However, Becker and others ultimately assert that if science says that Scripture is wrong, Scripture must simply bow to the superior wisdom of science and modify its claims. In this vein Becker tells us that we can no longer believe that death is the result of sin (Romans 5), since the theory of biological evolution presupposes that death is simply another cog in the cosmic machine of life.
Such a perspective is problematic for several reasons. First, it presupposes that raw scientific data simply reveal the inner structures of reality to rational and autonomous human beings in an absolutely transparent manner. Nevertheless, although humans have access to the data of reality, their finitude means that such data are always incomplete. Moreover, such data are always interpreted within a scientific paradigm, or interpretive lens, that organizes the information. Since these lenses are always provisional and not infrequently wrong, humans cannot claim any scientific judgment is infallible.1
Hence, if a scientific theory or piece of historical or scientific datum seems to contradict Scripture, there is no particular reason to think Scripture is wrong. Many scientific theories have turned out to be wrong. These incorrect theories and discredited paradigms include many that contradicted Scripture. In these cases the error was in the minds of the interpreters and not in Scripture itself. If we follow Becker’s suggestion, we would operate under the assumption that the Word of God is fallible but human reason is not. In light of history, this position is untenable.
Indeed, if Christians of the past had followed Becker and his seeming faith in the near-infallibility of science, they would have been proven wrong in the long term on numerous occasions.2 One wonders how Becker would answer such a challenge. Should Thomas Aquinas have simply rejected creation ex nihilo because Aristotle and the Arabic philosophers posited the eternity of the universe?3
Aquinas not amused when natural philosophers deny creation ex nihilo.
What about scientific racism and eugenics? Should early twentieth-century Christians simply have rejected the scriptural teaching of a common origin of humanity and accepted what was then considered to be a highly scientific theory of polygenesis and racial gradations?4 To this latter point Becker would likely say that scientific racism and eugenics were simply junk science, whereas macroevolution and other newer scientific theories are not. Nonetheless, just as contemporary macroevolution is taught at all major universities and forms the basis of many governmental policies, so too were once scientific racism and eugenics. Also, in the light of the paradigmatic anomalies of irreducible complexity, gene entropy, and the lack of transitional species in the fossil record, macroevolution has more problems as a theory regarding the origins of life than Becker allows.5
To be continued…..
Part 1 available here; Part 2 available here; Part 4 available here; and Part 5 available here
[1] See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
[2] See similar arguments in Angus J. L. Menuge, “The Cultural and Aesthetic Impact of Lutheranism,” in Where Christ Is Present: A Theology for All Seasons on the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, ed. John Warwick Montgomery and Gene Edward Veith (Corona, CA: 1517 Legacy, 2015), 220–29.
[3] J. B. M. Wissink, ed., The Eternity of the World in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas and His Contemporaries (Leiden: Brill, 1990).
[4] See Edwin Black, War against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (Washington, DC: Dialogue Press, 2012); Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics and Racism in Germany (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
[5] See Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: Free Press, 1996); David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions (New York: Basic Books, 2009); and Philip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010).
Adapted from Jack D. Kilcrease, Holy Scripture, Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics, Gifford A. Grobien, ed. (Fort Wayne, IN: The Luther Academy, 2020), 114-115.
Image from Mary Fairchild, “Biography of Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Angels,” Learn Religion, September 22, 2019, https://www.learnreligions.com/thomas-aquinas-4769163.