Genesis and Creation (10) - Avoid Being Stranded

Christians seem to think that because they have revelation from God, they should know more about the origins of the universe than others. Their frustration with knowing so little is often solved by taking the latest scientific position and blending it in with God’s revelation. The danger is that when science changes, Christians are left stranded with out dated ideas.

Medieval Astronomy illustrates this danger. The early Roman Catholic Church taught that the sun moves around earth. This doctrine did not come from the scriptures, but was imported from Aristotle, whose philosophies were considered to be the best description of the way the world operated. When Copernicus and Galileo demonstrated that the earth moves around the sun, the church had a problem. It had yoked its horse to a scientific bandwagon that was going in the wrong direction. The church eventually had to back down and ditch its Aristolean dogmas. However, it would never have got into that embarrassing position, if it had not used a secular source to fill out God’s revelation.

Many modern Christians are running the same risk, by trying to merge the modern scientific cosmology with God’s revelation. The problem is that secular science uses an incomplete theoretical framework, so it will always get some things wrong. As these flaws emerge, the science must change. Christians who have linked to a particular view find themselves stranded, locked into a scientific view that has dropped out of fashion.

The fact that I am unwilling to commit to seven literal 24-hour days, does not mean that a have accepted the big bang or evolution. These theories have far more problems than seven-day creation. Christians who hitch their horse to these bandwagons will be left stranded as these flaws are exposed.