Daily Devotional - January 18

Christian Truth

God commanded us to “have dominion over [creation].” The original word translated as “dominion” means to study, understand, and control. This is the essence of science. So do you want to be a science detective? First, let’s define science. There are two broad categories of science:  operational and historical.

Operational (or observational) science is the type of science that one might do in a laboratory. It is about experiments that are repeatable. For example, at sea level, water will always boil at the same temperature:  212 degrees F. Operational science builds stuff like rockets, smart phones and other inventions.

Historical science deals with what happened in the past. No scientist has a time machine. No scientist can go back into the past to perform experiments. The past cannot be directly observed or tested, so interpretations are involved. For example, suppose a dinosaur fossil is dug up. How long ago did it live? We don’t know for sure. But Christians have an eye-witness report through which to interpret the present. God is the eye-witness, and He recorded it in the Bible. There was a great Flood, and this flood would have recently buried the dinosaurs that would have rapidly become fossils. But this is still historical science.

So, when you go on vacation to places like Yellowstone National Park, you will see signs such as, “Over the course of 16.5 million years, approximately 15-20 massive eruptions have left immense calderas (craters) to dot the landscape…”, have fun separating interprtation/historical science (millions of years) from observation/operational science (immense calderas). Remember, it is only the observable that can be tested. All else is opinion, based on starting beliefs. Spend your next vacation being a science detective!

…have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

~ Genesis 1:28b

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett