by
Larry
Vardiman *
Presented
at the Christian Scholarship Conference
in Boulder, Colorado, October 9-11, 1997,
sponsored by Christian Leadership Ministries of Campus Crusade.
All Rights Reserved
Institute
for Creation Research, PO Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021
Voice: (619) 448-0900 FAX: (619) 448-3469
Introduction
Isaac Newton is recognized today by
almost all scientists to have been one of the greatest, if not the greatest,
scientist who ever lived. His breadth of knowledge, his ability to analyze and
synthesize the physical world, his development and use of the calculus, his
formulation of the three laws of motion, and the expression of the law of
gravitation have been unequaled by any other scientist before or since.
Yet, it is not widely known that
Newton was also a Christian and a Bible scholar. He studied the Bible diligently
and wrote commentaries on portions of scripture, such as his monograph on the
book of Daniel. He clearly believed that God is the Creator and sustainer of our
universe. Misunderstanding the source of Newton's creativity, some critics have
suggested that Newton would have been more productive if he had not wasted so
much time studying and writing about the Bible.
It is understandable that
non-Christian scientists would advocate a naturalistic, non-Biblical approach to
science. But, this same attitude seems to prevail among Christian scientists as
well. By and large, professing Christians who are active scientists tend to play
down any use of scripture as a basis for their science. They may refer in a
general way to design or God being somehow involved behind the scenes, but few
attempt to use the Bible as a serious resource in designing or implementing
scientific investigations. If the Bible is to be trusted on such spiritual
issues as salvation, the church, or prophecy why can it not be trusted on such
physical issues as origins, earth history, or the future?
This article will explore some of the
current attitudes and implications to using the Bible as a source of information
to "do" science. The consequences of Christian scientists restricting
themselves to non-Biblical sources of information will be discussed and an
appeal made to take the Bible more seriously in formulating research questions
and interpreting scientific data. A case will be made that the Bible can be used
to develop a worldview of earth history which is superior to a naturalistic
worldview. Although, the Bible obviously does not contain a great deal of
scientific detail, it does provide a framework which should direct our
scientific thinking. After all, if the Bible is God's Word and it reveals Truth,
then the closer we get to the Truth in our presuppositions, the faster we will
discover the Truth in the details.
The
Current Attitude
The current attitude in the academic
and scientific community is that science and religion are completely
incompatible. It is believed by many that science is a system of knowledge based
on experimentation, observation, and logic. Religion, on the other hand, is
viewed as a system of faith based on myth, culture, and self delusion. A
researcher is allowed to have a personal religion, but he should never permit it
to affect his work, or he will no longer be considered a legitimate scientist.
In a recent court case involving the
right of the ICR Graduate School to teach science from a Biblical perspective, a
physics professor from California State University at Long Beach testified that
if Isaac Newton were on the school's faculty today, his position on creation
would prevent the school from being recognized by the State of California. This
professor objected to statements such as the following in Mathematica
Principia where Newton said:
"This
most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from
the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. This Being
governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all, and on
account of His dominion He is wont to be called Lord God, Universal Ruler."
(Newton, 1686).
When questioned how this professor
could make such a statement about one who is recognized as possibly the greatest
scientist who ever lived, he replied that if Isaac Newton persisted in
maintaining a creationist position as he did in Mathematica Principia,
knowing what we know today, he would not be recognized as a credible scientist
(Lerner, 1990).
The reason this antagonism has reached
such extreme proportions is because science has been redefined to include only
natural explanations. All observed and hypothesized processes in the universe
must be the result of natural causes. No supernatural explanations are allowed.
Phillip Johnson has described this approach well in his recent book when he
said:
Theistic
or "guided" evolution has to be excluded as a possibility because
Darwinists identify science with a philosophical doctrine know as naturalism.
Naturalism assumes the entire realm of nature to be a closed system of material
causes and effects, which cannot be influenced by anything from
"outside." Naturalism does not explicitly deny the mere existence of
god, but it does deny that a supernatural being could in any way influence
natural events, such as evolution, or communicate with natural creatures like
ourselves. Scientific naturalism makes the same point by starting with
the assumption that science, which studies only the natural, is our only
reliable path to knowledge (Johnson, 1991, p. 116).
When science is defined in this manner
and someone violates the rules of investigation by incorporating a supernatural
cause or referring to the Bible, he is determined to be unscientific. Even if
one believes that God only intervenes at special occasions like creation or the
Flood and the laws of science otherwise operate routinely so that the scientific
process can normally be trusted, he will still come under criticism. The
rhetoric can become inflammatory when power structures in the government and
societies are involved. For example, the governing boards of over 20 scientific
societies, in the United States, have released statements, or resolutions,
expressing their opposition to the teaching of creationism and its
identification with science. Such position statements have the effect of
blocking acceptance of journal articles from "creationists."
Most scientists tend to shy away from
such controversies. They prefer to not become involved in public arguments or
major controversies. By their nature, most scientists tend to be withdrawn and
prefer to work in a quiet, non-controversial environment. They generally eschew
political posturing and public pronouncements. Although many scientists are
religious or are sympathetic to those who are religious, they are unwilling to
reveal their positions for fear of ridicule or reprisals. On the other hand,
there are some scientists who are very aggressive about promoting a naturalistic
worldview and even some who advocate sanctions against those who would conduct
science from a supernatural perspective.
Carl
Sagan's Naturalistic Worldview
Carl Sagan was one of the most
articulate spokesmen for a naturalistic worldview. Before he died of cancer in
1997 he had written numerous books about the cosmos and man's place in it. He
was active in many scientific organizations and in at least one which was
aggressively antagonistic toward the mixing of the Bible and science. His
willingness to express his views on the origin of life openly in his writings
and public speaking was unique, to the point of alienating many of his
more-reserved colleagues who thought he was no longer functioning as a scientist
himself. However, his writing talents were well received by the public and the
literary community.
Carl Sagan believed that man was the
result of natural processes operating over billions of years in a vast ocean of
space. He could become highly sentimental over the immensity of time involved in
man's evolution and the incredible improbability that life had occurred by
chance. He had one great hope—to find life existing somewhere else in the
universe. I believe his rejection of God as creator produced a void in his
worldview, which drove him to this search for life elsewhere in the universe. He
searched for almost 30 years for some evidence that we are not alone, but he
died with his dream unfulfilled. He made an intriguing statement about 25 years
into this search when he said, "We've been looking for life beyond the
Earth for 25 years now, and we haven't found it anywhere. There must be
something unique about the Earth" (Sagan, 1992). I don't believe he ever
realized how incredibly true this statement was.
I had the distinct privilege of
meeting Carl Sagan personally at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San
Francisco in December 1994. I had been drawn to his session by a sincere respect
for his writing and speaking skills over the years, and I believe the Lord led
me to speak with him at that time because he didn't have long to live. He was to
be the first speaker following a 30-minute intermission. I introduced myself and
expressed my appreciation for his ability to articulate science in a way that
could be understood by the public. He knew of the Institute for Creation
Research where I work, but had not heard of me personally.
He immediately began asking a series
of leading questions about how a well-trained scientist like me could have
confidence in a book written by a bunch of ignorant sheep herders thousands of
years before any real science had been discovered. He was so intent on pursuing
our conversation, that the session chairman had to come down from the podium and
interrupt our conversation to begin the next session. I was puzzled at the time
by his aggressiveness in questioning my reasons for confidence in the Bible. I
later found out that he was to speak to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco
that evening where he introduced his new book, The Pale Blue Dot. In this
book and in an article he wrote for Parade Magazine in 1995 entitled, Through
the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Carl Sagan was probably more transparent
than he had ever been about his search for God and eternal life. I am certain
that the nearness of death was forcing him to reexamine some of the
presuppositions on which he had based his life.
I exchanged a half dozen letters with
Carl Sagan over the next year and a half. We continued the conversation started
in San Francisco and I came to care for him as a friend. Probably the most
poignant interchange was over a statement he had made in his book, The Pale
Blue Dot. After several leading comments about the unreliability of the
Bible, he said in this book, "The evidence so far at least and from the
laws of nature aside, does not require a Designer. Maybe there is one hiding,
maddeningly unwilling to be revealed" (Sagan, 1994). I responded in one of
my letters by saying, "Scientists have the greatest opportunity of all to
see the evidence of God's marvelous provision for man in His creation. Yet, by
and large, scientists today tend to be almost totally blinded to the evidences.
Because of the kinship I feel toward you about the things of science, I request
that you reconsider your relationship to God. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you.
He is not hiding from you. Rather, He is waiting for you to see him"
(Vardiman, 1995).
The final letter I received from Carl
Sagan before his death contained the response, "Asking God to reveal
himself to me presupposes his existence. Plainly, this would be an inconsistent
approach for someone who sees no evidence for such a God" (Sagan, 1995).
This response has haunted me ever since. Carl Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan, asserted
in the epilogue to his last book, Billions and Billions, that,
"Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed
conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven or an
afterlife" (Sagan, 1997). I still hold out hope that he made peace with his
maker and I will see him again someday.
It was evident from his writings, as
well as his membership in the National Center for Science Education (a
California group dedicated almost exclusively to the advocacy of evolution and
the removal of scientific creationism from society), that Carl Sagan believed
Scripture was unreliable and should not be used as a basis for scientific
investigation. Unfortunately, the eloquence of his oratory and others like him
has brought disfavor upon the use of Scripture in any meaningful way in the
conduct of science. Funding of research, peer review and publication of research
results and recognition of scientific accomplishments are strongly affected by
attitudes developed by people like Carl Sagan. It is not too much to say that
scientists in the twentieth century must fear for their professional lives if
they rely upon scriptural support in any of their work. Yet, research conducted
from a Biblical perspective by those willing to forego the usual support and
recognition is making significant progress and will eventually be recognized for
the contribution it is making.
The
Development of a Creationist Researcher
I was trained as a scientist in the
traditional non-theistic, mechanistic tradition. My undergraduate physics degree
was from the University of Missouri at Rolla, which is a well-known, no-nonsense
engineering school. The curriculum was very rigorous, requiring five years of
work to be accomplished in four. No time was devoted to the philosophy of
science or religious considerations. Even the physics department spent little
time debating the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle or the dual nature of light.
These and other concepts which seem so philosophical today were generally
accepted as fact by the students and applied to various situations to explain
how the world functioned.
At the end of the undergraduate
physics degree program, I needed a break from the heavy demands of the previous
four years. In addition, I was not happy with the direction a graduate physics
degree would take me. The emphasis was on non-Newtonian modern physics, with all
the unreality of relativity and quantum mechanics. I was attuned to describing
the world as I sensed it, not one which required concepts foreign to my everyday
experiences. A four-year commission as an officer in the Air Force solved both
my problems. The Air Force sent me to St. Louis University where I received a
second B.S. in Meteorology, and then I spent the next three years conducting
field research in cloud physics and weather modification. I found meteorology to
be a thoroughly enjoyable extension to my physics background because it was
simply applied classical physics. I didn't have to struggle with relativity or
other foreign concepts. Thermodynamics and fluid motion became familiar
concepts, which could not only be calculated but sensed by the flow of heat from
my fingers and the flow of air through my hair.
Although my training in the
Meteorology Department at St. Louis University was more of the traditional,
applied science I had received as a physics undergraduate, I was required to
take three courses in addition to the science program to complete a second
bachelors degree. St. Louis University is a Jesuit school and required me to
take a course in ethics, one in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, and a history
course. The three courses didn't seem to have much impact upon me at the time,
other than seeming to reinforce my allegiance to science which I could see,
taste, touch, hear, and smell. However, the brief contact I had with the logic,
philosophy, and Catholicism in these courses were to bloom later into an
entirely new appreciation for the unseen from a religious viewpoint. When I
attended St. Louis University in the late '60s Teilhard de Chardin was having a
significant influence on the Catholic church and particularly, the Jesuits. At
the time, before I became involved in creationism, I did not appreciate the
strange infatuation the priests seemed to have for evolution as taught by
Chardin.
Upon leaving the Air Force for
graduate school, I entered Colorado State University to study under one of the
leading field researchers in cloud physics and weather modification. My interest
was again to study nature in a way that was describable in easily-observed ways
and could be sensed. My specialty was in the physics of winter, mountain
precipitation and the potential for augmenting snowfall through artificial
means. My graduate experience leading to a doctorate and the following eight
years of postdoctoral work in this field were very enjoyable, satisfying periods
in my life. I spent a lot of time in the mountains of Colorado and California
observing unique weather conditions and experiencing beautiful scenery. The
science was satisfying both from understanding nature but also from the prospect
of contributing additional water resources to the dry western states.
During graduate school and following,
in addition to the traditional science training I received, two major influences
began to have an effect. The study of ice crystals under a microscope, which was
a major part of my research, and the teaching about God and the Bible in my
church both produced significant changes in my worldview. I became an expert in
the identification of ice crystals which form in clouds under various
environmental conditions. This aspect of ice crystals was purely technical and
conformed to known laws of nature. However, the beauty and order of the one
hundred or more types of ice crystals began to exert a subtle influence on me. I
began to appreciate the beauty and order I was seeing in nature, and began to
discern some of the characteristics of the Creator through His creation. It
became clear to me that the Creator appreciates order and beauty. I was seeing
his handiwork displayed under my microscope. And the more I studied ice crystals
to find why they form the way they do, the more order I found underlying the
apparent surface order.
The church I attended during graduate
school taught that the Bible was God's Word and should be accepted literally in
all places where it was possible to do so. I had previously been taught to take
the Bible seriously, but not literally. Unfortunately, this had left me with a
great lack of confidence in the Bible because I didn't know how to apply it to
my life. I had been a Christian for over ten years before I came under the
teachings of this church, but had never come to love God. I feared God, but
didn't like Him because I didn't like what I read in the Bible. This church
helped me to understand the sovereignty of God and why He does what He does.
Then the Bible began to make sense and I came to truly love God. This change in
my view of God lead to my adoption of Philippians 2:13 as my life verse,
"For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do of His good
pleasure."
Once I could trust God, I began to
take His Word literally and immediately found a conflict between the Bible and
the science I was being taught in graduate school. I spent almost a year trying
to resolve this conflict. I was finally able to develop a strategy for this
dilemma which has become part of my Biblical hermeneutic. When a conflict
becomes evident between an apparent interpretation of the Bible and an apparent
finding of science, it is not necessary to force a final determination to be
made immediately without further investigation. It is possible that a
misinterpretation of either or both of the statements of Scripture or the
evidence from science have occurred. Since, of the two, Scripture speaks with
greater clarity, until a satisfactory resolution can be made about the conflict,
I will proceed with confidence in my interpretation of Scripture. Resolution may
not occur in my lifetime.
The opposite to this approach is
typically used by many Christians who have accepted evolutionary theory or long
ages for the earth. I believe a lack of confidence in the Bible has led to
compromised positions. It is evident that evolution and an old earth are in
conflict with the clear statements of Scripture. However, is it the Bible that
has been misinterpreted or the evidence from science? Would it not be better to
wait for a resolution to these conflicts, rather than compromise God's Word?
During the past fifteen years I have
become an active creationist researcher. My formal training and experience
prepared me well to conduct research. However, it hasn't been until the last
seven years or so that I have been able to design and conduct research projects
from what I believe is a truly Biblical perspective. Up until 1990 my research
efforts were only half-hearted and my contributions were not well-focused or
significant. I attribute this partially to the peer pressure I felt. I was
afraid of what my colleagues would think or say about my attempt to conduct
research from a truly Biblical perspective. However, a more important aspect was
the lack of confidence I had in the Bible. I didn't really believe that I could
depend on the statements of Scripture to be used as a springboard for designing
research questions or experiments.
In 1990 Michel Oard, a creationist
associate, suggested that if the Genesis Flood was a real historical event
during a single year, it would have caused the oceans to be heated, creating
significantly different environmental conditions for many years following. This
idea immediately caused me to ask a whole series of questions about the Ice Age
and climate in a young-earth scenario which could be tested by numerical climate
simulations and analysis of paleoclimate data. As the research proceeded over
the next seven years, the results began to confirm some of my hypotheses,
leading to more confidence in the Bible as a reliable source document for
research.
I found that seafloor sediment
confirms that the oceans were much warmer in the past—as warm as 90o
F—and that if they cooled rapidly over the past five thousand years or so, the
cooling curve agrees with well-established laws. Numerical simulations using
conventional atmospheric climate models show that the precipitation of snow in
the polar regions would have been greatly enhanced by the warm oceans resulting
in an accumulation of two miles or more of ice in only a few hundred years. Even
the variation in oxygen isotope ratios in ice cores drilled in Greenland can be
explained by rapid changes in the coverage of ice shelves over the polar seas.
Because of the increasing confidence
in the Bible these results produced, I have come to rely more and more on it to
design research projects. I am no longer afraid that the Bible will fail me and
I no longer fear the ridicule of my associates. I may still misinterpret
portions of the Bible and I may still be criticized by my colleagues, but I am
now working to understand earth history from a Biblical perspective which I hope
will be more fully appreciated by future generations.
A
Supernaturalistic Worldview in Research at Los Alamos
John Baumgardner is a geophysicist at
the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He is a graduate
of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and was a member of the
Campus Crusade staff for several years. While serving with Campus Crusade John
was deeply grieved by the devastation being wrought in student lives by the
dogmatic teaching of evolution on the university campus and found himself doing
class room lectures that exposed some of the glaring defects in the evolution
hypothesis and presenting the creation alternative. As he became more involved
in dealing with these issues on campus, he became keenly aware of the importance
of rightly interpreting the geological record and recognizing the centrality of
the Biblical Flood in understanding the earth's physical history.
As he researched these geological
topics, he sensed God's call to acquire the professional training and
credentials to work on the mechanism of the Flood at a professional level.
Although his prior training was in electrical engineering, he entered a graduate
program in geophysics at UCLA and successfully completed his Ph.D. in 1983. His
thesis research was done at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he developed
the world's first three-dimensional, spherical model of the earth's
mantle—with the express purpose of investigating the mechanism of the Genesis
Flood.
This research was specifically and
directly motivated by John's conviction that the Bible's testimony of a
world-destroying Flood is historically and scientifically true and that this
event had played a major role in the planet's geological history. Indeed, it was
his conviction that the Flood is the essential key to understanding the earth's
past.
Because of John's evident skills in
developing complex numerical models related to solving fluid and solid dynamics
problems, Los Alamos offered him a job in the Fluid Dynamics Group in their
Theoretical Division. Largely because of the access to large computers, such a
position provides, John accepted this offer and has worked in this group at Los
Alamos for the past 13 years. During this time he has continued the development
of his computer model of the dynamics of the earth's mantle and lithosphere.
This model, called TERRA, is
recognized as the premier code of its kind in the world. Last year NASA funded
this research as one of its nine "Grand Challenge" projects for the
next three years in its High Performance Computing and Communications
Initiative. Part of the code's unique features is its exceptionally high
performance on the current generation of massively parallel supercomputers.
John believes he has identified the
essential mechanism that was responsible for the Flood cataclysm. He calls this
mechanism "thermal runaway." It was first proposed in the early 1960's
as a possibility inherent in the deformational properties of silicate rock. It
allows the rapid subduction of the pre-Flood ocean floor into the mantle below,
which leads to a temporary shallowing of the ocean basins, a dramatic rise in
the world sea level, and intense global rainfall. The associated tectonic
catastrophe moves continents by thousands of miles in a few month's
time—remarkably similar to the Flood described in Genesis.
John is seeking to apply the best
numerical methods, the largest available computers, the most complete physics
models, along with the latest laboratory, seismic, geological, and space
geodetic observational data to demonstrate that indeed there is a strong, even
overwhelming case in favor of a tectonic/Flood catastrophe that produced most of
the fossil record in a few month's time. There is no doubt that John believes in
the validity of using the Bible to address fundamental scientific issues,
especially those which relate to understanding the earth's past.
Conclusions
It is my contention that recognizing
the Bible as a reliable source of information for the conduct of science is
essential for an effective use of resources and for correct results. Consider
Carl Sagan's search for extra terrestrial intelligence (SETI). I believe from
several lines of argument using the Bible that the only extra terrestrial
intelligence in the universe is God and His angels. If this is true, then the
entire SETI program and a major portion of our space program is a complete waste
of money.
More importantly, the general
acceptance of the theory that elementary chemicals evolved into complex life
forms over billions of years by naturalistic processes has led to a wholesale
rejection of the Creator God and a generation that is expecting some superior
life form to suddenly make contact with the Earth. Our current culture is
inundated with books, movies, and videos about people, empires, and monsters on
other planets, galaxies, and universes. The impact of this evolutionary myth is
incalculable. Undoubtedly the most costly aspect to this delusion will be
counted in lost souls at the final judgment.
Although science is not the most
important activity on Earth, it has had an impact which is out of proportion to
the number of people participating in it. It has changed our entire outlook on
the Bible and origins. The church is now fighting a losing battle for the hearts
and minds of our children because of the teachings of a false religion. One of
the reasons for our defensive position in this battle is the fact that science
no longer uses a Newtonian approach. Newton believed that God created the
universe and everything in it. He studied the Bible diligently to understand
God's revelation, not just on such traditional subjects as theology, soteriology,
and eschatology, but also in relation to creation, the Flood, and Earth history.
This revelation available in God's Word informed his worldview and approach to
science. The predominant approach practiced today uses a secular approach. There
is no God, the Bible is not reliable, and all science must rest on a
naturalistic explanation.
It is time to reclaim science in the
name of God. We need committed Christians to train themselves as scientists and
counteract this culture of unbelief. Science based on a proper Biblical
foundation can help reverse this slide into apostasy and unbelief. If we don't
take action soon our world will continue to devolve as described in Romans 1:22,
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools ... "
References
Johnson,
Phillip E., 1991. Darwin on Trial. Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 220
pp.
Lerner, Lawrence, 1990. Statements made in deposition during preparation for
trial of ICR Graduate School vs. Honig and the State of California.
Newton, Isaac, 1686. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Motte's
translation from the Latin in 1729, University of California Press, Berkeley,
California, 1934, 680 pp.
Sagan, Carl, 1992. Statement in a television interview celebrating the 25th
anniversary of the SETI program.
Sagan, Carl, 1994. Pale Blue Dot. Random House, New York, 429 pp.
Sagan, Carl, 1995. Personal communication to Larry Vardiman.
Sagan, Carl, 1997. Billions and Billions. Random House, New York. 241 pp.
Vardiman, Larry, 1995. Personal communication to Carl Sagan.
*
Larry
Vardiman has a Ph.D. in atmospheric science from Colorado State University,
Fort Collins. He is chairman of the Astrogeophysics department at the Institute
for Creation Research Graduate School in Santee, California, from where he has
made a number of significant contributions to creationist research.