There's really no real conflict between the Bible and science. You can be a Christian and still be very, very capable as a scientist. For example, you have such Christians as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Pascal, and on and on. The fact is there is no contradiction. There is no real conflict between science and Scripture. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Without question, science has answered a lot of questions about how the world works. But is science the final authority? Have researchers really figured out how the world got here, as even some churches seem to believe? And when so-called scientific discoveries apparently disagree with the Bible, which side should you take? Consider those questions today on Grace to You as John MacArthur continues his study, Is the Bible Reliable?
And here's John with today's lesson. Algeus Huxley made this statement. He said, Modern science makes it impossible to believe in a personal God. Bertrand Russell, who was in the habit of making irresponsible statements, said, quote, that man is the product of causes which had no pre-vision of the end they were achieving, that his origin, his growth, his hopes, his fears, his loves and beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocation of atoms, that all the labors of the ages are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand, end quote.
Christianity rejects all of that and has stood a lot longer than Bertrand Russell. Others have said that as science finds explanations of natural phenomena, God becomes smaller and smaller. As science advances and we realize that everything can be verified in a test tube and ultimately resolved to scientific fact, the necessity of God is eliminated. And once God was the Almighty and now science is the Almighty.
And, you know, as Christians I think we are constantly whipped at this point. Believers are faced with a supposed conflict between science and the Scripture. We are told that Christianity is scientifically unrespected, that it doesn't gain the respect of a scientific world because it makes non-scientific statements and scientific blunders. And the worldlings say that you have to choose either science or religion. You can't have both, either the facts of science or the fantasy of Scripture, but not both. And really the clash goes on and it's based on the fact that both science and the Scripture claim total authority. There's no question in our mind that the Bible claims that it is right, that it claims total authority, totalitarian authority. But science does too.
G.H. Clark says the scientific method is the sole gateway to truth. The scientists demand that science have absolute authority. And faith comes along and demands that revelation have absolute authority. Science says you can only know truth as you discover it. And the Christian says you can't really discover ultimate truth on your own. Romans 11 33, how unsearchable are His judgments? His ways are past finding out. And so we say no man by empiricism can discover ultimate truth.
It only comes when ultimate truth is revealed by God Himself. You can't trust experience. You can't trust experiment. You can only really trust the Word of God says the Christian.
And so there's a basic dichotomy. Science says if it isn't in the test tube and if it can't be done in an experiment and if it isn't an empirical proven thing, I can't buy it. Only that which is observable to me, only that which is scientific can be acceptable. The Christian says only that which is revelatory can be acceptable because even your senses can fool you, right? Now there are some scientific facts that we accept, but not in contradistinction to the Scriptures.
Let me hasten to add this. There is no real conflict between science and Scripture. There is none.
R.N. Williams says, I quote, a great difference exists between science and what may be called scientism, by which we mean the theories of a scientist who is wearing spectacles with philosophically tinted lenses, end quote. There's really no real conflict between the Bible and science. You can be a Christian and still be very, very capable as a scientist. For example, you have such Christians as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Pascal and on and on. It is true that the Bible doesn't use scientific jargon, but that doesn't make it non-scientific.
The Bible talks in everyday language. We do not disparage the Word of God and say it's non-scientific because it doesn't use current scientific terminology. The fact is there is no contradiction, there is no real conflict between science and Scripture. The conflict comes when science stops being science and starts being religion. You see, science by its very definition can only deal with that which is observable, that which is reproducible. And whenever it gets outside of reproducible experimental fact and starts trying to talk about origins and destinies, it becomes religion because it can't be observed.
And there the conflict lies. You know, all this whole movement known as neo-orthodoxy, they've already bowed to this concept. The Bible is full of scientific error, they've already given up. So the typical neo-orthodoxy statement is this, the Bible is only authoritative when it speaks on spiritual matters. When it speaks on science matters, we have to handle it allegorically and spiritually because it's prone to error. Which means the God who wrote the Bible knew a lot about spiritual things, didn't know anything about science. Which is a very interesting thing if you believe the God who wrote the Bible also made everything. You see, to say that the parts of the Bible that talk about spiritual things are true and the parts that talk about science are false is ridiculous for two reasons. Number one, it denies the inspiration of God in the Scripture. If God is God, then He knows as much about science as He does about spiritual things, right? The second thing it denies is the inerrancy of Scripture, that is that it's properly recorded. If God wrote this book and if God wrote it correctly, that's inspiration and inerrancy, then it will be just as right scientifically as it is spiritually, right?
It has to be. For God can only speak truth. The New Testament says God who cannot lie. He knows equally the truth of salvation and the truth of science.
There is no thing that He does not know. When science sets itself against God's revelation, it ceases to be science. It becomes ignorance.
It becomes an ignorant religion. And there's the conflict. You see, the scientist isn't content to just observe what's going on now. He's got to extrapolate everything into the past and everything into the future and discuss origins and destinies, but he can't do that because it isn't science. Because he can't put it in a test tube, it isn't reproducible. Now watch, science can only observe the present, that's all. The observable activity of a microscope or a telescope or a test tube now is all he can deal with. And of course he's got some past records of tests and experiments and so forth that he can lean on. But when you get into pre-history, when the scientist starts going back behind recorded history and starts telling us you've got this thing happening and that thing happening in evolutionary cycles and such and such is happening and such and such is happening, that is non-observable.
There is no record of it ever written. It is not reproducible, therefore it cannot be made a scientific test. Consequently, it becomes a matter of faith. So the scientist speculates about prehistoric origin and he speculates about eschatological futures, but neither of those things have any record of observation, neither of those things are test tube items. Now if you're going to know anything about prehistoric fact and eschatological fact in the future, the only way you're going to know is if somebody told it to us and somebody did and here it is.
And if you deny this, you've got nothing else but just imagination. The word science is simply the word knowledge, that's all. It's synonymous with the word knowledge.
That's how it's used in Scripture. It can only deal with present things, natural present processes. When it attempts to interpret the past, pre-history, when it attempts to interpret the future, it can't. It has to be faith. The conflict then is not science in the Scripture, but scientism, philosophical science, science as religion and the Word of God. One scientist said on a science newsletter that I read, he said, I reject the idea of a transcendent God, so what other option do I have? That's why I believe in it. The final decision is moral. Henry Morris says, and I quote, the Bible does provide a perfectly sound basis for understanding physical processes.
It serves well as a textbook on science within which we can satisfactorily explain all the data of science and history. The issue is not...the issue is not between science and the Scripture. The issue is whether a man wants to submit to the Word of God or does not.
And it boils down to Romans 1.28 which defines man in these terms. They did not like to retain God in their knowledge. And so having dumped God, they had to come up with some explanation.
Having rejected His revelation, they came up with the only other option. If God didn't make it, then it just happened. You say, well then there really is no conflict. What about all of the scientific things that we've learned? Does the Bible say those things? Aren't there scientific errors in the Bible? Let me show you some things in the Bible on the subject of science.
Now get in mind that the Bible is ancient and we're going to be dealing in the book of Job which goes way back. And we're going to be dealing with some things that were spoken in the Word of God that are just astounding when you think about how late in man's history man discovered them scientifically. Now let's look at several things. First of all, the basic principles of science. Now all scientists agree, and I say that somewhat hesitatingly, the majority of them do, that several things are necessary as basics. First of all, science must deal with things and that is matter. Science secondly must deal with happenings, that is energy. And thirdly, science must deal with a matrix in which those things happen, that is space-time, hyphenated. So the basics of science are matter, energy and space-time.
That's a fairly simple catalog. Any respectable scientist would agree to that. The universe in essence then, I'll mark this, must be a continuum of space-time, matter and energy. Science tells us that one of those cannot exist without the other. You cannot have matter existing without energy and existing without a place for it to exist. You see what I'm saying? All three have to be together. The continuum must have existed simultaneously from the beginning of life, says science.
You know something remarkable? In Genesis 1, 1 you have it all right there. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, includes all those things. It includes the space-time, matrix, energy and matter. The very first verse in the Bible has God creating the three basic dimensions of science simultaneously and all scientists of respectable quality would agree that those three things are basically necessary. Once the universe had been created, its processes, say scientists, were designed to operate in an orderly fashion. All the different phenomena of nature was ordered by and sustained by these forces. And science says the forces continue and continue and continue and continue. No further creation was needed.
And you know that's what the Bible says too? You know there's a block of matter and energy that is created and it continues and continues and continues and continues and continues. It takes different form, but it continues. Energy is never totally lost. Matter is never totally lost.
The same continuum goes on and on and on. There's no need for later creations. And that's exactly what it says in Genesis 2, 2, God ended His work which He had made. God in the right simultaneous beginning put all the right things together and when He put it together, He stopped and creation ended right there. And science agrees that there was the initial beginning of these things and then out of that came the cycle of reproduction, but energy and matter have continued. The complete cessation of creative activity has been inadvertently recognized by modern science as the first law of thermodynamics. It's the law of the conservation of mass and energy, that the universe conserves mass and energy.
It is the most universal and the most certain of all scientific principles. Science has shown that there is nothing being created in the known universe now. There are things changing and energy affecting matter and matter affecting energy and so forth and so on, but nothing is being created now. And the Bible says that when God ended His work, He ended it and it fits the scientific fact. Let me show you a couple of interesting verses. Isaiah 40, 26, lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these things who bringeth out their hosts by number.
He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might for He is strong and powerless unto this, not one faileth. There is the law of the conservation of mass and energy. When God made it, He said it will not cease to exist. It will not cease to exist. Conservation, the first law of thermodynamics. In Nehemiah 9, 6, thou, even thou art Lord alone, thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their hosts, the earth, all things that are in it, the seas and all that is in them. Now watch, and thou preservest them all. You see, again, the statement that the continuation of the existence of mass and energy is part and parcel of God's creative work. Scientists, as I said inadvertently, thought they discovered the first law of thermodynamics. They really just discovered Isaiah 40 verse 26.
Let me give you another one. Back in the Old Testament in Ecclesiastes 1 verse 9, listen to this, the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be. You get that? The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be. And that which is done is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the sun.
Do you get it? There again is the continuation of all of this. Is there anything whereof it may be said, see, this is new? It hath been already of old time which was before us.
That's right. When God created the totality of mass and energy, as science says, it was in a unit. Of course, they say it occurred evolutionary cycle as a unit. We say God made it, but notice the agreement at that point. Ecclesiastes 3.14, I know that whatsoever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. That which hath been is now and that which is to be hath already been.
Isn't that amazing? The Word of God is absolutely accurate in defending and defining the first law of thermodynamics, the conservation of mass and energy. Spontaneous generation can't happen.
It never has, it never will. Then there's the second law of thermodynamics and this is the law of increasing disorder. It says that though there is never the loss of mass and energy, its ability to produce and to make productive contribution breaks down and breaks down and breaks down and finally becomes random, disorder instead of order. All processes finally will cease and the universe will be dead, science tells us. You say, does that fit Scripture?
Sure does. Do you know God didn't make the world with the second law of thermodynamics operating? God made the world and He looked at it and said it is what? It is good, but when man sinned, the second law of thermodynamics came into being.
Science has never been able to figure out how that law works or where it came from. We know where it came from. It came from the fall of man. When man sinned and fell, Genesis 3.17, God said, cursed is the ground. And that was simply the symbol of the curse that stretched everywhere. The heavens have even been cursed and you know who runs around up there with all of his angels?
Satan. Let me show you something in Romans chapter 8 if you want a good explanation of where the second law of thermodynamics came from. It's Romans 8.20. The creation was made subject to vanity, not willing but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God for we know the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. There we have basically that law that the whole creation is in disorder, that it is breaking down.
This is the law known as entropy, the breaking down of the productivity, ability, or capacity of matter and energy. I hasten to add, however, folks, that because of that passage right there, it says the breakdown is only temporary. You say, what do you mean by that? Well, the Lord's going to come and create a new heaven and a new earth with no curse. Are you ready for that? No more curse, no more death, no more tears, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more pain, no more regrets, no more exile, no more trouble, no more hurting, no more destruction, no more decay, no more unrighteousness, no more sea, no more temple, no more night, no more sinners.
A lot of no-mores. God's going to end the breaking down random disorderly character of the universe and recreate a new heaven and a new earth just like the one He made the first time before the fall and it will have not operating in it, the second law. But notice, the second law of thermodynamics is completely explained by the curse that came upon man. And from the very beginning, the fact of earth's disorder and random and breaking down is clearly outlined in the third chapter of Genesis.
Amazing. Let me give you another interesting area, and those were just generalities. Have you ever studied the area of hydrology?
Well, I hadn't until I got out of all the encyclopedias and started studying it because there were some interesting Bible verses that I knew must be related to it. Hydrology is basically the science that deals with the waters of the earth. Water is evaporated up into the atmosphere, collected in the clouds, and then redeposited on the earth in the form of rain and snow. And then a certain amount of it evaporates again and goes through the same cycle.
Other of it flows into the runoff into the lakes and the streams, winds up in the ocean, evaporates from the ocean, and the cycle just keeps going on and on and on. Part of the rain and snow that falls seeps into the ground and therefore we have the water table that's in the ground which provides water as well. So this whole cycle of hydrology and the hydrological cycle of water being carried up and dropped back down and so forth and so on, really puzzled the world until the 17th century. In fact, until the 17th century people believed in subterranean reservoirs, that in the middle of the earth there were huge inexhaustible reservoirs of water, that that's where springs came from. This kept bubbling and bubbling out of these reservoirs. They didn't believe that water could seep through soil and create those reservoirs. They didn't believe there was any way to replenish them so they figured they must be mammoth things. Men like Mario and Perot and Halley from England came along in the 17th century and opened up the modern concept of hydrology where water is taken up into the clouds, redeposited, seeps into the earth, creates the reservoirs of water in the ground as well as runs off and fills the seas, etc., etc. Science had discovered and studied this evaporation, transportation and precipitation, etc. Well, you know, if they'd just read Isaiah 55 they'd have had the whole thing.
They didn't need to wait until the 17th century. Listen to Isaiah 55 10. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth...now wait a minute. It says they do not return there. There's the cycle, isn't it?
They don't return there until they've done their job. God deposits the rain, it saturates the earth, it's recollected, evaporated and brought up from the seas and from the dry land and cycled back through the clouds again. So He says, as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and they don't return without watering the earth and making it bare 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 void without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. He says the Word is going to have the same kind of seed-bearing cycle that rain does before it's caught back up into the clouds.
Scientifically accurate. Ecclesiastes 1, verse 6, the wind goes toward the south, turns about under the north, it whirls continually and the wind returns again according to its circuits. And all the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.
Isn't that amazing? You know why all the rivers keep running into the sea and the sea isn't full? Because it's the same water just keeps going around and around and around. It's the same water.
There's really no loss ultimately of the mass or the energy, the same cycle is going on. Ecclesiastes, Solomon said it. He picked up on Solomon for a long time. In Job, the first book ever written in Scripture. Job 36, 27, 28 says this, for he draws up the drops of water, they distill rain from the mist which the clouds pour down and they drip upon man abundantly. The oldest book in the Bible described the process of evaporation and precipitation, precipitation.
Psalm 135, verse 7, he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth, he makes lightnings for the rain. Vapor goes up and rain comes down. So the Scripture gives the hydrological cycle and the features of evaporation. You can read Job 26, 8 and find about condensation. You can read Job 28, 10 and find about runoff. You can read Psalm 33, 7 and find about the ocean reservoirs. Job 38, 22 says, have you entered the storehouses of the snow or have you seen the storehouses of the hail? Clouds store those things, said Job, something that man in his own day really never understood. You see, God made the whole hydrological cycle.
He could explain it, couldn't he? There's no conflict with science there, absolute accuracy. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. The title of John's current study here on Grace to You, Is the Bible Reliable? John, thinking about today's subject, the Bible and science, you recently spoke at a symposium that was geared toward Christians who work in the sciences. And with that in mind, what advice would you give to believers who may be engineers or mathematicians or students who may want to pursue an education in one of the STEM fields? How should they stand firm in their Christian views with the pushback that they're bound to receive from their colleagues and from those who control their ability to advance in their studies and in their careers? John MacArthur Phil, that is the basic question that every Christian has to face. Can I stand my ground on the truth of the Word of God against the doubts and the onslaught of the culture that resents God and His Word?
It doesn't matter what your business is. You might be a bus driver and you might have people that mock you because of your faith in Jesus Christ. You might be a scientist and you're trying to survive in a university environment where it's mostly dominated by atheists and you're mocked and scorned. The question is, can you stand your ground? And to give you the simple answer, yes, you can, because Scripture is true. Scripture is true. The Bible will never fail you.
Never. Even though it is attacked by those in the STEM field—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—even though the Bible is attacked by those who are pseudo-science oriented, the Bible will stand every test it has. It has for thousands of years stood the test of every assault. It's up to you, really, to find within the Scripture the answers so that you can take your place firmly on the Word of God and stand your ground. And there are a lot of resources by which you can do that.
You know, at the Masters University we offer some of those things. There are other ministries like Answers in Genesis that give you great answers in the scientific field that have been tested and proven to be true. And again I say, at the bottom line, know this, you can trust the Word of God. It may appear to you that there's a contradiction in the Word of God, but if you look more closely to the Scriptures, you're going to find that the Bible will be truthful.
It will rightly represent reality, and that is the essence of what science should be. Thanks, John. And friend, if you'd like more help in seeing how science and Scripture intersect, keep in mind that we have thousands of free study tools available at our website that can help you do just that. Take advantage of those resources when you get in touch with us today. Our web address is gty.org.
That's gty.org. And one helpful resource at the website is the Grace To You blog. At the blog, look for the series of articles titled Creation Versus Evolution. It's a great supplement to the lesson you heard today. You can also read daily devotionals from John. You can follow along with the reading plan from the MacArthur Daily Bible. And don't forget, John's entire sermon archive, that's more than 3,600 sermons, is available to download in MP3 and transcript format free of charge. That includes all 12 messages from John's current study called Is the Bible Reliable?
You'll find all of that and much more free at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or check your local listings for station and times. And be here tomorrow to consider this question, how should you balance science with scripture? Or put it another way, if you believe in science, does that mean you don't believe in the Bible? Tune in tomorrow for 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace To You.
