Many times modern Christians come to a text such as the Bible and assume that the worldview they hold is precisely that of the specific Bible passage they are reading. As anyone who has had an argument based upon a misunderstanding knows (think of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine), assuming that other people mean exactly what you think they mean, without making sure that’s what they say they mean, often becomes an exercise in frustration. Time scales that had been worked out on the basis of biblical lists and ages (e.g., Archbishop Ussher, giving the creation as 4004 B.C.Human beings often presume our own worldview when trying to make sense of a message or a text. Much of the controversy over creation and evolution is, therefore, inappropriate and misleading.Īs issues of spatial relations were being resolved, issues of time spans and development over the new time horizons began to arise as a result of early discoveries and theories in geology, paleontology, and biology. Gradually, however, the new views of space were accommodated to the point that it would be rare indeed today to find defenders of geocentricity and a flat earth within scientific or religious communities.Ĭareful consideration of Genesis 1 in its historical and theological context indicates that it uses a very different kind of narrative form and linguistic usage than those used in modern natural histories. This cosmology had become so universally accepted and so tightly interwoven with the Church’s faith and doctrine that it seemed that the new scientific views were a profound threat to the grand medieval synthesis.
Controversies over the spatial character of the universe came first with challenges to the earth-centered, flat-earthed, domed-stadium picture of the cosmos.
In the last five hundred years controversies between science and religion have centered in two main areas: space and time. Comparing Biblical and Scientific Maps of Origins
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