Does the "clear meaning" of the scriptures trump science?

Well it depends on whether you’re asking about the particular facts of the matter, or the methods by which those facts are known. The findings of science might conflict with certain scriptural interpretations, so if you insist on the truth of those interpretations, then clearly they are mutually exclusive.
There’s also something to be said about method. How do you determine if what scripture says is true? Well you might do that by doing science. But then you’re doing science, not “faith”.

What is the faith-method anyway? To just believe no matter what? To insist on “scripture is true by definition”? To forever seek alternative interpretations when conflicts arise, and if so, when do you decide to stop doing that? How many synonyms of words will you go through, and how stretched are you going to allow the allegories and metaphors to become, to preserve the consilience between empirical facts and religious texts?

How could it? Suppose you do an observation, or perform some measurement, and then obtain some value. Then you read scripture and it says (or at least implies) something else than what you observe. How could scripture then “refute” the observation? Scripture might perhaps contradict something you’ve observed or measured, but then what do you do? Do you just take scripture to be correct by definition, and disbelieve your lying eyes? Do you now go searching for an alternative way to understand what scripture says?

If you do the latter, how far will you go? If you allow yourself to keep going forever in search of an alternative interpretation that is consistent with observation, have you not then in effect defined scripture to be true no matter what? You are searching for other interpretations because you *then in essence take scripture to be true by definition?

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I am not wrong, and here are your answers.

Joshua (10:12-13),
“The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.”
“The sun and moon stood still in their habitation…”
In Psalms 19:4-6, Ecclesiastes 1:5
“set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them;”
“The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.”

Response: All of the foregoing verses deal with the earth as a coordinate frame of reference for its inhabitants, a well-established property of physics. With the advent of heliocentricity, the physical coordinates were simply moved to a different frame of reference in the solar system. Both frames of reference are equally valid.

1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalms 93:1, Psalms 96:10
“the world stands firm, never to be moved.”
“Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved,”

Response: In context, these passages make reference to nature rejoicing and flourishing due to the earth’s fixed location. The clear meaning is that the earth will “never be moved” from its orbit around our star as the third terrestrial planet in our system, thus ensuring that days, years, and seasons will remain just as God promised.

Bible has multiple references to
“the foundations of the world,”

Response: The earth was founded just like any building today is established on a foundation. God created it as a differentiated terrestrial planet with a core comprised of a nickel-iron alloy, then built differentiated layers on top of that. Of course, “foundations of the world” also refers to the earth’s established location in our local star system and universe proper.

But of course. Who would have ever thought otherwise?

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Right. This, of course, did not actually occur. If we know anything at all, we know this.

So what do we do? Do we say that I’m wrong and we should totally just believe those two sentences simply because we find them in a book that also contains stories of talking snakes, demonic possessions, and infinite loaves of bread? Or do we say they must mean something else than what they appear to say?

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Yes, agreed. But I do that with everything, because I know that the bible is infallible and truth from God. That does not negate the reality of science. My point was that allowing yourself to believe that there is only one possible path, either science or faith that brings you to truth, makes the journey very long and difficult. It seems more reasonable (to me) to embrace both and discover which is the more reasonable route for any given situation. It seems obvious that there is currently better understanding of truth in science regarding the origin of life, but that truth does not negate scripture, so why all the hubbub? Keep proving the science, keep having faith that God is in control. I can say with confidence that the bible is infallible and that humans evolved from hominids that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. Scripture does not trump science, nor does science trump scripture. Hanging on to one as proof that the other is false is not logical to me. Science cannot prove faith wrong, faith operates on a different set of parameters, nor can faith prove science wrong for the same reason…

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My point was that in Galileo’s day the Church got it wrong because it was later confirmed with empiricism that a heliocentric solar system was correct. The Church had no choice but to capitulate its rigid view.

Now fast forward to today when you are claiming that due to common descent, great apes branched off to primate Adam and primate Eve whom God breathed into and they took on God’s image. Yet you have no empirical support to back this up!! All the while you are asking the Church to capitulate like they did after Galileo.

True, you have gotten some lazy theologians and lazy pastors in today’s church who have already capitulated. But my point is that you will not by any means get the same response from the Lord’s universal Church at large that you got after Galileo’s day. You have not brought empirical proof of your position. Period. It’s just that simple.

Name one person who claims any such thing.

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Then you have made it impossible for yourself to discover if you are wrong to think the bible really is “infallible and truth from God”? You have basically conceded that you have deliberately closed off your mind to the possibility of you bring wrong. Discussions or investigations about truth claims have now become irrelevant.

It seems to me you should never declare that you basically just “know that X is infallible truth”. You can do that with anything, including other religions. The Qur’an is the infallible word of God and I just know it.

If you can invoke faith as a “path” to truth for any imaginable proposition, and since by it’s nature science can’t “prove faith wrong” because faith “operates on a different set of parameters”, then you’ve basically made it so anyone can just believe whatever they want and declare it to be infallible truth. Nobody can ever say to someone else they’re wrong, because the other person can just appeal to their faith.

People from other religions can do what you do, and just keep chasing alternative interpretations of their religious texts whenever they sense a conflict between empirical findings of science and their scriptures. I could just decide to take it on faith that your religion is wrong and that God doesn’t exist, and then you couldn’t ever persuade me otherwise because, by definition, I’m right and you’re wrong, and I can always just interpret whatever you say or whatever empirical fact you show me in some other way.

It seems to me this problem shows why faith can never be a good or useful guide to truth. Once you allow faith into the game, playing it has become pointless. Everyone gets to declare themselves as having discovered (and just knowing) The Infallible Truth™ with no way to arbitrate between them.

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This is all predicated on a fideistic understanding of faith. And your critique of fideism is accurate. Anybody can be fideistic about anything. Fortunately, that has nothing to do with my beliefs, or what the bible itself calls for.

I get your point, but don’t see this as my position, I am not claiming infallible truth. I can reasonable identify truth through scripture and through what other people say about that scripture. Scripture authenticates what I hear from the Spirit and the Spirit authenticates the truth in scripture. So, inasmuch as I believe the Word is infallible, I am not, and I am capable of misunderstanding truth through the infallible Word. I have to be open to rational discussion and recognize that I am limited as a human seeking truth.

Again, I am not claiming infallible truth, I am claiming that the Word of God is infallible, truth is a moving target. We seek truth, but truth is fleeting. We see that also in science, what is true today regarding physics, may or may not be true in 100 years.

And I wholeheartedly agree with the frustration of non-Christians in regard to Christians claiming “game over”, boom drop the mic. I think many Christians fail in this respect and should be open to seeking to understand other viewpoints. It is (in fact) biblical…

James 1:19-20 - 19 So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; 20 for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

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In general, how would you go about determining ways in which science may be right or wrong?

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Here are 29 pieces of empirical support:

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I find it interesting that you have to add to scripture. Nowhere does the Bible state that Earth can not be moved from its orbit.

The Earth does not sit on foundations.

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You all sent me this last month in an argument that you lost. You could not find a single real empirical experiment in the entire list.

All of them are real empirical experiments. All of them use empirical observations to test a scientific hypothesis.

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See if it matches up with the Bible when the Bible’s meaning is obviously not metaphorical or poetic.

Great, give me your best one.

We could start with this publication, a phylogenetic analysis of primate DNA. Hey, sequencing done in a laboratory, with white coats on and everything!

Let me know if there’s anything you need explained.

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Oh, now I am disappointed. I thought I asked for experimental proof of common descent. Too, that’s what I was promised just below:

Oh well. My mistake for thinking you had what you said you had. When the guys in the white coats can do more than sequencing to arrive at common descent, you be sure to let us know.

Did you? You know quite well that there could never be experimental proof, if by that you mean reproducing the entire human evolutionary tree in a lab, which apparently you do. No, what I linked to is just incontrovertible evidence that it actually happened, and that you are related by descent to all the other primates in that tree. Of course you won’t even look. If you looked, and you paid any attention, it would destroy your world. But don’t be afraid: the world that would replace it is better.

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