Second, there is a much larger and constantly
increasing multitude who hold that since the dis-
coveries of modern science are not found in the
Bible there is a necessary conflict between the Bible
and science, and, since many facts of science are
observable in the laboratory, the test tube of science,
and that the teachings of the Bible and the person
of its Author are not, hence the Bible is wrong, or
at least has outgrown its usefulness.
The final group would solve the problem between
the Bible and science by keeping them entirely
separate. This solution has been more generally
adopted in Europe, however, than in America.
Members of this group would regard the Bible and
science as two dis-
tinct subjects —
and the mind
would place the
knowledge se-
cured from the
study of one in a
mental compart-
ment entirely
separate fromthat
containing ma-
terial secured from
the study of the
other. When such
an individual
studies science, he
shuts out the
Bible; and when
he studies the
Bible, his mind is
closed to the
teachings and
methods of
science.
As a student of
the Bible, history, and science, the writer is convinced
that no one of these attitudes will ever solve the
so-called conflict between science and the Bible.
Herbert Photos, Inc.
Omega Centauri, a star cluster that measures many bil-
lions of miles across. And these are but parts of His ways
Conrrict Does Not EXIST
| THE first place, he is not willing to admit that
such a conflict exists. He is convinced that the
“laws of nature’ are universal in their application,
in all places, and at all times; that, because all the
facts found in the study of the one are not found
in the study of the other, it is no proof of the falsity
or the lack of importance of the other; and that seem-
ing inconsistencies are due to lack of knowledge
rather than to actual contradictions.
Furthermore, the Bible is a specialized book on a
specialized subject — it is a book whose single
purpose is to teach men how best to live here and
how to prepare for a possible life to come. It is not
a textbook for science, for history, for English, or
for any other subject; but it is the one and only
textbook on salvation, and the preacher or the
religious teacher who would point his charges to
AUGUST, 1929
some other source for knowledge and inspiration
for their Christian welfare makes a mistake more
fatal than the “scientist” who would use the Bible
as a textbook of modern science.
BrutwrEEN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
HE fact that a movement or fact recorded in
history is not found in the Bible is no indication
of the insignificance or the inaccuracy of those
events. The fact that a newly discovered reaction
in science is not mentioned in the Bible is no indica-
tion of its falsity. It is in both cases more evidence
that the Bible is a specialized book; its one mission
is to save souls for this world and the world to come.
Again, and most
important of all,
many so-called
conflicts between
the Bible and
science are not be-
tween the Bible
and science at all,
but between
theology and
science. Roger
Williams was ex-
pelled from Mas-
sachusetts Bay
Colony, not be-
cause his views
conflicted with the
Bible, but because
they conflicted
with the theology
of the Puritan
theocracy of Bos-
ton. Galileo was
forced to recant,
not because his
science contradicted the Bible, but because it con-
flicted with the theology of the Catholic Church.
Bruno was burned at the stake, not because his
astronomy refuted the astronomy of the Bible,
but because it did not square up with the philoso-
phy of the Middle Ages. The Son of God was
crucified on Calvary’s cross, not because His
teachings contradicted those of the Scriptures,
but because they were out of harmony with those
of the Hebrew rabbis.
So it has ever been; the seeming conflicts between
the Bible and science are in reality between theology
and science. Man gives his own interpretation to
the Scriptures, and then, knowing little or nothing of
science himself, condemns science, because he finds
that its teachings do not square up with his theology.
The scientist, with his necessarily limited knowledge
of his own field and his lack of knowledge of the
Scriptures, condemns the Bible because he cannot
find all his laboratory facts and data therein.
It would seem, then, that the supposed conflict
between the Bible and science is (Cont. on page 31)
PAGE ELEVEN