I have no intention of or interest in getting involved in the current controversies surrounding the management of the Covid-19 outbreak that have popularized the phrase “follow the science.” Proponents of vaccine mandates first employed this appeal, but recently I have heard people on both sides of the issue use this phrase to suggest that “the science” supports their personal opinions. Let me begin by acknowledging that even among my own immediate family members and other loved ones there is no consensus on how to “follow the science” regarding the issues at hand.
While recognizing that true science is one and the same as knowledge, we have been warned to avoid “contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge” (1 Tim. 6:20). My greatest concern about the call to “follow the science” has little to do with the current issues. I am more concerned about how the elevating of what is called science will be applied in other controversies—especially regarding the creation account and the bodily resurrection of Christ.
Many of the very scientists whose “findings” we are being asked to “follow” would scoff at the very idea of God creating the universe in six days, let alone a third-day bodily resurrection from the dead; and I can imagine their argument would be to “follow the science.” Even the few scientists who claim to believe in God and the Bible will often suggest that the Genesis account of creation is allegorical and that the word day should not be taken in the more literal sense suggested by “the evening and the morning.”
The primary reason people interpret the Genesis account of creation as allegorical is that they think they are “following the science.” They suggest that God creating the world “old,” equipped with natural resources that would otherwise take millions of years to develop naturally, would be deceptive. While affirming that an all-powerful God could create a fully-grown man from the dust of the earth and a woman from his rib in one day, many are still inclined to “follow the science” of those who question the very existence of God.
Even if one might imagine that the Genesis account of creation was written allegorically, God later spoke to Moses on two occasions regarding the establishment of the Sabbath on the seventh day using the creation week of Genesis. It does not logically follow that Moses was speaking allegorically when He reiterated, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day…” (Ex. 20:11; 31:17).
Of greatest concern is how Satan might use this mantra to “follow the science” regarding the resurrection. We must not be “ignorant of his devices” (2 Cor. 2:11). From “the beginning” “the devil” “is a liar and the father of it” (Jn. 8:44), and he will try to convince us that science does not support the possibility of the bodily resurrection from the dead. He has already convinced a host of people not to believe that the Word literally became flesh (Jn. 1:14; 1 Jn. 4:3) or that He died and rose from the tomb on the third day. If we swallow this lie, our “faith is futile” (1 Cor. 15:17) and “we are of all men the most pitiable” (1 Cor. 15:19).
True science is good! What men call science is not always true. Therefore, when that which is called “science” is in conflict with God’s Word, we should not “follow the science.”