Is The Bible Trustworthy in

Areas Related to Science?

Walter L. Bradley, Ph.D., P.E.

Distinguished Professor of Engineering
Baylor University
 My Background in Faith-Science
Dialogue
 Born in December 1943 – Dallas
 Became a Christian at 12 at Baptist Camp (1956)
 B.S.(UT) in Engineering-Physics (1965)
 Ph.D. (UT) in Materials Science (1968)
 Colorado School of Mines (‘68-76); TAMU (76-2000)
 Was a young earth creationist until (1975)
 Invited to write and present one of 16 position papers for
International Council on Biblical Inerrancy commission in
1982 (our title for evening)
 Background Continued
 Spoke (1978-1983) on many campuses on faith-
science for Probe Ministries and CCC
 Co-authored Mystery of Life’s Origin:
Reassessing Current Theories, Philosophical
Library, 1984
 ―Scientific Evidence of Existence of God‖
lectures >125 times on major university
campuses to more than 75,000 students and
professors (1986-present)
 Background continued
 8 book chapters on faith-science issues
 Elected Fellow of American Scientific Affiliation
(ASA) in 1992
 Interviewed by Lee Strobel in Case for Faith (p131)
 Full-time staff ; CCC faculty ministry (2000-2002)
 Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering,
Baylor University (2002-present)
 Executive Council of ASA since 2005
 What Have I Learned?
 Humility!!
 Three Questions
Three Perspectives
1. Why do so many children who are raised in
evangelical or fundamentalist homes lose their
faith in college?
2. Does modern science support or undermine
belief in God?
3. Can we harmonize discoveries of modern
science with Bible (especially Genesis 1-11)?
 1. Some reasons why…..
 Opinions based on my own life experience and my
observations of college kids for 43 years.
 Three common observations
– Circumstantial crisis (like Templeton [for me, 14])
– Existential crisis (for me, 15-21)
– Intellectual crisis (for me, 17-21)
 2. Does Modern Science Support
Belief in God (Theism) or Atheism?
 ―Big Bang‖ and a universe that began

 Apparent design seen in the universe in

The mathematical form nature takes
Universal constants that are ―just right‖
Highly specific initial conditions met
A ―Garden of Eden‖ in this universe

 Origin of Life – complexity with high

informational requirements
 Important Disclaimer
One cannot scientifically prove
or disprove the existence of
God.
One can and should ask,
―What does the character or nature of
nature suggest?‖
Does it appear to be designed or just
a natural accident or coincidence?‖
2A. What is ―Big-Bang‖
Cosmology?
 History of the ―Big Bang‖
 The term ―big bang‖ was a derisive name
given by opponents of the concept.
 1929-1965: Evidence favored a ―big bang‖
but the steady-state hypothesis was favored
for philosophical reasons (i.e., it supports
atheism).
 1965: The discovery of background radiation
persuaded most cosmologists to accept the
―Big Bang‖ theory.
 1992: Hubble and COBE discoveries
provided overwhelming support for a ―big
bang.‖
 Philosophical implications of
the ―Big Bang‖

―So long as the universe had a

beginning, we could suppose it
had a creator.‖
Stephen Hawking
A Brief History of Time
 Philosophical Implications of the
―Big Bang‖

A universe that has eternally existed is

more compatible with atheism.
A universe of finite duration, which the
―Big Bang predicts, is more compatible
with deism or theism (or belief in a
Creator God).
 God and the Astronomers
Dr. Robert Jastrow, Columbia U.
 Robert Jastrow‘s famous address to the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science‘s Annual Symposium in 1977
 Subsequently published as a book by the
same title by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
 Jastrow was the director of the Goddard
Space Center and a Professor at Columbia
University at the time.
Conclusion of Jastrow‘s Talk
―For the scientist who has lived by
his faith in the power of reason, the
story (of the big bang) ends like a
bad dream. He has scaled the
mountains of ignorance; he is about
to conquer the highest peak; as he
pulls himself over the final rock, he
is greeted by a band of theologians
who have been sitting there for
centuries.‖
2A. Summary of the Evidence
from ―Big-Bang‖ Theory

•Scientific evidence overwhelmingly

supports the ―Big-Bang‖ cosmology.

•Big-Bang cosmology is one of

strongest evidences for a creator God!!
Recent experience at my church
 Gwen shared talk she had with grandson
who had been learning about Big Bang in
science in elementary school and was so
upset!
 http://www.reasons.org/siteSearch/node/?ke
ys=big+bang&x=19&y=16
―Big Bang– The Bible Taught it First‖
Why Some Christians Reject Big
Bang Cosmology
 Big Bang implies a beginning but also
implies a very old universe!!
 Ironically, opposition to the big bang unites
atheist and young earth creationists
2A. An Orderly Universe Is One
Described by Mathematics
• Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton all wrote
admiringly about our orderly, mathematical
universe.
• They believed that God designed the universe, and
it was to be expected that all phenomena of nature
would follow one master plan. The universe was
orderly and thus described by mathematics
because God fashioned it that way.
• It is the orderliness in nature that makes it possible
to describe it with mathematics and not the
mathematics that makes it orderly!
 Nobel Laurete Expresses His
Wonder
―The enormous usefulness of mathematics is
something bordering on the mysterious. …
There is no rational explanation for it. … The
miracle of the appropriateness of the language
of mathematics for the formulation of the laws
of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither
understand nor deserve.‖
E. Wigner, 1960, The Unreasonable Effectiveness
of Mathematics in Physical Sciences.
 Internationally Renown Astrophysicist
Expresses His Wonder ?
 All the evidence so far indicates that many
complex structures depend most delicately
on the existing forms of these laws. It is
tempting to believe, therefore, that a
complex universe will emerge only if the
laws of physics are close to what they
are…The laws…seem to be the product of
exceedingly ingenious design.
Paul Davies
 Internationally Renown Astrophysicist
Expresses His Wonder
 A common reaction among physicists to remarkable
discoveries of the sort discussed above is a mixture of
delight at the subtlety and elegance of nature, and of
stupefaction: ‗I would never have thought of doing it that
way.‘ If nature is so ‗clever‘ it can exploit mechanisms
that amaze us with their ingenuity, is that not persuasive
evidence for the existence of intelligent design behind
the physical universe? If the world‘s finest minds can
unravel only with difficulty the deeper workings of
nature, how could it be supposed that those workings are
merely a mindless accident, a product of blind chance?

Paul Davies
 Famous Astronomer
Expresses His Wonder
I do not believe that any scientist who
examines the evidence would fail to draw
the inference that the laws of nuclear
physics have been deliberately designed
with regard to the consequences they will
produce inside stars. If this is so, then my
apparently random quirks have become part
of a deep-laid scheme. If not then we are
back to a monstrous sequence of accidents.
Sir Fred Hoyle
 2B. What Are the 19 Universal Constants and
what do they contribute to design
requirements?
• Speed of light c = 3.0 x 108 m/s
• Planck‘s constant h = 6.63 x 10-34 J-s
• Boltzmann‘s constant k = 1.38 x 10-23 J/oK
• Unit charge e = 1.6 x 10-19 coulombs
• Gravity force constant G = 6.67 x 10-11N-m/kg2
• Rest masses (in kg)
 Neutron – 1.69 x 10-27
 Electron – 9.11 x 10-31 Partial list of 19 total
 Proton – 1.67 x 10-27
 Requirements for universal constants
to match photon (light) energy from
sun to chemical bonding energies

• 6.3 m G/[h c] [6.3e /{hc}] [m /m ]

p
2
>
~ 2 12
e p
4

• Substituting for h, c, G, m , m , e
e p

• 5.9 x 10 > 2.0 x 10

-39 -39
 Design Requirements for
Universal Constants
There are over 35 requirements like the 3
we have just discussed that are required for
life of any imaginable type to exist.
To satisfy all of these conditions requires a
very special set of universal constants to
give a universe such as ours, which seems
in so many ways to be designed for us.
Design Requirements for Universal
Constants—What Scientists Say
―Slight variations in physical laws such as
gravity or electromagnetism would make life
impossible…The necessity to produce life lies
at the center of the universe‘s whole
machinery and design.‖

John Wheeler, Professor of Physics, Princeton

Design Requirements for Universal
Constants—What Scientists Say
―As we look out into the universe and
identify the many accidents of physics and
astronomy that have worked to our benefit,
it almost seems as if the universe must in
some sense have known that we were
coming.‖
Freeman Dyson, 1979
 Design Requirements for Universal
Constants—What Scientists Say
―Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe
which was created out of nothing, and delicately
balanced to provide exactly the conditions
required to support life. In the absence of an
absurdly-improbably accident, the observations
of modern science seem to suggest an underlying,
one might say supernatural, plan.‖

Arno Penzias, Nobel laureate in Physics

 Requirements for universal
constants – What Scientist Say
―Such properties seem to run through the
fabric of the natural world like a thread of
happy coincidences. But there are so many
odd coincidences essential to life that some
explanation seems required to account for
them.‖
Sir Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe,
1984
Initial Conditions for Velocity after Big-
Bang to Give Stars and Elements
Initial velocity after the ―big bang‖
• Ratio of gravity (potential) energy and kinetic
energy must be equal to 1 part in 100,000.
• Two components of expansion driving
cosmological constant must cancel to 1 part in
10123
Scientific American, 1999
 Atheist Stephen Hawkings
―Why is the universe so close to the dividing line
between collapsing again and expanding
indefinitely?...If the rate of expansion one second
after the big bang had been less by one part in 1010 ,
the universe would have collapsed in a few million
years. If it had been greater by one part in 1010 , the
universe would have been essentially empty….One
has either appeal to the anthropic principle or find
some physical explanation for why the universe is
the way it is.
What distinguishes living from
non-living systems?
All living systems……………….
Process energy
Store information
Replicate
The characters in our
story:

Francis Crick James Watson

 Lysine
Valine

Threonine
Serine

Tryptophan

Tyrosine

Phenylalanine

Isoleucine
Crick (1955) grasps the difficulty:
―Now what I find profoundly
disturbing is that I cannot conceive
of any structure (for either nucleic
acid) acting as a direct template
for amino acids, or at least as a
specific template....I don‘t think
anybody looking at DNA or RNA
would think of them as templates
for amino acids.‖
 Crick then triangulates to what must be
the case from biological necessity:
―Therefore, mediating (‗adaptor‘) molecules must exist, to
enable specifying information to pass from DNA to amino acids.‖

―DNA carries information, ―Yet amino acids have

but is chemically non-specific.‖ specific geometries.‖
 working with a
special dedicated
bind to enzyme (protein) Lysine
nucleic acid Valine

Threonine
―adaptor‖ Serine

bind to a specific
amino acid Tryptophan

Tyrosine
And, by the way – we need
20 of these molecules, with 20
specially dedicated adaptors, or
Phenylalanine
tRNAs: one for each amino acid.
Isoleucine
transfer RNA
Watson (2002, 139) explains why he
doubted the adaptor hypothesis:
―I did not like the idea at all....
More to the point, the adaptor
mechanism seemed to me
too complicated to have ever
evolved at the origin of life.‖
Watson’s biological intuition was constrained
by his materialistic worldview.
 The Enigma of the Origin of
Life
―The largest stumbling block in bridging the gap
between nonliving and living still remains. All living
cells are controlled by information stored in DNA,
which is transcribed in RNA and them made into
protein. This is a very complicated system, and each
of these three molecules requires the other two--either
to put it together or to help it work. DNA, for
example, carries information but cannot put that
information to use, or even copy itself without the
help of RNA and protein.‖
Kenneth R. Miller and Joseph Levine, Biology: The
Living Science (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall), 1998, p.406-407.
 What other say about the
origin of life?
― A profound difficulty exists, however, with the
idea of RNA, or any other replicator, at the start of
life. Existing replicators can serve as templates for
the synthesis of additional copies of themselves,
but this device cannot be used for the preparation
of the very first such molecule, which must arise
spontaneously from an unorganized mixture. The
formation of an information-bearing homopolymer
through undirected chemical synthesis appears
very improbable.‖
Robert Shapiro, Prof. Of Biochemistry NYU
 What others say about the
origin of life?
 ―The chemistry of the first life is a nightmare to
explain. No one has yet developed a plausible
explanation to show how the earliest chemicals of
life—thought to be RNA—might have constructed
themselves from the inorganic chemicals likely to
have been around on early earth. The spontaneous
assembly of a small RNA molecule on the
primitive earth ‗would have been a near miracle‘
two experts in the subject (Joyce and Orgel)
helpfully declared last year.‖
Nicholas Wade
New York Times
Famous Atheist Now Believes in
God, Associated Press,
12/9/2004
 A British philosophy professor who has been a
leading champion of atheism for more than a half-
century has changed his mind. He now believes in
God, more or less based on scientific evidence.
Anthony Flew says that biologists‘ investigation
of DNA ―has shown by the almost unbelievable
complexity of the arrangements which are needed
to produce life that intelligence must have been
involved.
 Summary

Evidences that the universe is precisely designed

 The BIG BANG

 Beautiful MATHEMATICAL FORM that nature takes
 Remarkable ―coincidence‖ that the 19 UNIVERSAL
CONSTANTS are exactly what they must be
 Remarkable requirement for ORIGIN OF LIFE
 argue persuasively that we do not live in an ―accidental
universe‖ but in one carefully crafted for our benefit.
 Frederic B. Burnham, science
historian, on ABC‘s Nightline,
4/24/1992
―The scientific community is
prepared to consider the idea
God created the universe a more
respectable hypothesis today
than at any time in the last 100
years.‖
 Intelligent Design……….
 Is Not an alternative to evolution.

 Is an alternative to materialism.

 Claims natural processes are inadequate to

explain the complexity and wonder of the
natural world.
 Intelligent Design……

Requires less faith than

materialism, a lot less faith !
 Modern science seems to confirm
claim of 1st century religious leader.
Apostle Paul, writing to church in Rome in 1st
Century
―For since the creation of the world, His
(God‘s) invisible attributes, His eternal
power, and divine nature have been clearly
seen, being understood through what has
been made, so that they are without
excuse.‖
 What About Evolution?
 Do I believe in evolution? Yes, no, and
maybe
 Microevolution…….yes
 Evolution by chance mutations and natural
selection (alla Stephen Gould)…….no
 Evolution directed in some way to human
beings at the pinnacle….maybe
 My Bottom Line on Evolution
 Design is inherently about purpose, as any
engineering professor (or dictionary) can attest. And
at the core of Christian belief is a theistic God who
purposely created a universe with conscious, complex
life, whatever one may believe about the details of
how He did it.

 Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution and a

Rational Faith, 2007, Christoph Cardinal Sohonborn
Ways to Increase Information
 Non-random mutations
 Fitness landscape has a very special shape,
which is to say the necessary information is
encoded in the fitness landscape.
 Other things we haven‘t imagined to
achieve the purposeful outcome God has in
mind.
 3. Can we harmonize discoveries
of modern science with Bible
(especially Genesis 1-11)?
Three options:

1. God did it all through miracles in one week. (young earth

creationist)

2. God did it all with a combination of miracles and

processes, which requires a long time. (old earth creationist)

3. God did it all through processes which requires a long

time. (theistic evolutionist)
 3. Harmonizing……
Two important things to note

A. Argument is not about whether God did

it but how he did it.

B. Argument is also about what is the

proper interpretation of Genesis.

How much should science influence our in

interpretation of scripture?
 3. Harmonizing…..
 Comments about interpretations of scripture
– Historically, generally assumed to be either solar days or
instantaneous.
– Early Jewish scholars were less insistent it was solar days
– What kind of days before day four?
– What about the 6th day as described in Genesis 2?
– Augustine gave good advice for the future and refused to
be too specific in the 5th Century
– Calvin‘s principle of accommodation in 16th Century
– Dr. Bruce Waltke (DTS), Dr. Gleason Archer (Trinity
EDS), Dr. Walter Kaiser (Trinity EDS)
 3. Harmonizing…….
 Comments about science
– Strong support for Genesis 1:1-3 in Big Bang
– Generally good correspondence between progressive
unfolding of God‘s creative work and what we know
from historical sciences
– Biggest contention has to do with time of creation
and death before the fall, which YEC deny is
Biblical.
– Recent six-day creation makes no death in animal
kingdom before the fall possible.
 3. Harmonizing……
 Possible options for solving time issue
– Yom = period of time ≠ 24 hour day
– Einstein‘s theory of relativity (D.R.
Humphreys, Gerald Schrodinger)
– 14 different approaches mentioned by Norman
Geisler while at Dallas Theological Seminary
Conservative Christian Scholars
Generally Support Old Earth View
 International Council on Biblical Inerrancy
– (Hermeneutics Conference, 1982)
– Yom might be interpreted either way
 Presbyterian Church of America
– Recent task force of theologians (~2006) also changed
from yom = day to yom = either day or long period of
time (4.5 billion for earth, 13.7 for universe okay)
 C. John Collins, Covenant Seminary
– Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary and Theological
Commentary
 Francis Schaeffer – No Final Conflict
 Gleason Archer – Trinity Seminary – Old
Scientific Evidence and Age of
Universe
 Big Bang and Astronomy
 Radiometric Dating
– Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith
(June 2007, pp. 143-146). See ASA3.org
 Coral Reefs
 Ice drilling
 How could the following
scientist be so wrong?
 Copernicus Galileo
 Kepler Newton
 Boyles Pascal
 Faraday Maxwell
 Kelvin etc.
 Summary
 Be careful to not be too dogmatic about things that
are uncertain (including my interpretation of
scripture and science).
 Be confident we will one day know exactly how
God did it and how long it took.
 Be encouraged to see how much God reveals
himself with the fingerprints he has left in nature
that have become even more unmistakable signs
of His existence. Modern science overwhelmingly
supports belief in a creator God
 For More Information
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