LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 220

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IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

c. Moral support for science
The Bible provides several foundational moral parameters for science. It
gives reasons to think that we are permitted to do science—because nature is
not sacred—and we are required to do science—as it is part of what it means
to pursue our vocations as stewards of creation. Furthermore, as with all
legitimate vocations, science was instituted as a means of loving and serving
our neighbors, and God provides for our neighbors in part through the work
of scientists. This means that so long as we are using science to serve our
neighbor’s needs in a way that is compatible with our stewardship obligation
to preserve the Lord’s world as a trust for future generations, we should do science. But it also means that God provides boundaries for legitimate science:
it must not be used to harm others or the environment in such a way that it
harms the welfare of future generations.
Thus again, there is the need for a right balance of confidence and humility. Scripture demonstrates that science can be a God-pleasing vocation! And
yet, through His teaching about the purpose of vocation as a means of loving
and serving our neighbor, God also reminds us of our responsibilities not to
use scientific knowledge and techniques in ways that violate the moral laws
that govern all vocations.

4. Conclusion
We have seen that, clustered around materialism, there are a number of
philosophical ideas often associated with science which create difficulties for
the Christian scientist. This chapter has attempted to explain these ideas and
to offer some strategies for effective response. Thoughtful Christians need to
gain the critical distance to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these
ideas for those intent on pursuing science as a vocation. In particular they
should not allow themselves to be taken captive by some worldly philosophy (Col. 2:8), such as some version of materialism that biases the empirical
method and encourages the thought that God’s actions in the world cannot
be known. We also briefly noted ways in which the Bible offers foundational
assumptions about reality which are friendly to the work of scientists. It
should be clear that faithful Christians are above all concerned about Truth.
They seek and highly value the whole truth revealed in God’s Word and the
whole truth revealed in God’s world, and should be vigilant for any attempt
to define or use science to ignore or undermine God’s revelation. With both
eyes open, Christians should do their very best to embrace all the truth He
has revealed to us. This requires a sound reading of both Scripture and the
scientific data—which is the subject of the following chapter.

Chapter IV
Biblical Knowledge and Scientific Knowledge
1. Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to consider how we know specific things as
Christians and to consider whether there is a genuine conflict between what
we know from Scripture and what we know from modern science. We will
begin by comparing the kind of knowing that is critical for science and the
unique sort of knowing that is central to Christianity (section 2). In section
3 we will identify important principles for knowing (understanding) what
the Scripture means, and then we will consider how these basic principles
of scriptural interpretation can help us to handle apparent conflicts between
science and Scripture while upholding the final authority of God’s Word.
In section 4 we will explore more deeply some examples where biblical and
scientific truth claims seem to conflict.

2. Knowing as a Christian
Consider the meaning of “we know” in the following statements from
earlier in this document.
• “We now know that Kepler’s ‘laws’ are only approximations to the
truth.”235
• “And it seems we know some things … by introspection, by direct,
first‐person access to an immaterial mind or soul, not via the impersonal observations of materialistic science, such as observations and
manipulations of brains.”236
• “We do know that natural causes generally do not produce the
evidential traces surrounding some fires, or produce tablets of writing, or messages from space. We do know that intelligent causes
(humans, etc.) often do produce effects like these.”237
• “We know from Scripture that our cosmos and everything in it
form a coherent reality because they are all the creations of Christ

235

Chapter 1, p. 49. Emphasis added.

236

Chapter 3, p. 80. Emphasis added.

237

Chapter 3, p. 85. Emphasis added.

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(Col. 1:16) in whom all things hold together.”238
• “We know that God’s will and His ways are above our will and our
ways.”239
We may often speak of “knowing” things that we learn from science
and “believing” things that we learn from the Bible. As the statements above
show, however, we can just as easily speak of knowing things like the will of
God and the identity of the Creator as we can speak of knowing things like
astronomical theories or the difference between human writing and naturally
produced marks on a piece of wood or stone. There are very real similarities
between knowing things that we learn from each of “God’s books,” His Word
and His works in nature.
Perhaps the most immediately apparent similarity is that whether learning from God’s Word or His works, an interpreter is confronted by data.
Whether it is written words in a text or the results of scientific experimentation, both the reader of Scripture and the scientist are interpreting information
that confronts them. Each must analyze, distinguish, separate, categorize, and
arrange the data in ways that will prove meaningful to himself and—hopefully—to others.240
The use of prior knowledge is another common feature of knowing things
based on God’s Word and His works. In both cases the interpreter makes use
of what he or she already knows while studying this new “data set.” Reading
Scripture requires knowing vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and more, just as
the scientist uses prior knowledge of his field.241

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existence of God, even though that question was not addressed (or capable
of being addressed) by the research claimed as the basis for denying His
existence.242 Bible readers are also vulnerable to such misunderstandings.
We need mention here only those who take up the Revelation of John looking for indications of the precise date of Christ’s return. We might say that
Luther’s breakthrough as a reader of the Bible came when he allowed the text
to reframe the questions for him. Rather than reading the Bible as difficult-tothe-point-of-impossible guidance for the sinner desiring to appease an angry
god, Luther began to read it as the account of how God was in Christ Jesus
reconciling the world to Himself.
A fourth feature was once readily accepted by almost everyone in both
the sciences and theology. We earlier referred to the relationship between
“God’s ‘Two Books.’”243 To speak of God’s Word and His works as “books”
was a reminder to the “reader” that each of these “books” had the same
Author and that His truth should be sought in reading both of them. Readers
of both “books” would have agreed that God’s Word and world share a common source and intention.
Such common ground no longer exists, however. Peter Harrison’s conclusion seems to describe quite accurately the situation we now face:
Indeed, that there is now such a disparity between our
approaches to words and things, that scientific and literary
activities have become so alien to each other, that the ‘two cultures’ share increasingly less common ground, is owing largely
to the break-down of that universal hermeneutics which, in premodern times, had informed the study of both the book of scripture and the book of nature. The transformations which brought
on the birth of modernity moved western culture from the era of
‘the two books’ to that of ‘the two cultures.’244

A third common feature is that in both cases the way questions are framed
will have an important impact on the answers that are discovered. Chapter 3
pointed out that scientism may boast of answers to questions concerning the

238

Chapter 3, pages 91–92. Emphasis added.

239

Chapter 3, p. 95. Emphasis added.

240
Our interpretation of data involves assessing the veracity of information we receive on a
daily basis and determining whether or not (or to what degree) we can trust that data. Satiric
publications such as “The Onion” are not intended to be taken literally but rather to be read
as humor—so interpretation of data also involves taking into account factors such as literary
genre, contextual issues, and authorial intent. As we continually assess events in the world
around us, events that repeat themselves are often “trusted” to recur again (i.e., we “trust”
that the sun will rise each day, since it has done so every day of our lives). We also look to the
sources of information and are typically more inclined to trust those who are recognized as
authorities in various fields of expertise and experience, such as doctors, lawyers, police, teachers, and pastors. In science, measures such as the impact factor of a journal help assessing the
degree to which certain studies and conclusions are trusted and deemed to be reliable. Doubt
and distrust of published conclusions occur when researchers are unable to repeat or confirm
what has been published by others, or when evidence to the contrary is presented—in essence
“debunking” the original research.
241
For an excellent example of how similar these two processes are, see Giovanni Manetti,
Theories of the Sign in Classical Antiquity, trans. C. Richardson (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1993); see especially pages 36–52.

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2016 Convention Workbook

The “two cultures” are viewed as largely incompatible by many. At best
they are viewed as “non-overlapping magisteria,”245 and at worst as flatly
contradictory or even combative.
Where do we go from here as Christians? Do we cede to science the
authority to trump any biblical claim except those that are the most narrowly
“spiritual”? Does science “get the last word” as to what humanity can really
know?

242

See above, chapter 3, 76–78.

243

Chapter 1, 20–25.

244

Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science, 267. The concept
of “two cultures” builds on the discussion initiated by C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures (London:
Cambridge University Press, 1959), whose concerns are briefly discussed in the introduction of
this report on p. 1–3.
245

See above, chapter 3, 91–93.

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