Attempts to Curry Favour

Unworthy of God and Man

One of the sad features of many modern Christians is how deeply they have been influenced by the propaganda of Unbelief. 

A central plank of the cascade of scepticism towards the Christian faith is that (Unbelieving, rationalistic, atheistic) science is objective and deals only with brute facts.  Therefore, to many  the pronouncements of science reflect infallible and certain truths which are testable and verifiable.  Anyone who denies or questions the veracities of Unbelieving rationalistic science consequently must be ignorant, foolish, stubborn or blind--of a combination of all of the above. 

Many Christians dislike the idea that they would be regarded as ignorant or foolish.
  So they seek to made accommodations between Scripture and Unbelieving science--which means they deny the evident testimony of Scripture and bend it in the attempt to to make our faith more conformable to the objective, verifiable "truths" of science.  This represents a sad, treacherous response.  It shows a lack of understanding of the tentative nature of the scientific enterprise and of the constant revision of once "verified facts" of science throughout its history. 

In reality, many conclusions of modern science are neither purely scientific nor genuinely empirical.  The common perception that science deals only with verifiable facts and direct observation is utterly naive, as is the notion that scientists are purely objective truth seekers.  Indeed, many of the so-called facts of nature are more 'interprefacts' than verifiable facts.  Even Forster and Marston admit "[t]he notion that science is 'verifiable' is dead.  Scientific knowledge is always partial, and even a scientific "theory of everything" never will be total knowledge.'  Yet many theologians continue to treat scientific conclusions as simply "matter of fact", while failing to recognize the ideology behind them.  [Andrew S. Kulikovsky, Creation, Fall, Restoration: A Biblical Theology of Creation (Fearn, Ross-shire: Mentor/Christian Focus Publications Ltd, 2009),  p.40.]

Unbelieving rationalistic science presents itself as objective and interested in "just the facts, ma'am".   Naive Christians, contrary to the Bible's teaching, believe the propaganda.  They have not taken account of the deep black-magic in every unbelieving heart, regnant to one degree or another: fallen man instinctively hates God and suppresses the truth about Him as Creator and sovereign Lord.  There is a spiritual bias against God from the outset.  For Christians to ignore the existence of this bias is foolish. 

When Christians seek to engage in science using precepts and presuppositions and assumptions that are consistent with the Christian faith they are routinely mocked as being prejudiced.  "Of course you would say that," is the sarcastic rebuttal.  Many Christians have not learned to regard Unbelieving science in the same vein: it too is prejudiced, but in the opposite direction.

Worse, the prejudice of Unbelief is vicious in the sense of being riven with internal contradictions.  It claims to believe in an objective, rationalistic cosmos that exists by chance, yet all the while it deploys values and concepts that reflect anything but randomness--such as language that conveys meaningful content.

For a Christian to give up the clear meaning of the text of Scripture in a vain attempt to impress Unbelief is a very sorry business.  Playing the fool to gain the respect of other fools is unworthy of both God and man.