Science Must be Elevated to a Primary Theological Authority

A Call for a New Reformation, Part 3

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In the ancient world, philosophy was considered to be the “queen of the sciences.” It covered everything. And since the ancient world made sense of their entire existence through the lens of philosophy, it held a supreme authority.

In the second century BCE, Christians began using the philosophy of their day to understand and articulate their theology to their world. During this time, Clement of Alexandria (living from 150 to about 215 CE) downgraded philosophy to the “handmaiden of theology”. After all, theology was ultimately about God, and any other discipline must be secondary to and supportive of it. 

Hundreds of years later during the Enlightenment, John Locke declared philosophy to be the “handmaiden of science”. Rather than using abstract thought to uncover the secrets of the universe, science would reveal the secrets through observation and testing, and then philosophy would make sense of them. 

Fast forward to today (well, 20 years ago anyway). I was reading a book (I believe it was Paul Lakeland’s Postmodernity: Christian Identity in a Fragmented Age) which argued that science has replaced philosophy as the handmaiden of theology for postmodernity. 

Personally, I prefer to describe the postmodern relationship between theology, philosophy, and science as a menage a trois. The problem is that we’re used to philosophy being an authority for theological inquiry, but we’re not used to science being a full theological authority in its own right.

This needs to change, but there’s something in the way of elevating science to its rightful status: biblical supremacy. 

Postmodern culture is experiencing a meaning crisis.

Why have we lost sight of Meaning?
Is there any hope of getting it back?
Better yet, is the loss of Meaning really a bad thing?

If you long for a path forward, Drinking from an Empty Glass: Living Out of a Meaningless Spirituality is the book you’re looking for.

The problematic authority of the Bible

Q: Why do some fundamentalists believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old? 
A: Because, according to them, the Bible says it. 

Q: Why do some flat earthers believe that the Earth is not round, but flat. 
A: Because, according to them, the Bible says it. 

Q: Why do some evangelicals and fundamentalists believe that homosexual relationships are unnatural and therefore sinful? 
A: Because, according to them, the Bible says it. 

Are you seeing a theme? 

The problem I'm trying to point out is how the Bible tends to be used among certain Christian circles. When it comes to authority, it's the ultimate trump card. 

Of course, there are very few Christians today who would argue that the Earth is 6000 years old or that the Earth is flat. We know that the universe is much older than that. We know that our Blue Marble revolves around the Sun. We have known this for hundreds of years. These facts are universally accepted. Both of those stances are seen as downright ignorant by Christians, at least for the vast majority of us.

But what about that last one regarding homosexuality? As many Christians read the text, they conclude that homosexuality is “unnatural”, and therefore an offense to God. This has been the basis for marginalizing self-identifying homosexuals in church and society. 

That's why the issue of homosexuality within the Christian religion is an excellent example of why we need to de-emphasize the Bible and officially make science a primary theological authority.

Here's the problem…

The authors of biblical texts were working with the best understanding of the human condition available to them at the time. That understanding relied on mythological and philosophical assessments. They then based their conclusions on those assessments. 

There’s nothing wrong with that. That's what humans have done throughout history. They use the best cultural technology available to them to understand their situation and come to a conclusion. 

However, since then, our understanding of the human condition has grown dramatically. Biological science has revealed that same-sex attraction is quite natural, even if it is present in only a minority of the population. It’s even found among animal species. Biologically speaking, there’s nothing wrong with same-sex sex.

Yet, many Christians still want to deny gays and lesbians full inclusion (whether in their churches or society at large). It doesn't seem to matter to them what science says. All that matters is that the Bible says it is unnatural and sinful. 

(Btw, academic biblical scholars argue that the standard proof texts don't actually support the marginalization of gays and lesbians. But, I'm not going to get into that. If you want to know more, here's a video with an actual academic biblical scholar explaining it.)

Therein lies the problem. When it comes to understanding the human condition, the Bible should not outweigh science. In the same way that the Bible is not a cosmological or physics textbook, it is also not a biological or psychological textbook.

Subjecting the Bible to science

When I talk about science, most people think about the hard sciences, such as biology and physics. We also have soft sciences known as social sciences. These include such things as the study of history and literature. 

There are those Christians who study the Bible in a way that seeks to prove the truth of their dogma. They begin with the premise that the Bible is right, and they search for historical facts (sometimes even inventing them) to support the Bible's claims. Many of these Christians have earned advanced degrees from like-minded institutions and claim to be “scholars”. The term I use for what they do is “dogmatic biblical scholarship”.

Meanwhile, there are Christians who study the Bible in a very different way. They leverage academic tools such as… 

• historical criticism

• literary criticism

• form criticism

• genre criticism

• etc. 

When they approach the biblical texts, they do not assume a religious dogmatic truth. Instead, they treat the texts of the Bible as they would any other historical document. They allow the texts to speak for themselves, and then they make sense of those texts accordingly. The term I use for what they do is “academic biblical scholarship”.

The extent to which dogmatic biblical scholarship can even be considered scholarship at all is highly questionable. The bottom line is that they are not interested in truth, but rather in proving their dogma. 

Academic biblical scholars, on the other hand, are engaged in a quest for truth, even if that truth contradicts what they currently believe. 

To give you an idea of how significant this difference is, let's look at what I have seen happen when people shift from dogmatic biblical scholarship to academic biblical scholarship. 

Incompatible scholarship

Generally speaking, fundamentalists and evangelicals rely on dogmatic biblical scholarship to support their belief systems. There's a reason that they decry academic biblical scholarship.

When I talk with people who have deconstructed spiritually from those theologies, they almost universally identify that an encounter with academic biblical scholarship is an important part of the equation. An actual academic study of the Bible is an approach that first and foremost seeks truth, and that quest is incompatible with the standard fundamentalist and Evangelical understanding of the Bible, as well as their overall theology. 

If you don't believe me, all you have to do is run over to TikTok and start looking up videos of people telling their story of why they deconstructed. Of course, during their time as fundamentalists and Evangelicals, they considered the scholarship of their leaders to be solid. 

Ironically enough, the main reason they entered into deconstruction in the first place was because they did what they were taught to do: study the Bible. It was only after encountering actual academic biblical scholarship that they had the tools to question the teachings of their churches and woke up to the fact that their traditions weren’t faithful to the Jesus of the Bible. 

As a result, some left Christianity behind entirely and became something else, some live outside the church as Christians, and some joined other traditions that value academic biblical scholarship. 

The crux of the matter

If we want Christianity to be a religion that isn't considered a product of complete and utter delusion, then we have to uphold academic standards. 

That means…

• Using hard sciences rather than ancient outdated frameworks from sacred texts to understand our world. Then reflecting on that information theologically.

• Applying the social sciences to our reading of sacred texts as historical documents. Then we can look at the writings and context to understand what they were trying to say to their ancient communities, complete with the authors agendas and mistakes.

In our postmodern culture, failure to elevate science as a primary theological authority and use it in this way will do little more than earn us Christians the title of “laughing stock” for our religion…and rightly so. 

So, to go back to the issue of homosexuality in the Bible as our example, the question today really should not be “What does the Bible say about homosexuality?” The question should be, “Why should it matter in the first place what the Bible says about homosexuality?”

The bottom line is that it doesn't matter what the ancient texts of the Bible—complete with their worldview and contextual morality—say about the issue of homosexuality. What the Bible says about the human condition in that sense is irrelevant. 

What matters is that we explore the issue and bring to bear the best cultural technology we have at our disposal. Our best cultural technology includes sciences, such as biology and psychology. 

In the same way that we no longer concern ourselves with the use of leeches in medical treatments today, we should no longer concern ourselves with using ancient diagnostic tools for the human condition, no matter how sacred the text is that they come from. 

The real value of the Bible

At this point, it may sound like I am anti-Bible. I’m not. I still find the the Bible to be incredibly valuable for my faith journey. No, I do not look at the stories literally. No, I do not expect them to answer my questions. No, I do not believe that the authors of those texts were always right about God.

I typically categorize the stories in the Bible as “myth”, meaning stories of faith about the perceived relationship between God and creation. They are not meant to be taken literally. They're foundational documents for our long tradition.

Their value lies in interacting with them as dialogue partners. It's like sitting down with the ancients and asking them to tell me the “story of their faith”, as opposed to the “story of the faithful”. As I have conversations with those who have gone before me through the texts, I can encounter insights and inspiration that draw me deeper into my divine call as a child of God. 

Does the Bible still matter?

Yes, the Bible still matters. But it cannot be the supreme authority for the human condition. It's not meant to give us “basic instructions before leaving Earth”. And at the end of the day, it should invite us to wrestle with more questions, not give us answers. 

For what it's worth, here’s why the Bible still matters to me…

It tells me the stories of a human being named Jesus, as well as the stories that shaped his spirituality. In his world, common aspirations to power governed the hearts and minds of the people. Indeed, those aspirations were presumed to be divine. In that context, Jesus offered a completely different understanding of God. 

And, in his most revealing moment, Jesus embodied the Divine Intent for all creation as he said on the cross, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

And so we see it…

The fullness of God is revealed. God is Love. That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

That is not something I learned from either the hard sciences or the social sciences. It is something I learned through the stories recorded in sacred texts about this man whom I believe incarnated Divine Love for us.

Yes, we all know the Bible can be twisted and perverted to construct abusive and dangerous theological systems that actively damage human life and our planet. But, so can our Constitution…or even science. Every single one of us has seen this happen with our own eyes. 

But, the Bible still matters for Christianity because it reminds us of the Gospel, which is “God is Love”. And it is the very Gospel itself that challenges and rejects as faithless any understanding of Christianity that does not embody a creative, interpenetrating, and life-enhancing Love.

And that is how the authority of the Bible relates to the primary theological authority of science. The Gospel establishes boundaries on how we engage in scientific inquiry and how we apply the science to our lives. 

For example, I am a science-based, force-free dog trainer. Right now, science is showing us that the use of loving (non-aversive) methods produces the best results. But, what if science revealed that the use of abusive methods were more efficient? If that ended up being the case, then I would accept that science is showing us that, but I would still only use loving methods because I value the emotional well-being of my canine students. The Gospel (Love) establishes boundaries that I won’t cross.

When we engage our world through scientific inquiry, we quickly discover how it can actually remind us of the importance of the Gospel and our calling as Christians today. 

For example, according to science, climate change is real. We have been doing damage to our planet in a way that can even threaten the future of life on Earth. 

So, what is the significance of this for those who believe “God is Love”? Well, that topic is for next week. I hope you join me.

Peace, Bo
www.evolvingchristianfaith.net

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Credits

• Thanks to Leonardo AI for the cover art