Can You Trust the Bible? Science Proves the Bible

What is truth? How do we know it? 

We are witnessing a battle of worldviews in our culture. At the heart of this culture war is a disagreement about the source of truth. 

This battle is one which has not left the church untouched. One recent article in the headlines demonstrates how even some churches are struggling with the source of truth. GracePointe church in Nashville, TN in 2021 posted the following image to recap a sermon in their discussion of "progressive Christianity."

If the Bible is not a source of truth, what is? How does one even define Christianity or Christian belief if the authority for truth is removed? It will inevitably devolve into a subjective and shallow religious experience or just an expression of our own culture's values. 

Thankfully, though, even if this kind of thinking about truth and the Bible is widespread, there are still a majority of U.S. adults who believe that the Bible IS God's Word according to a recent Barna study. 

This is good news! But how can we know for sure? How can we push back against secular and even progressive "Christian" movements that are attacking the truthfulness of the Bible? That is the subject of this series of posts. 

Is the Bible God's Word? 

Is the Bible trustworthy? Can we know that what it says is true? Wasn't it written by men and so inevitably containing human error? Wasn't it copied thousands of times? 

All of these questions are valid and ones which Bible-believing Christians should have answers for. This is the reason for this series of posts on "Can You Trust the Bible?" In this series we will use the acronym SHAPE to argue that the Bible is still in great SHAPE. 

When we look at Science, History, Accuracy, Prophecy, & Experience, God's Word is still in great SHAPE! 

Today we will look briefly at how science confirms the truthfulness of the Bible. 

Science Proves the Bible

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. (Psalm 19:1-2)

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

When we look at the natural world, it takes far more faith to believe that we are all here by accident than to believe we have been designed. As much as naturalistic evolution and atheistic thinkers have tried, there is still nowhere near sufficient evidence to explain our existence or the existence of the observable universe with natural processes alone. How did the universe begin? How did irreducibly complex organisms and biochemical structures evolve through natural selection? How did life itself begin? 

God's Word has answered all of these questions with a simple word: creation. 

We are made. We are intelligently designed.  

If you were walking on the beach and saw writing in the sand, something as simple as a heart shape, you would immediately assume someone had been there before you. How much more complex is our DNA than a simple shape drawn in the sand? 

But far more than just this reality of intelligent design that we observe in the universe, think of all of the scientific realities that the Bible got right thousands of years ago:

• The universe/time had a beginning - Genesis 1
• Complexity of Creation (Psalm 8, Psalm 139) - Intelligent Design
• Human exceptionalism (Genesis 1 - We are made in God's image and superior to all of the rest of creation)
• The Conservation of mass and energy (Eccl. 1:9; Eccl. 3:14-15)
• The Water cycle (Eccl. 1:7; Is. 55:10)
• Gravity (Job 26:7; Job 38:31-33)
• Effect of emotions on physical health (Prov. 16:24; Prov. 17:22)
• Control of contagious diseases (Lev. 13:45-46)
• Importance of sanitation to health (Num. 19: Deut. 23:12-13). 
• Control of cancer and heart diseases (Lev. 7-19)

God's Word got it right before there was a scientific consensus or knowledge of these realities.

Scientists Believe the Bible

Many would assert that you cannot believe the Bible and be an honest scientist. This is simply false. 

Answers in Genesis, famously known for the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter attractions, has done an excellent job assembling lists of both historical scientists and modern day scientists who believe(d) the Bible to be completely true and authoritative. 

The Bible being "anti-science" is by no means a scientific consensus.

In fact, most of modern science was built on the backs of theists and Christians. 

Hugh Ross, a Canadian astrophysicist writes,

"Not only is the Bible filled with the fundamentals of science, but it is as much as 3,000 years ahead of its time. The Bible’s statements in most cases directly contradicted the science of the day in which they were made. When modern scientific knowledge approaches reality, the divine accuracy of the scriptures is substantiated."

He demonstrates this reality with the following chart: 

Biblical Statement	Science Then	Science Now
Earth is a sphere (Is. 40:22).	Earth’s a flat disk.	Earth is a sphere
Number of stars exceeds a billion (Jer. 33:22).	Number of stars totals 1,100	Number of stars exceeds a billion
Every star is different (1 Cor 15:41).	All stars are the same.	Every star is different.
Light is in motion (Job 38:19-20).	Light is fixed in place.	Light is in motion.
Air has weight (Job 28:25).	Air is weightless.	Air has weight.
Winds blow in cyclones (Eccl. 1:6).	Winds blow straight.	Winds blow in cyclones.
Blood is a source of life and healing (Lev. 17:11).	Sick people must be bled.	Blood is a source of life and healing.

God's Word is Truth

When God's Word touches on the natural world it does so accurately. 

The Bible is not a science textbook, but if it is really the living Word of God, and God does not lie (Hebrews 6:18), then when the inspired authors of Scripture wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit they do so truthfully. It is no surprise then that observable science agrees with what Scripture asserts regarding the natural world. 

God's Word is still in great SHAPE, and science is the first thing that demonstrates this. 

With Grace,
Phil Leineweber

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Read more articles by Phil on Apologetics HERE.