Science vs. Religion: On Debate and Genesis
If you grew up like me, knowing that the Bible is the word of God, and then someone tells you that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, it can feel like you have to choose.
You don't have to choose between reason and faith.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t debate between religion and faith.
I’m saying that at the end of the day,
you don’t have to choose a winner and a loser.
There’s a Season for Debate
Debate is one of the only spaces where different perspectives are allowed to exist out loud without requiring resolution.
That's rare. That's valuable.
When religious communities critique science education, they can push scientists and educators to develop clearer, more effective language about what they're actually claiming and what they're not.
And when scientific critique pushes back on religious institutions, it can be the pressure that turns a community from causing harm toward supporting healing.
The long, honest encounter between scientific inquiry and religious conviction has sharpened both. That dialogue, when it's real dialogue, is one of the most productive intellectual traditions we have. And even when the dialogue isn’t real, a bad-faith argument can still propel a valuable counter-argument.
I like debate.
And there's a season to set it down.
There's a Buddhist parable called the Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta, about a man who gets shot with a poisoned arrow. Instead of letting the doctor pull it out, he insists on knowing who shot it first.
What political group were they?
What kind of weapon?
What direction did it come from?
Very good questions, but in the moment… well,
Pull out the arrow.
The Bible-vs.-science debate can become the arrow,
not because the questions are bad,
but because we forget to put them down
when something more urgent is in front of us.
I know this because I've been a hospital chaplain.
I have literally watched people pass to the other side,
while their family members argued with the doctors
standing right there at the bedside.
There is a season to stick up for what’s right, and I love that season.
And, there’s a season for presence.
Debate is, at its core, constructive:
Debate can be an interdisciplinary team of colleagues
trying to solve a big problem with not enough time.
Debate can be advocacy at just the right moment,
when the medical team is missing an important detail.
But sometimes, ‘debating’ can be a defense mechanism.
Debating is often what we do to active deny
the immediate suffering of our loved ones,
because sometimes debating
is easier than being vulnerable and helpless.
Sometimes arguing with the doctor,
is easier than accepting what’s real.
Sometimes debate isn’t really debate; it’s just denial.
Lets talk Bible.
You probably know this but,
Genesis 1 is more than an old textbook
There’s a common idea in my tradition, that Genesis is a scientifically accurate explanation of the origin of the universe. In this view, Genesis is factually accurate, but just a little quaint or primitive.
I suppose that may be true, but there’s so much more to Genesis.
What we call "Genesis" is a collection.
It includes origin stories, national myth, family stories, cautionary tales, theological reflection, maybe some history, and a couple stories about the creation of the world.
Furthermore, it’s my belief that
the unscientific parts of Genesis are what makes it so special.
I’d even say that
Genesis is designed to be unclear and contradictory.
Ok, at the risk of making a huge overstatement, hear me out:
Tidy stories with a resolution are not compelling. Messy stories are compelling.
Take for example, almost any story in Genesis:
Adam and Eve, messy and unresolved (end up in exile)
Cain and Abel, messy and unresolved (Cain in exile, Abel dead)
Noah and family, messy and unresolved (tent incident)
Jacob, messy and unresolved (wrestles an angel/spirit/stranger, injured)
Lot’s wife, messy and unresolved (a pillar of salt)
Leah and Rachel, messy and unresolved (fierce sibling competition)
Abraham and Isaac, messy and unresolved (binding of Isaac).
Joseph and family, messy and unresolved (hungry and in Egypt)
The Creation, messy and unresolved (two contradictory accounts)
This is such a delightful part of the way that the Biblical editors preserved the tradition.
If the stories were all simple and resolved, there would be no entry point for the reader, no opportunity to wrestle with the text, no opportunity to debate your way into a blessing.
Rather, the Biblical editors give us something better: vague, contradictory, impossible stories that bring us into the story of God’s people as participants, as co-creators, as witnesses of God’s Creation.
The Big Bang is not Against Genesis
Georges Lemaître, the physicist who first proposed what became the Big Bang theory, was a Catholic priest.
When Pope Pius XII tried to use the Big Bang theory as proof of creation,
Lemaître told him to stop.
The priest who invented the Big Bang said it was bad theology to use the Big Bang to answer such questions.
It’s not just bad science, but it’s bad theology.
The Big Bang theory provides explanations, hypotheses, a clear answers to clear questions about the current state of our current universe. And it’s good.
I'll end with a joke. I asked God how long a minute was in Heaven-time. He said he's so old, that what feels like a minute for Him, is a million years in our time. Then I asked him for a million dollars. He said, "sure! In a minute."
Hope Hilton, MDiv · noharmscripture.com
