Have you ever had someone tell you that Science disproved God decades ago, or say they can’t believe all those primitive myths about 7-day creation or miracles. Perhaps you’ve studied one of the sciences at school or uni such as physics, geology or astronomy where the facts and theories indicate that the earth and the rest of the universe are billions of years old, not thousands as some vocal Christians maintain. You’ve probably seen at least a few creation vs. evolution books and maybe seminars in recent years too? Not to mention the var ious attempts to get 7-day creation accounts taught in schools as an alternative to evolution.
If you’re like me, you probably turned off all the controversy and wished people would stop concentrating on the first book of the Bible and pay that sort of attention to the Gospel instead. Many of us Christians do indeed need to be more balanced in the subjects we spend our time on, not dwelling on issues like these that so often result in bitter division and disunity.
There are however, a few important issues that we must address in this arena before we can move on to the rest of the Bible. This whole issue has polarised so many people that recent surveys of non-Christian uni students in particular indicated that the major reasons they didn’t believe in Christianity was the conflict they saw between science and the first few books of Genesis. When people think that the Bible itself is a joke they’re not very receptive to the Good News proclaimed throughout it.
The issue of just how do we interpret the Bible also raises it’s head - Which parts of the Bible are parables, historic fact, metaphorical prophesy etc.
So the oft-implied question is - Do we say that the universe is around about 16 billions of years old and Christians are a bunch of loonies who'd try and prove the Earth was flat if they could, or do we say the Earth is 6,000 years old and anyone that says otherwise is part of a Satanic conspiracy?
It’s with some relief that recent discoveries and interpretations have shown how creditable it is to be a Bible-believing Christian AND a scientifically honest person. Mainstream science has seen prominent physicists publicly stating that the best explanation of the origin of this universe is that there IS a God, while at the same time biblical scholarship has been showing how it's possible to see the God-inspired literal aspect of Genesis 1 meshing beautifully with mainstream scientific evidence without forcing us to either an extremely fundamentalist or liberal position.
The good news is that we are re-discovering that the whole of Creation speaks of the Glory and Truth of God.
