“All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths that come on high and are contained in the sacred writings (the Bible)” – Sir John F. Herschel (1792 – 1871), British astronomer who mapped over 525 new nebulae and star clusters.
THE Bible has been acknowledged over the years as covering every subject of human knowledge and need now and forever (Finis Dake, Bible scholar); as one incomparably so various and full of concentrated wisdom (Herbert Hoover, President, 1929-33, of the U.S); and as the first and almost the only book deserving of universal attention (John Quincy Adams, the second President, 1797-1801, of the U.S).
Science as the study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world and society agrees with scriptures at the end of the day if thorough observation and quality experiment is carried out. Until the findings of science confirm the truth of scriptures, science is only mid-stream, yet to find anchor. To understand nature the best recourse is the God of Nature who has spoken twice: through nature and through His Word (the Bible), and both align perfectly.
Galileo (1564 – 1642) and Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626), two earliest scientists knew this. For Galileo, with his groundbreaking feats in astronomy and physics, the scriptures cannot lie, only the interpreter of it may. And for Francis Bacon, author of modern scientific reasoning: induction, and hence seen as father of modern science, there are two indispensable books – the book of nature and the Bible.
Indeed, all the conclusions of science between 600 BC and 200 AD – regarded as the first age of science – that are still relevant today agree with scriptures. And between the early Egyptians and Babylonians the abiding feats reached in mathematics, metallurgy, anatomy and astronomy stay in tandem with the laws of creation as found in the Bible. The Babylonians may have given us the true measurements of the lunar and solar cycles, the exact tracing of the paths of the planets, the divisions of the circle into 360 degrees and the designation of constellations, e.g. the Zodiac, but all confirm scriptures as given to Moses, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, John and others (except, of course, the perverted and satanic angle of astrology and horoscope). Sir John F. Herschel (1792 – 1871), the British astronomer who mapped over 525 new nebulae and star clusters told all ages: “all human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths that come on high and are contained in the sacred writings (the Bible)”.
It is worth recalling that John Herschel, who incidentally invented a method of photographing on sensitised paper, was the son of Sir William Herschel (1738 – 1822), who himself brought home the bacon when he developed a new kind of reflecting telescope, and struck a feat when he discovered the planet Uranus (1781) and mapped well over 2,500 nebulae and star clusters, aside producing a theory of binary star systems and determining the movement of the solar system through space. When men such as John Herschel with such intimidating family scientific record speak, who is one quack scientist in your clime, with their ill-equipped laboratories dotted with gimcrack instruments, to advance the contrary view, feign atheism, and question the veracity of the Bible? All human discoveries only confirm the truth of scriptures!
Science, from the Latin word scientia or its more basic root of scire, means to know. It connotes, understandably, the attempt to know or to explore the unknown; to make it known. In other words science invents nothing but tries to make known (systematic knowledge and organization of verifiable sense experience) what has been there. In this sense science cannot contradict what has been and until it confirms what is, it remains a sailing boat in deep waters.
William R. McGrath in A Bible Treasury (1981) said the obvious when he said, “there is hardly a physics textbook of 50 years ago which is not now hopelessly out of date because the former theories have been proven wrong and new theories are being invented all the time to try to explain the new observations about nature. Yet the marvellous thing about the Bible is that it is always up to date and practical and appropriate while yesterday’s science textbook ends up in the trash”. And until science “touches” what is, we would agree with Martin H. Fischer (1879 – 1962), the German-born US physician, that “all the world is a laboratory to the inquiry mind”. At any point science agrees with scriptures inquiry ends.
Recorded in the Bodelian Library, Oxford and signed by 800 scientists of Great Britain is this statement: “we, the undersigned … desire to express our sincere regret that researchers into scientific truth are perverted by some in our own times into occasion of casting doubt upon the truth and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. We conceive that it is impossible for the Word of God written in the book of nature, and God’s Word written in Holy Scriptures, to contradict one another … physical science is not complete, but is only in a condition of progress”. This is the truth or fact that the mathematician David Hilbert was inadvertently alluding to when he said that the measure of success of a scientific paper is how many other papers it makes irrelevant. Lewis Wolpert, professor of biology, as Applied to medicine, University College, London, fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, recipient of the Michael Faraday Award for the Public Understanding of Science and author of the very influential The Unnatural Nature of Science agrees, in this regard, with Hilbert, when he said: “we all ultimately disappear from the literature, because our work is incorporated and it is gone and forgotten, I’m afraid. It really is a very strange process”.
The German physicist, Max Planck (1858 – 1947) puts it this way: “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”. At that point it has, no doubt, aligned with scriptures, for all scientific truth aligns with scriptures hence they endure. And so then, the inquiring goes ad infinitum until a proper chord is touched, and that chord is in scriptures: in “Thus saith the Lord”! Scientific exploration that takes the Bible as compass gets to safest of shores.
