I have for a long time held a hatred for the metaphor of the “two books” that those who consider themselves scientifically enlightened use as some sort of theological point. It usually is a ploy to undermine the inerrancy and authority of scripture. I have talked about it here. I wish to share Steve Hays’ thoughts on the issue:

“God gave humanity two primary sources of revelation about himself: the world that he created and the Scripture that he inspired. These are also known as the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture…God is a God of truth. As the author of both books, he does not contradict himself (71-72).

Unfortunately for Dembski, this hoary metaphor is fatally equivocal in two fundamental respects:

i) Nature is not very bookish. A book generally contains verbal assertions or propositions. While not every sentence is assertive (i.e. questions, commands), most sentences are assertive. And in the case of non-fiction, they make factual claims. They have truth-value.

By contrast, nature makes no assertions. Nature contains no propositions. Nature doesn’t say anything. Nature is a fact, not a factual assertion. Nature doesn’t assert anything to be the case. Therefore, it’s strictly nonsense to characterize the issue the way Dembski does.

We simply draw inferences from nature. We try to infer causes from effects. Sometimes all we have is trace evidence. We have to interpolate. Fill in the blanks as best we can.

ii) Moreover, to say that nature is revelatory hardly means that nature is self-revelatory. If nature is a medium of God’s self-revelation, this doesn’t mean that nature was designed to reveal anything about itself, such as the age of the universe.

Now, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that nature contains evidence sufficient to date its point of origin. But that’s not a valid inference from Dembski’s premise. That doesn’t follow from the status of nature as a mode of divine revelation. Dembski would need to mount a separate argument to yield that conclusion.

“As distinct witnesses to the work of God, these books can be read individually or together. When read individually, they have an integrity of their own that must not be undermined by using one to invalidate the other” (71).

i) I don’t know how far Dembski intends to take this. Is nature self-explanatory? Is nature its own commentary? Why did God reveal Gen 1-3 if nature is self-interpreting?

Indeed, in Bible history, we see an alternation between event-revelation and word-revelation. God’s words interpret God’s deeds. So general revelation is not autonomous.

It’s like looking at a painting. You can learn a lot about a painting just by studying the work of art. But, at the same time, there’s only so much you can learn about it from the artifact itself. It helps to know something about the painter. About his time and place. About his values. You can’t necessarily infer artistic intent from what you see on the canvas. Correct interpretation requires some knowledge of the painter as well as the painting.

ii) I’d also add that there are obvious hazards to scientific autonomy. Science is no better or worse than its practitioners. Science can be politicized. Become a tool in the hands of social engineers–from behaviorists and Social Darwinianist to climatologists, sociobiologists, and transhumanists. Should we really deliver ourselves into the hands of anyone who calls himself a scientist?