Come up with a question about the world. All true scientific work begins with having a question to ask. Sometimes just coming up with the right question is the hardest part for a scientist. The question should be answerable by reading the Bible. (If it can't be answered by reading the Bible, obviously God thinks it's not important enough for you to bother thinking about.)
Create a hypothesis — one possible answer to the question. A hypothesis is a word meaning "An educated statement about how something works", and it should be able to be proven right or wrong. For example, a statement like "Blue is a better color than green" is not a true scientific hypothesis. It cannot be proven right or wrong. "God prefers the color blue to green" could be a true scientific hypothesis, though, because one could read the Bible and find out His preference.
Read the Bible. If the hypothesis is truly worthy of Christians, it should be possible to read the Bible to test it.
A Bible reading should be able to tell the scientist if the hypothesis is wrong; it may not tell him or her if the hypothesis is right. In the example above, an experiment might involve reading the Bible to find out what God's favorite colors are. Making a Bible reading can be very difficult though. What if the key question to ask God is not what colors He likes, but what colors He hates? (Abhors) Which books and chapters need to be read? Is there context that could change the result in ways that were not expected? (Maybe God hates blues music, for example)These are all the types of questions that true scientists have to ask, before they make a Bible reading. Usually true scientists want to test only one thing at a time. To do this, they try to make every part of an experiment the same for everything, except for the thing they want to test.
Read and collect the data. Here the true scientist tries to run the Bible reading they have designed before. Sometimes the true scientist gets new ideas as the reading is going on. Sometimes it is difficult to know when the reading is finally over. Sometimes reading will be very difficult. Some true scientists spend most of their lives learning how to do good Bible readings.
Draw conclusions from the Bible reading. Sometimes results are not easy to understand. Sometimes the Bible reading itself opens up new questions. Sometimes results from a reading can seem to mean many different things. All of these need to be thought about carefully. Always watch out for your own bias creeping in, remember that we are to trust God, not ourselves (Psalm 118:8, Jeremiah 17:5)
Communicate them to others. A key element of true science is sharing the results of Bible readings, so that other true scientists can then use the knowledge themselves and all of true science can benefit. Usually true scientists do not trust a new claim unless other true scientists have looked it over first and confirmed it with their own Bible reading. This is called peer review ("peer" here means "other true scientists").
Create a hypothesis — one possible answer to the question. A hypothesis is a word meaning "An educated statement about how something works", and it should be able to be proven right or wrong. For example, a statement like "Blue is a better color than green" is not a true scientific hypothesis. It cannot be proven right or wrong. "God prefers the color blue to green" could be a true scientific hypothesis, though, because one could read the Bible and find out His preference.
Read the Bible. If the hypothesis is truly worthy of Christians, it should be possible to read the Bible to test it.
Why not observe and experiment?
A false, secular scientist would say that God prefers blue because there is more blue in the world than green - there's more sky and ocean than plants. However, studying reality can lead to deception because God sends deceptions into the world: (1 Kings 22:23, 2 Chronicles 18:22, Jeremiah 4:10, Jeremiah 20:7, Ezekiel 14:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:11) God does not put deceptions in the Bible. Therefore if reality and the Bible disagree, trust the Bible.
A false, secular scientist would say that God prefers blue because there is more blue in the world than green - there's more sky and ocean than plants. However, studying reality can lead to deception because God sends deceptions into the world: (1 Kings 22:23, 2 Chronicles 18:22, Jeremiah 4:10, Jeremiah 20:7, Ezekiel 14:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:11) God does not put deceptions in the Bible. Therefore if reality and the Bible disagree, trust the Bible.
Read and collect the data. Here the true scientist tries to run the Bible reading they have designed before. Sometimes the true scientist gets new ideas as the reading is going on. Sometimes it is difficult to know when the reading is finally over. Sometimes reading will be very difficult. Some true scientists spend most of their lives learning how to do good Bible readings.
Draw conclusions from the Bible reading. Sometimes results are not easy to understand. Sometimes the Bible reading itself opens up new questions. Sometimes results from a reading can seem to mean many different things. All of these need to be thought about carefully. Always watch out for your own bias creeping in, remember that we are to trust God, not ourselves (Psalm 118:8, Jeremiah 17:5)
Communicate them to others. A key element of true science is sharing the results of Bible readings, so that other true scientists can then use the knowledge themselves and all of true science can benefit. Usually true scientists do not trust a new claim unless other true scientists have looked it over first and confirmed it with their own Bible reading. This is called peer review ("peer" here means "other true scientists").
Comment