The Bible is(n’t) a scientific textbook?

by | Sep 10, 2014 | Bible Study, Science | 0 comments

Francis Schaeffer, bringing a little perspective to the connection between the Bible and Science:

What the Bible tells us is propositional, factual and true truth, but what is given is in relation to men.

It is a scientific textbook in the sense that where it touches the cosmos it is true, propositionally true.

When we get to Heaven, what we learn further will no more contradict the facts the Bible now gives us than the New Testament contradicts the Old.

The Bible is not a scientific textbook, if by that one means its purpose is to give us exhaustive truth or that scientific fact is its central theme and purpose.

Therefore, we must be careful when we say we know the flow of history. We must not claim, on the one hand that science is unnecessary or meaningless, nor, on the other hand, that the extensions we make from Scripture are absolutely accurate or that these extensions have the same validity as the statements of Scripture itself.

But all that does not change the fact that biblical revelation is propositional, to be handled on the basis of reason in relationship to science and coordinated with science.

–from Genesis in Space and Time