Science and Scripture (Part 2)
Our characters ponder Genesis 1:1
In the previous post, we met Usher and Augusta, two Christians having a discussion about science and its role in a faith-based worldview. They’ve decided to dive into Genesis — let’s listen in:
Augusta: I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time reading and re-reading (and re-reading) this part of the Bible.
Usher: Me as well. You know, I think we tend to obsess over these details of Creation, and origin stories, too much. If it doesn’t inform our walk with Christ, what use is effort spent on understanding the past?
A: Yes — I don’t think either of us believe there is anything backward about studying or thinking about the past (and I’ve already tried to establish that scientific pursuits can be an act of worship, of exploring God’s creation), but there is truth to what you said: just like obsession over the end times can be a trap, I think obsession about the opposite end of the timeline can be equally pernicious. At least, from a spiritual perspective.
U: Agreed. Now — let’s talk about it! Haha.
Augusta and Usher seek common ground on interpreting the Creation story
A: Alright, to begin, I’d like to make a claim, and hear how it resonates with you. I probably should have brought this up in our previous discussion. Here it is:
The Bible cannot contain specific or detailed “scientific” description, because it’s got to be a timeless document. Whatever God inspires the authors to write, has to ring as true 3000 years ago (when it was first written), as, say, 3000 years from now (when it will be read by future humans).
U: Go on.
A: So we can’t expect Genesis verse 1 to contain something like “In the beginning God initiated the gravitational singularity, as all matter in the universe was concentrated into infinite density and temperature.” (If you even thought this was the correct description of events.) This would have made absolutely no sense to anyone for thousands of years, and would almost certainly appear as outdated drivel for everyone thousands of years from now as our scientific understanding grows.
Instead, we have the Bible as written: often figurative and always accurate. I believe if you had infinite, omniscient understanding of the origins of our universe and life on Earth (which by the way, scientists do not have, will never have, and if they are proper scientists, should never claim to have), and you set down to describe these origins in a way that would be both comprehensible for all time, but also as accurate a description as possible given that constraint, you would produce exactly the text we received from the inspired author of Genesis.
Instead of tenuous claims of a specific contemporary scientific model (which is by definition not ageless), we get the line:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Beautifully simple, tending toward poetic, yet just precise enough to ensure we don’t relegate it to the realm of myths. There is no magical bird diving to earth, or turtles in space, etc.
U: So to be clear, you believe Genesis uses figurative language, but is not myth?
A: Correct. To over-simplify, consider a spectrum of truthfulness (infallibility) and a spectrum of figurativity (is that a word?). You, Usher, would place the entirety of the Bible firmly in the extreme truthful end, and at the extreme literal end, of these measurements (although I think you would give concessions in some places like if the word speaks of “pillars of the Earth”). We’d both place a myth, like the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish, or the earth diver story I alluded to, well toward the untruthful (though surely some notes of truth ring out, even if by accident) and figurative extremes. I’d place the Bible firmly, completely along the truthful extreme, but — and where we differ — at varying places along the figurative axis:
I see the text as wholly truthful, in every word, and therefore not myth, but also as frequently figurative and full of symbolism, metaphor, and mystery, so certainly distant from a literal view. Back to my earlier point: you should read a science textbook literally, but the Bible is not a science textbook.
U: I think the term “figurative” just raises my hackles because it opens the door to a lot of, shall we say, liberal readings of passages throughout Scripture.
A: I certainly don’t mean it this way — and we should also be careful to absolve ourselves of the responsibility for careful, prayerful reading of Scripture by resorting to mechanistic literal interpretation.
Another example would be how we speak to children. To a child, I might say “There is a baby in mom’s tummy that’s going to be your baby brother” because this will make some sense — albeit with a bit of unexplained mystery — whereas a phrase like “There is a male human fetus developing in mom’s uterus, that shares genetic material with you, encoded in his DNA,” would be inscrutable and communicate nothing. (Moreover, the technical phrase feels less complete, because by attempting to capture detail it draws more attention to the detail it has left out.) This way of speaking to children is an example of being figurative, but completely truthful — there is nothing errant, or even misleading, about saying “baby” instead of “fetus” or “tummy” instead of “uterus”, given the audience. You say these words as a placeholder until they can understand the more complex concept. (And notice, I haven’t used the phrase “the stork will bring you a baby brother” which would take us into the realm of space turtles.)
So, aren’t we, in a sense, children? Isn’t it natural that the Bible would speak to us in this way about old and complex mysteries? Isn’t this writing “figurative”?
Again, Thomas Aquinas says it better than I can: “The manner of [the Bible’s] speech transcends every science, because in one and the same sentence, while it describes a fact, it reveals a mystery.”
U: I agree with your statement that the Bible has to be timeless, and Aquinas is on point as always. But I am still skeptical of the logical leap that this means it is written less than literally. (A: Why “less than”? To me, writing literally is the lesser mode.) Specifically, I don’t like your implication that something like the Big Bang is a possible interpretation of Gen. 1:1 — this seems overly cavalier.
A: Okay, let’s explore it in more detail.
Augusta summarizes her view of the first verse of Genesis
Usher: You seem to imply something like the Big Bang is a possible interpretation of the opening verse of Genesis. Is that accurate?
Augusta: Interpretation doesn’t feel like the right word — but yes, I think the verse accommodates a physical explanation like the so-called “Big Bang”. That is, we’re left to imagine how “God created” specifically unfolded, so to me, envisioning God initiating the universe from an infinitely dense and infinitely small start, thus providing a metaphysical answer to the unanswered (and likely unanswerable) open question of pre-Big Bang cosmology, seems like a both scientifically and Biblically acceptable framework.
I’d like to reinforce again here that theories like this are just conclusions of mathematical models that accurately describe observed phenomena like movement of planets and stars.
Specifically, we have a very reliable and predictive mathematical model of gravity (called Einstein’s theory of relativity) — an overused example is that we need the precision of the equations of this theory to program satellites to keep them in orbit. So it “works” so to speak. If you take this model, and roll the time variable back to zero (this is vastly over-simplifying, I’m sure), you get some sort of infinitely dense, infinitely small gravitational singularity. This then explains observations like the fact that objects in the universe seem to all, generally, be moving away from each other, and many other observations (like, recently, cosmic microwaves!). There are many, many open questions, but we have a working model that seems to give us some sense of underlying truth, and we’re using that to explore new working models that will deepen that understanding.
Recalling flavors of our previous discussion, the phrase “Big Bang” has become a trigger word for certain groups of Christians — I wish it weren’t so. It’s a corny phrase, but the theory is a straightforward conclusion from a highly accurate mathematical model — like any scientific conclusion it isn’t a sure thing, but it sure seems to be a strong, well-supported theory that explains lots of other things. I think the correct Christian response should not be repulsion, but instead: to seek understanding of it, check how it matches our understanding of the created world, and (assuming like me you see that it reinforces the truth of Scripture) marvel in the power of the Creator.
To summarize my view:
The text of verse 1 is an incontrovertibly true statement, which I accept by faith, without evidence.
The verse is closer to a poem than a textbook, so I must be comfortable with some inherent mystery. I assume “in the beginning” means at the beginning of all time and space, which implies creation ex nihilo, which I also accept because this reinforces God’s omnipotence, and because I trust the tradition of thought associated with this assumption. I assume “heaven and earth” is a figurative phrase meaning “everything in the universe”, because this matches the usage of the original Hebrew phrase (as a crude analogy, like saying “hook, line, and sinker”).
Any scientific explanation of the specifics of this process is then available for consideration. Currently, I am mostly convinced by the argument that time and space began as a infinitesimal singularity which expanded over billions of years into the current observable universe. Like any theory, I expect it is not complete or completely accurate — there are many deep, unanswered questions associated with it, and with the theories from which it’s derived. I expect scientific thought and experiment over coming decades, centuries, and millennia to reveal new understanding of things like dark matter, quantum gravity, and concepts not yet even conceived, and this new understanding may shift or even radically shift our understanding of the beginnings of the universe. But, until this happens, the Big Bang seems to represent a coherent theory of the early moments of our universe and I am inclined to accept it as my working model of things.
Finally, I am reassured that the Big Bang seems to describe, in scientific terms, the narrative that Genesis 1:1 offers, in spiritual terms. That is, I am reassured that my understanding of the physical world aligns with my understanding of God’s word. Further, I rejoice that as a believer in His Word, I have an answer to the question which science can’t help me answer — what came before.
U: I agree the verse carries the meaning that God created the entire universe, from nothing. I disagree with your attempt to reconcile this with the theory of a Big Bang, because it puts the universe’s age on an enormous time scale that I don’t see justified in the text, and because it seems to dilute God’s agency in Creation.
A: The time scale seems unignorable based on looking through a telescope, but we can come back to that. More fundamentally, I don’t agree that God initiating Creation and guiding its formation dilutes any of his agency or power — who displays greater creative power and will, the artist who paints a landscape, or the gardener who sculpts the same landscape over a lifetime from single seeds?
How do you envision the early moments of creation?
Usher argues through several alternative views of the universe’s beginning
Usher: Well, if I have to imagine something, I picture it all just appearing, as it is now.
Augusta: Okay — first, we’ve already agreed there can be godly purpose to science, and that part of science is not just observing but also understanding why. So I dislike the words “if I have to imagine something” — let’s agree we will never know for sure (there is uncertainty around any scientific theory!) but we should accept that some theories are better than others (the Big Bang seems a whole heck of a lot more likely than a magical bird, for example), and let’s graduate beyond the implication that it’s not important to know. We’re having this discussion because we agreed it’s worth having.
Second, I have a hard time accepting everything “just appeared” as it is now. Do you think it appeared fully formed like this just a few thousand years ago? If so, how would you explain the light we see from stars billions of light years away?
U: Perhaps God created the stars with their light already on its way.
A: This is absurd to me, because by this logic the Creation could have just as well happened a few seconds ago. If the light was put on its way, perhaps our memories were also created and this whole experience of life has popped up in medias res. If you can justify a 6000-year-old universe this way, you could justify a universe created last Thursday.
U: Except the Bible instructs us a 6000-year history did indeed happen — it isn’t being deceptive. I am content to justify a young universe with pre-staged starlight — but your “last Thursday-ism” is inconsistent with a truthful Scripture.
A: Alright. I think allowing this loophole into your understanding of the creation story is extremely contrived, limits the creative power of God, and will lead to more problems (when we observe a supernova, was that pre-staged also?), but I won’t press the point anymore.
U: I’m not dead-set on pre-staged starlight. Another possibility is that some of the seemingly straightforward assumptions scientists make when measuring starlight, are not so well-founded. For example, isn’t it conceivable that the speed of light has not remained constant? Isn’t it possible that the time dilation known to occur at lightspeeds, is not being accounted for correctly in our estimates? Isn’t it possible that the natural laws of physics (that is, the laws that our modern mathematical models are attempting to capture) didn’t set in immediately, and we are extrapolating them wrongly over a period in which God was active in his act of creation?
A: I’ll be honest, the skeptic in me wants to explore these ideas, and debunk all of modern cosmology. And whether outrageous or not, I’d like to live in a world where ideas like these at least merit consideration and testing, like any theory.
But these do present treacherous problems: the speed of light is a physical constant permeating nearly all our understanding of astrophysics, so if its value changes it undermines our understanding of more than starlight; in order for a time dilation effect to shorten the time scales of distant stars, we need some extraordinary and fragile conditions to be true for our planet and nowhere else; if we postpone the application of laws of physics, I fear we’re back in the regime of last-Thursdayism.
U: Still another possibility is that the universe is as ancient as the current scientific consensus claims, and this 13 billion year time span is covered in the space between Gen 1:1 and 1:2.
A: And then it returns to a day-by-day, literal interpretation?
U: Yes — I don’t relish this theory, and would prefer not to resort to this explanation, but I’d say there’s room in a literal interpretation of verse 1 for it to be a longer, separate period from the clear 24-hour periods of the remainder of the account. I also would like to throw some cold water on scientists’ certainty around these date estimates. 13 billion years? Plus or minus a billion? Color me skeptical.
A: As to the certainty, I agree, we should not accept the time estimate as gospel — and neither should scientists. But you should admit that this estimate is the result of decades of extremely careful work by very talented people — the same type of people who put men on the moon or satellites in space — so we should not dismiss it out of hand. And even if they’re wildly off, unless you bring in the contrivances from before, we are nowhere near the realm of a thousands-year-old universe.
Our characters have a final sidebar on the role of reason in their lives
Usher: Overall, you’re pressing me to defend against contemporary scientific theories. This is the militant reaction that is so reviling, more than any specific theory. I only feel the need to accept the inspired, inerrant word of God! Why do you demand that I accept a theory that you have already admitted is fallible?
Augusta: I only demand that you accept reason, in addition to faith. Faith provides us a foundation — reason allows us to build the fortress. Reason provides a straightedge — faith provides points A and B to connect. With reason and no faith, we are building on quicksand, drawing lines to nowhere. With faith and no reason, we are slightly better off, but still we are incomplete and immature.
Science is just one operationalization of reason. To stretch the analogy, I am asking that you give serious consideration to the lines it’s drawing: do they lead back to the Point A that Scripture has established? If so, praise God. If not, let’s examine, where did we go wrong.
U: This feels like a very modern view of “reason” — the raison of Voltaire or Rousseau, the Age of Enlightenment, a philosophy that reason is all you need. Not just pure application of logic.
A: No — I am exactly arguing the straightforward application of logic. When God says “Come let us reason together” or, if you prefer, “let us settle the matter,” isn’t he asking us to consider the evidence and use reason to come to a decision, a verdict? Isn’t the New Testament filled with examples of Jesus, or the apostles, using reason to persuade and convict? If A, and B, then C.
U: And when I present reasonable alternative answers to the question of the universe’s age?
A: This is your most convincing argument, posing alternative scientific theories to the consensus position. Unfortunately by demanding a theory that enables a “young” universe interpretation, you unnecessarily constrain your allowable search space, and this makes your position fragile. Accepting that the figurative tone and spiritual purpose of Genesis poses very little constraint on specific scientific conclusions, I am open to a broad range of theories.
U: Let’s see if we can get beyond verse 1, and see if that brings anything to light.
Usher and Augusta take their conversation on from verse 1, in Part 3.