The Biologist and the Bible
I walked past a classroom a few weeks ago and noticed a professor who was talking about the Bible. I leaned in to listen. Was this a theology class, or a course on world religions? No.
It was a biology class.
I knew what I had to do. Grabbing my secret supply kit, I grabbed my Bible in one hand and my Christian apologist tracts in the other. I quickly donned some war paint and entered the room screaming. I’m pretty sure a white light shone about me as I confronted the biology teacher in front of the stunned students.
The professor asked me who I was – but I countered by asking him who he was to question God! (I was pretty proud of that one.) Then, using the knowledge I had gained from the ‘Answers in Genesis’ website, I thoroughly brushed aside all of his arguments for evolution and led the class in singing the old hymn, ‘Bringing in the Sheaves.’ I even showed the class a picture of Jesus riding a dinosaur to complete my victory.
At this point, the debate was over.OK, that didn’t happen. (Thank goodness.)
Instead, I kept listening. The professor was a nice guy and I assumed he would not bring up religion in a biology class without a good reason. And I was right.
From the hallway I heard him kindly explain that the laboratories were not interested in religion when researching the origins of life. As he pointed out, there are many religions with opposing views of creation, and respecting them as science really doesn’t get any work done. However, it was not his intention to challenge anyone’s faith or tell anyone if they should believe in God.
The old cliche of the biology teacher opposing Christianity is a favorite in email forwards circa 1999, but that specific type of villainy is not what I saw. I saw a professor respectfully explaining that it was not his goal to push Christianity aside rudely, but to simply focus on the science. I have no problem with that. Reading the Bible doesn’t help you understand what’s under the microscope. (Although, it may help you understand why it’s there.)
Not everyone is comfortable with this, and I understand that, however it is my conviction that whatever is under the microscope was put there by God. Does it appear to reflect evolution? So be it. Does that undermine the Bible? Of course not. If Christianity is true, then nothing in nature could possibly exist in opposition to it. If anything between science and Christianity seems to be in disagreement, I just remember that there is more we have to learn; maybe when we learn more about our world we will see that science and Christianity are not so far apart.
Until that happens, please remember how respectful that biologist was to religion. Fellow Christians, we are to be just as respectful to them if we are to live as Jesus lived.
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Adam, this post really struck me. I recently had a 20-year old family member refuse to send me photos of his baby because, on my Facebook page, I identify myself as a Democrat. It just feels like our entire society gets more rude, more disrespectful, and more hateful all the time. I’m glad you saw some good behavior being practiced. It lifts up my faith in humanity.
Thank you, Sarah. It’s good to hear from you.
Have to rush off to work but just wanted to say excellent post. Really wonderful
I always find the Biology vs. Evolution argument a little ironic (despite being fascinated and reading up on it all the time), because my ninth grade non-Christian honors biology teacher breezed over the Evolution paragraph with quickness and ease. She said (roughly, I can’t quote her exactly, that was 12 years ago!) “There’s only one paragraph in this book about evolutionary theory because that’s all it is, a theory. At this point there is no scientific proof [this was 1998] to warrant calling Evolution a scientific fact. Know the definition of the theory. Moving on…” And that was that.
Has anyone read Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box. Its interesting. And I agree with you, we should look at the science. As far as I can tell, science and the bible go hand in hand. We should know both well, and we’ll understand the world God made us a lot better.
It’s a shame your ninth grade biology teacher was so crappy. Anyone who has done any reading on the subject at all can tell you that evolutionary theory is pretty much the holy grail of biology and that nothing whatsoever makes sense in biology without the backdrop of evolution.
Evolution is a theory in the same way that gravity or the germ theory of disease are both theories. While it’s true that we don’t know all the answers, they form the generally accepted building blocks on which we base our understanding of the natural world. We may not be certain exactly how it works, but we’re pretty certain that it’s the mechanism by which the world operates.
See, I’m in the curious position where I look at both the the statements on that coloring page the same way as the last two comments: I wonder whether someone is trolling me.
It is quite the cliché, though: Biologists and similar scientists in my experience are less adamant about, if not downright refutatory of, macro-evolution than their “lay person” counterparts. I just wish everyone was better at defining their terms (i.e., theory, evolution), recognizing what falls under what purview (i.e., where science ends and speculation begins, where religion is threatened and where it is not), and keeping themselves educated and reasonable.
真正的富裕是一無所求。..................................................