S & CB (2005), 17, 137­154
0954­4194
ERNEST LUCAS
Science and the Bible: Are They
Incompatible?1
God and the World
When I was studying theology in Oxford in the 1970s there was the tradition
of `College Collections'. This was the Oxford name for internal college exami-
nations set at the beginning of term to test whether or not students had done
the work that had been set for them to do during the vacation. I remember one
of those examinations because it contained a question that was rather unusual
in its form:
1. THE WORLD = GOD
2. THE WORLD ­ GOD = THE WORLD
3. THE WORLD ­ GOD = 0
Discuss
Students who had done their vacation reading were expected to realise that
the question was an invitation to display what they had learned about the
Christian doctrine of creation. The three quasi-equations express, in a rather
crude way, three understandings of the relationship of God to the world that
were around in the early Christian centuries. The first is an expression of pan-
theism, the view that the world itself is the divine entity, that God and the
world are identical, or so intimately related, that one cannot exist without the
other. This was the view of the Stoics. The second equation is a way of express-
ing dualism, especially the form that views matter as eternally existent. God
is then thought of as fashioning the world from this pre-existing matter. This
is the view expressed by Plato in his dialogue Timaeus, and it was taken up by
most of the Gnostic writers. The early Christian theologians concluded that
neither pantheism nor dualism was compatible with the biblical picture of the
God-world relationship. The passages in the Hebrew Bible that speak most
directly of God as Creator2 clearly present God as separate from, and as tran-
1 This article is based on a lecture sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation and delivered in
Cambridge under the auspices of Christians in Science and St Edmund's College Cambridge on 13
May 2004. A web version of this lecture has been posted at: www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/cis
together with the text of the Discussion that followed the lecture.
2 Gen. 1; Job 38-42; the `nature psalms'; Isa. 40-55.
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ERNEST LUCAS
scending, the world, which has been brought into being by God's word. This
view is taken up in the handful of New Testament passages that speak of the
pre-existent Son as the agent in creation3. In the Hebrew Bible Isaiah 40-55
expresses monotheism in a way that explicitly rejects any dualism. Statements
such as the following are examples of this.
Isa. 45:5a
I am the LORD, and there is no other; beside me there is no
god.
Isa. 43:10c
Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.
Isa. 44:6b
I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.
These verses present, in Hebraic terms, a monotheistic understanding of
God as an eternal and self-existent being. Dualism in which matter is co-eter-
nal with God may be ruled out by:
Isa. 48:12b-13 I am He, I am the first, and I am the last. My hand laid the
foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the
heavens; when I summon them, they stand at attention.
The third equation is an expression of theism, the biblically rooted under-
standing of the God-world relationship which the early Christian theologians
adopted in conscious rejection of pantheism and dualism. Theists hold that God
is the only eternal, self-existent being and that the world exists only because
God willed it into being and continues to sustain it in existence.
Science and Theology
The point of this discussion is to highlight the fact that from the beginning the
emphasis of the Christian doctrine of creation, following the emphasis of the
Bible, has been on the relationship between God and the world. Questions
about how or when God created the world have been secondary issues. When
the early theologians came up with the formula that `God created the world out
of nothing' they did so as a way of expressing the God-world relationship in
theistic terms over against pantheism and dualism. For them, the importance
of the statement was that it makes clear that God and the world are separate,
that the world is not made out of eternally existing matter, and that the world
only exists because God chose to create it.
Because they fail to appreciate that this is the emphasis of the Christian doc-
trine of creation scientists who occasionally dabble in what they see as the the-
ological implications of science often miss the point. For example, in a passage
that is often quoted from his book A Brief History of Time, Prof. Stephen Hawk-
ing4 suggests that because his version of the `big bang' cosmology removes any
3 John 1:1-5, 9-13; Col. 1:15-20; Heb. 1:1-4.
4 Hawking, S. A Brief History of Time, London: Bantam Press (1988), p.141.
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Science and the Bible: Are They Incompatible?
datable `beginning' it leaves no room for a Creator God. He seems to think that
the doctrine of `creation out of nothing' requires that there be a point in time
that can be identified as the moment of creation. However, ever since the fourth
century Christian theologians have recognised that that is not necessary. St
Augustine of Hippo made the point clear in his Confessions.5 As Prof. Alister
McGrath6 puts it, `Augustine argued that God could not be considered to have
brought the creation into being at a definite moment in time, as if "time" itself
existed prior to creation. For Augustine, time itself must be seen as an aspect
of the created order ... Augustine thus speaks of the creation of time (or "cre-
ation with time"), rather than creation in time.' Since time is part of the cre-
ated order, God could well have created time with the character that it has in
Hawking's cosmology, which does not allow the identification of a datable
`beginning'. Therefore it is by no means the case that the absence of such a
beginning `leaves no room for a Creator God'.
This example illustrates the limits beyond which science cannot take us. By
its very nature science deals with what theologians call `secondary causes', that
is, with interactions within nature. It cannot deal with `primary causes', that
is, the ultimate origin and purpose of nature. An inflationary big-bang cosmol-
ogy may claim to explain the origin of our universe in terms of a fluctuation in
the energy field that physicists refer to as a quantum vacuum. That, however,
is still an answer in terms of secondary causes, not primary causes. We are left
wondering why there should be such a thing as a quantum vacuum, and why
it should have the properties which mean that a fluctuation in it can produce
an inflationary big-bang. As Prof. Paul Davies7 puts it, `though science may
explain the world, we still have to explain science. The laws which enable the
universe to come into being spontaneously seem themselves to be the product
of exceedingly ingenious design.' What he says about the origin of the cosmos
can be said about the origin of life as well. It may be that in due time a combi-
nation of chemistry, molecular biology and biology will provide a coherent and
convincing argument that, given the right conditions on some planet, intelli-
gent life is bound to arise by a natural process. But again we are left wonder-
ing why the properties of matter and the laws of nature are such that imper-
sonal matter should be able to give rise to intelligent persons. Of course, it is
always open to someone to shrug their shoulders and say, `We're here because
we're here' and leave it at that. However, Prof. Davies expresses the intuition
that many people have had down the centuries that an intelligent mind behind
a universe in which intelligent life has appeared is a satisfying, and reason-
able, primary cause, especially when otherwise we are left simply with a chain
of secondary causes which have no ultimate explanation. Since it is not my
brief in this paper to pursue the question of reasons for belief, or non-belief, in
God, I will not develop this line of thought any further.
5 Augustine, St Confessions, Chadwick, H.( trans.), Oxford: Clarendon Press (1991), pp. 229-230.
6 McGrath, A. E. Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd edn., Oxford: Blackwell (2001), p. 302.
7 Davies, P. Superforce, London: Unwin (1985), p. 243.
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ERNEST LUCAS
To summarise, what I have tried to argue so far, all too briefly, is that there
is no incompatibility between the biblically-based classical Christian doctrine
of creation and modern science, provided one understands the different levels
at which science and theology work and the limitations this puts on each of
them. For the sake of those who may think that what I have said so far is all
rather abstract I will round off this section with a parable (and there is a good
precedent for Christians telling parables) which I hope will make it more con-
crete, though it inevitably runs the risk of over-simplification.8
The parable
It was a warm summer evening. Two people were walking along the beach lis-
tening to the gentle lapping of the waves and looking at the star-studded sky.
They both spotted a light flashing out at sea. One of them was a professor of
physics, the kind of scientist who thought of nothing but his work. Science was
his life. He rushed to his car where, being the sort of person he was, he kept all
kinds of scientific equipment. He got out a stopwatch and timed the flashes. He
got out a photometer and measured the brightness of the flashes. He set up a
spectrometer and recorded their spectrum. He noted the position of the light
against the background stars. As he drove home along the coast road he
stopped a couple of times and noted its position again as it appeared to move
against the background stars, and did some triangulation calculations on his
laptop. When he got home his wife said, `You look excited dear, did you see
something interesting tonight?' `Yes,' he said, `I saw what I deduced was a
heated tungsten filament, enclosed in a silica envelope, emitting a regular pat-
tern of flashes of visible radiation at an intensity of 2,500 lumens from a dis-
tance of about 850 metres offshore.' The other person on the beach that night
was a teenager going home from Sea Scouts. When she got home her mother
said, `You look excited dear, did you see something interesting tonight?' `Yes,'
she said, `I saw a boat signalling SOS. I phoned the Coastguard, and they sent
out the lifeboat.'
This `parable' illustrates the fact that the same event may have more than
one level of explanation. Science, by the very methods which it uses, is
restricted to the study of material things ­ matter and energy ­ and so its
explanations are always expressed in materialistic terms. As a result it
explains the mechanisms of nature ­ in the parable, how the flashing light was
produced. It cannot answer questions about meaning and purpose ­ in the
parable, why someone was shining the light and the message it carried. The
scientific explanation could only go as far back as the tungsten lamp (the sec-
ondary cause). It couldn't get back behind it to the mind of the person using it
(the primary cause).
8 Lucas, E. Can we believe Genesis today?, Leicester: IVP (2001), pp. 13-14.
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Science and the Bible: Are They Incompatible?
Science and the Bible
There are both atheists and Christians who might respond to what I have said
so far by asserting that whatever may be true about science and theology seek-
ing for explanations at different levels there is at least one place where the
Bible and science are working on the same level, and clash head-on. This is
because they see the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4a as providing a rival
account to the `creation story' told by modern science.
This is the position taken by Prof. Richard Dawkins. In The Blind Watch-
maker he refers to the creation story in Genesis as an alternative to the theory
of natural selection.9
It is also the position held by fundamentalist Christians, who have been par-
ticularly vocal in the USA in their opposition to the teaching of evolution in
state-supported schools. Here is part of a submission made by the Creation
Research Society to a court in the USA in a case concerning the teaching of evo-
lution in schools.
The Bible is the written Word of God, and because we believe it to be
inspired thruout, all of its assertions are historically and scientifically true
in all the original autographs. To the student of nature, this means that the
account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical
truths.
The problem with this submission is its simplistic assumption that all of the
Bible's assertions are `historically and scientifically true'. The assumption is
simplistic because it ignores the reality that we use language and literature in
many different ways. As a result it soon leads us into absurdity.
On numerous occasions, in the original Hebrew and Greek, the Bible asserts
that people think things in their heart, decide things in their heart, or hide
God's word in their heart.10 The Creation Research Society submission would
commit us to the conclusion that these are scientific assertions that the heart
is the physical seat of intellectual and volitional activity, contrary to all that
modern neurophysiology tells us. However, a commonsense approach to lan-
guage tells us that there is as much scientific validity in these biblical state-
ments as in the statement that I love my wife with all my heart. In saying this
I am not asserting that the heart is the physical seat of our strong emotions. I
am simply using a common idiom of our culture to express a truth in a non-sci-
entific way. In ancient Hebrew culture the idiom was different. They linked the
heart with intellectual activity. When they wanted to talk about deep emotions
they linked these with the intestines, `the bowels of compassion' as the King
James Authorised Version translated the phrase. If we had taken over the
9 Dawkins, R. The Blind Watchmaker, London: Penguin Books (1988), p. 316.
10 2 Kings 9:24 shows that the Hebrew word le-b, which is used in these phrases, when used of a
physical organ, refers to what we call the heart.
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ERNEST LUCAS
ancient Hebrew idiom one wonders what it would have done for the Valentine's
Day card industry!
The fact is that both Prof. Dawkins and his fundamentalist Christian oppo-
nents ignore the importance of making sure that we interpret the Genesis cre-
ation story properly. It is not a question we can duck, because in reality we
interpret everything we hear or read. Most of the time, our interpretation of
what we read or hear is done subconsciously. If my wife came home from school
and said, `I've been banging my head against the wall all day', I wouldn't start
looking for bruises. However, if she had been working in the garden and sud-
denly came in crying and said, `I've banged my head against the wall', I would
look for bruises. In neither case would I need to stop and consciously analyse
what she said. However, sometimes it is particularly important to do our inter-
pretation consciously and thoughtfully, to ensure that we do it well.
I am well aware of the debates that have gone on among academics for the
past few decades about textual hermeneutics, concerning such issues as autho-
rial intent, deconstruction, the role of the reader, and so on. However, for our
present purpose it seems to me appropriate to stay at the level of what I have
referred to as the `commonsense approach' to reading texts. This, after all, is the
level at which the average person operates. It is at this level that I want to deal
with Genesis 1:1-2:4a as a case study in considering the question, `Are Science
and the Bible Incompatible?'. It is, after all, the passage that seems to come to
most people's mind when that question is asked. Such a commonsense approach
to understanding any text involves asking questions like the following:
· What kind of language is being used?
· What kind of literature is it?
· What is the expected audience?
· What is the purpose of the text?
· What relevant extra-textual knowledge is there?
Now, while these questions are appropriate when seeking to understand any
text, it seems to me that they are particularly appropriate with regard to the
Bible because they cohere with the biblical doctrine of God. The first three are
related to the fact that the God of the Bible is the God of the Incarnation. God
has chosen to be revealed through what Christian theologians sometimes call
`the scandal of particularity'. Christians claim that God has been revealed most
fully in a particular person who lived at a particular time in a particular cul-
ture. This was, moreover, the culmination of God's method of self-revelation
recorded in the Hebrew Bible, in which God's word comes to us clothed in the
words of particular human authors, using particular languages and particular
forms of literature, all rooted in the history and culture of a particular nation.
Hence the need to ask the first three questions about everything we read in the
Bible.
The fourth question is one that many literary scholars today consider prob-
lematic, if not unanswerable, because of their rejection of the concept of `autho-
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Science and the Bible: Are They Incompatible?
rial intent'. I, however, agree with those scholars who argue that it is a valid
question because I think it is arguable that often there are clues given by such
things as the literary genre, the structure of the text, the kind of language
used, and so on, which do make it an answerable question.
The God of the Bible is the God of both creation and revelation. Moreover,
humans have been made in the image and likeness of God, and are therefore
able to understand the truth that is to be found in the created order. It can be
shown that this belief was an important one for the founders of modern science
in late medieval Europe. In the light of it we would expect that what we learn
by the study of the created order will relate in some way to what we learn
through the Bible. Here, in the light of what I said earlier, I think we need to
heed something said by Prof. Donald MacKay11 about using scientific knowl-
edge in understanding the Bible.
Obviously a surface meaning of many passages could be tested, for exam-
ple, against archaeological discoveries, and the meaning of others can be
enriched by scientific and historical knowledge. But I want to suggest that
the primary function of scientific enquiry in such fields is neither to verify
nor to add to the inspired picture, but to help us in eliminating improper
ways of reading it. To pursue the metaphor, I think the scientific data God
gives us can sometimes serve as his way of warning us when we are stand-
ing too close to the picture, or at the wrong angle, or with the wrong expec-
tations, to be able to see the inspired pattern he means it to convey to us.
With that as a background, we will now turn to using these questions as a
basis for understanding the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4a.
In what follows I shall be quoting a number of times from the writings of two
outstanding theologians and biblical scholars, Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
and John Calvin (1509-1564), and one outstanding scientist, Galileo Galilei
(1564-1642). I have chosen Augustine and Calvin because they both wrote
important commentaries on Genesis, and did so before the rise of modern sci-
ence and all the subsequent debate about science and the Bible. As a result, I
think they help us to get behind the smoke of the subsequent battles and so see
certain things more clearly. I have chosen Galileo because, as far as I am aware,
his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, written in 1615, was the first sys-
tematic treatise on relating the Bible to science.12
The use of extra-biblical knowledge
I am going to start with the last of the set of questions. The fact is that from
11 MacKay, D. M. The Open Mind, Leicester: IVP (1988), p.151f., reprinted from `Science and the
Bible', originally published in Essential Christianity, 1961.
12 Translation printed in Science and Religious Belief 1600-1900, Milton Keynes: Open Univer-
sity Press (1973), pp. 29-49.
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ERNEST LUCAS
the early centuries onwards, most Christian biblical scholars have recognised
the need to do their interpretation of the Bible in the light of wider scholarship
and knowledge. Augustine has some strong words to say about those who do
not do this.13
Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christ-
ian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on
these topics (i.e. astronomy etc.); and we should take all means to prevent
such an embarrassing situation... the shame is not so much that an igno-
rant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith
think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those
for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scriptures are criticized and
rejected as unlearned men. (p. 42f)
From this it is clear that Augustine had great respect for scholarly learning,
including what we might call `scientific' activity, and believed that due account
had to be taken of it when interpreting the Bible.
Calvin took much the same view. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion
(1559) he addresses the question of what might be learned from `secular writ-
ers'. He says,14 `If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we
shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear,
unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God' (2.2.15). As we shall see, in his
exegesis of Genesis 1 he takes seriously the discoveries of the astronomy of his
day.
Prof. Stillman Drake, probably the leading authority on Galileo in the latter
part of the 20th century, argued convincingly that the traditional understand-
ing of the `Galileo affair' is seriously flawed. He argued15 that `Galileo was a
zealot not for the Copernican astronomy, but for the future of the Catholic
Church and for the protection of religious faith against any scientific discovery
that might be made'. In other words, he was more concerned about preventing
the Roman Catholic Church making a serious mistake than about promulgat-
ing Copernicanism. In his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina it is clear that
Galileo sees the `protection' Drake speaks of as lying in part in a proper under-
standing of the relationship between knowledge gained from the Bible and that
gained from the study of nature. The following quotations from the Letter give
the main points of his argument.
A1. ...the Holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the
divine Word, the former as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter
as the observant executrix of God's commands. (p.182)
13 Quotations from: Augustine, St On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, Taylor, J. H. (trans.), New
York: Newman Press (1982).
14 Calvin, J. Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols, Battles, F. L. (trans.) London: SCM
(1961/2).
15 Drake, S. Galileo: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: OUP (2001), p. iii.
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Science and the Bible: Are They Incompatible?
A2. ...it being true that two truths cannot contradict one another, it is the
function of wise expositors to seek out the true sense of scriptural
texts. These will unquestionably accord with the physical conclusions
which manifest sense and necessary demonstrations have previously
made certain to us. (p. 186)
A3. I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use
and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by
them. (p. 183)
A4. I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the
most eminent degree: `That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach
us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes'. (p. 186)
The argument is clear. The `two books' of the Bible and nature have one
author, and so are complementary, not contradictory. God has given us the
capacities that mean that science is a valid and necessary path to truth about
nature. The Bible has a limited purpose, which does not include teaching us
about astronomy.
We will come back to the question of the purpose of the creation story later,
after we have considered some of the other questions on our list.
What kind of language?
When talking about Genesis 1 I am sometimes asked whether, in the original
language, it is written in poetry or prose. The answer is that while it is not
written in classical Hebrew poetry, neither is it ordinary Hebrew prose. It is
what some scholars call `elevated prose', that is, prose which is carefully struc-
tured and has some of qualities of poetry. This is the kind of prose that, in many
cultures, is used in religious liturgies.
Another aspect of the language of Genesis 1 is brought out by Calvin.16 Com-
menting on verse 5 he notes that the days are reckoned to begin in the evening.
He then says that this is because God, speaking through Moses, `accommodated
his discourse to the received custom'. In other words, the way things are
expressed is accommodated to the cultural idioms of the people addressed.
When discussing verses 6-8 he makes another important point about the
language used.
For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of
but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy and other
recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. Here the Spirit of God would teach all
men without exception and therefore... the history of the creation... is the
16 Calvin, J. A Commentary on Genesis, King, J. (trans.), London: Banner of Truth (1967).
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ERNEST LUCAS
book of the unlearned. The things, therefore, which he relates, serve as the
garniture of the theatre which he places before our eyes.
Here he expresses a principle which he uses elsewhere in his biblical inter-
pretation, namely that the language used in the Bible is that of the common
person, and that when referring to the natural world it is therefore the `lan-
guage of appearance'. Things are spoken of in terms of the way they appear to
be to the ordinary `unlearned' person. Calvin repeats this point when com-
menting on verse 14, `Moses does not speak with philosophical acuteness on
occult mysteries, but relates those things which are everywhere observed, even
by the uncultivated, and which are common use.'
Calvin expands further on this principle in discussing Genesis 1:16, `God
made the two great lights ­ the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light
to rule the night.' He accepted that, if taken literally, this is scientifically incor-
rect because he accepted that the astronomers of his day had shown convinc-
ingly that Saturn is larger than the Moon. His response to this is the following
comment.
Moses wrote in a popular style things which, without instruction, all ordi-
nary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but
astronomers investigate with great labour whatever the sagacity of the
human mind can comprehend... this study is not to be reprobated, nor this
science condemned... (men) ought not to neglect this kind of exercise...
since the Spirit of God here (i.e. Genesis) opens a common school for all, it
is not surprising that he should chiefly choose those subjects which would
be intelligible to all... Moses therefore, rather adapts his discourse to com-
mon usage.
Calvin accepted Aristotle's teaching that, because the Moon is a heavenly
body, it must be made of `quintessence' (the `fifth element') and so be self-lumi-
nous. Therefore, in his view, it could rightly be called a `light' in the same sense
as the Sun. However, Calvin accepted that the Moon needs to `borrow' light
from the Sun in order to give us sufficient light at night. We, of course, know
that the Moon is not self-luminous but simply reflects sunlight. Therefore, to
be anywhere near scientifically true if taken literally in the way the Creation
Research Society says it should be, this verse ought to say that God made a
great light and a great mirror!
As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that Galileo had any direct knowl-
edge of Calvin's writings. Nevertheless his understanding of the nature of the
language used by the Bible when referring to the natural world is the same as
Calvin's as the following quotations from the Letter to the Grand Duchess
Christina show.
B1. These propositions set down by the Holy Ghost were set down in that
manner by the sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to the
capacities of the common people, who are rude and unlearned. (p. 181)
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Science and the Bible: Are They Incompatible?
B2. It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the under-
standing of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ
from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is con-
cerned. (p. 182)
B3. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense-experi-
ence sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to
us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the tes-
timony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning
beneath their words. (p. 182)
B4. ...having arrived at any certainties in physics, we ought to utilize these
as the most appropriate aids in the true exposition of the Bible and in
the investigation of those meanings which are necessarily contained
therein, for these must be concordant with demonstrated truths. (p.
183)
The first two quotations express the same `accommodation' understanding of
biblical language as Calvin adopted. The third recognises that, as a result of
this, the literal sense of the biblical text may sometimes be at variance with the
scientific understanding of the natural phenomenon described. In the final
quotation Galileo makes the point made by Prof. McKay that one reason why
biblical interpreters should take scientific knowledge into account is that it will
help them to recognise when the biblical writers are using the language of
appearance or cultural idioms, and so help them avoid the kind of misinter-
pretation made by those who condemned Galileo.
It is probable that both Calvin and Galileo derived their `accommodation'
view of biblical language from Augustine, since it is evident that both were
aware of his writings. Speaking of the Bible in general he said, `Perhaps Sacred
Scripture in its customary style is speaking with the limitations of human lan-
guage in addressing men of limited understanding' (1.14.28). With regard to
Genesis 1, which as we shall see he understood as a symbolic story, he com-
ments, `The narrative of the inspired writer brings the matter down to the
capacity of children' (2.6.13).
What kind of literature?
At least as early as the Second Century there were some Christian thinkers
who argued that the opening chapters of Genesis were never intended to be
taken as a chronological account of how God created the world. This was long
before the rise of modern science, so they were not trying to make the Bible
agree with science. They saw things in the text of these chapters themselves
which led them to understand them in a non-literalistic way. Origen (ca. 185-
254) wrote,17
17 Origen First Principles, Butterworth, G. (trans.), London: SPCK (1936), Bk. 4, ch. 3.
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What man of intelligence, I ask, will consider that the first and second and
the third day, in which there are said to be both morning and evening,
existed without sun and moon and stars, while the first day was even with-
out a heaven? And who could be found so silly as to believe that God, after
the manner of a farmer `planted trees in a paradise eastward in Eden'... I
do not think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions which
indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history.
That last sentence is very important. In it Origen is recognising that it is
wrong to come to a piece of literature with a preformed idea of what kind of lit-
erature it is. We might be completely wrong and therefore totally misunder-
stand it. The sensible thing to do is to look for clues within the piece of litera-
ture itself that indicate what kind of literature it is, and therefore how we are
to understand it. Origen argues that the clues in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 sug-
gest they are not to be read as straightforward history but as symbolic stories
which express `mysteries through a semblance of history'.
Let me expand on this.
GENESIS 1:1-2:3
Structure
The earth was
shapeless
and
empty
Day One
Day Four
The separation of light and dark-
The creation of lights to rule the
ness
day and the night.
Day Two
Day Five
The separation of the waters to
The creation of birds and fishes to
form the sky and the sea
fill the sky and the sea
Day Three
Day Six
The separation of the sea from the
The creation of humans to fill the
dry land. The creation of the plants.
land and eat the plants
Day Seven
The heavens and the earth were finished and God rested
This structure suggests that the account is not intended as a `simple histor-
ical account' but as a symbolic one which expresses important truths about the
nature and purpose of the creation. At this point all I want to do is point out
the way in which the story conveys the idea of a planned and ordered creation.
In a symbolic story God is depicted as a worker who does a week's work. At the
end of each day God stands back and surveys what has been achieved. At the
end of the week he decides that he has done a very good week's work! God ini-
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Science and the Bible: Are They Incompatible?
tially brings into being something that is `formless' and `empty'. The first three
days are spent giving it form, through a series of `separations'. The result is an
empty structure. The next three days are then spent filling the structure with
creatures that are appropriate to the different aspects of the `form'. The cre-
ation of the heavenly lights on the fourth day can now be seen to make perfect
sense logically within the structure of the story even though it does not make
sense if the passage is read with the assumption that it is a scientific account
of creation.
For Augustine of Hippo the `literal' interpretation of the Bible did not mean
a wooden `literalism'. The literal meaning of a text can be a figurative one, and
in fact he understood Genesis 1 as a symbolic story. In large part this was
because of his understanding of the nature of time, as mentioned earlier. As we
have noted, he argued that the account of creation was written in the form it
is so that finite humans would be able to understand something of the nature
and purpose of God's work of creation. Moreover, he (like Basil of Caesarea
before him) understood the commands, `Let the earth/waters bring forth...' as
not having just a once-for-all result, but as giving to the earth and the waters
the power to go on producing things down through the history of the earth. In
his commentary on Genesis he argues that God's creative activity has two
aspects:
...Some works belonged to the invisible days in which he created all things
simultaneously, and others belong to the days in which he daily fashions
whatever evolves in the course of time from what I call the primordial
wrappers (6.6.9).
By the `invisible days' he means the days of the account in Genesis 1. This
he understood not as a chronological account of creation but rather as a kind
of `inventory' of what God created simultaneously in a single act. This is
expressed in a symbolic account in order to make it understandable by ordi-
nary people. This original creation contained within it the `seeds' of things
which were then to be brought forth by the earth and waters `in the course of
time'. He compares this to the way a tree is contained in its seed, and says,
In the seed, then, there was invisibly present all that would develop in time
into a tree. And in the same way we must picture the world, when God made
all things together, as having had all things together which were made in it
and with it when day was made. This includes not only heaven with sun,
moon, and stars ... but it includes also the beings which water and earth
produced in potency and in their causes before they came forth in the course
of time as they have become known to us in the works which God now pro-
duces (5.23.45)
Christopher Kaiser18 has shown that Basil and Augustine were notable
18 Kaiser, C. Creation & the History of Science, London: Marshall Pickering (1991), p. 15.
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ERNEST LUCAS
exponents of an aspect of the Christian understanding of creation that he calls
the doctrine of `the relative autonomy of nature'. By this he means `the self-suf-
ficiency nature possesses by virtue of the fact that God has granted it laws of
operation ... The autonomy of nature is thus `relative' in the sense of being
relational (to God), as well as in the sense of not being self-originated or
entirely self-determined'. Kaiser shows how this concept is rooted in the
Hebrew Bible and is taken up in both pre-Christian Jewish writings and in the
New Testament before being adopted by some early Christian theologians.
It would be wrong to present Basil and Augustine as Darwinists before Dar-
win, but their thinking does provide a theological basis for understanding an
evolving universe in terms of a biblically based Christian doctrine of creation.
Prof. Howard Van Till19 has developed their thinking in somewhat wider terms
as what he calls `the doctrine of Creation's Functional Integrity'. This doctrine,
he says,
... envisions a world that was brought into being (and is continuously sus-
tained in being) only by the effective will of God, a world radically depend-
ent upon God for every one of its capacities for creaturely action, a world
gifted by God from the outset with all of the form-producing capacities nec-
essary for the actualization of the multitude of physical structures and life
forms that have appeared in the course of Creation's formative history, and
a world whose formational fecundity can be understood only as a manifes-
tation of the Creator's continuous blessing for fruitfulness (p. 23).
According to this view there would be no `gaps' in the developmental
processes of the world, no need for acts of `special creation' by God. Yet this is
not because God has `left it alone', since it is a world that is radically depend-
ent on God both for its origin (primary cause) and its continuation and devel-
opment (secondary causes). Once again we must leave an interesting line of
thought and return to our exegetical questions.
What was the Original Audience?
This can be answered fairly readily. The creation story was intended to be
read by or, more likely, read to, ancient Hebrews who were worshippers of the
Yahweh, the God of Israel. Indeed, since, as noted earlier, the language used
has a liturgical character, Genesis 1:1-2:4a may have been written to be used
in an act of worship. The exact date does not matter much for our purpose
because if, as I shall argue, it interacts with ideas about creation that were
around in the ancient Near-East, the basic nature of these did not change much
in the period between the exodus and the return from exile. What became the
standard version of the Babylonian creation story probably originated at about
19 Van Till, H. J. `Basil, Augustine, and the Doctrine of Creation's Functional Integrity', Science &
Christian Belief (1996) 8(1), 21-38.
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Science and the Bible: Are They Incompatible?
the time of the exodus, possibly earlier. It continued in use until at least the
Third Century BC, when a Greek version of it was published by Berossus.20
What is its Purpose?
Augustine, Calvin and Galileo are united in seeing the main purpose of the cre-
ation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4a as theological. Although Calvin, unlike Augus-
tine, treats the seven days as 24 hour days, it is still the case that for him the
real importance of them is not as a chronological account of creation but as a
teaching aid to lead us to a proper understanding of God's purpose in creating
the world and its creatures. As he puts it, `Six days were employed in the for-
mation of the world; not that God, to whom one moment is as a thousand years,
had need of this succession of time, but that he might engage us in the consid-
eration of his work' (on Gen. 2:3).
As our knowledge of the religions of the ancient Near East has increased
vastly over the past 150 years or so, thanks to archaeological discoveries of rel-
evant texts and their decipherment, biblical scholars have increasingly come to
see the creation story as primarily a piece of theological polemic.21 Its main
purpose was to set out the Hebrew, Yahwistic, understanding of creation over
against the ideas that were prevalent in the religions of the peoples among
whom the Hebrews lived. I have time to give only a few examples of this.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this to the average modern reader,
aware of the prevalent polytheism of the ancient world, is the story's monothe-
ism. The other stories we have from the ancient Near East begin with
`theogony', the origin of the gods. It is then one of these gods who brings the
cosmos into being, using pre-existing `matter' of some kind. The Hebrew story
is different. There is only one God in the story, the Creator of all else that
exists. It is a true `cosmogony', an account of the origin of the cosmos. The exis-
tence of God is simply assumed.
The other examples are not so obvious because they require the reader or
hearer to be attuned to the ideas that were prevalent in the ancient Near East,
as the Hebrews would have been. First there is the fact that the Sun and Moon
are not called by their names but are referred to only as `lights'. Any attentive
reader ought to ponder why this is, since there are perfectly good, common
words for Sun and Moon in Hebrew. The probable answer is that in the Semitic
languages, of which Hebrew is one, the words `sun' and `moon' are also the
names of gods. The peoples around the Hebrews worshipped the heavenly bod-
ies as gods and goddesses. The Hebrews themselves were tempted to follow
their example, as indicated by the prohibitions against the worship of `the Sun
20 Dalley, S. Myths from Mesopotamia, Oxford: OUP (1991), pp. 228-230.
21 See, for example, Hasel, G. `The Polemic Nature of the Genesis Cosmology', Evangelical Quar-
terly, (1974) 46, 81-102.
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ERNEST LUCAS
and the Moon and the stars, all the host of heaven' in the Hebrew Bible.22 Gen-
esis 1:14-19 is an attack on all such worship. The heavenly bodies are simply
`lights' (like big oil lamps!) created by the God of Israel. Moreover, humans do
not exist to serve these so-called `gods', rather the `lights' are there to serve
humans, as sources of light and as calendar-markers. The ideas that led to
modern astrology, rather than astronomy, were debunked by Hebrew theolo-
gians at least 2,500 years ago!
Secondly, there is the way the Hebrew verb ba-ra- (`create') is used in the
story. In the Hebrew Bible this verb, in its active form, is only ever used of
God's creative activity. It occurs in only three places in the story. In the other
places God is simply said to `make' things, using a verb that can be used of var-
ious kinds of human `making' activity. The use of ba-ra- in verse 1, the program-
matic statement of God's creative activity, is understandable. So, too, is the
threefold use of the verb with reference to the final act of creation, the creation
of humans (v27). But why is it used in verse 21 of the creation of the sea mon-
sters? This has puzzled many commentators down the years. The only con-
vincing answer has to do with the significance of sea monsters in one of the cre-
ation stories of Mesopotamia (and possibly Canaan too). Here the creator god
has to battle with and subdue the forces of chaos, depicted as sea monsters in
raging waters, before he can create the heavens and the earth. Genesis rejects
this by stressing that the sea monsters are just part of the world created by the
God of Israel. He did not have to fight and subdue them; he made them! Indeed
for him creation is effortless, he speaks and things come into being. There is an
important underlying theological issue here. Mesopotamian religion has been
described as `anxiety-ridden' because there was always the fear that the cos-
mos would collapse back into chaos. Hebrew religion was different. The empha-
sis, as we see in Psalm 93:1, `He has established the world, it shall never be
moved' (which was quoted, wrongly, against Copernicus), was on the stability
of the world-order created by Yahweh.
My final example is the status given to humans. In the Mesopotamian cre-
ation stories humans are viewed simply as the slaves of the gods. They are cre-
ated to avoid the need for the gods to do any work, by building houses (temples)
for them and providing them with food and drink (sacrifices). The importance
of human beings is emphasised in various ways in Genesis 1. Humans are the
last creatures to be created. The `deliberation' about their creation in verse 26
puts a spotlight on the importance of this act, as does the threefold use of ba-ra-
in verse 27. Only humans are made in the image and likeness of God, and to
them God gives dominion over all the other creatures. Rather than humans
providing for God's needs, creation is there to provide for human needs. To
some people this sounds very politically incorrect and anti-environmental.
22 For example: Deut. 4:19; 17:2ff.
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Science and the Bible: Are They Incompatible?
Commenting on Genesis 1:26-28 in his book Design With Nature the environ-
mental activist Ian McHarg wrote:23
If one seeks licence for those who would increase radio-activity, create
canals and harbours with atomic bombs, employ poisons without con-
straint, or give consent to the bulldozer mentality, there could be no better
injunction than this text.
His comments are rather extreme, but his assertion that Christianity
inevitably encourages environmentally harmful attitudes, is quite widely held
by environmental activists. Some of them argue that the words for `dominion'
and `subdue' in verse 28 are strong ones which encourage an aggressive and
exploitative attitude to nature. Now some Christians may sometimes have
adopted such an attitude, but it cannot be justified by any sound exegesis of
these verses in Genesis. It is a basic rule of semantics, which people all too
often ignore, that the meaning of words is strongly dependent on their context.
A careful study of the use of the Hebrew words for `dominion' and `subdue'
shows that aggressive or exploitative action is not part of the inherent mean-
ing of the words. Where they are used of such action the nature of the action is
made clear by the context, not the words themselves. The context of Genesis 1
indicates a very different kind of action. Humans are given dominion and told
to subdue the earth because they are made in the image of God. This surely
implies that we are to reflect the character of the Creator in the way we carry
out these commands. We are to do it with wisdom, care, love and justice. More-
over, we do not have dominion `in our own right' as it were, but as God's repre-
sentatives, as God's vice-regents. We are answerable to our Creator for the way
in which we exercise this dominion. Among other things this should lead us to
accept and respect God's evaluation of the creation, that it is `very good' (v31).
In what we do we should seek to preserve and develop this `goodness', not dam-
age or destroy it.
Calvin's comment on Genesis 2:15, written 450 years ago, shows that `green
theology' is not something new and can be derived quite naturally from the bib-
lical creation story.
The earth was given to man with this condition, that he should occupy him-
self in its cultivation ... The custody of the garden was given in charge to
Adam, to show that we possess the things that God has committed to our
hands, on the condition, that being content with frugal and moderate use of
them, we should take care of what shall remain ... Let everyone regard him-
self as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then will he nei-
ther conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which
God requires to be preserved.
We do not have time to pursue the interesting question of what is meant by
23 McHarg, I. Design With Nature, New York: Natural History (1969), p. 26.
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ERNEST LUCAS
the statement that humans were created in the `image' and `likeness' of God. It
is arguable that, at least in part, the western concept of human rights has its
roots in this statement. It is certainly the case that with the loss of this theo-
logical basis for the distinctness and dignity of humans, philosophers and ethi-
cists are struggling to maintain the concept against pressures for widening it
to include `primate rights' or even simply `sentient being rights'.24
Conclusion
Several times our study of Genesis 1 could have taken us off down interesting
and important pathways that we do not have the time to follow and that would
have lead us away from our main topic. The fact that I have signposted a num-
ber of such paths as we have gone along does, I hope, make the point that if
Genesis 1 is read as I think it should be, as a theological polemic expressed in
a symbolic story addressed to ancient Hebrews, and not as a scientific text, it
is extremely fruitful and relevant today. Far from being incompatible with sci-
ence it provides a framework within which we can pursue our science and tech-
nology for the positive benefit of humankind and the rest of creation.
Ernest Lucas is Vice-Principal and Tutor in Biblical Studies at Bristol Baptist Col-
lege and Book Reviews Editor of Science & Christian Belief
24 See Alexander, D. Rebuilding the Matrix, Oxford: Lion (2001), pp. 462-472 for discussion of the
views of Peter Singer.
science/faith publications
PERSPECTIVES on Science and Christian Faith is the title of the journal of the
American Scientific Affiliation, which is in many ways the counterpart in North
America of Christians in Science in the UK. We have available a few free sample
copies of the March 2005 issue (Vol 57, No 1), which has a focus on the
environment (first come, first served).
On the website of Christians in Science (www.cis.co.uk) you will find a list of
recommended books which can be downloaded and printed if you wish. The list
gives a brief description of each book with publication details and a note of the
date of any review in this journal. The list includes recent publications, but also
some classic older books on the theme of science and faith. Most are written from
an orthodox evangelical theological stance, and they are listed in date order, most
recent first. The great majority can be supplied by the CiS Publication Secretary.
For an order form and a list of all the titles available please contact:
John Bausor,16 Walter Road, Wokingham, RG41 3JA, UK
telephone +44 (0) 118 978 2902
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