Hasn't science disproved the
Bible?
Creation vs. Evolution
There are basically two main questions here that, although similar, are not the same. Firstly, "Hasn't science disproved the Bible?" and secondly, "Doesn't the theory of evolution disprove the story of creation?". We shall deal with each separately, focussing in on particular areas of discussion but there is further discussion in the next section and an email address which you can write to if you have any queries, comments, criticisms or would like to talk to someone about something in more depth.
Hasn't science disproved the Bible?
For some people, the reason they ask this question is because
they cannot believe that the Bible is historically accurate or
they have difficulty believing all the stories of miraculous
events. These are important questions, which unfortunately there
is not enough space to deal with here (there is further
discussion about miracles in the next section). But what a lot of
people are really saying is, "Look, science proves that the
Bible is false and inaccurate in many of the things it says,
therefore it cannot be trusted - what it says isn't TRUE. So all
this nonsense about there being a God who we have to follow is
also untrustworthy. Anyone who believes all that, is believing
stories invented by primitive people who didn't know any
better."
As was said above, there is not enough space here to deal with
issues such as history and miracles so we shall focus in on the
idea that the Bible says things that we can know to be true and
for our example we will pick the idea that God exists.
Obviously, Christians believe that Jesus Christ existed at a
specific period of time that was documented, so in the form of
Jesus we know God exists.
But how can we know today?
If Christians believe that Jesus is still alive now and
that as God He exists, where is the proof?
To start with, many people confuse scientific knowledge with
other types of knowledge. For example, a person can
"know" that 3 + 3 = 6; that when you heat water to a
certain temperature, it evaporates. This is mathematical or
scientific knowledge, gained from physical evidence using
experimentation, measurement, analysis, observation, comparison,
etc. Knowledge based on observing physical facts. But there are
other things that can only be known by experience that do not fit
into the category of scientific knowledge, for example, feelings.
Science can tell us that sometimes a chemical unbalance causes
depression, psychologists can tell us what started the feeling
and what it might cause us to do, but neither fully describes
what it is like to be depressed. You can only really know what
sadness is when you experience it. There is no physical evidence
for feelings and no way of measuring them. But we can know our
feelings and we know they are true, even though we have no
scientific evidence to present to anyone. It would make no sense
to say to someone, "Show me your sadness!" . You could
talk about your sadness, show me all the chocolate you ate, even
burst into tears, but where is the part of you that you could
present as hard physical evidence?
And a lot of our knowledge comes from things we experience - how
we know we love and are loved, etc. So the knowledge gained from
intimate and personal experience is as equally valid as that
gained by scientific proof and observation with physical
evidence. An obvious example is that of a kiss - scientifically a
kiss is nothing more than two pairs of lips meeting for the
mutual exchange of air, saliva and microbes. Does this adequately
sum up your experience?!
Of course there is no physical evidence (or at least very
little) for the existence of God today i.e. we cannot see Him.
But the Bible says that God exists. Is it telling the truth or
not? And Christians will say that they KNOW God exists - how can
they say that?! There is no proof! But God is to be known
EXPERIENTIALLY. Like many other aspects of our lives (feelings,
thoughts, etc.), we know Him by personal experience, the same way
a person knows a friend. We meet Him and get to know Him as our
Friend (amongst other things). God is known by the RELATIONSHIP
we have with Him. Therefore, the proof for His existence is that
we know Him by experience, not by physical facts we present
(there are some reasons why we don't have physical evidences, but
again there isn't space to deal with them here).
The Bible says God exists. A person meets God and gets to know
Him in their experience. Therefore, they can know, for sure that
what the Bible says about God's existence is true, even if we
cannot present any physical evidence as proof. Our experience
supports the Bible; the Bible supports our experience. This is
only one small area of discussion and there are other areas of
debate that cannot be discussed here ( e.g. miracles, historicity
- see the next section). But basically, science cannot disprove
what the Bible says and what people know to be true about their
experience; so it is possible that a lot of what we say is not
true, is really just not experienced.
Hasn't the theory of evolution disproved the
story of creation?
Some might say, "Surely no intelligent person in this day
and age can still believe that God created the earth in six days!
In fact, once you remove the outdated idea that God had anything
to do with it then you can remove the idea that there is a God at
all, because there is no need to believe a ridiculous story about
how we came to be here. That was just a story invented by our
ancestors - we know better than that now! Well, it's not that
simple.
The real question to ask is WHY
we choose one over another.
Contrary to popular opinion, there are not just two arguments
(either you believe creation and God or evolution without God).
In fact there are several ideas about how we came to be here.
Many Christians actually believe in evolution. Many scientists
believe in a literal six days of creation. Some people believe
that the Biblical account of six days of creation are actually
six time periods e.g. six periods of a thousand or a million
years.
The theory of evolution is after all a
THEORY.
There is as much evidence for creation as there is for evolution.
Both creation and evolution are based on BELIEF - there are
scientific arguments to uphold them both but no sufficient facts
to prove one over the other - they are therefore just two
different belief systems.
It is not unusual to find Christians who believe in evolution just as it is not unusual to find many scientists who believe in six days of creation. HOWEVER, it would be very unusual to find a Christian who didn't believe that God was the creator behind whichever process occurred. Regardless of how the world came into being, virtually every Christian in the world accepts that God exists and it is Him behind the action - therefore He is still the Creator, no matter what METHOD He used to create. To say that God didn't create the earth in six days DOES NOT automatically prove that He doesn't exist. It is not sufficient grounds for disproving the existence of God. It is one thing to say you don't believe in a six day creation, but a totally different thing to say you don't believe in the Creator. This is perhaps the real reason why evolution has been so readily accepted in society - it appears at first sight to be the final bit of evidence to prove to everyone that there is no God! If there is no God, then we don't have to worry about following Him, obeying Him or submitting to Him as our Creator. There is further debate which you can read about in the next section, but before you do, please ask yourself the following question: If you believe in a process of evolution lasting millions of years in which God played no role, do you believe this based on the massive amount of scientific proof that you have read and thoroughly researched in your lifetime? Or do you believe it because you want to believe in something that proves that there is no God?
As has been said already, there is an email address which you can write to if you have any queries, comments, criticisms or would like to talk to someone about something in more depth.