Thinking Scientifically About Scripture (First Installment)

This week I’m preaching lectionary texts. Which I usually don’t do. I mean, I don’t preach much these days, but I rarely use the assortment of four biblical texts assembled each week by the great lectionary committee in the sky. Or at some denominational headquarters on earth.

      I’m preparing to give some talks on science and faith and my new book, Mere Science and Christian Faith. Part of that is preaching… And I’ve discovered that that thinking scientifically uncovers some important insights into Scripture. Let me start with the first sermon text.

Slow God

Psalm 90, first of all, describes a God who is much slower than we’d like. And that fact tries our patience. This God is sometimes achingly ponderous in bringing justice, as Amos

The Heliocentric Model of Copernicus

5 cries out. (I'll get to this next week.) This slow God, we know today, makes sense of the long 13.7 billion year history of the universe, and our place within it. It means that ultimately, God is eternal—and slow to us. 

      We must view life—and I love this phrase!—sub specie aeternatis—viewed in relation to the eternal. It definitely contradicts a contemporary technological fantasy, what MIT professor Sherry Turkle calls “app thinking”—that some app on our smart phone can solve every problem quickly. 

      It also reminds me of when I heard former Fuller Seminary President and theologian Richard Mouw conversation with other theologians about creation and the way so many evangelicals hold, against the grand consensus of scientists, that the earth is 6,000-10,000 years old. In this group, there was a Catholic theologian who remarked, 

“Here’s the problem with you evangelicals—you want a fast God. But God is slow.” 

Mouw decided his Catholic colleague was right. And this indeed is the God of Psalm 90. 

      

Psalm 90

Here are a few lines from the 90^thpsalm.

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place    in all generations.² Before the mountains were brought forth,  Note here that that  “were yet born” (according to biblical scholar Hans-Joachim Kraus)—which certainly has an evolutionary overtone. (Cf. Job 38:8.)    or ever you had formed the earth and the world,    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.³ You turn usback to dust, Note that the return to dust echoes Genesis 3:19, which certainly connects with scientific evidence that we are certainly, at least, material beings and seeks to understand what that means.    and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”⁴ For a thousand years in your sight    are like yesterday when it is past,      or like a watch in the night.Note here two passages: Psalm 84:10, and especially 2 Peter 3:8, which heads in the opposite direction “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

More next week…

Next week, I’ll bring in what the New Testament adds to this mix. I’ll also comment on Amos 5 where he tells us that the God who makes the heavens ("the Pleiades and Orion") has sufficient power to care for the poor. That, my friends, is science and justice rolled into one.

Hope you enjoy this. Feel free to comment below!