God Makes Science Possible and Reliable

My argument in a nutshell: a Christian worldview relies on scriptures, which make historical and theological claims which require interpretation. God’s general revelation helps in this interpretation, and he also gives us science as a tool to further understand general revelation, which demonstrates that science is valid and reliable. We also implicitly accept the science that underlies the technology which we rely on every day. Science is highly valuable, so when scientific methods produce additional findings, we shouldn’t immediately be distrustful of them. I believe Christians ought to have a higher regard for science.

Naturally I will presuppose natural theology and the light of reason in this essay.¹ I also have a more specific critique of presuppositionalism and its collapse into evidentialism in this essay.

God’s Two Books

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of His hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.²

God has given us two books to interpret the universe with. These two books are general revelation and special revelation—or, nature and scripture—or, the world and the word. The Bible is special revelation; creation is general revelation. The Bible tells us that God can be clearly seen in creation (Rom. 1:18–20); Psalm 19 says that the heavens, part of created general revelation, declare the glory of God.³

This concept aligns with the historic view of sola scriptura, which has never meant that scripture is the only source of truth in the world, but instead that scripture is the only supreme infallible authority.⁴

The Second London Baptist Confession states:

The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.⁠⁠ Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation.⁵

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy says:

Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.⁶

In addition, the idea of the harmony between the two books previously mentioned has historical roots.

The Belgic Confession states:

We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God … Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for God’s glory and for our salvation.⁷

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics, an elaboration of the first Chicago statement, contains the following affirmations and denials:

Article XIX. WE AFFIRM that any preunderstandings which the interpreter brings to Scripture should be in harmony with scriptural teaching and subject to correction by it. WE DENY that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself; such as naturalism, evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and relativism.

Article XX. WE AFFIRM that since God is the author of all truth, all truths, biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent and cohere, and that the Bible speaks truth when it touches on matters pertaining to nature, history, or anything else. We further affirm that in some cases extrabiblical data have value for clarifying what Scripture teaches, and for prompting correction of faulty interpretations. WE DENY that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it.

Article XXI. WE AFFIRM the harmony of special with general revelation and therefore of biblical teaching with the facts of nature. WE DENY that any genuine scientific facts are inconsistent with the true meaning of any passage of Scripture.⁸

Vern Poythress in his book Redeeming Science offers a very useful prioritization framework for the types of revelation and how they can mutually inform one another. Poythress writes:

In one sense the word of God governing creation and providence is more fundamental [than special revelation], in that it comes prior to the special words in the Bible and forms the indispensable environment in which the Bible makes sense … We might say that in such ways God’s word of providence forms the ontological and epistemological foundation for the coming of his word in Scripture.⁹

On the other hand, the Scripture has a linguistic and redemptive priority. It has linguistic priority, because it comes to us in human language … it is the word of God, not merely a human approximation to the word, a guess at the word on the basis of an accumulation of observations about its effects […] The Bible also has a priority to God’s word of providence in its redemptive function. God designed the Bible to help sinners turn back to him and grow in holiness.¹⁰

God is the ontological ground of all reality—prior to both the created world and the scriptures that describe it. The intelligibility of general revelation is only possible because of God’s existence (even if explicitly presupposing his existence is not necessary for knowledge). Our genuine understanding of general revelation retroactively depends ontologically on the truth of special revelation: scripture tells us that God created the world and called it good, that he made us in his image with rational minds, that he gave us dominion, and that we can explore and enjoy the things of earth. Indeed, without the redemptive priority of scripture over nature, we would succumb to the same problems that naturalism faces, unable to say anything truly meaningful about the world.¹¹

The ontological priority of nature over scripture shows how natural theology (which provides knowledge from nature) is necessary. A very simple example of this ontological priority: to make sense of God’s mandate to Adam in the garden (Gen. 1:28–30), a reader must already understand the difference between fish and birds and other creatures, and what seed-bearing plants are as well (maybe not on a technical taxonomic level, but in a way that can only be understood through experiencing the world). So nature and scripture are not at odds; in fact, both general and special revelation interpret one another. They both have God as their author and are infallible. However, due to the noetic effects of sin from the fall, our interpretations of both are fallible. The faithful study of either one can correct a faulty interpretation of the other.¹² Despite this, scripture’s linguistic and redemptive priority tells us that special revelation has epistemological precedence: it is a clearer communication, being in human language and for our good (2 Tim. 3:15–17) and being illuminated for us by God directly (1 Cor. 2:12–14). Understanding all of this, Christians should try to patiently work through apparent contradictions, with confidence that God’s two books fundamentally harmonize perfectly.

Science’s Success

Scientific law is a form of the word of God.¹³

This framework for God’s two-fold revelation reveals that learning about both forms of it can help us know God better. This brings us to science. Science is essentially an attempt at better understanding general revelation. It is a common grace of God that we can use science for our own good, and in the process glorify him more.

Science is upheld by God. God upholds the universe by the power of his word (Heb. 1:3). He is completely sovereign over every inch of creation; there are no maverick molecules. Vern Poythress writes that the “doctrines of creation and providence guarantee that the world operates in accordance with divine rationality.”¹⁴ Scientific laws only make sense in the context of God’s character: they rely on the uniformity of the universe, which is an extension of the rationality and immutability of God and his law (miracles notwithstanding).¹⁵ Poythress also explains that scientific laws are, like God, outside creation and therefore “[scientific] law is the law of God, nothing less than God speaking.”¹⁶ We can have confidence in the scientific laws we discover; they will operate reliably for us because of God’s providence over creation. So we can say that science is successful because of God. If a scientific theory like gravity has a 100% success rate, it’s not just something we made up in our minds—it reflects reality. The Bible doesn’t have to describe gravity for us to be able to state “gravity is real” with the same confidence we can say “Jesus rose from the dead.” Both statements describe reality as God designed it.

Does science have any theological significance besides relying on God? I think so. Science helps us obey scripture: it gives reasons to trust scripture, and helps to interpret it. I think of science like scaffolding: a tool to help us arrive at the truth, and once it accomplishes that goal, the truth is revealed to have been the source of the scaffolding itself.¹⁷ Archaeology, textual criticism, philology, translation, and historiography all support the textual and historical trustworthiness of scripture and its claims. (Some of these are examples of historical sciences, interpreting evidence from unique, non-repeatable past events; nevertheless they provide predictive accuracy and reliable knowledge.) The methods in these scientific disciplines are how we know Jewish scribal practices, what Roman crucifixion was, and why Jesus’s resurrection is not myth but meaningful history. The miraculousness of the resurrection hinges on the premise that “dead bodies don’t normally come back alive.” We also know the canon of scripture itself with the help of extrabiblical early church history. In addition to supporting the trustworthiness of scriptures, science is also necessary for the interpretation of scripture. To begin, we need language, logic, and reason for the Bible’s words and propositions to carry meaning. Faithful biblical interpretation requires a preunderstanding of the natural world, including categories and assumptions drawn from our experience in it, as well as an understanding of the customs of the ancient world. A hermeneutic based on “grammatico-historical exegesis” only makes sense in the context of disciplines like literary analysis and historical anthropology.¹⁸ We don’t have to adopt all the assumptions of secular historical criticism in order to appreciate the historical insights that help us access the world of the Bible. Without these scientific tools, we risk misinterpreting what the Bible says and commands. Thankfully God gives us both science and the Holy Spirit to transform a bunch of ancient Greek letters on frayed papyri into glorious truths.

Engineering’s Enforced Epistemology

The toaster continues to toast bread because the electricity continues to produce heat according to constant laws. The constancy of law in both time and space points to the eternality and omnipresence of the laws.¹⁹

I think we can fail to appreciate how much we rely on science on a daily basis. Trusting technology is essentially a bet on the predictive power of scientific methods and models, and we do it all the time. Most Christians I know trusted the astronomers who told them that there was going to be a total solar eclipse for 4 minutes and 28 seconds on April 8, 2024 at exactly 1:36 pm CST, and many went out and bought eclipse glasses expecting to witness it. Most Christians trust weather forecasting; that trust is built on physics, thermodynamics, satellite imaging, and predictive modeling. Even the most science-skeptical Christians probably won’t be outside when the radar calls for flash floods—kind of like how there are no atheists in foxholes, there probably aren’t any science deniers either.

This trust is everywhere. When you use Google Maps on your phone, you have trusted the engineering and cumulative scientific knowledge of all the technologies it relies on. Your phone operates taking advantage of electrical engineering and properties of quantum mechanics and receives signals from satellites which rely on electromagnetic frequencies flying through the air at the speed of light, orbital mechanics, and even principles of relativity to correct themselves. By assuming this technology will work with any consistency, engineering enforces epistemological constraints. If we say we distrust science yet rely on these tools, we deceive ourselves. To remain genuinely skeptical, one would have to either put their money where their mouth is and deny the laws behind these very consistent technologies, or offer coherent alternative explanations that could satisfy the engineers that built them.

Because most people living today do implicitly place their trust in all kinds of science daily, I’m discouraged when I see so much scientific skepticism among Christians. In certain Christian circles this skepticism extends to many issues—vaccines, climate change, evolution, crunchiness, conspiracy theories²⁰—but I’ll just briefly look at one as an example, young-earth creationism.²¹ Young-earth creationists to their credit do bite the bullet and create from whole cloth their own alternative explanations with the field of creation science. In doing so they reject major findings in astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, geology, and paleontology that all independently point toward an older earth.²² Yet these rejected sciences produce results which Christians use and trust every day in all kinds of domains, from agriculture to medicine to navigation. Earthquake and tsunami warnings are possible because of our knowledge of plate tectonics and tectonic history. Nuclear medicine only works because radiometric decay is reliable. Genetic engineering and cancer treatments work because of the principles of evolutionary biology. Energy companies drill because of geological and paleontological models of the fossil record. An honest analysis has to face the fact that the established science provides elegant solutions and incredible predictive power for engineering, while creation science has no additional explanatory power nor real uses in engineering and technology. In a modern technological world, we already display confidence in the science that underlies everything around us, whether we admit it or not.

Our Attitude Toward Science

TrUsT tHe ScIeNcE!

Now that I’ve made a case for science, it’s important to also acknowledge its limits, and consider how we should approach science. We can first distinguish between empirical science and scientism. Scientism places all trust in science as the only way to arrive at knowledge. In practice it results in phrases like “trust the science” or “science is real” which often function more like secular creeds than actual science. It’s also important to note that not every scientific field is as rigorous as physics; it is possible for ideology to be promoted and disguised as science. We should be skeptical of a sort of syncretism between science and the state—where scientific authority takes on too great a role in influencing policy—especially when said science conflicts with a Christian worldview. I think these limits are most obvious for Christians when it comes to gender issues in science. There, Christians can safely rely on the linguistic priority of the Bible’s clear teaching that “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27).

Thankfully most science is not ideologically driven. Even if most scientists are not Christian, it would be dishonest to dismiss them as God-haters. General revelation is, after all, available to all. We should strive to be intellectually honest when approaching science. We can’t be selective about the science when it aids us in apologetics—like accepting only the findings in archaeology that prove the reliability of gospel manuscripts—while ignoring other findings. And when engaging with science, rigor is important: we must lean into the empirics, not dismiss them, being ready to change our view. Science is complicated. It is also self-correcting. We have remarkably consistent and elegant scientific laws because generations of scientists (many motivated by faith) have studied the natural world diligently for centuries. These long timelines allow for corrections and iterative improvement to methods and conclusions. Realistically it is difficult to “do our own research” without falling into pitfalls or fallacies that many others before us have fallen into, such as succumbing to confirmation bias. It helps to have the humility to heed the wisdom of consensus in general. It seems to me that extreme science skepticism is often fueled by a deeper issue of a distrust of authority (like of a scientific consensus, or establishment). As Christians we should probably have a higher view of authority than the world does, since God implements hierarchical structures throughout creation that we naturally understand and submit to.²³ The scientific method isn’t perfect, but it is a disciplined way of uncovering truth in the world that God made knowable.

All truth is God’s truth.²⁴ Scientific law is part of the code of the universe that God created, and humans do their best to try to understand it with our God-given rational minds. We should approach science, and ideally everything else in general revelation, with greater epistemic virtue: more curiosity, more consistency, and more charity.

1. For more on a defense of natural theology and reason against presuppositionalism, see the first three essays in David Haines, ed., Without Excuse: Scripture, Reason, and Presuppositional Apologetics (Leesburg, VA: Davenant Press, 2020). See also: https://credomag.com/article/holy-scripture-teaches-natural-theology/ and https://credomag.com/article/the-light-of-nature-and-the-knowledge-of-god/.

2. Psalm 19:1−2.

3. For a much more poetic treatment of “creation as communication,” see chapter 3 of Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2024).

4. For more on sola scriptura and biblicism see: https://cbtseminary.org/what-sola-scriptura-does-and-does-not-mean-sam-waldron/ and https://credomag.com/2022/07/aquinas-van-til-and-biblicism/.

5. Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), Chapter 1, Paragraph 1.

6. Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978), Short Statement.

7. Belgic Confession (1561), Article 2.

8. Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics (1982), Articles XIX−XXI.

9. Vern Poythress, Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006), 44.

10. Poythress, 45−46.

11. Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism shows how naturalism cannot lead to any confidence in our own beliefs. The same is true if we do not believe that God renews our minds. A brief version of his argument here: https://jamesbishopblog.com/2016/07/09/the-evolutionary-argument-against-naturalism/.

12. R.C. Sproul talks about the Copernican Revolution (going from a geocentric model to a heliocentric model of the solar system) as an example of how the church’s interpretation of special revelation has been corrected by students of general revelation (scientists, like Galileo). For more on Sproul’s view and historical reformed perspectives on these issues, see: https://learn.ligonier.org/collections/reformed-approach-to-science-and-scripture/ and https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/reformed-doctrine-general-revelation-what-it-and-what-it-isnt/.

13. Poythress, 25.

14. Poythress, 54.

15. God making the world orderly not only helps us understand it, but is also extremely valuable to our flourishing in it (Gen. 8:22). But in talking about this orderliness, it’s worth addressing miracles very briefly. Christians reject naturalism and accept that God can act supernaturally (thus breaking the “rules”) in the world. Miracles are, by definition, God working outside his usual methods. But normally, God does work in regular, consistent ways. For more on miracles see: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/miracles/ and https://biologos.org/articles/miracles-science-and-the-laws-of-nature/.

16. Poythress, 21.

17. For how this need not raise science and evidence to the same level of authority as scripture, see: https://crossexamined.org/is-the-bible-our-highest-authority/.

18. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy says this: “WE AFFIRM that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture” (Article XVIII) and the subsequent Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics expands on this point, specifically Articles X−XVI.

19. Poythress, 30.

20. I’m not suggesting all skepticism is wrong; every issue can be evaluated on its own. However I would say many of these issues share similarities. Often much of what is called “skepticism” is not rigorous and evidence-driven, but a selective suspicion of mainstream conclusions and uncritical acceptance of fringe voices. For more on how science is differentiated from pseudoscience, see: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/.

21. This is by no means a comprehensive review of young-earth creationism (and by the way, the doctrine of creation is so much richer than just the age of the earth question—see: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-doctrine-of-creation/). Most of the debate among different camps hinges on the literary analysis of Genesis 1−11; Vern Poythress surveys several ways of interpreting the creation account in Redeeming Science. Many, many others have made bold attempts to harmonize the historicity of Genesis with modern scientific findings (an approach called “concordism”). I think this is very valuable work for apologetics, to show that a Christian can accept both the Bible and science. For a creationist attempt at dealing with the science, see Hans Madueme, Defending Sin: A Response to the Challenges of Evolution and the Natural Sciences (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2024) and his concept of “biblical realism,” which essentially stresses always prioritizing scripture over science in apparent conflicts. He defends dogmatic inerrancy and scientific fallibilism, and rejects treating all of science as a monolith. He acknowledges that the scientific consensus is not in his favor yet respectably holds to scripture as his ultimate authority, to avoid having to repeatedly reinterpret scripture in response to changing science. For a history of young-earth creationism, see: https://peacefulscience.org/prints/origns-yec/.

22. This is a separate argument, but I think a problem for me personally with rejecting these findings is that they can make God look deceptive, having planted distant starlight mid-flight, hominid fossils, and radioactive isotopes for unclear reasons. Creationism often relies on the idea that the laws of nature have not always worked the same way. On this view it seems God designed the universe in a way that makes it hard to conclude true things about the world because nothing is as it seems. That could be possible but it also introduces confusion; we should expect God’s two books to harmonize and not be blatantly contradictory.

23. Claims like this can be controversial unfortunately. For an analysis of the decline of the status of “expertise,” see Jeffrey Friedman, “Post-Truth and the Epistemological Crisis,” Critical Review 35, no. 1–2 (2023): 1–21, https://doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2023.2221502; and Jacob Hale Russell and Dennis Patterson, “Post-Truth and the Rhetoric of ‘Following the Science,’” Critical Review 35, no. 1–2 (2023): 122–47, https://doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2023.2231782. Ultimately it should be possible to acknowledge both the value of expertise and limitations in our knowledge, without resorting to anti-intellectualism.

24. More on this statement here: https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/all-truth-gods-truth-sproul/.