is agreement between Scripture and science, and that's encouraging. And yet, for people who love the Lord and who study and work in what are commonly called the STEM fields, science, technology, engineering, and math, I imagine many times they still feel alone in their beliefs in a divine creator. Of course, one place that is a great champion for biblical truth and scientific truth is the Masters University, an event that you're going to be speaking at that I know you're going to want to mention.

Well, I do. And the design of this event is to pull together people from those fields of science, technology, engineering, and truth, particularly those who, as you said, are teaching in secular environments where they're almost forbidden to take a Christian stand, that very frequently they're alienated and treated as if they're some kind of enemy of academics. We think we would love to be the institution that puts our arms around them and gathers them together and encourages them and offers them some wonderful Christian fellowship. So let me remind you of the upcoming Mathema Symposium happening in just a few weeks at the Masters University. It's an event that you could call a shepherd's conference for the sciences. But unlike many gatherings for Christians within the sciences, the Mathema Symposium is not primarily focused on apologetics or the debate between biblical creation and evolution or similar subjects, as important as they are. What the Mathema Symposium will provide is a time of fellowship and encouragement and biblical instruction for believers who are committed to pursuing truth and fidelity, honoring Jesus Christ and the Word of God in their various scientific endeavors. If you're a Christian who is a graduate student, a postdoctoral scholar or a professional in the sciences, this event is just for you. I'll be speaking at the symposium, as will Jeff Williams.

Jeff is an astronaut, longtime ministry partner. Also speaking will be Dr. Avner Chow, the president of the Masters University, along with scientists distinguished in their fields. This two-day event is coming up quick.

The date's May 31st to June 1st. For complete details and to register, go to this website and make note of its spelling. It's masters.edu slash mathema, and that is M-A-T-H, the number three, M-A. Again, masters.edu slash mathema. Thanks, John. And, friend, space is limited at this symposium, so register now at masters.edu slash mathema.

And mathema is spelled, again, M-A-T-H, the number three, M-A. And if you benefited from Grace to You, write us a letter and send it our way. You can send your note to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Or you can send an email to letters at gty.org.

If you were encouraged by today's lesson or if God used any one of our resources in your life, we would love to hear about it. Our address, again, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Or you can email your story to letters at gty.org. And be sure to mention the call letters of this station any time you get in touch. And, again, to register for the Mathema Symposium at the Masters University, go to masters.edu slash mathema.

And, again, Mathema is spelled M-A-T-H, the number three, M-A. The symposium takes place May 31st through June 1st. And that event is filling up fast, so reserve your seat right away. And now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You Television this Sunday on DIRECTV Channel 378. Or watch any time at gty.org. And then be here next week when John looks at God's high calling for women, showing you a plan for women that results in blessing, unity, and glory for God. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Monday's Grace to You.