Science and the Bible: Evidence-Based Christian Belief

In Science and the Bible, Ted Burge, a highly respected physicist in the United Kingdom, draws on his background in the fields of science and theology to examine the role of evidence, rather than blind faith, in religion.

Religious belief, whether of Jews, Christians, or Muslims, has God the Creator at its center. Christian belief has at its heart Jesus Christ and finds much of the evidence for that belief in the New Testament. For many, there is interest in discovering more about the evidence for those and related beliefs. Burge addresses this interest, beginning with an analysis of evidence found in the text of the Bible in different translations and then proceeding to evidence from the sciences, including archeological findings, geological mappings, and carbon-dating, alongside data from the arts, hymns, literature, and historians’ testimonies.

His study encompasses physical, geological and biological evolution, and their relation to the Genesis story of creation; original sin, the origin of death, and the immortality of the soul, as described in Babylonian and other stories, including the Flood and the Tower of Babel; the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, incarnation and atonement; free will and the nature of love; miracles as described in the Bible; the evolution of belief; and meditation and prayer as a "conscious interchange of thoughts with God."

Burge perceives knowledge of science as knowledge of God’s creation. His emphasis on the prime importance of all available evidence represents a new approach to Christian belief.