(Note from Rowland: I’m posting here a sample of posts – mainly by Ken and Don, from a May 2005 discussion on the newsgroup aus.religion.christian. For other posts in this thread go to Google/Groups).

This is the second of what I expect will be a number of postings simply providing quotations from various scientists, and, occasionally, from a religious non-scientist who mentions scientific matters. They will cover the nature of science and the procedures used by scientists, philosophical ideas, comments about religion, and, in short, anything which relates to the discussion about interpreting the Bible in this scientific age.

I will not be adding any comments, but will let the writers speak for themselves. In contrast to the modern `sound-bite’ idea these will not be short, pithy comments, but will cover at least a complete paragraph in the author’s published books, so that the context of the words can be understood.

I will only quote from published books, or articles in collections of essays, and not from any secondary writings which may cite these works, to ensure that the actual words of the writers are quoted correctly.

And I’ll do my best to make each post not longer than about 200 lines.

People quoted in this post are: John Calvin, theologian; Bill McCrea, astronomer; and John Stott, theologian.

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It wasn’t only the Catholic Church which asserted that the earth was fixed, and that the sun and stars revolved around the earth. John Calvin (1509-64), the Reformation theologian, wrote a series of commentaries on the Bible.

His commentary on the Book of Psalms reveals that, like many other Reformation writers, he held to a Ptolemaic view of the cosmos. The final words of Psalm 93 are translated as “he hath also established the world; it shall not be moved.” Calvin comments on these in the words:

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The Psalmist proves that God will not neglect or abandon the world, from the fact that he created it. A simple survey of the world should of itself attest a Divine Providence. The heavens revolve daily, and, immense as is their fabric, and inconceivable the rapidity of their revolutions, we experience no concussion — no disturbance in the harmony of their motion. The sun, though varying its course every diurnal revolution, returns annually to the same point. The planets, in all their wanderings, maintain their respective positions. How could the earth hang suspended in the air were it not upheld by God’s hand? By what means could it maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it?

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Bill McCrea was, at the time the following was written, Emeritus Professor of Astronomy at the University of Sussex, as well as an evangelical Christian. His article, `Models, Laws, and the Universe’, is on pages 59-73 of “Cosmology, History and Theology”, edited by Wolfgang Yourgrau and Allen D. Beck (Plenum Press, 1977). This volume contained papers presented at an international colloquium held at the University of Denver on November 6-8, 1974.

McCrea’s concluding paragraphs, under the heading “Scholium” on page 72, using the underscore character _ to delineate McCrea’s emphases, are:

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In this paper I have tried to describe the nature of physical science as applied to cosmology, the production and achievements of a cosmological model, and the more far-reaching aims of such endeavours. No matter how successful those endeavours may prove, at the very least we stil have to postulate the _universe_. As a matter of history modern cosmologists have been unable to think about the universe without thinking about creation. Postulating a universe seems to me to be almost the same as postulating a _Creator_.

Scientists may some day be able to infer, given only that there is a universe, that it must produce such and such matter, this must form galaxies, these must contains planets, these must produce life, life must result in consciousness, consciousness must produce us, and we must conceive all these systems of thought. So we should have what ultimately begins to look like a closed system. The feature that we could be most sure about at that stage would be _ourselves_. The postulation of the universe and of ourselves may be the same thing.

As we have seen repeatedly, we cannot formulate any science without reference to the _observer_ and, again as a matter of history, progress in fundamental science has been made by increasingly recognizing the role of the observer. It seems to me therefore that we cannot think about the universe without the concept of _personality_. Cosmology requires, I venture to assert, the concepts of Creator and of personality, and together these mean God.

Earlier, I suggested that nature does not satisfy idle curiosity. Here I should take this to mean that we may expect to know about the Creator only what we need to know for the business of living. But we also recalled that we never cease to learn by experience. There can be no cosmology without physical experience, and there can be no religion without religious experience. Men exert themselves to the utmost to gain new experience of the physical world; likewise religious experience has to be sought.

Any such experience that any of us may claim speaks to us surely of _purpose_. Whether it be the glory of a morning in springtime, or the beauty of a human face, or the vastness of the universe producing the specks that are ourselves, can we possibly believe that there is no purpose in it?

Some may consent thus far and be therewith content. But to others of us purpose is inseparable from person, and the Person of the Creator is revealed in the Person of Christ. ~~~

Nobody could possibly doubt the evangelical credentials of John Stott, one time Rector of All Souls, Langham Place, London. One of his well-known books is “Issues Facing Christians Today” in which he takes up a number of important aspects of Christian living in today’s society, in areas which je defines as global, social and sexual. He has also written a number of small books, and in the revisaed edition of “Understanding the Bible” (Scripture Union, 1984) he provides a short overview of the Bible.

Pages 47-50 are headed “The Creation”, and indicate Stott’s attitude to modern science. On pages 47 and 48 we read:

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Modern readers inevitably approach the early chapters of genesis with some knowledge that during the last century they have been a battlefield between religion and science. We shall be wise, therefore, to learn a lesson from history, and top study them with caution born of humility. For in the past representatives of both sides have made rashly dogmatic assertions, which either they or their successors have later been obliged to repudiate. Scientists need to distinguish between fact and theory, and Bible students between plain scriptural statement and fallible human interpretation. For our purpose in this book the latter is particularly important. The principle should be clear: what Scripture affirms, God affirms and what God affirms is true. So what does God affirm in Scripture about creation?

In general, we can say with assurance that Genesis 1 begins with God (`in the beginning God created . . .’), continues with progressive stages (`and God said . . . and God said . . .’), and ends with man (So God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them’). How much further may we go with this? In particular, what may we say about the `how’ of God’s creative activity? Not many Christians today find it necessary to defend the concept of a literal six-day creation, for the text does not demand it, and scientific discovery appears to contradict it. The biblical text presents itself not as a scientific treatise but as a highly stylised literary statement (deliberately framed in three pairs, the fourth `day’ corresponding to the first, the fifth to the second, and the sixth to the third). Moreover the geological evidence for a gradual development over thousands of millions of years seems conclusive.

Indeed, speaking for myself, I cannot see that at least some forms of the theory of evolution contradict or are contradicted by the Genesis account of creation. It is most unfortunate that some who debate this issue begin by assuming that the words `creation’ and `evolution’ are mutually exclusive. If everything has come into existence through evolution, they say, then biblical creation has been disproved, whereas if God created all things, then evolution must be false. It is, rather, this naive alternative which is false. It presupposes a very narrow definition of the two terms, both of which have a wide range of meanings, and both of which are being freshly discussed today. For example, although the great majority of scientists continue to believe that there had been a long evolutionary process, the Darwinian theory of `natural selection’ (or `the survival of the fittest’) as its operational principle is being increasingly questioned, and instead of a single and gradual progression a theory is being developed which posits multiple changes, in fits and starts, and sometimes by inexplicable major leaps. Of course any theory of evolution which is presented as a blind and random process must be rejected by Christians as incompatible with the biblical revelation that God created everything by his will and word, that he made it `good’, and that his creative programme culminated in Godlike human beings. But there does not seem to me any biblical reason for denying that some kind of purposive evolutionary development may have been the mode which God employed in creating.

To suggest this tentatively need not in any way detract from man’s uniqueness. I myself believe in the historicity of Adam and Eve, as the original couple from whom the human race is descended. I shall give my reasons in chapter 7, when I come to the question of how we are to interpret scripture. But my acceptance of Adam and Eve as historical is not incompatible with my belief that several forms of pre-Adamic `hominid’ seem to have existed for thousands of years previously. These hominids began to advance culturally. They made their cave drawings and buried their dead. It is conceivable that God created Adam out of one of them. You may call them _homo erectus_. I think you may even call some of them _homo sapiens_, for these are arbitrary scientific names. But Adam was the first _homo divinus_, if I may coin the phrase, the first man to whom may be given the specific biblical designation `made in the image of God’. Precisely what the divine likeness was, which was stamped upon him, we do not know, for Scripture nowhere tells us. But it seems to have included those rational, moral, social and spiritual faculties which make man unlike all other creatures and like God the creator, and on account of which he was given `dominion’ over the lower creation.

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Concerning Noah’s Flood Stott writes on page 50:

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The flood seems to have been a comparatively local — though widespread — disaster. The assertion that `all the mountains under the entire heavens were covered’ (Gen. 7:19) is not to be pressed with strict literalism, but rather understood from the perspective of the observer, just as the `God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven’ who were in Jerusalem for Pentecost (Acts 2:5) evidently refers to the known world of the Mediterranean basin. For Luke goes on to list fifteen such groups. He was not alluding to distant peoples like Eskimos, Australian Aborigines and Maoris.

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Dr Ken Smith – Christian, husband, unpaid mathematician, skeptic, … `The argument from design tries to prove God’s reality by examining the universe. In the form given to it today by those naming themselves “creation scientists” it earns the fury of genuine scientists.’ John Leslie