Don’t know much about history / Don’t know much biology / Don’t know much about a science book / Don’t know much about the French I took // But I do know that I love you / And I know that if you love me too / What a wonderful world this would be. (Sam Cooke)
There is a misconception that has persisted for a couple of centuries that science offers a more valid view of the world than our ancient Bible. For many “educated” people the Bible is all fairy tales compared to physics, astronomy, geology, anthropology, biology, objective history, the more rational study of nature that prevails upon campuses today. Of course this misconception arises from a misunderstanding of the nature of the Bible. Its writing is profoundly different from that of Sam Cooke’s “science book”. It’s a more poetic and highly moral history of the world and of us who inhabit it.
But the case can be made that the Bible is also quite interested (as is science) in how nature works. The Wisdom books of the Old Testament firmly believe there is a fundamental Order underpinning the universe; it is not all chaos and confusion; one can reason one’s way toward some sense of its origin and destiny. It doesn’t do this mathematically like a physicist – but by way of – for instance – proverbs. Take the following:
Clouds and winds and yet no rain,
So is a man who boasts of gifts and never gives. (Prov.25: 14)
The north wind brings ruin,
Gossip in secret, cross looks. (Prov.25: 23)
When the wood runs short, the fire goes out,
Where there is no slanderer, quarrelling ceases. (Prov. 26:20)
He who touches pitch, it sticks to his hand,
And he who goes about with the scorner becomes like unto him. (Ben Sirach 13:1)
Like a moth in clothing or a maggot in wood,
Sorrow gnaws at the human heart. (Prov. 25:20)
Notice how the writer observes nature and then shows how nature can tell us things about ourselves. Pitch sticks to things just as someone obsessed with somebody’s faults acquires the same faults. [I knew a priest long ago who was obsessed with Charles De Gaulle and eventually lost his mind!] Or there’s the fact that moths ruin clothing – just as persistent sorrow will eat your heart away. The proverbialist is very observant of nature and draws lessons (mainly moral) from its many features.
In other words he firmly believes that nature all around him is by no means mute. By its very behavior it speaks to us in many ways that can help us better understand ourselves. It’s as if nature itself were endowed with so many voices, a composite of many “teachers” who would enter into edifying dialogue with us – if we would but pay attention. And may we not say that in such proverbial wisdom lay the foundation for the more scientific dialogue we have with nature today. Far from science and the Bible being completely at odds – the Bible, in liberating ancient Israel from being spooked by nature, introduced us to this world as something the be explored with all sorts of benefits – as in such gnomic utterances as: Go to the ant, O sluggard, study her ways and learn wisdom . . . (Prov. 6:6)