5. Scientific Accuracy

The Bible never claims to be a science textbook. Nevertheless, the Bible claims to be “true from the beginning” (Psalm 119:160, KJV), so every specific reference about science must be accurate.

Indeed, this is one way the Bible’s authenticity can be tested. Christ Himself, the Word of God who is the author of all Scripture, asserted that we should be able to believe everything He says about earthly things (John 3:12).

Over the centuries the Bible has been rigorously tested for scientific accuracy, and it has never failed. Not only is God’s Word always true; it has proven to be the key to understanding God’s world today!

Scientists have run into all sorts of interesting questions about the physical and biological processes that produced the world we see today, but they are limited to observing, testing, and experimenting with present processes and creatures. They can only guess about the past based on fragmentary evidence and biased assumptions, which they cannot scientifically prove or disprove because they were not present to observe what happened in the distant past.

In other words, they must rely on their preconceived beliefs about the past. Science is a useful tool but limited because humans are fallible and limited observers.

On the other hand, God, our eternal Creator who has all knowledge, was present when He created the universe. He has revealed to us in an eyewitness account, the Bible, what happened in the past to produce what we see in the world today.

The Bible explains when God intervened supernaturally at key points in history in ways that affect what astronomers, geologists, biologists, and anthropologists study. Without this record, we would be in the dark about these events, but with it we can understand the world we see today. (To make this point with questioners, you can point them to readily available creationist materials, including extensive articles you’ve read in Answers magazine, such as the “Planet Earth” issue, October–December 2008).

You can share any one of a number of well-known examples where the Bible has made a claim that science is only now beginning to recognize. For example:

ASTRONOMY: The Bible claims the universe had a beginning. Philosophers and scientists rejected that claim for over two thousand years, but now astronomers believe the universe had a beginning, the so-called big bang (though with a very different time frame).

ANTHROPOLOGY: The Bible claims that all humans are “one blood” descended from one man and one woman (Acts 17:26; 1 Corinthians 15:45; Genesis 3:20). Some nineteenth-century biologists argued that different races descended from lower animals, but today genetics has verified that there is only one human race.

BIOLOGY: The Bible claims that God created animals “after their kind.” Nineteenth-century biologists argued that animals evolved from other, very different animals, but today biology confirms that creatures reproduce within their own kind.

GEOLOGY: The Bible claims that God destroyed the earth and the creatures inhabiting it in the worldwide Flood. Nineteenth-century geologists argued that rock layers and the fossils found in them were formed as sediments were deposited slowly, but today geology confirms that many rock layers were deposited catastrophically, burying fossils within only minutes or hours.

So if the Bible wins hands down in every earthly thing we can test, why don’t people trust what it says? The issue is not the truth of Scripture, but vain reasoning and “willful ignorance” (Romans 1:21; 2 Peter 3:5).