Old Testament Reading
Our Old Testament reading is Genesis chapter one, verses 26 to 28, and this is the inspired and infallible word of God.
Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that lives on the earth.
New Testament Reading
And now let’s turn to Hebrews chapter 1, Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 4. And this will be our sermon text as well, though we will also make reference to that Genesis passage. Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 4.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
Introduction and the False Assumption of Conflict
This morning, we are continuing our sermon series that I have entitled questions people ask Christians. And last week, we considered the question, how can you say that Christianity is the only true religion? Before that, a couple of weeks ago, or three weeks ago, actually, we considered the question, how can I know that the Bible is true?
And the question that we are asking this morning is, doesn’t science disprove the Bible? Another way to put it, hasn’t modern science shown that the teachings of Christianity cannot be true?
This is a common question that people ask, but I think it’s probably safe to say that for most people, not all people, but for most people who ask this question or who have raised the objection that somehow science contradicts the Bible, for most people, they probably haven’t given a lot of thoughts either to the nature of science or to the teaching of scripture. Rather, for most people, it’s a question that’s born out of an assumption an assumption of something that simply isn’t true. And that is the assumption, the false assumption, that ever since the rise of modern science in our world, there has been this intense, ongoing, irresolvable conflict between religion and science, especially between Christianity and science.
Many people just assume that that is the case. And that’s been that way for the last 150 years or so. That’s how people have tended to think about Christianity and science, that it’s one of ongoing conflict and warfare. And not only that, but This again is the popular way of understanding things. Not only are the two in conflict, but it’s a conflict with enlightened, reasonable thinking on one side, and with blind faith, fanaticism, ignorance, and fear on the other side.
You may have seen the movie Inherit the Wind. That is the movie that was based on the famous Scopes Monkey Trial that took place in Tennessee, I think it was 1925. And if you’ve seen that movie, you have no doubt, the movie leaves you in no doubt, as to who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. The good guys are on the side of science. They are the calm, reasonable, rational proponents of evolution. And the bad guys are on the side of Christianity. They are the fundamentalist dimwits who refused to let go of their old-fashioned and outdated religious beliefs.
Or maybe you’ve heard the story of how the Catholic Church ruthlessly persecuted and even tortured Galileo because he taught that the earth revolves around the sun and not that the sun revolves around the earth. Well, these popular versions of these historical episodes, they contain as much myth as they do fact. Just for example, Galileo himself was a Christian and he was never tortured.
But I just mention these things to say that this question of science disproving the Bible, this comes out of a larger misunderstanding of the true relationship between Christianity and science. And so what I want to do today in order to address this question with you is first, to carefully define what science is. And secondly, to show why So far from being enemies, Christianity and science, the Bible and science, are actually good friends.
And as we do this, just like with every other question that we are considering this month, we will bring the light and the truth of the Scriptures to bear upon this question, this question of the relationship between science and faith. As Christians, this is how we answer questions about our faith. This is how we answer questions and objections that come to us. We do so on the basis of what God has revealed to us in his word.
And the reason for that is because the question that is lurking behind every question about Christianity, every objection to Christianity, the question that lurks behind all of that is a larger question, and that is this. Am I willing to accept the truth that God has given to us in the scriptures? Am I willing to accept that God has spoken to us about himself, his world, about us in the Bible? Or am I going to rely upon my own judgment, my own reason, to decide what is ultimately true and what is ultimately false.
That’s the real question behind all of these questions. And so as believers, we address these questions by saying, what has God said? What has God said? And that’s what we’ll do this morning.
Defining Science vs. Scientism
And so with all that in mind, first let us consider the true nature of science, and why, when we understand what science is, properly understood, that it is not, and it cannot be, in conflict with Christian truth.
So what is science? As far as I can tell, there’s no definitive, authoritative definition of science that everybody agrees on. However, we can fairly define science in this way. It is simply the study of the natural world. And of course, scientists go about studying the natural world with a scientific method that includes observation, classification, experimentation, and of course, the use of the reason that God has given us, deductive reason, logical deduction, and so on.
we can actually define science from a biblical perspective. Biblically, science is simply the careful study of God’s creation. And we can also say that according to the scriptures, that this scientific study of God’s creation is something that God has actually commanded the human race to be engaged in. Not that He has commanded every single individual person to be a scientist, but humanity in general is commanded to engage in this pursuit of studying God’s creation.
Earlier, we heard from Genesis chapter one about the creation of Adam and Eve. And this is what God says in verse 28 of Genesis chapter one. And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
And so this command given to Adam and Eve and derivatively given to all people coming from them, this command to subdue the earth and to have dominion over all living things, that means that God has given man the task of ruling over the world in such a way that the resources of the world might be used for the benefit of humankind. This is what theologians call the creation mandate or the cultural mandate. And to fulfill this creation or cultural mandate requires that man observe the world, to seek to understand the principles, the properties of creation, the workings of creation, to learn how to manipulate what God has created in order to bring benefits from the creation. And essentially, that is the work of science.
Now, the problem that we face when we think about science and Christianity is that many people use the term science to refer to something that really isn’t science. But rather, they’re using the word to refer to something that is an entire worldview that is based on the method of science, but it’s a worldview, it’s a philosophy. We can call this philosophy scientism. Not science, but scientism.
We could also call it naturalism, or evolutionism, or materialism. But whatever we call it, scientism is not science. But it’s a comprehensive understanding of the world that believes that only the scientific method is the true way for us to gain knowledge about the world. And so that the only truths that we can be certain of, the only truths that we can say, this is true, are those truths that are established by the so-called hard sciences, such as chemistry, or physics, and so on. Everything else is mere conjecture. Everything else that is not established by science is mere opinion.
And so, this philosophy of scientism, it inherently denies that God has spoken, that God has acted in the world. If there is a God, according to scientism, we don’t know who he is, we don’t know what he’s like, because he does not interfere in the workings of the world. And the purest form of scientism would say, there is no God, absolutely. The world is just made up of the physical properties that we can observe, and so on. And so, scientism is agnostic or atheistic.
And the problem with scientism is that people will claim to be speaking in the name of science when in fact they are declaring things that are not scientific facts, but they are ideas and beliefs based on a worldview and philosophy that denies the truth and existence of God.
And of course, the best example of this is evolution. If we mean by evolution that all living things today, including us as human beings, that we are the product of a gradual, natural process of natural selection over time, that was not directed in any way by any intelligent force, but is pure chance, if that’s what we mean by evolution, then evolution is most certainly not a fact of science. but it is a belief, it is really an article of faith. It’s an attempt to explain the world and us without any reference to God, a world without God.
But how often do you hear evolution presented and spoken of as though it were a cold, hard, scientific fact, a fact as indisputable as the speed of light or the law of gravity? But evolution is not a scientific fact. It’s a theory that comes out of this philosophy of life, this worldview. It is scientism masquerading as science.
Another example of this confusion are the famous words that were spoken by the scientist Carl Sagan back in 1980. Some of you may remember watching the television series, The Cosmos. And Carl Sagan opened that series with this famous line, the cosmos, that is the universe. The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.
Well, science has not proven that the cosmos is all there is, was, and ever will be. In fact, science cannot prove that. That is simply the expression of one scientist’s belief, his philosophy, what he happens to think is true. So the statement like that is not science, it’s scientism.
Now, just as a worldview, one major problem with scientism is that it is inherently contradictory. Because it says that the only truth we can know is the truth that is given us by science. Any truth that is not established by the methods of science, we cannot be certain of. It’s not true. It’s either false or we just can’t know if it’s true.
However, that in itself is a truth claim. It’s a truth claim that cannot be established by science. And so science or scientism, this philosophy, it’s self-contradictory. It cannot stand.
It’s really a kind of faith. It’s really a blind faith. It’s a belief about the nature of the universe. It’s not based on science, but it’s based on the belief that there is no God, that God has not acted in history, God has not spoken to us.
And this belief, this scientism, it’s not only self-contradictory, but it fails to speak to our deepest needs as human beings. Think about that. In the impersonal, materialistic world that’s conceived by scientism, that all that we, all that this world is, is made up of material matter, the forces that govern the laws of nature. That’s all that this world is. It’s a bleak universe to live in.
There’s no basis for morality, no basis for right and wrong, no basis for beauty, no hope for a personal God, no comfort and peace for the heart, no life for the soul. It’s essentially saying our existence has no meaning, no purpose, no significance.
One scientist said this about human beings, he said, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.
But wouldn’t that make a great caption for an inspirational poster? Cheer up, you’re nothing more than a jumble of cells and molecules.
But this is where the conflict lies. This is where the conflict truly is. It’s between the Bible and Christianity and this understanding of the world that we’re calling scientism. The Bible, of course, is opposed to this kind of atheistic, idolatrous understanding of ourselves and the world.
And so Christianity is not opposed to science, but against scientism. And praise God for the message of Christianity, the message of the Bible, that you are far more than a physical creature. Yes, God created you with a body. We are physical creatures, but far more than that, we are created in the image of God. We are spiritual because we are like God.
And the God who created you, he has come to you in the person of his son, Jesus Christ, to bring you to himself forever, that you might experience the joy and the blessedness of His grace and love forever and ever. The message of the Bible is far more wonderful than anything that science might tell us about the world.
Why Science Depends on the God of the Bible
So science itself, the study of God’s creation, is not and ever will be the enemy of the Christian faith, and that brings us to our second point, that so far from being at war with one another, Christianity and science are actually good friends.
And first of all, they are friends because science cannot exist without the God of the Bible. One of the books that I have, written by a Christian theologian about science, he begins the book this way. He says, all scientists, including agnostics and atheists, believe in God. They have to in order to do their work.
And what he meant by saying that is that even though there are many scientists who will definitely say, I don’t believe in God, God does not exist, nevertheless, the very pursuit of science, the very work that they do would be impossible apart from God. And so, in order for every scientist to do science, he or she must believe certain things about the universe to be true. But those things about the universe that the scientists must believe to be true are only true because God is the one who both created the universe and he is the one who sustains from moment to moment all that he has created in this vast universe.
So what are those things about the universe that must be true if there is any possibility of doing science? Well, the answer is, The material or physical universe must be governed by laws, what we might call the laws of nature. These laws must be identifiable, explainable, or at least describable and predictable. In other words, there must be in the universe order, regularity, rationality.
If the universe was just a chaotic mess of non-stop random and unpredictable events, there would be no such thing as science. There would be no such thing as life. And since the universe is, in fact, not a place of utter chaos, but it is a place of order, of regularity, that raises the question, why?
Why is the universe the way that it is? Why are there laws that govern and bring order to the universe? Why is the universe made up in such a way that we can, in fact, study it as scientists do?
Well, the atheistic scientists might answer that by saying, well, the universe is the way it is just because That’s the way it is. It is what it is. It’s always been that way. It always will be that way.
But if there is no God who made these laws that govern the universe, if there is no God who upholds these laws from moment to moment, then how can we know that the universe has always been this way? And how do we know that the universe and the laws that govern it may not change tomorrow or in five minutes? And we might have a completely different universe.
And the answer is that apart from God, apart from a God who is sovereign in the creation of all things, apart from a God who is sovereign in sustaining all things, we simply don’t have answers to those questions. The universe as we know it depends upon the God who created it. Apart from the God of the scriptures, we cannot account for the laws of nature. And we have no real reason to think that those laws may not simply change at some point.
And so the only rational explanation that we can give for why the universe is the way it is, the only true assurance that we have that the study of creation, the pursuit of science is meaningful in any sense, is because what the Bible says about God is true. that He is the Creator who spoke all things into being from nothing, who by His sovereign power brought about the entire created order, and who by His sovereign power upholds and sustains and directs all of creation from moment to moment.
The very first words of the Bible give us the only solid foundation for the pursuit of science, Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God created the heavens and the earth.
So this entire cosmos was created by a God who is infinitely wise, infinitely good, a God who is a God of order, not of chaos. Later in Genesis, God promises us that he will continue to rule over all that he has made with regularity, with order, with predictability. The Lord says to Noah in Genesis 8.22, while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.
And so God gives us His assurance that He will uphold the universe in such a way that we can depend upon the regularity of it, which is the basis for doing science. And one thing that our passage from Hebrews tells us is that the God who created and rules over all things, He is the same God who has revealed Himself to us preeminently in His Son, Jesus Christ.
In Hebrews 1 chapter 3, speaking of Christ, It says, he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. So who is it that sustains the workings of the universe from moment to moment? Who is it that directs the courses of a trillion stars and a billion galaxies? Who is at the rules over the fall of every drop of rain to the earth? Who is it that numbers every grain of sand on the seashore, and even numbers every subatomic particle that makes up every grain of sand?
It’s Jesus. It is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God who became man, the one who walked among us in this world. He is the one who upholds the universe, and all that is in it are the word of his power. Apart from Jesus, there is no possibility of science because there would be no universe to study.
on this passage from Hebrews chapter one, the Puritan John Owen, he wrote these words, he wrote these words in a pre-scientific age, but they apply just as much as they do, they apply just as equally true, they’re equally true today. Owen said this, he said, such as the nature and condition of the universe, that it could not subsist a moment, nor could anything in it act regularly unto its appointed end, without the continual support, guidance, influence, and disposal of the Son of God.
And so one reason why Christianity and science are friends is because science cannot exist without the God of the Bible. More specifically, science cannot exist without the Jesus of the Bible.
How Science Helps Us Keep the Great Commandments
Another reason why Christianity and science are friends is because science helps us to keep the two great commandments. As you know, According to our Lord, according to Jesus, the entirety of God’s law for us can be summed up in two commandments. First, we are to love God, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Secondly, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.
And science is one gift that God has given us to help us to fulfill these two great commandments, both to love God and to love our neighbor.
First, we’ll start by seeing how science can help us to love our neighbor. One way science does that is by bringing to the human race many benefits that have improved the quality of life in our world. Think of all the blessings and the benefits that we enjoy today that are the fruits of the scientific endeavor. Surgery, cancer treatments, medicines, vaccines, These are all the result of the work of science. They have made life in this world far less miserable than it was for people living 300 years ago, 400 years ago. And so this is one way that science helps us to love our neighbor.
Another way that we can think of is communication and travel technology, again, that are based on the findings of science. These have been a blessing to us. We can maintain our relationships with our loved ones over long distances. We could add to that list.
I was thinking about just the response to the fire that has been causing so much disruption for many of us. We have airplanes that can dump fire retardants on the flames. We have helicopters that can pick up large buckets of water and dump them on the flames. We have communication technology that can tell us that we need to evacuate. And so we have so many blessings that come to us as a result of science. And this is a way that man has helped man in loving his neighbor through the fruits of this endeavor.
Another way that science enables us to love our neighbor is that it offers powerful confirming evidence of the truth that this world has been created by a God in heaven. Now, of course, science itself can never prove or disprove the existence of God. Science cannot do that. But the more that scientists study the universe, the more they are discovering certain features in the universe that can only be reasonably explained by a divine designer.
For example, the irreducible complexity of the building blocks of life testifies that life itself, apart from God’s creative activity, cannot have emerged from non-life. The Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory says that the universe had a beginning, that there was a point at which there was nothing, and then the universe exploded into being, according to the theory. Well, this bears witness to the truth Well, we as Christians have always known by faith, and that is the universe and all that is in it is not eternal, but only God is eternal, and He is the one that created the universe out of nothing. He brought all things into existence by the word of His power.
Also, and I had never heard of this before until I was preparing for this message, apparently in the last several decades, different fields of science have come to the conclusion that this universe is so exquisitely and perfectly constructed in the way that it is, that it is only this universe that could possibly bring about conditions to facilitate and to sustain life. and the possibility that the universe is the way it is in which life can flourish, that this is just by chance, the odds of that are just astronomically impossibly low.
And so, there are certain laws, certain properties, that if they were just slightly different, no life would be possible. But the universe is just so, so that life can thrive on our planet, And even scientists who don’t believe in God are coming to grips with this, and have to somehow understand this. Why is the universe the way that it is? Well, we know as Christians it’s because God created it.
Again, these are not proofs for the existence of God, but these are ways that science is confirming that the God of the Bible is indeed the Creator and Lord of the universe.
Yet another way that science enables us to love our neighbor that I believe must be mentioned is the fact that science has confirmed what Christians have always known to be true from the scriptures, and that is, what is conceived in the womb of a woman is nothing other than a full-fledged, individual human being. Science has shown us that even at conception, what is created in the womb is not an impersonal tissue or a clump of cells But what is created in the womb from the beginning, from the very beginning, is a unique and developing human being, an individual person. And we pray, of course, that this will help us to promote the cause of protecting the life of the unborn.
So in these ways, science helps us as humanity to better love our neighbor.
Science also helps us to love God. And science does this by showing us so many of the marvelous ways that this creation testifies to the wisdom, the goodness, and the power of God. If King David could look up at the starry sky and say, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork, how much more can we behold the glory of God as we take in all that science has shown us? All that science has shown us about the incredible vastness of the universe, the amazing complexity of life, the existence of all kinds of wonderful creatures that King David never heard of.
How much more can we take in all of this and praise God and say, the heavens declare God’s glory. What a great, what an awesome, what a glorious God we serve. This God who has created this world. And the more that we can apprehend the infinite measure of God’s greatness and glory in creation, the more that we can grasp the wonder of the gospel.
When we read in our passage in Hebrews chapter one, when we read on in it, the author of Hebrews tells us that the one who upholds the universe by his powerful word, he is the same one who made purification of sins. The Lord who holds the stars in His hands is the Savior who came into our world to offer Himself a sacrifice to pay for the sins that you and I have committed against God.
If there is anything more wonderful than the truth that the man, the God-man Jesus Christ, that He upholds this entire creation, it is that He so loved us. He so loved sinners such as you and me that He laid aside His eternal glory. He became one of us in His incarnation, and He offered Himself to die the curse of death that we deserve, that we might be forgiven and receive the gift of eternal life.
And that love of Christ, the love of the Father for us, the love of Christ for us, this is far more marvelous, this is far more wondrous, this is far more glorious than anything that science will ever tell us about all the wonders of creation. The love of God as he has revealed it to us in his son, Jesus Christ.
And so I want to leave us with the question, have you come to know him as your savior? Come to Christ by faith and receive his free gift of salvation. Let’s pray.