When the worlds of Christianity and science meet, it is often assumed and stated that a person may not believe both. Either someone can side with those unsophisticated Bible readers or choose to embrace the world science and knowledge that eventually will provide all the answers mankind could ever need. This belief, which is widely held throughout academia, is historically inaccurate and the idea that faith in God is exclusive to believing in science is simply a fallacy.

First off, this is by no means an argument for the veracity of Christianity, as that would require significantly more explanation; this is simply an argument that someone may have faith in the Bible as well as faith in the modern marvels of science.

Historically speaking, many of the greatest and most significant discoveries made in the fields of science and mathematics were made by men who would now have been coined Biblical creationists. Louis Pasteur, the French chemist who made leaps and bounds in the principles of vaccination as well as the fermentation of microbials, was a scientist, who was also a Christian.

Sir Isaac Newton and his laws of motion and numerous other contributions stemmed from his belief that God was the creator of the universe and that man was tasked with seeking the answers to all that goes on around him on the earth.

Leonardo da Vinci, who pioneered many modern ideas such as flight and aeronautical mechanics, as well as being a renowned sculptor and architect professed belief in the Bible and his Christian faith.

Even the man, to whom the theistically incompatible scientific method is attributed to, Sir Francis Bacon, was a God fearing Bible reading scientist. He was only one of a host of Christian scientists who did not see their faith as a detracting factor from their work, but more so a driving force for it.

The argument that many of these men, regardless of their scientific achievements, were simply behind any modern philosophies such as evolution or survival of the fittest, is proven wrong as a host of these men were in fact quite well acquainted with the atheistic ideals of the day.

Lord Kelvin who was the father of early temperature mechanics and developed the absolute temperature scale, Johann Kepler and his celestial mechanics, and Ambrose Fleming the inventor of the thermionic valve, all were outspoken critics of the ideas of Darwinism and pantheism that were prevalent in their societies.

Another argument that is often given by those who do not think someone can believe the Bible as well as in science is that anything that science cannot prove is naturally false. This belief and its underlying flaws are laid in by former agnostic turned evangelical Josh McDowell in his book, “More Than a Carpenter.”

McDowell writes, “We all accept as true many facts that cannot be verified by scientific methods. We cannot scientifically prove anything about any person or event in history, but that doesn’t mean proof isn’t impossible. We need to understand the difference between scientific and legal-historical proof.”

He goes on to explain that scientific proof is based on being able to consistently repeat a scenario within a controlled environment and then continuing those experiments based off of data and observations. “If the scientific method were the only method we had for proving facts, you couldn’t prove that you watched television last night or that you had lunch today. There’s no way you could repeat those events in a controlled situation.”

The other way of proving something is that of legal-historical proof. This is made up of oral and written testimony as well as physical evidence. This allows past people or past events such as the Holocaust or something as simple as going out for lunch last week to be proven. The scientific method can only prove things that are repeatable and is not useful for people or events from past history. With all that being said, the scientific method cannot be used to disqualify someone’s belief in what science can do as well as the Bible.

The Bible is not a science book however what it does say in relation to science is consistent with modern science. Dinosaurs are mentioned in Job: 40. In Genesis 22:17, the innumerability of the stars is given, hundreds of years before secular scientists would begin to stake claims that all the stars had been charted. Leviticus 17:11, written prior to 1400 BC, establishes the life sustaining properties of blood to living organisms. All of these scientific facts were written hundreds of years before science was proclaiming the earth was flat and that it was the center of the universe.

The biggest confliction between the Bible and secular science is on the creation account. As neither evolution nor creationism can be scientifically proven, meaning they cannot be repeated consistently under controlled conditions, one can be a scientist, with Christian faith, and also choose one unproven theory over another. Since the time of Darwin, many of his theories have been disproven due to the DNA similarities between species being significantly smaller than hypothesized, ultimately narrowing it down to either all life has a common ancestor or all life has a common creator.

All in all, science and the Bible are not in such an adversarial situation as is often stated. For centuries, people having carried the Bible with them as they made discoveries and advancements that have propelled mankind forward, never letting the two detract from one another. In the end, science cannot prove everything, and therefore cannot be used as a disqualification to people believing in its value as well as their own personal faith.