Does Revelation Trump Science?

One of the fundamental questions we have to answer when we think about faith and science is the relationship between the natural world and revelation. Gnosticism is the belief that the "real truth" about ourselves and the world is hidden, and available only to those with special knowledge (gnosis). One the other hand, the Christian faith has been "out in the open." The gospel is plain, freely spoken, and God is the creator and animator of the world - He made it, and called it good.

When we discover things about the world that seem to be at odds with what the bible teaches, we have two options - we can decide that the Christian faith is really a kind of Gnostic religion (the world looks old, but we know it is really not), or we can respectfully ask if we have been reading the bible right. The difficulty is that if we cannot trust what we discover about the world, we have no way of knowing if our faith is true, either.

How was the revelation you base your faith on received? Well, it is based on the bible, you might say - the word of God. On what basis can you trust it, if you cannot have faith in how the world works? For example, think about your ideas as regards written words holding their shape and meaning over time. On what basis do you know that what was written in the 1st and 2nd century is what is displayed on those manuscripts now? Is it possible that the gospel writers wrote one set of words, but over time they drifted around to form different words altogether?

Nonsense, you think. Of course the words haven't morphed! Ink and parchment make a chemical bond... oh, that's right - if I can't be certain about the natural world, I am adrift when it comes to revelation as well. Science does discover true things about the world.

Now what do we do about the age of the earth? Well, some people dismiss uniformatarianism - the belief that the world always worked the way it does now. That way is madness. And has been demonstrated to be wrong. So some people take another approach and attack science - call it wrong, and provisional, and in the hands of godless atheists. This is also wrong - and very shortsighted. The other option, supported by the bible, is to view the world as telling us accurate things about God. If the world is old (and it is),then we have to deal with this, and in humility, let this fact help us interpret our bible - instead of insisting that God can't do this or mean that.