Interpreting the Bible in Light of Our Understanding of the World

I have argued before that we should let our growing understanding of the world impact our theology. I'd like to explain what I mean by this. We have always used analogies from the natural world when we try to apprehend God. At the very least, our language is firmly rooted in our understanding of the world (exceptions like "sunrise," springing from a previous cosmology, serve to prove the rule). As we better understand our universe, it is inevitable that we struggle to reconcile the Bible with our day-to-day perceptions of the natural world. When we deal with revelation that claims to disclose information about the natural world, we treat some of that revelation as metaphor, and some as fact - based in part on our knowledge of how things work.

As we learn more about the natural world, we either have to rethink what parts of revelation are fact and what parts metaphor, or risk having the entire revelation rejected as untrustworthy. This is a normal course of events when we reach new scientific insights. For example, Martin Luther (one of the founders of the Protestant movement in the Christian faith), thought that the earth was the center of the universe, based on the then-universal way of interpreting the Bible. This biblical teaching has now been reclassified from fact to historical artifact, and no branch of the Christian faith takes the geocentrism of the Bible "literally," in spite of its impeccable pedigree.

With relentless regularity, science presents us with a better grasp of the natural world, in turn causing us to look at teachings in the Bible and ask, "fact or metaphor?" Some attempt a contrarian position, and argue that the discoveries of science are in error, or even misleading. Some give up, and stop questioning the religious texts, assuming they have nothing to offer, having been wrong about the simple things like cosmology and evolution. Most of us simply suspend judgement, and postpone asking the hard questions.

Still, many folks seem to have a sense of "Other." They are unwilling to inhabit a world of pure physics, chemistry and biology. They sense a pattern in the fabric of their lives not accounted for by the products of science. They experience an intimation of something beyond the mundane world, and find a shared experience with communities of faith spread over the globe and through time.

There are discoveries of science that bolster confidence that there may well be "something more." The sheer overwhelming complexity of life is one such discovery. No simple mechanisms end up accounting for life; each discovery of the "fundamental" building blocks of life seem to give way to yet another, even more fundamental layer (or field or emergent property). Others look at the highly-tuned constants that make life possible, others the shared experience of synchonicities, of meaningful "accidents," others at the very fact of all this order in the midst of such a vast, empty universe. Or perhaps it is more personal for some - a sense of being known by Another, of touching the Divine - a wholly personal lens through which the rest of life is filtered.

Faith cannot yet justify itself to the satisfaction of science. This is in itself a bit perplexing, because, we tend to think, if it cannot be studied scientifically, we are uncomfortable believing it is "real." It is also perplexing because many faiths posit an interventionist God - one who does in fact change things in the natural world, and in ways that should be measurable. And yet, so far, the only measurements are in terms of personal experience - not the conclusions of scientific experiments. It is also perplexing because faith finds itself ceding ground to science, and never the other way around. When the Bible and Galileo came to blows over the position of the earth relative to the sun, it was the interpretation of the Bible that changed, not earth's place in the cosmos.

So I am arguing that we treat science as an extension of our senses and our intellect - and that we use our understanding of the natural world to help us intepret the Bible. God does not ask us to ignore the evidence in front of us when we think about God. We are invited to "Taste and see that the LORD is good" (Psalm 34:8) - to use the evidence of our senses to understand God's goodness. If we believe that God is the driving force behind the Bible, then we also believe that s/he knew the earth circled the sun when he inspired the texts that speak of the earth standing still and the sun moving across the sky. We assume that s/he knew that the earth was billions of years old when he inspired the story of 6 days of creation some 6,000 years ago. We assume s/he understood the intricate web of common descent when s/he spoke of the special creation of the various "kinds." If this is true, then we don't need to fear that we will distort God's message - we could even form, as a working assumption, that God uses the cultural assumptions of the day when discussing the world and how it works - that is, these are shared assumptions that are used to fuel analogies of spiritual matters, not attempts to teach about the natural world. Rather than insist that these views are accurate, we should focus on what message was being taught about God and how we should respond to that teaching.