Can science and Christian fundamentalism intertwine? Absolutely | In Focus

Published 3:00 pm Monday, August 4, 2025

This column is written for fundamentalist conservatives. For the rest of you, please continue reading to understand a major issue in today’s political and religious spheres.

Who was Galileo Galilei and why was he important?

Galileo (1564-1642) was an early Italian astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He is considered the father of modern science and the scientific method. He discovered four of Jupiter’s largest moons, and supported a heliocentric solar system (the sun is the center of the solar system), rather than the commonly believed geocentric model where the earth was not only the center of the solar system, but also of the universe. (Search Assist)

Galileo’s studies and observations supported Copernicus’ heliocentric model. This made his scientific findings contrary to Roman Catholic doctrine. “He was convicted of heresy and spent his remaining years under house arrest.”

“In 1613, Galileo wrote a letter to a student to explain how Copernican theory did not contradict Biblical passages, stating that scripture was written from an earthly perspective and implied that science provided a different, more accurate perspective” (biography.com).

Of course, the heliocentric model became the model we use today. The church was wrong and it imposed its inaccurate views upon its adherents.

How does this apply today? We seem to be in a similar place with fundamentalists who insist that the universe that we see today was created in six literal days according to the Genesis account.

This belief is very hard to uphold based upon findings from geology, paleontology, and the fossil record. Dinosaurs and Neanderthals existed before Adam and Eve. The earth and the universe are billions of years old. Conservatives are hard-pressed to explain God creating dinosaurs alongside humans.

Observations of the geology in Washington state shows that volcanic eruptions created basaltic rocks and mountains thousands of feet in height. Glaciers carved Puget Sound and were three thousand feet thick. Continental drift and plate tectonics have been studied and explain the history of the earth. Sharks’ teeth have been found far from the oceans in California, Mississippi, and the along the Atlantic Coast.

How does a Bible-believing monotheist mesh scientific findings with the biblical account? Trying to do so creates believers who construct their belief about the Bible upon a house of cards. If Genesis is wrong then the entire teachings of the Bible are called into question. That’s why many conservatives have rejected science and the scientific method in the political sphere.

Consider this explanation. God, like humans, experimented to find out what worked and what didn’t. Creating the universe and life on the earth took billions of years. Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons were prototypes of humans. According to the atheist Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari in his book Sapiens, modern humans (homo sapiens)I only came into existence about 5,000 B.C.E. That date dovetails nicely with the biblical account of creation.

Darwin’s theory of evolution can be reinterpreted using the perspective of a God whose thinking evolved over time. “Physicist Frank Tipler estimates the probability of sapient life evolving on an Earth-like planet to be around 1 in 10 billion trillion” (Medium). Conservatives then can look at the history of the development of life on this planet without feeling threatened by what science teaches, if they can only free their thinking to see a more dynamic God.

To explain how life came into being in six literal days, you can read The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom by Gerald L. Schroeder Ph.D. He explains how time changed between the Big Bang and the creation account in Genesis. “Schroeder argues that the latest science and a close reading of the Bible are not just compatible but interdependent” (amazon.com book review).

Galileo used science to discover the truth of the solar system using a telescope. During his time, the church held the authority to arrest and try those who disagreed with church doctrine. Church leaders became the arbiters of what was biblical truth and what was not. Fortunately, the church does not have that authority anymore.

Today, it’s conservative fundamentalists who, like the Catholic Church in the 1500s, feel threatened by science. They don’t need to be. Conservative fundamentalists need to learn from Galileo’s experience and broaden their thinking of a dynamic and creative God, and not create God in their own image.