That’s certainly what lots of people – smart, educated people – claim, isn’t it? 

In my opinion, we have to address a problem with the question before we can actually answer the question. 

The problem I see is this: our culture tends to give us options in terms of binary choices. “Either you believe this, OR you believe that. This is true, OR that is true.” But binary choices don’t always work. Science itself demonstrates that there are often multiple explanations for observable phenomena: the infamous “red tide”, for example, is the result of an algae bloom – which is the result of temperature, water current, and levels of pollution, as well as unknown factors that make it hard to predict. 

You can’t explain the “red tide” with an either / or statement; you have to use a both / and statement.

Science and the Bible are Complementary

Similarly, asking a question about whether we should believe the Bible OR science falsely assumes that one must cancel the other.
The truth is that science and the Bible are complementary: The Bible declares who God, the Creator, is; science describes the
way God’s creation works. Let’s look at some examples of how biology and physics complement the Bible in explaining the relationship between the world (Creation) and God (Creator). 

Speaking biologically, multiple “irreducibly complex” structures within advanced species – the human eye, for example – demonstrate a design principle in creation so highly advanced that it cannot be explained by any scientific theory. Computers cannot replicate these structures – geneticists and medical technicians rely on them as source material. 

A biologist friend of mine often testified that “metabolic pathways” – connected chemical reactions that feed one another – were what converted her to Christianity. For her, these intricate, delicate processes were like irreducibly complex structures – evidence of the hand of an Intelligent Designer whose intellect and imagination exceeded any human’s. 

From a physics perspective: The precisely calibrated solar system in which we live is just one of many billions of solar systems… all of which function in orderly, predictable patterns and obey certain “laws” in their function. The inconceivably vast distances in space and the consistency of laws of physics throughout the known universe give evidence for the vast intelligence and power of God.  The argument goes like this: if the entire universe is subject to “laws” of physics, then there must be a law-writer / law-giver who devised them in the first place.

Once we see science and the Bible as complementary sources of information rather than mutually exclusive options, even the “big bang theory” begins to make sense scripturally: “God spoke…” and it all began. 

A Scientific Approach

Sometimes a scientific approach to matters of faith yields unexpected results.  For example, the mathematics of probability poses problems for the theory of evolution as an explanation for life on earth – and provides surprising support for the theory of Intelligent Design!  

Consider: trillions of synchronized accidents have to occur for simple, unicellular life to “spontaneously emerge” from primordial sludge (the existence of which is never explained in evolutionary theory). I’ll repeat: for one unicellular creature to emerge from (scientifically unexplainable) source DNA soup, trillions of serendipitous accidents have to occur – in precise order, and at precisely the right times. 

The extraordinary biodiversity on this planet would require those trillions of accidents to replicate themselves trillions of times – so
many zeros that you could start writing them now and keep writing them until the day you die! In fact, if you were able, you would
write zeros for centuries without reaching the figure that represents the statistical anomaly required for life as we know it  on this planet to happen by random, un-directed, evolutionary means. 

Paradoxically, then, embracing the theory of evolution as the explanation of the origins and development of earth’s biodiversity requires …  taking a massive leap of mathematical faith.

Summary

Making a false distinction between science and the Bible distorts the truth of both. Pointing to science (and math) as helpful tools in understanding the universe God made is a more logical perspective for Christians, and a potentially fruitful perspective for those curious about Christianity.