Chapter 11: What About God and Science?
Chapter Eleven
What About God and Science?
One of the most commonly asked questions in confirmation by junior high students is about how to square the biblical story of creation with what they learn about evolution in school. “What about God and evolution?” That is also a common question among adults. One of the great controversies of our time is (yet once again) the perennial one about science and the Bible. Several states have required that science teachers teach creationism or intelligent design, side by side with evolution. In at least one state, creationism was first mandated, then dropped, then mandated again, depending on the election victory or defeat of certain individuals for the state board of education. The controversy is hot enough when the topic is evolution in general; when the topic is the evolution of humans, tempers flare and accusations fly back and forth. Evolution is, of course, not the only science topic about which there is controversy, but it is the model for the conversation between faith and science.
Other questions about science abound. For example, did we really put men on the moon, or was that all a clever hoax, perpetrated in a television studio on earth? More serious are questions such as, when does life begin? This has tremendous implications for topics such as abortion, stem-cell research, and related topics in both science and religion. Court cases rage around the question of the end of life, as well. Should persons who are kept alive only by machines be allowed to die? In its simplified form, this is a question about “the right to die.” But it also has implications about the meaning of life, free will, and other issues not related directly to the basic medical question.
In many cases, biologists, physicists, medical professionals, for example, would love to have some ethical and philosophical guidance from the church on issues related to their research. Their cries for help often go unheeded for at least two reasons. First, “the church” does not speak with one voice, as in the public debate over stem-cell research. Second, most theologians and ethicists do not know enough about the science involved to respond to the questions about ethics. So the divide between science and religious faith continues, and widens, in many cases.
Science in Wesley’s Day
The eighteenth century was a time of ferment and excitement on the frontiers of scientific knowledge. During Wesley’s lifetime, the following advancements in basic science occurred.
Sir Isaac Newton, the great theoretical physicist and “discoverer” of gravity, became President of the Royal Society in 1703, the year Wesley was born.
Sir Edmund Halley published his Synopsis on Cometary Astronomy in 1705.
Gabriel Fahrenheit developed the temperature scale named after him in 1714.
In 1715, the calculus of finite differences was invented.
Stephen Hales measured blood pressure for the first time in 1726.
James Hutton was born in 1726. Hutton was one of the greatest geologists in England’s history. Using empirical methods, he mapped the rock strata of England. He also helped develop the theory of “uniformitarianism” in geology.
Carolus Linnaeus published Genera plantarum, the beginning of the modern classification of plants, in 1737.
The Celsius scale for measuring temperature was developed in 1742.
The Leyden Jar, an electric condensor, was developed in 1745.
The first geological map of France was published in 1746.
In 1748, the first chair of astronomy was established at Cambridge.
Joseph Black “discovered” carbon dioxide in 1754.
In 1759 John Harrison developed the first accurate nautical chronometer, which was the key to accurately determining longitude.
Lomonosov detected the atmosphere on Venus in 1761.
Henry Cavendish “discovered” hydrogen in 1766.
In 1768, James Cook made his first voyage to the Pacific. One of the goals of his expedition was the discovery and classification of plants and animals then unknown to the European world.
Joseph Priestly discovered that plants release oxygen in 1771.
Daniel Rutherford distinguished between nitrogen and carbon dioxide in 1772.
James Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781.
In 1789, the element uranium was isolated and identified.
So what can we learn from that list? First, there were advances in research in chemistry, zoology, botany, physics, geology, astronomy, and medicine, at least. Second, the advances were not based on philosophical theories as in the past, but in direct observation and careful experiment.
As it turns out, Wesley was fascinated by science and its applications. We have already seen (in chapter 10) his interest in electricity and its potential applications in the field of medicine. But what did he think about our main interest—the relationship between science and religion?
It Comes Down to the Bible
For Wesley, as for us, a key question was the relationship between science and Scripture. And here we need to step back and take a brief look at Scripture studies in the eighteenth century. This was the beginning of the modern period in religious thought, and Wesley was right in the middle of it. Because of his emphasis on reason, Methodism has sometimes been called the “first church of the Enlightenment.” In the eighteenth century, the authority of the Bible was called into question as never before. Whereas for the Lutheran Reformers of an earlier period, Scripture was everything, the thinkers of the eighteenth century began to ask more and more questions about it. Even those who took the authority of the Bible as a given began see the Bible in a different way.
To anticipate Wesley’s use of Scripture (Chapter 15), we can say that, for him, Scripture was sufficient for faith and practice, as the Articles of the Church of England said. He is clear that, on other matters, Scripture is not the supreme authority, though he seldom says so directly. For example, he takes for granted the results of scientific investigation, even when those results contradict the literal meaning of Scripture. For example, he published an abridgment of an earlier work as “A Survey of the Wisdom of God in Creation.” In that work, he clearly accepts the results of the work of Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, and others about the cosmos. Their observations and studies showed that the earth was not the center of what we now call the solar system, with the sun revolving around it, but that the sun itself was the center and the earth did the revolving. The scientific data had the depth of observation and the simplest explanation for all the observed phenomena. To defend the biblical notion that the earth was the center was to deny plain fact. So Wesley interpreted Scripture’s authority on matters of science to mean that a geocentric view was what people saw, not necessarily what really is. He does not question that the earth moves around the sun. At the same time he says that Joshua 10:12-14 (where Joshua commands the sun to stand still) is to be taken literally (sermon “On Divine Providence”). In that sermon, he says that God made the sun stand still, and that this was a miracle precisely because it violates “the general laws of nature.” On another issue, he does not argue against Newton’s description of gravity as a natural law. Rather, he rejoices that the scientific description explains the ways of God.
Wesley was interested in science and he was guided by the empirical method of his day, not by proofs from Scripture. Indeed, he interpreted Scripture in the light of science. He was not interested in theories, but in description. Causes, or broad explanations of events were not his concern. What he was concerned with was facts, data that the mind could grasp. At the same time, he looked at the facts as ways of describing God’s work, as well as describing the world around us. Where the results of science conflicted with the Bible, Wesley gave up the literal meaning of the biblical text—because the Bible was not intended to teach scientific truth!
So scientific facts about the heavens, for example, are not dependent on Scriptural authority. When Scripture makes claims about the world that science has disproved, Scripture must then be interpreted in a non-literal way. One wonders, in that light, what Wesley might have said about the age of the earth and the evolution of life, if he had had at his disposal the data of modern scientific findings. What would he have said about the earth being 4.5 billion years old, instead of some 6,000 years, as many in his day believed? What would he have said about creation taking all those years, instead of happening in six days? Or what about the development of life? What would he have said, if he had seen the data, about the rich fossil record for the development of life, spanning hundreds of millions of years? What would he have said about the much sparser, but no less fascinating, fossil record of the development of humans? Would he have said that Genesis 1 and 2 need to be interpreted in a non-literal way? We have no way of knowing, definitively, what he might have said. In the light of the way he interpreted Scripture in relationship to the scientific data of his own day, however, we can guess he might have said, “Yes, we need to reinterpret Genesis 1 and 2.” In fact, in one of his early sermons, “The Image of God,” Wesley speculated on how Adam eating the forbidden fruit could cause his death. It is clear from what he says in that sermon, that he completely accepted the physiology of his day, based on Harvey’s proof of the circulation of the blood. It is clear from this sermon that Wesley was using the best of contemporary science to understand the Scripture and make it relevant to his listeners.
We will return to this point in Chapter 15, when we explore Wesley’s interpretation of Scripture. Since most of what we know of Wesley’s dealings with science relate to his interpretation of Scripture, however, it seemed important to include those understandings here, as well.
And the Point of all This Is?
What can we learn from Wesley’s understandings of the science of his day to help us deal with the findings of science in our day?
Scripture is about faith and practice, not about science. Indeed, Wesley was clear that if science and Scripture are in contradiction, we need to interpret Scripture in non-literal ways. We’ll turn to this again in Chapter 15.
The findings of science can help us understand Scripture, as well as the world around us.
When we talk about science and religion, we need to use the very best science we can. This is an inference from what Wesley said, but it seems to be a fair one. If we’re going to debate creationism and evolution, for example, we need to know everything we can about the science of evolution before we begin. Or, again, in the current debates about stem-cell research, the church seems to be operating out of an a priori understanding that says any use of embryonic stem cells is murder and cannot be allowed. Now, that may very well be true, but we don’t know enough about the beginning of life to be able to say so definitively. We need to know far more about the science of life before we make that kind of definitive statement about the ethics of stem-cell research.
Science can open our eyes to the wonder of God’s world.
Don’t “check your brains at the door” when you begin to struggle with questions about science and the faith.
Questions for Reflection
For Further Reading
Scott J. Jones, John Wesley’s Conception and Use of Scripture (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995). Jones’ work lays out in detail how Wesley interpreted Scripture. At several key points in the book, he details the points about science outlined above.