The development of science during the past 5 centuries has produced a belief that all phenomena can be adequately explained by various natural laws. In some cases, the actual effect of these laws may remain mysterious and currently inexplicable, but this means only that we are operating within the limits imposed by our human nature. For example, the placebo effect can account for all cases in which the human body undergoes spontaneous healing; there is never need to invoke divine action in order to find an adequate explanation. Similarly, all natural phenomena can be adequately understood in term of physical and chemical laws that are invariant throughout the universe. These laws, as they have been developed, verified and accepted within the scientific community over centuries, have produced an unshakeable belief that arbitrary exceptions never occur in nature. For example, there are no documented cases in which the sun and moon deviate from their normal paths, gravity has not been materially effective, and matter has been spontaneously generated, or has mysteriously disappeared.

The acceptance of inviolable physical and chemical laws that govern all matter within the universe means that divine intervention can never be identified as an explanation for any unusual event. Since the physical world has remained subject to the same laws throughout its existence, including the totality of human history, all of the events described within the biblical record must also have a natural explanation. Any failure to be able to provide one does not mean that none is available. Rather, it means only that several possibilities exist, any one of which could provide an adequate answer, or that our current knowledge is presently inadequate. The development of science is today accompanied by a belief that everything in the universe can be explained entirely in terms of matter and energy. There is no reason to believe that anything else exists within the universe. The laws that characterize the behaviour of matter and energy, it is maintained, are sufficient to account for everything that has happened in the past, is happening now, or will happen in the future. Any explanation that goes beyond this fundamental basis must be classified as unjustifiable superstition based on ignorance.

It is not possible for God to violate the natural laws of the universe because they are an inherent aspect of God’s being. Since God is now considered by scientists to be at most the embodiment of all natural laws, any arbitrary violation of them would imply that God is hopelessly inconsistent. Such a concept of God would mean that all human knowledge is suspect. All occasions that are perceived by the uninformed as miracles necessarily involving divine intervention must always be understood in purely natural terms. In some cases, natural explanations may not yet be forthcoming, but this is due only to a limitation in our current ability to understand them. As knowledge progresses we expect that causes and effects that are currently unknown will become part of our accumulated knowledge. Attributing divine intervention is never a satisfactory answer to events that always have natural causes, even if these are presently unknown.

The bible represents the pre-scientific culture of people who had an extremely limited understanding of the physical world. With the advent of the telescope and the microscope — as well as all of the other technical means available to humans today — we are able to comprehend things that they could not begin to understand. They did the best with the means at their disposal. However, we must ultimately reject those conclusions that are inconsistent with modern knowledge. Since there is no reason to believe that God has ever been involved in changing the course of human history, we must understand everything that happens in terms of scientific knowledge, realizing that the ancients had to cope without it. Only in this way can we understand their shortcomings and erroneous conclusions.

The unquestioning and naive acceptance of the truth of the biblical record is possible only in a pre-scientific way of thinking. Since science now provides a much more credible alternative than tradition, legend, hearsay, hunches, and guesses, it is necessary to understand the bible for what it is — a primitive, outdated attempt to offer a reasonable outlook on the world. When the powerful forces of ignorance and superstition are eliminated, the bible will be properly understood as the cultural product of an age whose time in the light of human history belongs only to the past. A new age of scientific credibility will gradually put the bible on the antique shelf where it belongs, to be recognized as a pious attempt to explain, guide and influence the thinking and behaviour of humans who were doing their best to understand and describe their world. It will always be respected for its contribution to human culture, but its peculiar influence will diminish as knowledge increases, provided only that the scientific method is allowed to continue in its unhindered course of development.

Every statement in the bible that conflicts with science must be examined and interpreted in a way that provides a natural explanation. This includes the creation narratives, the flood story, the plagues of Egypt, the various miracles that were described as the effect of divine action, and the references to our universe that were based on an incomplete and inadequate understanding of our world. Only when the bible is understood as the product of an enthusiastic but ultimately unenlightened age will it find its appropriate place in the history of human culture. It will then take its proper position as a curiosity that deserves our respect for its characterization of the culture of the past, but is no longer able to form the unconditional and unquestioned basis for our appreciation of the present and future. We must ultimately set aside its limited understanding of our world if we are to come to terms with the nature of our own existence and future in the universe.