Most of the world’s greatest scientists—Copernicus, Newton, Kepler, Mendel, Boyle, Bacon, Harvey, Kelvin, Planck, and countless others—openly expressed their belief in God and the Christian faith. They not only acknowledged Biblical teachings as the basis of their discoveries but also believed what it taught, including its declaration that:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…By the seventh day, God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done” (Genesis 1:1, 2:1 NASB).
Among the most famous scientists, it was overwhelmingly accepted that God did indeed make the heavens and the earth, and no verifiable scientific fact has ever disproved this thesis. So why is there so much animosity against those who believe what many of the most famous scientists in history also believed?
Anti-Science?
In an effort to limit the effects of that hostility, the Ohio statehouse recently voted on the “Student Religious Liberties Act,” requiring “that teachers ‘shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student’s work.’” Specifically, students cannot be penalized for agreeing with the greatest scientific minds in “saying that the Earth is just 10,000 years old.”
Today many secularist scientists assume that any agreeing with the Bible is automatically “incorrect” and “anti-science”—as if Christians “don’t want schools to teach science.” This belief is held not only by secular biologists, geologists, and anthropologists but also secular climatologists who claim that those who do not believe in anthropogenic (that is, man-made) climate change are “discrediting science.” Even Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg calls this “contributing to climate change ‘a kind of sin.’”
Closed-minded Scientists
By considering evolution an indisputable fact, secularists and closed-minded scientists exclude the work of many distinguished individuals—including noted scientist Benjamin Franklin, who openly affirmed:
“I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity: that He made the world and governed it by His providence.”
(In what may be a surprise to many, Darwin was not the originator of evolution but only reduced its major teachings to a single work. All the major positions associated with evolution ranging from the Big Bang to primordial slime had been articulated by the time of Aristotle, nearly four centuries before Christ. In fact, Daniel Webster’s 1801 senior paper at Dartmouth was on the debate between creation and evolution—57 years before Darwin penned his Origin of Species.
Ironically, evolutionists have religious faith in their beliefs. As observers affirm:
“Some form of faith (in a religion) is required to believe in [either] creation or evolution. Both creation and evolution make claims about an unrepeatable past that was not observed by humans. Thus, both creation and evolution fall under the category of historical science.”
Science Defined
So who decides what science is? Thomas Paine—certainly one of the most secular among those in the Founding Era—answered that question:
“All the principles of science are of Divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.”
Scores of the greatest scientists throughout history not only discovered various Divinely established “principles of science” but were faithful to look “through the discovery to the Author.” The Bible is not anti-science, and neither are those who believe it.
But perhaps more dangerous than teaching evolution as undeniable fact is declaring that Biblical teachings on creation are anti-science. When learning about the incredible complexity of the world in which we live, students should be encouraged to ask questions and should not be shut down for doing so, or for holding scientific beliefs that happen to align with what the Bible teaches.
GUIDING TRUTHS
