260 - Two Books of God

Two Books of God
By Roland Mushat Frye

"We have available to us not just one book of God, but two: the book of God's word in Scripture, which concerns the ultimate nature and destiny of humanity, and the book of God's works in nature, which deals with the conditions of the created order…. The entire flowering of modern culture, and derivatively of modern technology, grew out of this essentially religious conception of the two books of God."

FOR HUNDREDS of years, Christians have affirmed that we have available to us not just one book of God, but two: the book of God's word in Scripture, which concerns the ultimate nature and destiny of humanity, and the book of God's works in nature, which deals with the conditions of the created order. The book of God's word leads to salvation, which is our ultimate concern, whereas the book of God's works leads to science, which confers lesser but still very great benefits. I suggest that this distinction, long maintained in Christianity, needs to be revived, disseminated, and applied in our time. The distinction preserves the integrity both of faith and of science, and forestalls unnecessary confrontations between them, confrontations which can only confuse our understanding of both books through which God speaks.

It was on the basis of this understanding that Robert Boyle, one of the greatest of scientists and also a devout Christian, was able to say: "If we lay aside all the irrational opinions which are unreasonably fathered on the Christian religion, and all erroneous conceits repugnant to Christianity which have been groundlessly fathered upon philosophy [science], the seeming contradictions between Divinity and true Philosophy [or science], will be but few, and the real ones none at all."¹ Conflicts between the two books of God are not inherent in the books themselves. After all, the two books are traceable to the same author,

Roland Mushat Frye is Professor of English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. The author of several works in his field, this present article grew out of a keynote address at a conference on "Creation Science" at Queen's College, Charlotte, N.C. Dr. Frye is a member of the Editorial Council of THEOLOGY TODAY and has recently been appointed as a resident fellow for next year at the newly established Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton.
¹ Quoted by John Dillenberger, Protestant Thought and Natural Science, Garden City, New York, 1960, p. 114

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but they are composed in different styles and concern different subject matters so that the methods of reading them are different, as are the purposes of such reading?²

These conceptions profoundly influenced the development of modern science. To cite only one example, let us consider the representative view of Sir Francis Bacon, who has often been called the first philosopher of science. "Let no man," be wrote in 1605 in his Advancement of Learning, "think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's Word or in the book of God's Works, divinity or philosophy, but rather let men endeavor an endless progression of profience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation."³

Bacon went on to warn that we "not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings [of religion and philosophy] together," but that we recognize the integrity of the book of God's Word in Scripture and the book of God's Works in science.

It was Francis Bacon's concern that the basing of natural science upon Genesis would lead both to fantastic science and also to heretical religion. This view is very close to a similar concern which John Calvin expressed in the sixteenth century. Bacon cited as an example of confusing the two books of God the contention that the earth was flat. Calvin chose a different example, but an equally apposite one, which he used to show the difference between religious faith and scientific knowledge and to insist upon the validity of each in its own field.

I

The sixteenth verse of the first chapter of Genesis refers to God's creation of the sun and moon as the "two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night." Now the sun and the moon are not, in real terms, the two great lights of heaven, and if interpreted literally, the biblical statement could not be reconciled with the demonstrated facts of astronomy. Yet Calvin was not disturbed. Commenting on this passage, he pointed out that "it is not here philosophically [that is, scientifically, as the word should be translated] discussed, how great the sun is in the heaven, and how great, or how little, is the moon; but how much light comes to us from them. For Moses here addresses himself to our senses, that the knowledge of the gifts of God which we enjoy may not glide away…. For as it became a theologian, he had respect to us rather than to the stars."

Calvin made much of this verse as a test case for establishing the difference between science and religion. To prevent confusion between

² For the origins of the two book metaphor, see Ernst Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Princeton, 1973, p. 321 for the metaphor's development in the medieval pulpit, and pp. 319-26 for the history of the conception traced into the eighteenth century.
³ Francis Bacon, Essays, Advancement of Learning, New Atlantis, and Other Pieces, ed. Richard Foster Jones, New York, 1937, p. 179.

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the two, he argued that the Bible does not "subtly descant on the secrets of nature," as one would and should expect from science. Thus he declared that Genesis "makes two great luminaries; but astronomers prove, by conclusive reasons, that the star of Saturn, which, on account of its great distance, appears the least of all, is greater than the moon. Here lies the difference; Moses wrote in a popular style things which, without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labor whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend."⁴

The purpose of these biblical accounts of creation was not to instruct us in astronomy, or any other branch of science, but rather in our human nature and destiny, and in our relation to God. Genesis teaches that we live in a universe made by a loving and gracious God, but it is not designed to tell us exactly how God made that universe. Genesis provides us with perspective upon our own existence as parts of creation, but does not provide an engineering drawing of precisely how all of the pieces of creation were made to fit together with mathematical precision. Calvin thus acknowledged that if Genesis were to be interpreted literally, it would be wrong, because "astronomers prove, by conclusive reasons," that the sun and moon are not the two great luminaries of the heavens. But he did not therefore find himself compelled either to reject Genesis or to reject science. So understood, Genesis is for the religious (not scientific) instruction "of the unlearned and rude as [well as] of the learned," and its language is directed "to common usage" of "things which lie open before our eyes."⁵

Calvin made a similar analysis of Psalms 136:7, where the sun and moon are again called the "two great lights" of heaven. "The Holy Spirit," he wrote, "had no intention to teach astronomy; and in proposing instruction meant to be common to the simplest and most uneducated persons, he made use by Moses and the other prophets of popular language that none might shelter himself under the pretext of obscurity."⁶ It is only a literalist reading of the Scriptures which requires a direct conflict with the findings of legitimate science, but Calvin argued persuasively that such a literal reading of these passages in the Bible is both unnecessary and incorrect. What Calvin said in the sixteenth century about the legitimate science of astronomy, we can in principle adapt to the twentieth century by saying that "the Holy Spirit had no intention to teach geology and biology," and conclude that it is a violation of the intention of Scripture to assume otherwise.

II

Calvin used such an interpretation not only to defend the integrity of Scripture but also to defend the integrity of science. Consistently and

⁴ John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of Genesis, ed. John King, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1981, pp. 85-86.
⁵ Ibid., pp. 86-87.
⁶ Commentary on Psalms, vol. 5, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1981, pp. 184-85.

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repeatedly, he repudiated any possible hint of anti-intellectualism or anti-elitism in learning and thought. He fully recognized that science is esoteric, abstract, and removed from the common sense perceptions of most people, that it goes beyond what he called "things that lie open to our eyes" (such as the relative size of sun and moon), but he went on to declare that "nevertheless, this study is not to be reprobated, nor is science to be condemned, because some frantic persons are wont boldly to reject whatever is unknown to them" - words which could profitably be repeated in every generation. Science, he said, "is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God."⁷

Neither Calvin nor the Christian tradition as a whole held that science offered salvation, but still affirmed that it does offer very real benefits and understandings. To reject these scientific contributions out of hand is a mark of human pride and pretension. So Calvin declared that "if we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God."⁸

In this regard, according to Calvin, the question whether individual scientists are themselves believers or unbelievers is quite irrelevant to what we should properly learn from them. "If the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics, and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance," he wrote. He took great care to defend and praise such learned disciplines and their integrity. The rejection of science, in his view, was not a mark of faith, but of human sloth and pride: "for if we neglect God's gift freely offered in these arts [that is, sciences], we ought to suffer just punishment for our sloths."⁹ He taught that all truth, secular as well as religious, derived from the Spirit of God, and although there are varieties of truths and gifts, all are to be highly regarded in our eyes because they proceed from God and in greater or lesser measure provide some understanding either of special grace or of divine creation within the natural order. Otherwise, he wrote, "by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we condemn and reproach the Spirit himself."

In words which might have been written directly for our time, Calvin asked "shall we say that the philosophers [scientists] were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature?" No, he emphatically concluded, because we cannot read these writings "without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminent they are. But shall we count anything praiseworthy or noble without recognizing at the same time that it comes from God? Let us be ashamed of such ingratitude, into which not even the pagan poets

⁷ Commentary on Genesis, p. 86.
⁸ Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, Philadelphia, 1960, vol. I, pp. 273-74, 2.2.15.
⁹ Ibid., 2.2.16, and 2.2.14-15 for the valuable contributions of unbelievers.

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fell, for they confessed that the gods had invented philosophy, laws, and all useful arts."¹⁰ In the great edifice of human arts and sciences, constructed in part by believers and in part by unbelievers, Calvin thought that we could see "some remaining traces of the image of God, which distinguished the entire human race from the other creatures."¹¹

III

Calvin and Bacon thus both insisted that the Bible and nature were the two books of God, crafted for two different ends and to be studied by us with two different methodologies. To round out the application of the distinction between the two books of God in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, let me add to the words of the leading theologian of the Reformed tradition and its leading scientific philosopher, the words of its greatest poet, John Milton. In Paradise Lost, Milton has the archangel Raphael say to Adam:

To ask or search I blame thee not, for Heav'n
Is as the Book of God before thee set,
Wherein to read his wond'rous works…. ¹²

In the history of education and of learned inquiry, Francis Bacon's eloquent arguments for the advancement of science had a profound influence, as did John Calvin's brilliant arguments for the separate integrity of science and theology. In important ways, these two great thinkers implemented the development of modern education. John Milton and many other Puritan leaders of the English seventeenth century adopted that ancient homiletical metaphor of the two books of God, and urged the systematic study not only of the book of the Bible but also the book of nature.¹³

After the Interregnum in the middle decades of the seventeenth century in England, the restoration of the Stuart monarchy and of the Church of England allowed a combination of forces for the advancement of science on the part of Puritan-sympathizers and Anglicans, which found its finest fruition in the establishment of the Royal Society.¹⁴ Unfortunately, the established universities in England were reactionary at this point, and maintained a curriculum which was largely classical, with little intrusion into the curriculum of scientific investigation. On the other hand, those Puritans who maintained their independence from the established Church of England developed the so-called Dissenting

¹⁰ Ibid., 2.2.15.
¹¹ Ibid., 2.2.17.
¹² Paradise Lost, VIII, 66-69.
¹³ It has long been recognized that it was the Puritans during the Interregnum of the Commonwealth who "firmly established Bacon as the dominant influence of the day," and that the influence of Bacon after the Restoration in 1660 "persisted especially in that element of the population which derived from the Puritans." See Richard F. Jones, Ancients and Moderns (Washington University Studies, 1936), pp. 280 and 283.
¹⁴ John Dillenberger, Protestant Thought and Natural Science, Garden City, New York, 1960, p. 130, indicates the great importance of Puritanism, as well as the church at large, to the development of science through the Royal Society.

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Academies, in which their own children could be educated. As Ashley Smith has demonstrated in his authoritative history of the subject, these academies became "pioneers in England in the use of that experimental approach which has remained a central feature of science teaching."¹⁵ Throughout England, these Dissenting Academies pioneered the development of modern education, and introduced scientific method, experimentation, and analysis into English education.

Similar developments had earlier taken place in the established universities of Holland and of Scotland, where the influences of Reformed theology was also pervasive. In all of these institutions of learning, whether established by Puritan Dissenters in England or by conforming members of the established Reformed churches in Scotland and Holland, scientific investigation was pervasively advanced. Laboratories were set up for the first time in schools and universities, scientific instruments were used in dissections, in pursuing the analysis of matter and energy, and in developing various experiments. The teaching faculties kept abreast of the latest scientific research, and were in contact with each other even across national boundaries. In short, such educational institutions were "the principal agents in establishing the modern teaching method in Natural Science."¹⁶ Many other fields of academic study were also thus introduced, and we find that the investigation of modern history, and of modern literature, as well as modern languages and of political science and economics, were all pioneered under these auspices.

IV

The entire flowering of modern culture, and derivatively of modern technology, grew out of this essentially religious conception of the two books of God. Both books were important, as evidences of God's providence, but they operated in quite different ways. One did not go to science or history or secular literature to find the means of grace or the hope of glory, and neither did one go to the Scriptures to find engineering drawings of the universe, its development and operation. But although these two books maintained their own integrity, separate from each other, they were equally the creation of one God. Many of the greatest contributions and the greatest opportunities of our culture derive from that simple but profound recognition of the two books of God, and from the parallel but separate pursuit of their meanings.

Yet in America today there are influential voices which call upon us in effect to abandon that healthy and ancient recognition that God's revelation is to be discovered in two quite different ways, through Scripture and through nature. School teachers and school boards are placed under pressure either to minimize their teaching of the findings of modern scientists who have investigated the book of the works of God

¹⁵ J. W. Ashley Smith, The Birth of Modern Education: the Contributions of the Dissenting Academy 1660-1800, London, 1954, p. 246.
¹⁶ Ashley Smith, pp. 54-55, 134-35, 248, and 250.

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in nature, or to introduce in our school curricula an account of the origins of the universe based in a literal or semi-literal reading of the parabolic accounts of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, as though this were a scientific theory.

What, as a Christian, I am not prepared to accept is the assertion that we human beings can find all that we need to know about science and nature in the Bible, anymore than I will accept the notion that science and nature can tell me all I need to know about God and humanity. Neither the Bible itself, nor the Christian tradition as a whole, nor the Reformed tradition in particular, require that I close my mind to thought, shut off my understanding, and restrict myself to the literal acceptance that the earth is flat, and that the moon is one of the great lights of heaven. On precisely the same basis, and for precisely the same reasons, I am not required as a Christian to maintain that the earth was created in six calendar days, or by a digital adjustment in six thousand years, when everything which has been learned by the most careful and honest scientific analysis of the book of the works of God points to different conclusions.

Science and faith will conflict irreconcilably only if we insist upon confusing and conflating the two books of God. And if we do that, the result will be either bad for science or bad for religion, or bad for both. Our purpose should be to avoid such confused readings, and to concentrate upon getting the most we can out of each of these books.