I spend a lot of time on the internet, especially on sites like reddit and YouTube. I’ve observed on these sites that a large amount of people think one can’t be both religious and scientific. Adherence to a religious belief instantly discredits you from anything you have to say because you’re “delusional” and/or a “science-denier”. I will attempt to argue that this is most certainly not the case, and that one can practice religion (in my case Christianity) while still being scientific. One must simply understand the scope of both.

The purpose of Science and Religion

Science and Religion are both tools for discovering truth. The truths they reveal are fundamentally different.

For purposes of this argument, I will define science as anything discovered through proper use of the scientific method. The scientific method contains several steps:

1. Ask a question
2. Create a hypothesis (or a well-researched guess)
3. Design a procedure to test the hypothesis, attempting to remove as many extra variables as possible
4. Use evidence from the procedure to arrive at a conclusion about the hypothesis

These steps have been designed to tell us truths about the physical, testable, world. Christianity on the other hand tells us truths about the spiritual world, as well as a few truths about the physical world. It is these physical truths that many site as reasons to disqualify the Bible, but what I don’t think they take into account are the fundamental limits of the scientific method, and the intended purpose for some of the religious truths.

The assumptions of Science

The problem with the scientific method is that in order to work, it makes two assumptions, which are vital to understand when considering the broad picture:

1. Everything can be explained through examination and testing of the physical world. For the purposes of Science anything outside the physical world doesn’t exist.
2. The laws of nature and the physical world have never changed nor will they ever change.

Science makes these assumptions by necessity. If a scientist factors the metaphysical into experiments, that allows for an infinite amount of variables and explanations. Why did the apple fall to the ground? Easy, a metaphysical force wanted it to happen so it did. Or maybe the apple’s spirit wanted to be with the ground. Obviously those conclusions aren’t very useful, nor are they testable. This is why when performing science, one must understand that they cannot account for the metaphysical, and as such any evidence they gather is under that assumption. It isn’t a bad assumption. I’d argue it’s a very useful assumption for the purposes that science usually has - that is, to discover things about the natural world that can be harnessed by mankind for good (or evil).

The second assumption science makes is that the laws of the physical world are immutable. This is also out of necessity for many of the same reasons as the first assumption are.

The key to all of this is understanding that these assumptions are in place when doing science. Once this is understood, one can more accurately use the knowledge gained through this method.

Reconciling Science with the Bible

The origin of the universe and humanity is one of the most polarizing issues, both between different groups of Christians and between Christians and Atheists.

I believe the solution to this problem is to recognize that science is most accurate when telling us about the present time, and any claims made about the pre-recorded past are subject to those two assumptions I mentioned earlier. I’m not suggesting we throw out all of those findings, but I am saying one can be a scientist or an intellectual and choose to disbelieve some of them. It just depends on which method one prefers for delivering truth. I’ve seen Science to be wrong quite often in the past, but many of the events predicted in the Bible have come to pass, and I personally choose to believe in the Bible when it indisputably clashes with scientific findings about the past. My actual beliefs regarding the age of the earth and how humanity came to be are quite nuanced, and I don’t want to cause a fight in the comment section, so I won’t discuss those here.

The usefulness of Biblical statements on the physical world

While the Bible contains some statements about the universe that may be at odds with Science, It also contains commandments that align with Scientific findings, but are presented for different purposes. One of the easiest examples to see is in mosaic law regarding dietary restrictions.

God tells the Jews not to eat meat with blood still in it. We know through scientific findings that raw meat can be dangerous to consume due to germs which have congregated in the meat since the animal has been dead. The Jews didn’t have germ theory, but God was able to help protect them with that law.

We know today that certain types of meat are relatively safe to consume uncooked, and many modern day Christians enjoy rare steak. I believe God gave the Jews this dietary restriction for the additional purpose of unification and separation. He wanted His people to be distinct from the rest of the world, and dietary restrictions are a very effective way to do that. We see this purpose in most of the other ceremonial laws as well.

Conclusion

Both Science and the Bible can teach us truths about the world. It’s important to understand the purpose and limitations of both in order to arrive at what’s true.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment below if you have any thoughts to add or discuss.