Should Scripture be used to establish our scientific beliefs, or should our scientific beliefs influence our interpretation of Scripture?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘The Creator and the Creation Stories’ (2001).

Well, I think it’s not an either/or, but both.

Should Scripture be used to establish our scientific beliefs? Well, as far as I know you can’t use Scripture to decide what’s inside an atom or what isn’t. You can’t use Scripture to decide how the heart works in the body; you have to find that out by doing experiments. So, when it comes to the conquest of nature, God has left us to develop nature. The people who discovered electricity didn’t discover it because they happened to read about it in the Bible, did they? Of course not. Nor did the people who discovered the principles of the internal combustion engine. God leaves us to find out how the universe works, and to administer it for him.

But there are certain things in Scripture that should be the basis of our scientific endeavours, and that is true on both sides of the fence. People who talk much in support of evolution very often don’t accept that there is a God. They say that they believe in evolution because it is science. Very often they are mistaking science for something much more important. They think that science is simply science, which deals with the facts. In other words, you don’t first have to believe anything when you come to science; you just do science, and science delivers the facts. ‘Whereas, the Bible,’ they say, ‘is all about faith. You have first of all to believe.’ And many scientists overlook the fact that science is built on faith. Even the science of the most hard-headed atheistic evolutionist is based on faith or philosophy. They start from what philosophically is termed materialism, and their presupposition is that there is no God; but that too is a faith.

You’ve asked me about proving that there is a God. Well, let me tell you, you can’t prove that there isn’t one. Any scientist worth his salt will tell you that you can’t prove there’s no God. The atheistic scientist starts with the assumption that there is no God. Einstein himself said, ‘Of course, science is built on faith’. Science is built on faith because, if you’re going to do science, first of all you’ve got to start with the belief that the universe runs according to law. There would be no science if the sun did different things every day of the week, every week of the year, and what you observed today was not something acting in accordance with law but rather some random act. You have to suppose that the universe is governed by law before science is even worth starting.

Science is built on faith, and that should be heralded abroad, particularly to our younger folks. The Bible will insist that the true way to do science is, first of all, to believe that God exists—that is the basis. But to repeat what I’ve said, even atheists, when they come to do science, base their science on their philosophical presuppositions. In other words, philosophy is more important than science, even at the level of academic discipline. Atheists have their own philosophy and base their science on their philosophy, which is materialism. Christians should and do base their science on their belief in God. And because they believe in God, they expect the universe to be ordered and run according to the laws set by the Creator. That doesn’t excuse them from doing science. But their scientific endeavours are encouraged by the fact that they believe in a creator who established the universe and made it to run according to his divinely appointed laws. The universe is worth studying, and the more we study it, the more we shall find that it runs according to law.

So, that’s my answer. I hope it makes some sense.