Is Scripture at Odds with Science?

SPROUL: The double truth theory basically  said this: Something can be true   in philosophy and false in religion at the  same time. Or it can be true by faith but false   in science at the same time. Now, let’s translate  that idea to contemporary categories. We see the   raging controversy that goes on about human  origins. Are we as human beings the product   of a purposive act of divine creation, or are we  merely fortuitous cosmic accidents, grown-up germs   that have spontaneously come out of  a chance collision of atoms, and so on? Now, obviously we cannot both be purposefully created  by a self-existent, eternal God and at the same   time be cosmic accidents. Those two concepts  cannot be reconciled. But a double-truth thinker   would say this: “I’m a religious person, but I’m  also a scientist. So, on Mondays, Wednesdays,   and Fridays, I will believe in creation,  and on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays,   I will believe in mass as a cosmic accident. And  on Sunday, I’ll rest from the controversy.” Do you   see what’s going on here? It is a separation  or a disjunction between faith and reason,   between philosophy and religion, between theology  and science, where the two don’t meet or ever   overlap. Now, it’s precisely against that kind  of thinking that Saint Thomas Aquinas—who had   been the illustrious student of Albert the Great,  and who had been called by his student classmates   while he was in school “the dumb ox of Aquino,”  to which Albert the Great replied, “This dumb   ox is going to astonish the world with his  brilliance.” But in any case, it was against this   kind of thinking that Aquinas was responding. He  realized that if you had that kind of disjunction   between faith and reason, an antithesis between  science and religion, you would end up as an   intellectual schizophrenic, and it would make  truth impossible to reconcile. And so, he said   that there are certain truths that we learn from  nature and other truths that we learn from grace.   What he means by that is something like  this: If you study nature, you can learn   something about the circulatory system of  the human body. But you can read the Bible   all you want, and the Bible will not reveal to  you the intricacies of the circulatory system   of the human body or the molecular structure of  a leaf. You have to apply natural science and   empirical investigation to discover that sort  of thing. So, you get certain truths—truths   that don’t contradict the Scriptures  or contradict special revelation—but   you don’t find that content in the Bible.   You find other truths, according to Aquinas,  that are revealed to us only in the Bible,   that you can’t discover with the microscope  or with a telescope. For example,   God’s plan of salvation—you can’t study that in a  laboratory. You get that through the revelation of   Scripture. So, you have two  sources of truth: grace and nature.

Channel: Ligonier Ministries

Views: 6,996

Rating: 4.9331102 out of 5

Keywords: scripture, science, scripture vs science, christianity vs science, christian, christianity, christians and scrience, Is Scripture at Odds with Science?, Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, truth, sources of truth, the source of truth, epistemology, epistemology philosophy, god, grace, nature, natural theology, rc sproul, r.c. sproul, thomas aquinas natural law, reformed, reformed theology, theology, ligonier, ligonier ministries, educational

Id: gY5Qg6kKofw

Length: 4min 58sec (298 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021