Science, Scripture, and the Church: The Search for Genuine Authority (Part I)

I began writing this blog post and realized it was turning into a lengthy essay, so I've decided to post it in two parts. Broadly stated, this is the story of my search for truth and for trustworthy sources of authority.  I will get around to tying it in to my developing view of various sources of authority

I was home schooled in a protestant evangelical Christian family. I grew up believing that science basically proves God's existence and the historical accuracy of the creation and flood stories in Genesis. I believed that the earth was created in six literal days, that no new species had evolved since the creation of the world, that the entire universe (or at least the earth, anyway) was somewhere between 6,000-10,000 years old, and that the vast majority of the fossil record and geological phenomena like the Grand Canyon could be accounted for by Noah's flood. I had arguments and books to back it up. I even had a book dedicated to explaining how we are able to see light from stars that are billions of light years away while the earth itself is only 6,000 years old. And it wasn't the usual cop-out solution that God had created a “mature universe” complete with pre-installed beams of light. This book made use of the possibility of white holes and their time dilating effects. I was convinced. Furthermore, I believed that people who did not accept these conclusions were being intellectually dishonest and misrepresenting the evidence. On top of that, I believed that most “evolutionists” had an agenda to undermine the Christian faith. In other words, I was a disciple of young earth creationism.

In my middle school and high school years, my scientific beliefs were closely tied to my belief in God. I had no doubt that science was trustworthy and I had no doubt that science supported my belief in Christianity. It worked like this in my head: I knew that I could trust science to give me truth; I also knew that science (when studied by honest individuals) supported the belief that the Genesis creation account and the Noah's flood story were historically and scientifically real events; therefore, I had good reason to believe that the rest of the Bible was also historically and scientifically true; and if the Bible was trustworthy on these matters, then it seemed reasonable to believe that it was trustworthy on other matters as well. In particular, I felt that this gave me a solid rational justification for my belief in God. If science proved that the Genesis stories were literally true, then obviously it was reasonable to believe that God the creator existed. As far as I was concerned, I knew that I knew that God existed and I could prove it.

I recently told this story to an Orthodox Christian priest and when I got to this point he said: “Have you ever played the game Jenga?” We both laughed because he knew what was coming next. I had set myself up for a catastrophic failure of my belief system, I just didn't know it at the time. It was my youth pastor who pulled the first block from my Jenga stack when he brought up the question of God's existence at a Wednesday night meeting. My youth pastor at the time was a seminary student who had double majored in Bible and philosophy when he was in college. Looking back on it now after having studied philosophy myself, I can see that he gave our youth group a short course in epistemology that night. He argued that you don't have to know that you know something in order to know it. Therefore, we don't have to be able to prove God's existence in a strict sense in order to know that God exists. You can know without being able to prove. I disagreed and I was also slightly annoyed because my youth pastor seemed to suggest that God's existence could not be proved. But I thought that I could prove God's existence and that if I found out that I couldn't, then I would have to stop believing in God.

I can't remember the exact sequence of events but I believe it was around that same time that my youth pastor gave another lesson in which he touched on the topic of evolution. I don't remember him making any strong statements that he believed evolution was true, but I do remember him suggesting that it would not matter to him much if it were true. It wouldn't rock his faith. It wouldn't change his belief that God existed or that the Bible was trustworthy. That was a second Jenga block being pulled. Up until then, I hadn't really entertained the idea that evolution might be true. Many of the sources I drew from caricatured “evolutionists” as godless, laughably unscientific people conspiring against Christianity. These evolutionists believed in their theory of “goo to you by way of the zoo” not because it was scientifically reasonable, but because they couldn't stand to admit that the Bible and Christianity were true. So their scientific claims didn't need to be taken that seriously. When my youth pastor suggested that the theory of evolution could have credibility I was disturbed – disturbed because I greatly respected my youth pastor's opinions and therefore wondered if evolution might in fact have some credibility, and disturbed because evolution was not at all compatible with my belief system.

This led to a personal crisis. I was no longer certain of my scientific justification for belief in the Bible's authority and God's existence. At one level this was an epistemic crisis concerned with what I was able to know. At another level it was an authority crisis concerned with the sources that I relied on for knowledge. I had accepted the Bible as an authoritative book in my life because I believed that science gave it credibility. But what if science didn't give it credibility? Then what sources of authority was I left with?

I decided to go looking for other ways to prove God's existence. I could bracket the issue of evolution and revisit it later as long as I could at least establish God's existence on some other rational grounds. At the time I felt that my entire belief system and my faith was staked on my ability to find a proof for God's existence. This added an element of desperation to my search and made me rather depressed when I failed to find answers as quickly as I wanted. I talked with a few people and was distressed to find out that they couldn't prove God's existence either. I remember thinking to myself, “These people have been alive for decades and they can't even prove that what they believe is true. What on earth have they been doing their whole lives? Is it possible that this has never become a priority for them? Doesn't it bother them that their beliefs are apparently without solid justification?” I also remember laying in bed, unable to sleep, racking my brain for a non-circular argument for God's existence. I knew that reason needed some raw material to get started, but I was having trouble coming up with anything useful. I remember thinking and feeling in my gut that I would probably never be able to prove God's existence. That was a devastating moment for me. I was in despair. It was the one time in my life that I actually considered suicide. The two things that kept me alive were the fact that I'm a sissy (dying sounded painful and scary) and the hope that if I continued to search I might eventually be able to reason my way to God or at least to a better understanding of the truth of things, whatever that might be. I didn't become a full-blown atheist because I realized that I couldn't dis-prove God's existence any more than I could prove it. Instead, I became a deeply unhappy agnostic.

-David