Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Does Science Disprove the Bible? | Questions You're Asking

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we are answering questions you're asking. A lot of these are coming from our Facebook page. So, follow 10-minute Bible talks on Facebook, vote on your favorite questions, or you can just give your own, and you might hear it right here on the podcast. Does science disprove the Bible? This is a question I get asked a lot, and we've been doing it.

Starting point is 00:00:35 polls on Facebook to see what questions you're asking. This one got a ton of votes. Now, I don't just get asked this as a question. Sometimes I hear it as a statement. Science disproves the Bible. Okay, but let's just ask, what does that really mean? What's the critique here? Well, I found it usually means one of three things. First, the Bible has miracles, and science has proven that there's no such thing as miracles. Second, the Bible tells history, and science is, debunked the Bible's timeline. Third, the Bible says that God created the world and evolution debunks that. Now, I'm not going to hit this third one because we already have a great interview with an Ivy

Starting point is 00:01:18 League scholar and scientist Dr. Joshua S. Swami Das taking on this exact issue. So go check out that episode in the show notes. I've had a lot of people tell me that that interview was a game-changing interview for them. But what about numbers one and two? Well, rather than asking what science disproves, we need to start by asking what can science prove. And perhaps we can do that first by defining science. Here's one helpful definition. Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable

Starting point is 00:01:51 explanations and predictions about the universe. By using the scientific method, scientists have developed an immense understanding of our physical universe. science can uncover how the body works, how the planet is formed, how chemical compounds interact. Science can describe the physical universe in its tiniest, most granular parts, up to the billions of monstrosities that we call galaxies. And yet, common sense tells us there's a lot of things that science can't tell us about. No scientific experiment could determine whether this sunset or that sunset is beautiful or not. No experiment could determine whether a, adultery is moral or immoral. No scientist can prove that I love my wife, that you were born on the day

Starting point is 00:02:38 or in the place that you claim you were. There's no experiment to prove the veracity of George Washington's Potomac Crossing. Of course, I'm not saying that we can't come to reasonable conclusions about all of these things. Of course we can. I'm simply saying that science has reasonable limitations. The belief that science really can tell us everything about reality isn't science. It's called Scientism. And in this worldview, in Scientism, science can determine aesthetics, ethics, public policy, and so on. Now, the best philosophers abandoned Scientism as a live option about 50 years ago. Now, I realize that Richard Dawkins never got that memo, but if you talk to people in the philosophical field, they'll all tell you the same thing. Now, why? Why don't philosophers buy into this?

Starting point is 00:03:24 Well, because Scientism is a philosophical house of cards. It's absolutely irrational. You see, Scientism is built on the basic assumption that our human senses are actually sensible. I mean, that they're reliable. Moreover, it's built on the idea that our human capacity to reason is actually functional. But there's one problem that sends that house of cards tumbling down. That problem is natural selection. Winners in evolution are survival experts, not science experts. Thus, our capacity to reason isn't aimed by natural selection.

Starting point is 00:03:57 it isn't aimed at accuracy, it's aimed at survival. Let me put it a different way. A corkscrew's designed to do what? To uncork a bottle of wine. Now, of course, you could use that corkscrew to drill a hole into your drywall. It will do lots of different things, but that's not the thing it was made for. Our brain chemistry might trick us into thinking that rationality is rational, but if rationality is a corkscrew designed to uncork survival,

Starting point is 00:04:24 and that's what natural selection says, that's what science has shown, us. If rationality is a corkscrew designed to uncork survival, it's not well suited to drill into the mysteries of the universe. Science offers no meaningful grounds for its own faith in human rationality. If you believe in rationality, it's not because science proved it. Science can't. And if scientism can't prove the very ground on which it stands, it can't be the ground for a universal perspective on all things. Now, I think it's worth saying. Most scientists, I know don't bind to scientism. They're actually normal people who have enough common sense to understand that science, like most things, has a limit. And in fact, it's their experience in the sciences that

Starting point is 00:05:07 proves the point. Most people I meet who are deeply committed to scientism aren't actually scientists at all. And all this takes us back to the Bible. People committed to science like Richard Dawkins assure us that science has disproven the Bible. But he only assures us of this because he believes that science can explain everything, which it can't. Science can't prove everything. So let's just take the one critique we started with. Science disproves the Bible's history, its chronology. Well, the first problem is that science can't really prove anything about small-scale historical events. Now, let's pause. Yes, geologists can tell us about large-scale events in the Earth's geological history. Cosmologists can tell us a lot about the development of the

Starting point is 00:05:53 universe. Biologists can tell us a lot about the development of a species over time, but they can't test for small-scale human events on the small scale of history. There's no experiment that can determine whether Caesar crossed the Rubicon. Why? Historical events are non-repeatable. You can't put them in a lab. You can't make a hypothesis and then test that hypothesis again and again. History only happens once. Science tells us about things which are repeatable, things which can be tested again and again in experiments. And despite the cliches, that history always repeats itself again, it never actually does. So how do we actually know anything about human history? Well, if we're rational and we think through it, we'll realize a very simple answer. It's all based on eyewitnesses. It's the witnesses who

Starting point is 00:06:47 recorded events in books, newspapers, ancient scrolls are on stone. inscriptions. There's no experiment to determine whether those witnesses are lying or telling the truth. It's up to us to determine whether we have enough reason to put confidence in this or that witness's testimony about an event. This finally leads us to the problem of miracles. Contrary to popular conception, miracles are exceedingly rare in the Bible. I often get the sense from people who haven't really read the Bible that there's a miracle on every page. There isn't even a miracle on every page of the Gospels, and the Gospels have by far more miracles than anywhere else in the Bible. Now, the point of a miracle is actually the fact that it's unusual, that it's uncommon, and because

Starting point is 00:07:34 it's uncommon, that tells us two things relevant to our conversation. First, miracles are artifacts of history, and like all artifacts of history, they cannot be reproduced for study. Caesar can only do the Rubicon crossing once. Second, miracles are by-deafetylene. non-ordinary. There's no way to create or recreate the circumstances of a miracle in a lab setting. So there's no way for a scientist to prove or disprove miracles. Now, I want to say this. None of this proves the existence of miracles. It simply shows that science can't disprove it. And the reason why is that it's far harder to disprove something than it is to prove something. And I know that. But it takes us back to the main point. When it comes to history, the question is never

Starting point is 00:08:21 what does science say? The question is always, do I trust these witnesses? And by the way, that's not a massive leap of faith. The vast majority of what we claim to know about the world doesn't come from firsthand eyewitness experiences. It's not things that we saw ourselves. Most of what we know about the world comes from trusting witnesses. I'll give you an example. Do you believe in photosynthesis? My guess is that the answer is yes. Second question. Have you reproduced the complex, comprehensive experiments which actually prove that photosynthesis is real. Well, my guess is, unless you're a plant biologist, the answer is no. So why do you believe in photosynthesis?

Starting point is 00:09:05 Well, I believe it because I trust my high school biology teacher, who in turn trusted the eyewitness testimony of scientists who did those tests, did those experiments around photosynthesis. I don't care whether it's science, history, the news, or your own birth date. Much of what you know isn't based on what you saw. It's based on eyewitness testimony, the eyewitness testimony of others. So, does science disprove the Bible?

Starting point is 00:09:33 No, because science can't do that kind of thing. Does this mean that the Bible is reliable and that the Bible's true? Well, no. The far better question is this. Can I trust the eyewitness testimony of the Bible? Now, our time's running out. This is supposed to be a 10-minute podcast. So I will link to a sermon that I did on this exact topic. Can we trust the eyewitness testimony

Starting point is 00:09:56 of the Bible? Do we have any good reason to trust it? And if you're asking that question, I think this sermon will help you out. But I want to end here. God has made an amazing universe. Faithful Christians and non-Christians have dedicated their lives to studying its beautiful, amazing, complexity. I'm thankful for science. I'm thankful for scientists. I'm thankful for the knowledge that their study has given us and the gifts it's given us and health and technology that make our life better. So let's end by thanking God for his world and for the scientists who have dedicated their lives to studying it. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily.

Starting point is 00:10:41 Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend, or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Does Science Disprove the Bible? | Questions You're Asking

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