Perspectives on Science and Faith
Where does BioLogos stand in relation to other perspectives on science and Christian faith? Who are the thought leaders and major organizations championing these perspectives, and what exactly do they believe? Below we describe five prominent views and the figures, organizations, and books that represent them: our own view at BioLogos, Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design, and Scientism (sometimes called New Atheism). While there are many more views than are represented here (e.g. liberal Christians, who accept evolution but hold to non-traditional views of Scripture, and the so-called Accommodationists, who are not religious themselves but see no conflict between science and Christianity), these five are the most relevant to the science and faith conversation among evangelical Christians today.
The BioLogos View
The BioLogos view holds that both Scripture and modern science reveal God’s truth, and that these truths are not in competition with one another. It accepts the modern scientific consensus on the age of the earth and common ancestry, including the common ancestry of humans. While there are varying views of how to reconcile the truths of science and Scripture (for example with regards to a historical Adam), those who hold to the BioLogos view accept God as Creator and believe that the Bible, though open to a diversity of interpretations, is ultimately the divinely inspired and authoritative Word of God. The individuals we have identified below do not necessarily agree with BioLogos in every way, but their writings are complementary to the BioLogos view.
Denis Alexander
Denis Alexander is the Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, a member of the National Committee of Christians in Science, and has been Editor of the journal "Science & Christian Belief" since 1992.
American Scientific Affiliation
The American Scientific Affiliation is a fellowship of over 1600 individuals working in science-related fields who share a common goal of fidelity to both Christian faith and scientific integrity. The ASA was founded in Chicago in 1941.
Ard Louis
Ard Louis is a Royal Society University research fellow and a reader in theoretical physics at Oxford University, where he leads an interdisciplinary research group studying problems on the border between chemistry, physics and biology.
Christians in Science
Christians in Science (CiS) is a network of over 650 scientists, educators and science students who profess a Christian faith and are interested in the dialogue between science and Christianity. CiS is considered the sister group of the ASA.
Coming to Peace With Science
Is a thoroughly Christian and biblically informed doctrine of creation compatible with widely held conclusions of modern science, especially biology? For Darrel R. Falk, this is not just an abstract question but one with which he has personally wrestled.
Simon Conway-Morris
Simon Conway Morris has held the Chair in Evolutionary Palaeobiology in the Earth Sciences Department in Cambridge University since 1995. He is a noted author and lecturer, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a Templeton Fellow.
Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?
Denis Alexander's book draws on the latest genetic research. What do we mean by creation and evolution? What are the common scientific objections to evolution? Is evolution atheistic? Who were Adam and Eve?
Daniel Harrell
Daniel Harrell is the Senior Minister of Colonial Church in Edina, Minnesota. Before stepping into this role, Harrell served as associate minister at Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts for over twenty years.
Ted Davis
Ted Davis is Distinguished Professor of the History of Science at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, and author of numerous articles for historical and theological journals.
Deb Haarsma
Deb Haarsma is chair of the department of physics and astronomy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich, and Co-Director of The Ministry Theorem, a project to help ministers engage science in their congregations.
Faraday Institute for Science and Religion
The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion was founded in Jan. 2006. Led by director Denis Alexander and associate director Bob White, Fellow of the Royal Society, it is an academic research enterprise based at St. Edmund’s College in Cambridge, England.
Rodney Holder
Rodney Holder is Course Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion and was formerly Priest in Charge of the Parish of the Claydons, Diocese of Oxford.
Jeffrey Schloss
Jeffrey Schloss is Distinguished Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Faith, Ethics, and the Life Sciences at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California and a noted writer and lecturer on topics of science and religion.
Jennifer Wiseman
Jennifer Wiseman is an astronomer, speaker, and author, recently appointed as the senior project scientist for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center, where she previously headed the Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics.
John Walton
John Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College in Illinois and an editor and writer of Old Testament comparative studies and commentaries. He has published dozens of books, articles and Bible translations, both as writer and editor, including his latest book The Lost World of Genesis One.
Karl Giberson
Karl Giberson directs the new science & religion writing program at Gordon College in Boston. He has published more than 100 articles, reviews and essays for Web sites and journals including Salon.com, Books & Culture, and the Huffington Post.
Denis Lamoureux
Denis O. Lamoureux is an associate professor of science and religion at St. Joseph's College in the University of Alberta and author of the books Evolutionary Creation and I Love Jesus and I Accept Evolution.
Ernest Lucas
Ernest Lucas is Vice-Principal and Tutor in Biblical Studies at Bristol Baptist College and author of the books "Can We Believe Genesis Today?" and "Think God, Think Science".
Alister McGrath
Alister McGrath is Chair of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College, London, and serves as the academic leader of the Centre for Theology, Religion, and Culture.
Kenneth Miller
Kenneth R. Miller is a cell biologist, Professor of Biology at Brown University and a frequent public defender of the compatibility of evolution and Christianity.
John Polkinghorne
John Polkinghorne worked in theoretical elementary particle physics for 25 years before he was ordained. After some years in parish life, he returned to Cambridge and has written many books on issues in science and theology.
Randy Isaac
Randy Isaac is a solid-state physics research scientist and executive director of the American Scientific Affiliation, where he has been a member since 1976 and a fellow since 1996. Isaac received his bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in Illinois and his doctorate in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Saving Darwin
Saving Darwin traces the cultural motivations of the anti-Darwin movement and addresses it in both theological and scientific terms.
The Language of God
The Language of God combines Collins's faith and experiences as a genetics researcher with discussions of science and spirituality.
The Language of Science and Faith
Science does not overthrow the Bible. Faith does not require rejecting science. World-renowned scientist Francis Collins, author of The Language of God, along with fellow scientist Karl Giberson show how we can embrace both. -Amazon
The Lost World of Genesis One
Walton presents and defends twenty propositions supporting a literary and theological understanding of Genesis 1.
Young Earth Creationism
Young Earth Creationists (YECs) hold that the earth is between 6,000 and 10,000 years old, a figure derived from the genealogies presented in the Bible. YECs believe the most faithful way to read Scripture is through the lens of a literal six-day creation as presented in the first chapter of Genesis, and they further believe that a literal worldwide flood as depicted in Genesis 6-9 is responsible for geological features of the earth and the fossil record. YECs also reject the common ancestry of all species, believing that life was created as it presently appears by God. They view “macro-evolution” (as distinct from within-kind or within-species “micro-evolution”) as incompatible with Scripture and some even argue that it is a direct threat to Christianity.
BioLogos disagrees with the YEC viewpoint, as it rejects the discoveries of almost every modern scientific discipline to arrive at its conclusions and overlooks the revelation of God’s work in creation as uncovered by science. We also maintain that the YEC viewpoint stems from a particular interpretation of Genesis that ignores the rich cultural and theological context in which it was written.
Albert Mohler
Albert Mohler is the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest seminaries in the world and the founding institution of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Answers in Genesis
Answers in Genesis, or AiG, is by far the most influential and well-funded of the American ministries devoted to Young Earth Creationism, founded and led by popular author and speaker Ken Ham.
Carl Baugh
Carl Baugh is the founder and director of the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas. He hosts a weekly television show titled “Creation in the 21st Century,” which presents scientific evidence for creation.
Center for Origins Research
The Center for Origins Research (CORE) at Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn., is dedicated to developing a Young Earth Creationist model of biology. CORE promotes research in five areas of biology: design, natural evil, speciation, biogeography and biosystematics.
Coming to Grips with Genesis
Bringing to bear rigorous biblical, theological, and historical arguments in favor of a six-day creation, the global Flood, and a young earth, fourteen theological scholars address key topics related to the age of earth, which is the crucial issue of debate in the church today regarding origins.
Creation Science Evangelism
Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) is a Young Earth Creationist ministry begun by evangelist Kent Hovind in 1989. CSE claims there is a perfect harmony between an ultraliteral reading of the Bible and factual science and history. It claims life originated over six literal 24-hour days approximately 6,000 years ago through the direct creative acts of God.
Ken Ham
Ken Ham leads the nation’s largest young earth creationist organization, Answers in Genesis. He is a popular speaker and author of numerous books about the accuracy and authority of the Bible and the consequences of evolutionary thinking.
Kent Hovind
Kent Hovind, also known as “Dr. Dino”, is a young-earth creationist and founder of Creation Science Evangelism (CSE). He has been a frequent critic of evolutionary theory, which he contends is neither scriptural nor scientific.
Institute for Creation Research
The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Christian organization that promotes Young Earth Creationism, the accuracy and authority of Biblical text, and the validity of “creation science.” The institute was founded by Henry Morris in 1970 as the research division of Christian Heritage College in San Diego, Calif. The ICR focuses heavily on research supporting scientific creationism.
John MacArthur
After emerging from Talbot Theological Seminary in 1969, John MacArthur joined Grace Community Church in Sun Valley California where he is now a successful pastor and teacher. MacArthur is also an author, conference speaker, president of The Master’s College and Seminary.
Henry M. Morris
Henry M. Morris is considered the father of the modern creation science movement. Morris was a staunch young earth creationist and supported the belief that the world’s creation occurred over a literal six days.
Paul A. Nelson
Paul A. Nelson is a philosopher of biology specializing in evolutionary developmental biology and is an advocate of young earth creationism.
The Genesis Flood
The Genesis Floodi s a 1961 book by young earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris that "produced a stunning renaissance of flood geology," elevating the hypothesis "to a position of fundamentalist orthodoxy."
The Lie: Evolution
An eye-opening look at the harmful effects of evolutionary thought on modern culture and religion. Author Ken Ham uses his years of teaching and ministry experience to expose false teaching that is destroying children and families.
Todd Wood
A specialist of biochemistry and genomics, Todd Wood is the director of the Center for Origins Research and an associate professor of science at Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn.
Kurt Wise
Kurt Wise is a theology and science professor. He has published more than 30 articles supporting young earth creationism and has been a scientific consultant to the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Kentucky.
Old Earth Creationism
Old Earth Creationists (OECs) accept that the earth and universe are billions of years old, but maintain that these findings are in concordance with a direct reading of the first chapters of Genesis (often by interpreting the days of creation as long periods of time, or by understanding large gaps between the days of creation). OECs hold that modern science tightly corresponds with biblical accounts and assume that God included modern scientific ideas in the Bible, sometimes through secret language that would have been lost on the original audiences. OECs do not, however, accept the common ancestry of all life forms.
BioLogos disagrees with the OEC viewpoint, because while accepting the scientific consensus for an old earth, it rejects the findings of modern genetics, paleontology, and many other biological sub-disciplines that support common ancestry. Furthermore, we believe that God chose to reveal Himself within the worldview, culture, and language of the biblical authors. Since heliocentricity or the Big Bang, for example, are neither relevant to God’s message nor meaningful to the ancient audience, we do not think these scientific ideas are encoded in Scripture.
More than a Theory
In More Than a Theory, Hugh Ross, founder and president of Reasons To Believe, offers discerning readers a comprehensive, testable creation model to consider as an alternative.
Fazale Rana
Fazale “Fuz” Rana serves as executive vice president of research and apologetics at Reasons to Believe. He fell in love with science while studying at West Virginia State College, and graduated with a degree in Chemistry before going on to Ohio University where he earned a Ph.D.
Reasons to Believe
Reasons to Believe (RTB) is an Old Earth Creationist, Christian ministry founded by astrophysicist Hugh Ross in 1986. RTB presents the view that God’s miraculous intervention directly created each new species of life on Earth.
Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach
In Redeeming Science, Vern Poythress attempts to kindle our appreciation for science as it ought to be-science that could serve as a path for praising God and serving fellow human beings.
Hugh Ross
Hugh Ross heads the leading Old Earth Creationist organization Reasons to Believe. He promotes the use of scientific research as a means of supporting and reinforcing the accuracy of the Bible.
Gerald Schroeder
Gerald Schroeder is a scientist, author and lecturer who holds a doctorate in earth sciences and physics. He focuses on what he calls the extraordinary confluence of modern science and ancient biblical commentary.
The Creator and the Cosmos
In The Creator and the Cosmos, Dr. Hugh Ross shows how recent cosmological discoveries clearly indicate the universe was created with many characteristics fine-tuned for our life.
The Science of God
In this book, Schroeder, an Israeli physicist and scholar of Genesis, maintains that a properly understood Bible and a properly understood science provide consistent sets of data.
Who Was Adam?
Scientists Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross introduce a testable scientific model for humanity's origin--a Biblical model--that sheds light on the latest findings on evolution and the origins of man.
Intelligent Design
The Intelligent Design (ID) movement believes that modern science is based on materialistic presuppositions and is in need of serious reform. The modern theory of evolution is a result of science’s naturalistic foundations, they argue, and therefore must be either rejected or significantly altered. Leaders of the movement believe they have used science to detect the activity of a transcendent Intelligence in the world (though the ID movement does not explicitly state who or what this Intelligence is), particularly through the study of irreducibly complex systems and complex specified information. A diversity of viewpoints regarding the age of the earth, common ancestry, and the identity of the “Intelligent Designer” exist within the movement.
Like all Christians, BioLogos believes in an intelligent Creator, but unlike those in the ID movement, we are skeptical that the tools of science can be used to detect specific instances of His activity. God works through natural processes, so all things observable through science are His handiwork. Science and Scripture are not in competition, and we do not believe that science should be the sole arbiter of truth in “proving” God’s existence.
Michael Behe
Michael Behe is a biochemist, intelligent design advocate and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Behe originated the argument of irreducible complexity.
Casey Luskin
Casey Luskin is an attorney that also currently works as Program Officer in Public Policy and Legal Affairs at the Discovery Institute where he is helping educators and policymakers nationwide to teach evolution accurately.
Center for Science and Culture
The Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (CSC), formerly the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, is a leading proponent of the modern intelligent design movement and a vocal critic of modern evolutionary theory, or neo-Darwinism. Founded in 1996 with financial support from Seattle-based Discovery Institute, the CSC describes itself as a secular think tank and provides support for both challenging the theory of neo-Darwinism and research in support of intelligent design.
Charles Thaxton
Charles Thaxton is a member of the Discovery Institute, the American Chemical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Iowa State University, and completed two post-doctoral programs.
Darwin on Trial
Is evolution fact or fancy? Is natural selection an unsupported hypothesis or a confirmed mechanism of evolutionary change? These were the questions that professor of law Phillip Johnson originally took up in 1991.
Darwin’s Black Box
In 1996, Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box helped to launch the intelligent design movement: the argument that nature exhibits evidence of design, beyond Darwinian randomness.
William A. Dembski
William A. Dembski is one of the leading figures in the intelligent design movement and a leading proponent of the idea of “irreducible complexity” as proof of intelligent design in nature.
Design Inference
How can we identify events due to intelligent causes and distinguish them from events due to undirected natural causes? If we lack a causal theory how can we determine whether an intelligent cause acted? This book presents a reliable method for detecting intelligent causes: the design inference.
Douglas Axe
Douglas Axe is the director of Biologic Institute and is currently using both experiments and computer simulation to study the functional and structural constraints of protein evolution.
Edge of Evolution
In The Edge of Evolution Michael Behe argues that even in the cases of evolution that maximize its power as a creative force it has only been able to generate very trivial examples of evolutionary change.
Jay Richards
Jay Richards is presently a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute and a Contributing Editor of The American at the American Enterprise Institute. In recent years he has been a Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute.
John West
John West is a Senior Fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, where he is Associate Director of Discovery's Center for Science & Culture and Vice President for Public Policy and Legal Affairs. He is currently researching the impact of Darwinian science on public policy and culture during the past century.
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson is considered the father of the intelligent design movement. He first coined the term “intelligent design” as it is understood today in his 1991 book, Darwin on Trial.
Jonathan Wells
Jonathan Wells is a key figure in the Intelligent Design movement and a Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He has earned two Ph.D.’s, one in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and one in Religious Studies from Yale University.
Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer is director and senior fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute. Meyer has promoted intelligent design and debated the movement’s critics on television and other public forums.
Michael Denton
Michael Denton is a Senior Research Fellow in Human Genetics in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Dr. Denton studied medicine at Bristol University and developmental biology at Kings College, London University, where he gained a PhD in 1974.
Richard Sternberg
Richard Sternberg is presently a research scientist at the Biologic Institute, supported by a research fellowship from the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute.
Signature in the Cell
In Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer has written the first comprehensive DNA-based argument for intelligent design and develops the case for this often-misunderstood theory using the same scientific method that Darwin himself pioneered.
Walter Bradley
Walter Bradley is the Director of the Polymer Science and Engineering Program at Texas A&M University, Materials Thrust Area Leader for Texas A&M University's Offshore Technology NSF Research Center, and has served as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, a department of 67 faculty members
Scientism
Scientism holds that science is the sole arbiter of truth in the modern world and views Scripture as contradictory to the findings of science. Scientism paints evolution as a “purposeless” process. While views on religion among the group range from it being a beneficial social construct to a “dangerous delusion,” all reject that there is a divine basis to it.
BioLogos disagrees with scientism, believing that science and Scripture are not enemies, and that while science is part of God’s revelation to his people, it is not the sole arbiter of truth. Scripture too offers crucial truths about God and about the world, not least of which is the person and work of Christ Jesus. Furthermore, we believe that a theistic view makes the best sense of the world and we therefore reject the shallow caricature of Christianity and theology that scientism presents.
Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan was an astronomer, astrobiologist, author, and arguably the greatest popularizer of science of all time.
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens is an English-American author and journalist. Hitchens received a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1970. He has also taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Pittsburgh, and the New School of Social Research.
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett is one of the leading New Atheists and a champion of the idea that evolution is an all-encompassing worldview. He argues that evolution is a “universal acid” that dissolves and reforms culture and science itself.
Jerry Coyne
Jerry Coyne is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and a member of both the Committee on Genetics and the Committee on Evolutionary Biology.
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is a renowned evolutionary biologist , a popular science author and one of the leading voices in support of atheism and secular humanism.
Sam Harris
Sam Harris is a Co-Founder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society.
Vic Stenger
Vic Stenger is a particle physicist and a vocal advocate of philosophical naturalism, skepticism and atheism. His 2007 New York Times bestseller, God: The Failed Hypothesis, is one of the foundational texts of the “new atheist” movement.
Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg is an American physicist and a Nobel laureate in physics. His books on science written for the public combine typical scientific popularization with what are traditionally considered atheistic ideas.
Edward O. Wilson
A Harvard University professor for four decades, biologist Edward O. Wilson has written 21 books, won two Pulitzer Prizes and discovered hundreds of new species.