Science and the Bible

Perry Dane, Werner G. Heim, William A. Howard

To the Editor:

Saperstein reports that some of his students “still refuse to accept the process and result of mainstream science.” He fears that this intellectual gap will impede their ability to act as informed citizens or to integrate their beliefs into a coherent whole.

Simply put, Saperstein is worrying too much about his students’ souls. He would be better served sticking to science.

Fundamentally, what Saperstein describes as his last resort in dealing with biblical “literalists”—the “two language model”—should be his first resort. Modern science is a mode of inquiry governed by the rules and assumptions of methodological naturalism. These rules and assumptions have produced conclusions of enormous utility and stunning beauty. Nevertheless, science remains one discourse among others. Science teachers should teach science. Their mandate is not to teach Truth with a capital T. The relation of science to religion raises difficult questions, but these debates are in the domain of philosophy and theology, not science. If Saperstein explores these questions in class, he should label that conversation as extramural.

Similarly, Saperstein is plain wrong to lament that exams “expect students to answer with what we have taught them rather than what they actually believe.” Frankly, students who were graded on the basis of what they “actually believe” would, in a public university, have grounds to sue.

Finally, Saperstein should find it reassuring, rather than “disconcerting,” that his more “sophisticated biblical-literalist” students believe that God created the world with the physical data built in to make it appear “much older than it ‘really’ is.” This view is more coherent, and less threatening to scientific progress, than uninformed efforts to quibble with this or that fossil or rock or to fantasize that science itself will confirm creationism or a young universe. Moreover, if Saperstein wanted to engage his students (extramurally) on this topic, he might consider exploring how modern science has also sought to transcend the appearance of the senses and has posited, albeit on other grounds, that different domains can be governed by different, often wildly counterintuitive, rules. That would make for a fascinating, and mutually rewarding, conversation.

Perry Dane
(Law)
Rutgers University

To the Editor:

Alvin Saperstein, in his article in the January–February issue, points to a problem many of us have shared. I taught a first-year seminar called “Heredity, Evolution, and Society” for more than twenty years and now teach a course on biological evolution directed toward students not majoring in the biological sciences. As expected, I have a few creationism-oriented students in almost every class. However, I have had very few difficulties stemming from this fact.

That is probably due to two techniques I use. First, at the beginning of the course, I point out in writing and orally that students are not required to believe in evolution, but they are required to know the course material. Second, I do not start with a conclusion and then develop the evidence leading toward it. Rather, I start with the evidence and let that evidence lead both the students and me toward the conclusion. When presented this way, almost every student comes to realize that the scientific conclusion encompasses the evidence much better and with fewer contradictions than does whatever creationist conclusion they may have been taught. Indeed, after a while, the creationism-oriented students become as adept at drawing scientific conclusions from the evidence as do the more science-oriented ones.

Werner G. Heim
(Biology), emeritus
Colorado College

To the Editor:

I read Alvin M. Saperstein’s article “Teaching Science to Biblical Literalists” in the January–February issue. As a professor of chemistry, I teach general and inorganic chemistry courses and maintain an active research group consisting of graduate and undergraduate students. I am also a Bible-believing Christian. I offer my comments in order to reveal how Bible-believing scientists think and to help instructors concerned with teaching natural history to biblical literalists.

There will always be a conflict between the Darwinian view of natural history and biblical Christianity. Darwinism represents the limited understanding of man, which is at war with the Mind of God. For example, an essential doctrine of the Christian faith is that Christ rose from the dead, is alive now, and will live forever. The resurrection of the dead and eternal life are both naturally impossible. Yet, Jesus Christ did indeed rise from the dead, and his resurrection was a very public event! (Over five hundred men saw him at once after his resurrection.)

We Christians believe such supernatural doctrines to be true because our God is supernatural. We speak to God on a regular basis through prayer in Christ’s name, and he regularly hears and answers our prayers. If a literal understanding of the Bible were not valid, then God would never hear and answer our prayers in Christ’s name because Christ would still be dead. Yet he has answered the prayers of millions of Christians all around the globe for the past two thousand years! Answered prayer provides clear evidence that Jesus Christ has literally risen from the dead and that a literal understanding of the Bible is warranted. Limiting the Bible to a book of metaphors is simply wrong!

I thank God for students who are biblical literalists, and I pray that their numbers increase.

William A. Howard
(Chemistry)
University of Alaska Fairbanks

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