The Institute for Creation Research is known as a scientific research "think tank," with numerous scientists conducting scientific research dealing with aspects of the broad origins question.
But for all of our scientific interests, training, and efforts, each member of the scientific faculty is also a born-again Christian who is fully committed to the word of God as inerrant and infallible, containing all we need to know to have eternal life and to develop a fully Christian worldview. In the field of origins science, we are confident that while it doesn't give us all the details, what it does say is absolutely correct and forms the basic framework for every endeavor, including scientific research. Using the Bible and its true history as our guide provides the glasses through which we look, and the scheme within which we interpret scientific data in just the same way an evolutionist uses evolution as his guide.
But can we prove the Bible? No—not in a strict scientific sense, especially as it relates to the unobserved past. Science can understand much about how a cell operates, but how did it originate? Science has begun to decipher rudimentary elements of the genetic code, but who wrote the code? Empirical science is limited to the present—the way things are and the way they work—and can only speculate about their ultimate origins. Only rank arrogance and misunderstanding of the nature of science would lead one to think that his observations in the present of the way things operate could prove theories about non-reproduceable origin events in the unobserved past.
By way of analogy, consider today's super computers. For all their complexity—hardware and software—they are not as complete as the smallest living cell with its multitude of working parts and genetic code. What if a "thinking" computer comes to the independent conclusion that it originated by purely natural means, with no outside intelligence involved? Would that change the fact that a team of computer scientists built it and programmed it? Obviously not. To understand its origin (a quite different enterprise than its operation) it would need to consult its creator's owner's manual which would also explain procedures to follow to function best.
And that's how we view the Bible. It doesn't need to be proven, it just needs to be believed and obeyed. We can and should put it to the test (I Thessalonians 5:21). Since it is correct, it will pass that test, and far surpass all false "owner's manuals," like naturalistic evolution.
When the Bible is used as the guide to focus our research and interpret our data, the results are conclusions which make sense. Competing naturalistic views may necessitate claims that cells coalesce from "primeval soup" or that DNA codes write themselves, but these are unscientific and unnecessary. They are as "foolish" as the "wise" computer which declares itself free from its designer's authority (Romans 1:22).
*Dr. John Morris is President of ICR.
