The Bible as Science: Instinct and Engineering

“Science disproves the Bible” gets repeated so often it can feel like a fact. We don’t treat it that way. We start with the gospel, then take a hard look at why critics dismiss Scripture and why we believe the Bible stands up to the real world, including the observable physical universe.

A classroom story becomes the turning point: a professor leans on the word instinct, calling it “inherited memory,” until a student brings up a tiny spider that solves a massive engineering problem. By spinning wet threads that shrink as they dry, the spider slowly lifts a heavy shell into a safe spot above the ground. That single question lands with force: how does a creature “know” and apply a physical principle with such precision? We argue that easy labels often hide the deeper issue of design, wisdom, and a mind behind nature.

From there, we separate facts from interpretations. Scientists can agree on what they see and still disagree on what it means. We also share a practical analogy from laboratory technique: you must look at the specimen through the microscope, not the microscope through the specimen. In our view, the universe is the specimen and the Bible is the lens. Reverse that order, and your conclusions distort. We close by weighing natural revelation against supernatural revelation and why the Word of God brings clarity that nature alone cannot.

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Transcript

Opening And Mission

0:07

Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W. Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of DeLaunt, Florida. Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior. Now here's your host, Pastor James W. Knox.

Gospel Message And Salvation

0:41

I'm Brother James, and I greet you once again in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death. But Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And this is the gospel message that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For by grace are you saved through faith. Not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now all that that I have just quoted you, that is all contained within the pages of the Holy Bible.

Bible Criticisms And Science Claims

1:21

Christians believe it to be the pure and perfect word of God. Professing Christians correct, revise, and change it. The enemies of Christianity attack it and say that the Bible is not the Word of God and cannot be trusted, much less believed in. And one of their primary arguments, one of the chief reasons they set forth for rejecting the truth of the Word of God is the age-old hackneyed cliche that the Bible is not accurate scientifically, that science disproves the Bible. Now, what we are doing on the broadcast at present, we've had three broadcasts already. This will be our fourth. We'll have several more in this series. We are going to prove to you if you're an honest man or woman. We are going to prove to you if you are willing to consider fact instead of theory that the Bible is indeed, beyond question, accurate scientifically. In fact, it is it is the only true science book on the face of this earth, in that it states the absolute facts without error concerning the observable physical universe. Now, we have showed already, we have taken three broadcasts to show the logical foundation for a belief in a creator. The Bible calls him God. We know him as God.

Instinct Debate And Spider Engineering

2:54

Many years ago, in a college classroom, and things haven't changed, in a biology class, and this could happen, this happens every day all across America, all around the world, over and over again, the same scene is repeated, but on this particular day, a professor was lecturing on his favorite subject. Whenever he didn't have an explanation for some mystery in the realm of biology, he always fell back upon the good old word instinct. Well, on this particular occasion, as he was describing some fascinating fact of biological importance, one of the students asked him for the basic explanation, and automatically the good professor said, instinct. That's the standard reply. When you don't know what you're talking about, when you don't have an answer, you say instinct. It's one of those words like nature. It means absolutely nothing, but it's supposed to sound like an answer, even though it's not. The professor was then asked by another student, Doctor, what is instinct? Which is kind of like saying what is gravity or what is electricity. Nobody knows, and you're not supposed to ask. You're just supposed to accept those things as being answers when they're not. The professor said, instinct is inherited memory. Now, that's an amazing answer. And one one Christian who happened to be in the classroom that day said, as you would expect someone with any sense to say, uh-huh, sure. Now you know what happens. Uh, if you've been to college at all, uh, some of you high school, probably that bad junior high school now, uh, you don't question the speculations, you don't question the nonsensical answers of these professors who profess themselves to be wise but became fools when they rejected God because you're in for an argument. Now, the good doctor truly loved an argument in the class and always encouraged argument, so with glee he pounced on this rejoinder. He pointed a finger in the direction of the student and said, What do you mean, uh-huh? The student didn't like to be singled out like this. He wasn't looking for a fight. He said, Excuse me, I I wasn't thinking. I shouldn't have replied like that. The doctor nodded to the class and said, Not an uncommon phenomenon in this class. Nevertheless, when I said that instinct is inherited memory, you spoke up in the negative. Now, sir, can you defend your position? To which the student said, Yes, I think I can. I think the position is defensible, and I can give at least an illustration of a case of instinct that is not attributed to inherited memory. And he began to explain the conduct of a tiny spider, very common in the North Pacific coast. This small creature is not much bigger than an ordinary shoe button, but she makes her nest in the empty shell of any bivalve from that large clam, that of a large clam, to one of a gigantic abalone. Now, this tiny spider has a remarkable technique of construction and rearrangement in the establishment of her home. She swings this shell, lying discarded in the vicinity, by two strong silken cables to the overhanging bow of some low shrub. This shell must be lifted from twelve to twenty inches above the ground in order that she may rear her brood in safety. The raising of this comparatively enormous mass of material is an engineering problem that can be comprehended only when we graduate it to the ratio of humanity. The spider weighs a fraction of an ounce. The shell may weigh half a pound. To show you her problem, let me give you this suggestion. If you had to raise 3,600 tons of concrete and steel 1,800 feet in the air, how would you do it? You say I couldn't do it. Well, if you had the susp the scientific knowledge and engineering technique sufficient to the job, you could do it. This little spider can do it. By true engineering ingenuity and application of a scientific principle, this little spider can can lift the equivalent of 3,600 tons of concrete and steel 1800 feet in the air by herself. Somewhere this spider learned the law of physics that a drying object will shrink and contract. So she locates her shell in relation to her bow and swings down, leaving behind her a thread as wet as she can make it. This thread she ties to one edge of the shell and waits for it to dry. The contraction of this drying thread raises this shell a tiny bit from the ground. The spider then swings down and puts another thread to the opposite edge of the shell and allows that to dry. Laboring thus incessantly without rest, day or night, day after day, she spins innumerable threads, thus raising one edge after the other, perhaps a few microns at a time, and she gradually swings that shell into the position that she has selected. With superhuman patience, this busy artificer then spins her threads into a strong united cable until two slender ropes support her future home. She then lines the shell with silk, spins a waterproof covering over the hole, and cuts a tiny door in the outside. Entering into this home that ingenuity and patience have contrived, she settles down to rear her brood in peace and safety. Now, Professor said the student, I've got a question for you. How did this spider know that a drying thread would shrink and contract and raise that shell? The professor replied, That's instinct. The student said, An instinct is inherited memory. The professor said, That's right. The student said, that means then that the spider inherited this knowledge from the mother, and the mother from the grandmother, and so on, back to the first spider that did this. The professor nodded agreement to this inevitable conclusion. Then, sir, the student said, if all this is inherited memory, one spider learning it from the preceding generation, the first spider that ever did this, sat down and figured it out. There can be no other conclusion. If instinct is inherited memory, then the first of every species and every order that possesses this innate wisdom so remarkable in the world of biology had the intelligence to study these laws and master them by reason. With a humorous gesture of resignation, the professor said, It seems in this case that my definition will not hold up. Now, having upset my definition, perhaps you can tell us what instinct really is. Fortunately, it's not hard to find an answer to that question. Instinct is imparted wisdom. In the very dawn of creation, the creator imparted to every creature the knowledge essential to survival in its own environment. With that conclusion, logic can find no fault, nor can science marshal one fact to refute it.

Imparted Wisdom And Training Example

10:52

Now dogs may learn many tricks and perform them to perfection, but the memory of them is never inherited by the puppies that are born from these accomplished parents. Each puppy must in turn be painstakingly trained to learn the same trick over again, and inherited memory falls down. This case of the spider is just one case among the multiplied thousands of evidences of imparted wisdom that might be mentioned to demonstrate the amazing intelligence planted in the creatures that constitute the realm that men call nature. We studied many of these in our series on the God of Creation. Now, this case demonstrates that there is a mind which controls even the minutest forms of life. In nature, we veritably see the workings and the presence of an omniscient, an omnipresent God.

Nature Witness And Scientists Quotes

11:46

This has been the testimony of the ages as far back as written records go. Now when Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, he saw the wonders of God in nature. When David the Psalmist smote his harp in the quiet hush of the Judean hills, he sang the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. So much of God in nature did David see that without any of our modern astronomical learning, the psalmist could say of the sun, his line is gone out through all the earth. This is absolutely cold fact. The earth would go hurtling off into the uttermost bounds of unlimited space, there to crash with some other vast body and thus perish, if the sun did not guide it on its orbit and direct it on a set line of travel through the solar system. Now the Bible, which owes none of its power or value to purely natural sources, teems with such references to the presence of God, the organized universe, the knowledge of which we call nature. The language of the stars is understood by every nation of men on all the face of the earth, as they testify of the presence of God in the cosmos. Indeed, it is contended by those children of Abraham who have descended through Ishmael that it was through this natural revelation that Abraham was called to follow God. The Bible simply says that God called Abraham out of early Chaldees, while the verbal history of the East purports to tell us how. Now, it's more true than the Muslim fables about Abraham. It's more true to say that Abraham learned to worship God and to believe through the ministry of Melchizedek, who was the priest of monotheism and the prophet of God. The two were friends, and we know that Melchizedek received the tithes from Abraham as the representative of God and as his minister. But it's interesting that the Muslim legend emphasizes the fact that these races and tribes of the desert are sensible to the influence of the stars as a contributing factor to human faith in deity. And even in these marvelous days of scientific advancement, falsely so called, we can still hear the cry of the great astronomer who saw so much that he exclaimed in wonder, Truly, the undevout astronomer is mad. Natural science is the interpretation of the physical universe by the observations of trained men. A naturalist is simply an ordinary human being whose eyes are open and who sees what he looks at. Most of us rarely see what we look at, or perhaps it would be better to say that we do not observe what we see. The scientist, however, has been trained actually to see facts, to recognize them as such, and to correlate them in their relation with one another. Between scientists and various schools of science, there is not any disagreement concerning the facts of nature. The only disagreements are concerning the interpretations of those facts. The plain and unvarnished facts of nature all testify to the reality and presence of God in his creation. The distortion of these facts is the saddest evidence of the illogical method of atheism. Only the blind or willfully dishonest can enter into the study of science, accept things as they are, and doubt the existence of God. Even the eminent agnostic Huxley confesses himself, and I quote, utterly unable to conceive matter if there were no mind to feature that existence. That science demonstrates the existence of God is the clear testimony of many eminent men of science. Dr. Charles E. Sejois wrote the strength of religion as shown by science. And he took as his main thesis science demonstrates the existence of God. And he said in this book, and I quote, the creation of matter, of the universe, of the solar system, of the earth, and all living things, including ourselves, imposes the need of God in the whole physical domain, the cosmos, to account for any of the phenomena known to us. He said you can't account for anything you see apart from God. Call the role of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And among the 15,000 members, you can scarce find a man who will confess himself an atheist. Agnostics many, but atheists no. A company of eminent scientists of a generation ago, headed by a Dr. Milliken, who attained fame long before he isolated the atom, recently sent forth a science statement to the press, and this signed statement that was released, uh, newspapers didn't pick up on it, but Dr. Milliken, who isolated the atom, said in no uncertain terms, that he put his faith and belief in God as creator. The atomic age was the birth. The atomic age was ushered in. The atomic age began with Dr. Milliken. He said the atom came from God. It's a mistake to think that science is essentially atheistic. It is radically the opposite. Now, I know what you're thinking. If this is true, then why aren't all scientists Christians? Well, the same reason that some of you aren't Christians. You've set yourself up to be God. But many of these scientists are not Christians because of faulty technique. Much of our recently acquired knowledge depends, of course, upon a machine technology, but the balance comes to us from the proper application of technique and the clarity of conclusion. Now let me give you an example of what I mean.

Research Technique And Bible Lens

17:51

I'm going to cite the very simple research technique or the technique of research used in protozoology. Now, when we find water that we suspect contains certain interesting forms of life, there is a recognized procedure that must be followed. This water is cast or taken and cast with all the living matter into the bottom of a test tube, and the surplus water is drained off with a pipette. There is added to the small amount in the bottom of the test tube a few more centimeters of water impregnated with eosin Y or Eosin Y, E-O-S-I-N. This mild but persistent tissue stain will impregnate the entire morphology of any creature living in that water. After a few hours have lapsed, to allow for the penetration, the specimen is again placed in a tube and repeatedly rinsed in clear water. After this is done for the final time, we then have two or three centimeters of water in the bottom of the test tube containing an abnormal amount of living matter which is invisible to the unaided eye. Now, we draw out one drop of that water and place it on the concave surface of a glass slide. Over this cavity, a covered glass is cemented into place, and the finished slide is fitted into the mechanical stage of a compound microscope. The eyes of the observer approach the ocular lenses of this almost miraculous instrument, and magnified some two thousand times, this drop of water is turned into a miniature lake. In that clear background, we see pink creatures feeding about on the ordinary business of their daily living, unveiling their secrets to the eye of the delighted beholder, and thus we learn the nature of the life resident in that water. In other words, the technique of observation in protozoology is to observe the specimen through the microscope. That's clear enough for anyone. Now, suppose that the student had an improper technique. Let us say that his procedure was accurate up until the time he prepared the drop of water for observation on the glass slide. But supposing the scientist now took his glass slide in his hand, and going to the laboratory bench, he laid down the microscope and peered at the instrument through the specimen. He looked at the microscope through the specimen instead of the specimen through the microscope. How long would it take a skilled observer to find out the nature of life in the water as long as he studied the instrument through the specimen instead of vice versa? Now you can smile and say nobody would be that foolish. But I've got to disagree with you. The universe in which we live is our specimen. The Bible is our microscope. When men study creation through the lens of the Word of God, their definitions are clear, their enlargements are magnificent, and their conclusions are scientific and accurate. But when a man uses the universe, which is his specimen, to study the Word of God, which is his magnifying glass, he has reversed the proper procedure, and so his definitions are fogged, the matter is distorted, and confusion results. No scientist can see clearly, no scientist can think straight unless he first sees God and then sees the universe through God. Thus the difference between the scientist who is a Christian and one who is not is a matter of methods and not materials. The scientist who looks at the physical universe through the Bible sees all matter in its proper relationship to spiritual verities, but the man who seeks to look at the Bible through the physical world has a fogged and befuddled vision and is confused. Now, I can't emphasize that too strongly. It's a matter of method. If the telescope is reversed and the wrong end is placed to the eye, distant objects are indefinable, and even the closest and most familiar things are warped and twisted out of their proper perspective. There are two revelations of God in the

Two Revelations And Final Invitation

22:21

world. And it's imperative that we keep these revelations in their proper relationship to each other. The lowest and simplest revelation that God has made of Himself is in the physical world that men call nature. But the natural testimony of the existence of God is unavailable to the general world of men. They must have a higher and clearer setting forth of his person than that. Because the natural revelation was not sufficient to lead men to God, God chose to give them a supernatural revelation. In witness of the truth of this fact, we are going to discuss the nations called heathen. Abominable practices abound, and incest abhorrent to the civilized world is common among them. Their lecherous conduct is frowned upon by every Christian nation. The manner of their hourly living can only be adequately termed as ungodly. Yet the heathen are in possession of nature, and we are not. They dwell in the palm of nature's hand. They recline upon her bosom in the watches of the night, and they wring their sustenance by travail and daring from her reluctant grasp. And yet, they have no true knowledge of God. So it's evident that the natural revelation of God is the adequate to fully set him forth. Hence God has given to men a higher revelation of himself in the pages of the book called the Bible. It is the written revelation that came to men by the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost that deserves the highest place in the thinking of men today. The works of God and the words of God are in perfect accord. But a man may read the works of God and fail to see God. But if he looks to the Word of God, he will never fail to see God, not only in the Word, but in his creation. Thanks for tuning in today. Join us every weekday for another episode of the Preaching of the Cross Radio Podcast. For hundreds of hours of in-depth expository Bible teaching, please visit our YouTube channel, James W. Knox Sermons, our sermon audio page, Bible Baptist Land, or our website, Bible Baptistland.com. Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.