Is There Conflict Between Christianity and Science?

Before turning to the opening pages of Genesis where creation commences, a few prefatory comments are in order.


First, there is no conflict between Christianity and science itself. This is because the Christian worldview, which believes that God created the world with natural 'laws' and orderliness, is what undergirds the entire scientific enterprise. For example, inductive reasoning and the scientific method are based on the assumption of the regularity of the laws of nature. . . . Without this kind of regularity, we could not learn from experience, including the experiences of scientific testing. This also helps to explain why in cultures where creation is said to be an illusion or disorderly chaos because it was not created by an orderly God, the sciences have not historically flourished; indeed, the scientific method depends upon the kind of underlying worldview that a creating and providentially ruling God of the Bible provides.

Second, there is total conflict between Christianity and scientific naturalism. Naturalism is the belief that all phenomena can be explained in terms of presently operating natural causes and laws. The only true knowledge is that which comes through observable experiments. When natural science is the arbiter of all truth claims, religion becomes superstition and God is omitted from discussion.

Third, the Bible in general, and the book of Genesis in particular, was not written with the intention of being a scientific textbook. Rather, it is a theological narrative written to reveal the God of creation, which means its emphasis is on God and his relationship with humanity and not on creation. Genesis is far more concerned with the questions of who made creation and why he made creation than exactly when he did. Therefore, as Galileo said, "The Holy Ghost intended to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

Fourth, one's view of the date of creation should not be the litmus test for Christian faithfulness. Within Christian theology there are open- and closed-handed issues. Biblical authority is a closed-handed issue. Christians receive what the Bible actually teaches as truth from God to be believed and obeyed. Regarding creation, anyone who claims to be a Bible-believing Christian must reject such things as the atheistic evolutionists' claims that there is no God and that creation is not a gift but rather an epic purposeless accident. Nevertheless, Bible-believing Christians, can and do disagree over the open-handed issues, such as exactly how God made the heavens and the earth, whether the six days of Genesis 1–2 are literal twenty-four-hour days, and the age of the earth. These sorts of issues must remain in the open hand.