Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 121:484 (Oct 1964)
Article: The Bible Is a Textbook of Science Part I
Author: Henry M. Morris

BSac 121:484 (Oct 64) p. 341

The Bible Is a Textbook of Science
Part I

Henry M. Morris

[Henry M. Morris, Chairman, Department of Civil Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia.]

If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?” (John 3:12).

The Christian polemicist frequently is confronted with the problem of the scientific “errors” in Scripture, especially in its first eleven chapters. Often he is tempted to resort to the solution of neo-orthodoxy and to protest that “the Bible is, after all, not a textbook of science, but rather of religion.” “It is meant to tell us the fact of creation, not the method of creation; it tells us who is Creator, not when or how He created. It points us to a confrontation with the Creator, not an understanding of earth history.”

It is obvious, of course, that the Bible is not a scientific textbook in the sense of giving detailed technical descriptions and mathematical formulations of natural phenomena. But this is not adequate reason for questioning the objective accuracy of those numerous portions of Scripture which do deal with natural phenomena and historical events.

This type of apologetic device is both logically unsatisfactory and evangelistically unfruitful. How can an inquirer be led to saving faith in the divine Word if the context in which that Word is found is filled wth error? How can he trust the Bible to speak truly when it tells of salvation and heaven and eternity—doctrines which he is completely unable to verify empirically—when he finds that data which are subject to test are fallacious? Surely if God is really omnipotent and omniscient, He is as well able to speak with full truth and

BSac 121:484 (Oct 64) p. 342

perspicuity when He speaks of earthly things as when He speaks of heavenly things.

Importance of Basic Presuppositions

It is salutary for anyone dealing with questions of this sort to recognize the essential nature of faith and presuppositions in his reasonings. “Science” (the very meaning of which is knowledge) necessarily can deal only with those things which exist at present. The scientific method involves reproducibility, the study of present natural processes. When men attempt to interpret the events of the prehistoric past or the eschatological future, they must necessarily leave the domain of true science (whose measurements can be made only in the present) and enter the realm of faith.

This faith may be in the doctrine of uniformity, which assumes that the present proces...