Biblical Faith Seeks Scientific Understanding

Collin Hansen:?Maybe science has never made you wonder about something taught by Christianity. If that’s not the case with you, I’m sure you know someone who’s agonized over the Bible and evolution or heliocentrism or, of course, Jesus Christ’s resurrection.

Multiple disciplines in the natural sciences put pressure today on the Christian doctrine of sin. For many, the early chapters of Genesis don’t seem to match what we know from evolutionary biology, human genetics, and neuroscience.

These challenges are the focus of Hans Madueme’s new book, Defending Sin: A Response to the Challenges of Evolution and the Natural Sciences (Baker Academic). Madueme is a professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He earned his MDiv and PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. And he previously earned his MD from Howard University College of Medicine and did his internal medicine residency at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine.

In Defending Sin, Madueme describes his approach as “biblical faith seeking scientific understanding.” And he takes aim at the pretensions of modern science. He argues we can trust divine revelation. Indeed, we must. Madueme writes, “Doctrines are not atomistic entities like marbles in a jar that we can rearrange without consequence. Doctrines are more like threads in a tapestry: pulling on the fall unravels other doctrines and disrupts the biblical story’s inner coherence.”

Madueme joined me on Gospelbound to discuss whether the Presbyterian Church in America should close up shop, why he defends young-earth creationism, why we can trust what Scripture says about the future, and more. Watch the full episode above or listen to Gospelbound wherever you get your podcasts.

??ON THIS VIDEO:

00:00 Introduction to Hans Madueme and his book

2:08 Theological implications of scientific challenges

4:52 Galileo and the role of Scripture

9:50 The provisional nature of science

14:07 The conflict metaphor and historical scientists

18:41 Methodological naturalism and its implications

25:53 The historical Adam and theological implications

31:41 Young earth creationism and its theological importance

38:19 Trusting Scripture in protology and eschatology