It Is Not “Religion” Versus “Science”

Once again, Nazarene university professor (Eastern Nazarene College) and vice president of the theologically liberal BioLogos Forum, Karl Giberson, has misrepresented biblical creationists and the origins battle, implying that secularists versus creationists is a “religion” versus “science” battle. In a recent article, Giberson stated:

What seems to be appearing on the horizon is a well-articulated culture war over religious belief. Both the atheists and the creationists/ID supporters are in full agreement that there can be no peace between the religious and scientific views of the world. Neither is interested in any synthetic middle ground where one might simultaneously embrace a science shorn of its over-reaching scientism and a faith freed from a simplistic biblical literalism. As the voices grow louder and more insistent, the perch between them will grow ever more precarious, making it all but impossible to avoid sliding by default down a slippery slope toward one or the other. (http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Storm-Clouds-on-the-Horizon-Future-of-Science-and-Religion.html)

This once again misrepresents the real situation by trying to force on people an arbitrary definition of “science.” The root meaning of word science is knowledge. Now, Christians and secularists can agree on knowledge gained by direct observation—knowledge that the culture has accumulated to build our technology. We usually call gaining such knowledge “operational” or “observational” science. However, biblical creationists and secularists disagree on knowledge (or beliefs) about the past concerning origins—knowledge that cannot be gained by direct observation (e.g., no human was there to see the first life appear on earth, no human observed the formation of the earth and universe, etc.) We call such knowledge “origins” or “historical” science. The Bible is primarily a book of history, giving us, among other things, an account of the origin of man and all the basic kinds of plants and animals, and the universe. It is a historical account from the only true God, who knows everything and who has always been there. When we correctly understand the difference between “operational” and “historical” science (knowledge), then we should re-write Giberson’s paragraph this way:

What is appearing on the horizon is a well-articulated culture war over religious beliefs. Both the atheists and the creationists are in full agreement that there can be no peace between the Bible’s account of origins and the secularist beliefs about the origin of the world. Neither is interested in any synthetic compromised middle ground where one might simultaneously embrace beliefs based on naturalism and the clear account of origins as given in the book of Genesis. As the voices grow louder and more insistent, the chasm between them will become more obvious to people, forcing Christians to decide which side they are really on—making fallible, sinful man the authority, or acknowledging the sinless, holy God and His Word (the Bible) as the ultimate authority. [I deliberately left the “ID supporters” out, as the ID movement does not promote any particular history concerning origins—they are ultimately only promoting an argument against naturalism and for intelligent design by an unidentified “intelligent designer.”]

In this article referenced above, Karl Giberson also states:

. . . BioLogos has found itself under aggressive attack by Ken Ham and his merry band of biblical literalists from the right, and from the New Atheists and their godless minions on the left. Ham encourages his readers to check out the subversive BioLogos message, calling it a “warning to all Christians concerning what happens when God's Word is compromised with the secular religion of the age (evolution/millions of years)—it is a direct attack on the authority of the Word of God.” Coyne, on his popular Why Evolution Is True blog described BioLogos as a place where “writers blatantly expound the most extreme and Jebus-loving form of babble.”

Yes, that is a quote from me—and I stand by it 100 percent. Christians do need to be warned about these professors at Christian colleges/seminaries who undermine the authority of the Word of God. Christian parents spend millions of dollars (usually sacrificially) to send their children to such colleges, where sadly, many of them end up doubting the Scriptures and walking away from the Christian faith. It’s because of compromise that such teaching from Giberson and many others like him infect so many of our Christian education institutions. And I do continue to encourage people to carefully check out the BioLogos website to see for themselves the contortions of Scripture that result from those who attempt to add secular beliefs into the Bible. I have already quoted from the BioLogos website on previous blogs and encourage you to look at my past blog about this. There are also a number of other blogs that deal with this issue—in my blog, do a search for words like “‘Nazarene,” “Giberson,” and “BioLogos.”

By the way, for a review of another slap against biblical creationists, see today’s lead article on the website. It is quite startling.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken