Say WHAT?

The Bible PROVES science?

Don’t we religious types spend a lot of effort doing just the opposite – trying to get science to prove the claims of the Bible?

Remember hearing about all those expeditions to Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey to find Noah’s Ark? And those internet stories about how NASA scientists using a supercomputer discovered there is actually a day missing in history? Some say this is proof of the claim in the book of Joshua that the sun stood still for a day to give the Israelites time to finish wiping out their enemies!

Of course, none of those claims turned out to be true. But thanks for playing. 

Even a legitimate field like Archaeology is used by some folks to try to “prove” that such-and-such a thing reported in the Bible actually happened the way it says it did.

Oh how desperately we religious types want to prove the Bible!

But hold on boys and girls! Let’s turn the whole premise on its head. Rather than using science to try to prove the Bible, lets see if the Bible actually proves science!

Remember what we’ve been saying about how life is designed to move forward along what scientists call the Arrow of Time?

Milk can be spilled but not unspilled.

Eggs can become omelets but omelets cannot become eggs.

And people? Well, people are born. They grow. They die.

Always in that direction.

Never the other way around.

Physics captures this truth in its Second Law of Thermodynamics. You can read (or re-read) all about it in my previous “Flunking Physics” posts so I won’t repeat all that here. But suffice to say, life is constantly moving from a condition of low entropy to high entropy – from a simple, ordered, well-organized, compact state to a more complex, disordered state.

This is why the universe continues to expand today, some 14 +- billion years after the Big Bang.

Since The Beginning, the universe has exploded in size and complexity. Look up at the sky at night and just try to count the stars! Peer through a telescope and see how expansive is the cosmos! Better yet, examine photographic sequences snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope and see how galaxies at the far edges of space are moving apart from each other, proving that the universe is still expanding, still getting bigger and more complex all the time.

Just like your cable TV bill.

And the Bible!

Have you ever been in a Sunday School class when some faithless, heretical, pagan student actually dared ask THE QUESTION?

“Why does God change from the Old Testament to the New Testament?”

Yeah, we’ve all wondered about that, but probably were too scared to ask.

The class leader – after faking a coughing fit while mentally consulting his or her internal store of pat answers to hard questions – mumbles something about God doing some things in one “dispensation” and God doing other things in another “dispensation” – etc.

“And that, dear students, is why it seems the Old Testament God is different than the New Testament God even though we know God is infinite, immortal and immutable.”

Yeah, that’s it.

But thanks be to God for faithless, heretical, pagan students of the Bible who just won’t let go of such questions! The best Bible students are the ones who don’t settle for easy answers to hard questions – and are not afraid to probe deeper.

Why DOES God change over the course of biblical history?

(Hint: it has to do with the Second Law of Thermodynamics!)

To tell the truth, I have no idea whether God actually changes or not. I’m not smart enough to know everything there is to know about God.

But I do know that people change. What we understand as truth changes. How we see the world changes. What we believe changes.

And all that change is reflected on the pages of the Bible.

Remember the rules God gave Adam and Eve in the Garden?

There were two.

  1. Have sex and make babies.
  2. Don’t eat apples.

Yeah, I know – I’m exaggerating, or at least embellishing those rules. And the Bible doesn’t actually tell us whether its apples or kumquats Eve and Adam aren’t supposed to eat.

But close enough.

Now here’s the interesting thing.

By the time we get to Exodus (the very next book in the Bible), those two rules have grown to ten! We call them the (what?) ….  Right! The Ten Commandments!

But wait! There’s more!

Over time those Ten Commandments get sliced and diced into 613 precise rules – 248 commands and 365 prohibitions! Holy shamoley! From 2 rules to 10 commandments to 613 laws! Sounds like a parent trying to keep control over a 13 year old kid!

But wait! There’s more!

Operators are standing by and if you call in the next 5 minutes you’ll also get a bonus gift of 1,521 “emendations” – rules that were created to even more precisely provide guidance for the faithful.

Plus shipping and handling.

But wait…

Along comes this guy Jesus of Nazareth. He says all the laws of the Bible are summed up in one great commandment: “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.”

Then he adds, “And a second one is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”

From 2 to 10 to 613 to 1,521 to…2 again!

And for the past two thousand years faithful people have been trying to figure out the millions of ways this Great Commandment can be practiced in their lives and relationships.

You see, the Bible is not a textbook filled with static facts to be learned, believed and obeyed.

No, the Bible is a book about life on the move through a world of constant change – of humanity embarking on an unfolding journey into the unknown future with God and each other. From Genesis to Revelation people experience new dimensions of life and have to adjust. Along the way they learn things previously unknown about themselves, the world, and the God who is leading them. These discoveries are recorded on the pages of the Bible – sometimes as historic narrative, sometimes as song, sometimes as poetry, parable and allegory. The community travels from Eden to Egypt to Judea to Babylon and back to Judea to Asia Minor to Rome and beyond. And there is change, correction and contradiction along the way as fresh insights are received, new communities are encountered and new frontiers are crossed.

The Bible is a great adventure book – a book that tells a story of how people travel with God along the Arrow of Time.

Life changes. People change. Nations change. Rules change. Beliefs change. Values change.

Everything changes!

The simple gives way to the more complex.

That’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

And the Bible tells us so!