Josh Philpot

A friend sent me this video today (below), in which R.C. Sproul makes the point that having a high view of God’s revelation—both natural and special revelation—means that we can learn from non-believing scientists who are studying natural revelation. He illustrates this by pointing to the Copernican Revolution. Both Calvin and Luther rejected Copernicus as a heretic because of his argument that the earth is not the center of the solar system but revolves around the sun, which they said was contradictory to scripture. In this case the scientist was right and the biblical interpreter was wrong, and thus the church had to admit that they misinterpreted their understanding of scripture with respect to the solar system and reevaluate those texts which pertain to the topic. Sproul says that Christians will get a better sense of the truth from studying natural revelation than we do by ignoring natural revelation. However, if something can be shown to be definitively taught in the Bible (without question) that contradicts another theory that is based solely on natural revelation, then we must stand with the word of God. We can be shown to be a mistaken interpreter of the word of God, to be sure, but we don’t have to face that problem if we believe that both spheres are spheres of God’s revelation and that those spheres are compatible. All truth is God’s truth. If there is conflict, then somebody has to be wrong. But Sproul states that he doesn’t leap to the conclusion that it has to be the scientist because it may be the theologian who is wrong. It also may be that it is the scientist who is wrong and the theologian who is right. There are both fallible human beings interpreting natural revelation and fallible human beings interpreting infallible special revelation.