Here’s one thing you’ll likely never see: a parent sitting their child down and saying, “Now this is how you tell a lie.” We all come by lying naturally. It was Satan’s lie that initiated Adam and Eve’s sin (Genesis 3:1–6). They began to lie, and now we do, too. One of Satan’s malignant characteristics is that he “does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him”; lying is part of his native language, “for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).
Like a lighthouse to a ship on a stormy night, the Lord Jesus, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) and whose “words are true and faithful” (Revelation 21:5), stands as the guide to truth. His prayer to the Father aligns with this: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). These and other passages affirm the Bible as the standard for truth.
We apply passages about biblical truth through the doctrines of authority and sufficiency. They encompass three important aspects: the Bible’s teachings measure the truthfulness of all other claims, the Bible is to be believed and obeyed, and the Bible is all that’s necessary as the final informative guide for Christians. Today, we need to use these doctrines to prepare for our relentless Enemy’s latest lie: science is the avenue to truth.
If I had any standard for truth before I became a Christian, it was science. To me, scientists had given theologians a major thrashing by pointing out the absurdity of endorsing anything but science as the vehicle to convey truth. As a new believer, I accepted the Bible as truth, but in my mind, it wasn’t sufficient truth. Like many Christians, I saw the Bible and science as co-authorities—science was a necessary enhancement to arrive at truth. Fortunately, at Moody Bible Institute, I learned how unbiblical my view was.
Today, the belief that all forms of intellectual inquiry must conform to the model(s) of science to be rational is known as scientism.1 It’s a major challenge facing Christians. Harvard evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker’s teachings on the contemporary subjugation of faith to science are enlightening:
In which ways, then, does science illuminate human affairs? Let me start with the most ambitious: the deepest questions about who we are, where we came from, and how we define the meaning and purpose of our lives. This is the traditional territory of religion . . . [but] the moral worldview of any scientifically literate person—one who is not blinkered by fundamentalism—requires a radical break from religious conceptions of meaning and value.
To begin with, the findings of science entail that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions . . . are factually mistaken. We know, but our ancestors did not, that humans belong to a single species of African primate that developed agriculture, government, and writing late in its history. We know that our species is a tiny twig of a genealogical tree that embraces all living things and that emerged from prebiotic chemicals almost four billion years ago . . . .
In other words, the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is the worldview given to us by science. Though the scientific facts do not by themselves dictate values, they certainly hem in the possibilities. By stripping ecclesiastical authority of its credibility on factual matters, they cast doubt on its claims to certitude in matters of morality.2
Despite this daunting challenge, ICR has never wavered on the doctrines of biblical authority and sufficiency. ICR’s scientific research upholds biblical truth by demonstrating that it’s not factually mistaken. Christian leaders should embrace and wield creation science against the growing threat from scientism to replace biblical sufficiency and strip them of ecclesiastical authority.
References
- See Martin, E. Scientism. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Posted on iep.utm.edu, accessed July 16, 2026. “Scientism is often rendered as the view that all real knowledge is scientific knowledge. According to its advocates, science’s distinctive successes make it the best or only way to know, and non-scientific claims must therefore be rejected, downgraded or held in abeyance.”
- Pinker, S. Science Is Not Your Enemy: An Impassioned Plea to Neglected Novelists, Embattled Professors, and Tenure-less Historians. The New Republic. Posted on newrepublic.com August 6, 2013, accessed February 20, 2024. Emphasis added.
Dr. Guliuzza is the president of the Institute for Creation Research.
*KJV
