Creationism - National Center for Science Education

The first major proponent of the modern-science-in-the-Bible approach that I am
aware of is Arthur Pierson. In his 1886 book Many Infallible Proofs, which promoted the
Common Sense approach to science and truth, he presents many examples of modern
scientific discoveries and theories which are foretold or explained (though only in
retrospect) in the Bible, such as the nature of light, air pressure, insect behavior, the
circulation of blood, the biological unity of mankind, and others. Pierson affirms the
incredible scientific accuracy of the Bible: “not one scientific error, blunder or absurdity
has ever been found there!” He indignantly refutes atheist orator and debater Robert
Ingersoll’s Some Mistakes of Moses, which attempts to debunk claims of biblical
inerrancy.
The Bible, however, does not employ scientific language; it “is not, and cannot
be, a scientific book.” Rather, “The object of the Bible is not to teach science, but moral
and spiritual truth” (1886:113). Though the Bible does not use scientific language,
Pierson explains why the “language of appearances” it does employ, though deferring to
religious over any scientific teaching, nonetheless does not violate any scientific truth or
fact:
We are therefore to judge the Word of God by its professed purpose, and if, in the unfolding of moral and
religious truth, scientific errors or inaccuracies appear, which have no relation to spiritual truth, they may
not make the Bible unworthy of acceptance as a guide to the knowledge and practice of duty. Lord Bacon,
from a strictly philosophical point of view, has said that the “scope or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to
express matters of nature in Scripture, otherwise than in passage, for application to man’s capacity and to
matter moral and divine.” It was no part of the design or mission of inspired writers to tell us scientific
truth. Hence it was natural that, in referring to the Kingdom of Nature, they should use the language of
appearance, as we do now at an age of the world far more advanced in scientific knowledge. We know that
the sun is the centre of the solar system, and that the earth moves around it; yet we talk of the sun as rising
in the east, setting in the west, and revolving about the earth. We speak of the dew as descending from
heaven, as though distilled in the far depths of space, while in fact the atmosphere gives up its vapor at the
touch of a colder surface, as an ice pitcher collects and condenses the moisture from the air. When,
therefore, sacred writers use forms of speech which fit appearances, not realities, and accord with popular
impressions, rather than scientific discoveries, “the absence of scientific accuracy by no means involves
any real discrepancy or contradiction.”
Had the language of Scripture been scientific, instead of popular, it would have been a blemish and a
hindrance, because it would have arrested attention and diverted it from the grander truths that the Bible
was meant to unfold, and created controversies on matters of little consequence. Suppose, for instance, that
in the opening chapters of Genesis, Moses had accurately announced, in plain terms, all the discoveries of
modern geology and astronomy; had given this globe a great age, even prior to the creation of man; had
made the six days of creation six periods of vast length; 2 had described the vast vegetation of the
carboniferous age, and the marvelous process by which it was converted into coal; had told men of the
original chemical or “cosmical” light and heat that preceded the appearance of the sun—of the mighty
monsters that sported in the waters and roamed on the land; had recorded the tremendous convulsions that
rocked the earth as on the bosom of a vast crater—what would have been the effect?
First, scientific discovery would have been announced prematurely, before mankind was fitted to
understand it. … [And], the effect would be to discredit the whole revelation—to make Moses appear
either as a madman or a dreamer, and thus to defeat the grand end for which the Inspired Word was given!
And yet, if the Bible is God’s Truth, it ought not, even by the way, to affirm what is actually untrue. We
cannot imagine the infinite God as telling man the grandest truths on spiritual themes and surrounding them
with many little falsehoods, simply because man was not mature enough to understand the full facts.
2 Pierson was not a young-earth creationist, nor was he a Flood Geologist.