It's really not a smart thing to pretend you know something
about a discipline when you really don't,
because you're going to get exposed at some point and it could be dramatic.
Yeah, well I think what's behind this is actually a real deep desire
to take the Scripture very seriously. And you're not...
Yes.
Arguing that it's all metaphorical.
No.
Or that you know we can't... I mean, in fact you take a very supernatural view
of the book, of the Bible, in a way that I would say, in a fresh way,
affirms like deeply historical traditional commitments in Christianity.
But at the same token, out of the corner of your eye,
I mean, occasionally you'll post on it.
You haven't gone and said anything stupid or made it your thing,
as a non-expert, but you've been looking at the conversation in science.
First of all, why would you care about that?
And what have you been seeing that makes you interested?
I think science is part of the enterprise of the original creation mandate.
And I think it wrapped into those little nuggets about being fruitful and multiplying
and subduing the earth and bringing it under dominion and maintaining it.
The steward kingship ideas, the way biblical scholars would refer to it,
that that means, in a nutshell, to do those things you have to learn
and have to know and have to master what makes the world tick,
so that you can accomplish those tasks.
And to me what scholars would call the dominion mandate or the creation mandate
gives inherent theological-spiritual meaning to science.
It legitimizes it. I mean it doesn't need biblical legitimization but in my head,
as a Christian, as someone who believes the content of Scripture,
it's truth propositions,
this is really important and so I'm glad we have people who are into the sciences
and I think I just had to learn through experience
that it's really not a smart thing to do to pretend you know something
about a discipline when you really don't,
because you're going to get exposed at some point and it could be dramatic,
and embarrassing.
So, you know, I'm very content to let scientists do what they do.
But I'm also irritated when they pretend that they're...
the statements they make, the conclusions they draw on the basis of their science
that it's the only way to look at data or that this conclusion somehow
excludes the supernatural or the existence of God.
I would say that there's legitimacy to science but it doesn't give us the whole story
and the problem is when people start acting as if that's the whole story, right?
Right, if they're both supposed to be true, in other words if let's say if God blessed
knowing creation and mastering it. This was something God wanted done.
Then God knows a few things: "boy they're going to find out a lot of cool stuff.
There's a lot of stuff they're going to discover.
That's going to be fun for me to watch."
Like there's a lot to know. And so there are things that scientists will learn
and know that are true, okay? There's truth in scientific inquiry and knowledge
and so on and so forth.
And since the bible isn't about science. It's not a science textbook.
I mean, just read it, you're going to figure that out pretty quickly.
You don't have to read Genesis, just read it anywhere. It doesn't give us
scientific treatises. We don't know about things like electricity,
or plumbing, or what water... we don't know a whole host of things.
Germ theory, I mean it's just not there.
So it's very evident that they're writing from a particular worldview
where they lack a lot of the scientific knowledge we do. And that's okay,
because God legitimized the pursuit of that knowledge,
and Scripture by design is not supposed to do that task.
They're separate tasks. So I'm very content to let you guys do your task.
I'm going to pay attention. I'm going to try to understand
at least something of what you're saying.
A lot of it is going to go over my head because I don't have the background.
But I'm interested in what you're doing, and I'm also interested in;
okay, how... if we have one body of truth here, and we have another body of truth
(the stuff that Scripture does cover).
They come from the same source ultimately, God. So, how does that work together?
Let's use our imagination a little bit as to how these things might go together.
There's a process of discovery there.
And you can engage in that that imaginative process, that creative process
if you've committed yourself to not force the bible to be a science book.
Then you're free to do that.