Science and Religion by Townsend

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 25, 1879

Science and Religion.

By Townsend

The Bible, as we often hear, was not written to teach science, and it is therefore claimed that it cannot be held responsible for scientific errors. It is true that it was chiefly written to impart moral and religious truth; still it has allusions to all sorts of scientific data, and we believe it to be held responsible for scientific errors, if they exist. We think, however, that it can be shown that they do not exist, but that, on the contrary, the Bible has anticipated, by thousands of years, some of the most wonderful and marvelous discoveries of modern times.

The Bible is said by unbelievers to have made mistakes concerning facts in the science of geology, and yet Sharon Turner says: “It is now thirty-five years since my attention was turned to these considerations. It was then the fashion of science, and for a large part of the educated and inquisitive world, to rush into a disbelief of all written revelation; and several geological speculations were directed against the Bible. But I have lived to see the most hostile of these destroyed.”

Says Professor Dana: “The grand old book of God still stands, and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more will it sustain and illustrate the sacred word.”

“All along the outskirts of science,” says Professor Hitchcock, “infidelity has, from time to time, erected his imposing ramparts, and opened fire upon Christianity from a thousand batteries. But the moment the rays of truth were concentrated upon these ramparts, they melted away. The last clouds of ignorance are passing, and the thunders of infidelity are dying upon the ear. The union and harmony of Christianity and science is a sure token that the flood of unbelief and ignorance shall never more go over the world.”

Certainly, these men of science ought to know whereof they affirm.

Again, the Bible is said, by unbelievers, to have made mistakes concerning astronomy; and yet the illustrious Sir John Herschel confesses that “all human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths contained in the sacred Scriptures.”

Our own honored astronomer, O. M. Mitchell, pays this tribute to the language of the Bible: “It furnishes the only fitting vehicle to express the thoughts that overwhelm us when contemplating the stellar universe.”

Certainly, the word of these astronomers should pass for something. And, in general, what is true of these two physical sciences is equally true of others.

Says Lieutenant Maury, who has been eminent in several different departments: “In my investigations of natural science, I have always found that whenever I can meet with anything in the Bible, on any subject, it always affords me a firm platform on which to stand.”—Townsend.