Faith & science

i) It might seem as though modern-day believers face unique and novel objections to the faith. It was easier for our forbears to believe, before the rise of science. They were blissfuly ignorant of scientific objections to the Bible. 

Now there's a grain of truth to that contention. Obviously there are some very modern, very specialized scientific objections to the faith that weren't on the horizon centuries ago. 

ii) Of course, that cuts both ways. There are scientific arguments for Christianity that weren't on the horizon centuries ago. So that balances out. 

Christians often focus on the scientific arguments against the faith rather than scientific arguments for the faith. But scientific arguments against the faith are offset by scientific arguments for the faith (e.g. fine-tuning argument, specified complexity, irreducible complexity). 

Moreover, you have scientifically trained Christians who field scientific objections to the faith. They know how to push back. They know as much as the opposition. So it's not one-sided.

iii) Furthermore, the novelty of scientific objections is easy to exaggerate. I think we exaggerate them because we were apt to be more familiar with the present than the past. We're not necessarily aware of what objections were leveled against Christianity centuries ago. So we're not necessarily aware of how stale these objections really are. 

This also means the (allegedly) unscientific aspects of the creation account and the flood account can't be chalked up to the scientific ignorance of the narrator. For he shares the same prescientific outlook as ancient critics and commentators, who pose much the same questions as their contemporary counterparts. 

Of course, from a modern standpoint, we might consider these to be prescientific rather than scientific objections, because they antedate the rise of modern science. But that's significant. They've been quietly repackaged as scientific objections, which sounds more impressive. Our culturally-conditioned instinct is to unconsciously reclassify them as scientific objections because science is our default frame of reference. 

My point in quoting them is not to endorse what these ancient writers say, but just to document how old these questions are. To cite a few examples:

What is the meaning of the expression, "He brought a breath over the earth, and the water ceased?" (Gen 8:2). Some people say that what is here meant by "a breath" is the wind, at which the deluge ceased. But I am not aware that water is diminished by wind, but only that it is disturbed and agitated into waves, for if it were otherwise the vast extent of the sea would have been wholly dried up long ago. Therefore it appears to me that the sacred writer here means the breath of the Deity, by which the whole universe obtains security at the same time with the calamities of the world, and with those things which exist in the air, and in every mixture of plants and animals. Since the deluge of that time was no trifling infliction of water, but an immense and boundless overflow, extending almost beyond the pillars of Hercules and the great Mediterranean Sea, since the whole earth and all the spaces of the mountains were covered with water; and it is scarcely likely that such a vast space could have been cleared by a wind, but rather, as I have said, it must have been done by some invisible and divine virtue.

Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis

There was a time when her whole orb, withal, underwent mutation, overrun by all waters.  To this day marine conchs and tritons’ horns sojourn as foreigners on the mountains, eager to prove to Plato that even the heights have undulated. 

Tertullian, On the Pallium 

But although all these things were composed with such great skill, some people present questions, and especially Apelles, who was a disciple indeed of Marcion, but was the inventor of another heresy greater than that one which he took from his teacher. He, therefore, wishes to show that the writings of Moses contained noting in themselves of the divine wisdom and nothing of the work of the Holy Spirit.  With this intention he exaggerates sayings of this kind, and says that in no way was it possible to receive, in so brief a space, so many kinds of animals and their foods, which would be sufficient for a whole year. For when "two by two" from the unclean animals, that is two males and two females–for this is what the repeated word signifies–but "seven by seven" from the clean animals, which is seven pairs, are said to have been led into the ark, how, he asks, could it happen that that space which is recorded could receive, at the least, four elephants alone? And after he opposes each species in this manner, he adds above all to these words: "It is evident, therefore, that the story is invented; but if it is, it is evident that this Scripture is not from God." 

But against these words we bring to the knowledge of our audience things which we learned from men who who were skilled and versed in the traditions of the Hebrews and from our old teachers. The forefathers used to say, therefore, that Moses who, as Scripture testifies about him, was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians [Acts 7:22]," reckoned the number of cubits in this passage according to the art of geometry in which the Egyptians were skillful. For with geometricians, according to that computation which they call the second power, one cubit of a solid and square is considered as six if it is derived in general, or as three hundred if singly. If this computation, at least, be observed, spaces of such great length and great will be discovered in the measure of this ark that they could truly receive the whole world's offspring to restore it , and the revived seedbed of all.

Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, R. Heine, ed. (CUA 1982),  75-77.

For who that has understanding will sup­pose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, ex­isted without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indi­cate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.

Origen, De Principiis, 4:16

But they who contend that these things never happened, but are only figures setting forth other things, in the first place suppose that there could not be a flood so great that the water should rise fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, because it is said that clouds cannot rise above the top of Mount Olympus, because it reaches the sky where there is none of that thicker atmosphere in which winds, clouds, and rains have their origin. They do not reflect that the densest element of all, earth, can exist there; or perhaps they deny that the top of the mountain is earth. Why, then, do these measurers and weighers of the elements contend that earth can be raised to those aerial altitudes, and that water cannot, while they admit that water is lighter, and liker to ascend than earth? What reason do they adduce why earth, the heavier and lower element, has for so many ages scaled to the tranquil ether, while water, the lighter, and more likely to ascend, is not suffered to do the same even for a brief space of time? 

As to another customary inquiry of the scrupulous about the very minute creatures, not only such as mice and lizards, but also locusts, beetles, flies, fleas, and so forth, whether there were not in the ark a larger number of them than was determined by God in His command, those persons who are moved by this difficulty are to be reminded that the words “every creeping thing of the earth” only indicate that it was not needful to preserve in the ark the animals that can live in the water, whether the fishes that live submerged in it, or the sea-birds that swim on its surface. 

Another question is commonly raised regarding the food of the carnivorous animals,— whether, without transgressing the command which fixed the number to be preserved, there were necessarily others included in the ark for their sustenance; or, as is more probable, there might be some food which was not flesh, and which yet suited all. For we know how many animals whose food is flesh eat also vegetable products and fruits, especially figs and chestnuts. What wonder is it, therefore, if that wise and just man was instructed by God what would suit each, so that without flesh he prepared and stored provision fit for every species? And what is there which hunger would not make animals eat? 

Augustine, City of God, 15.27

Those who want to make a closer study of the truth of what is told us about Noah's ark according to the letter have to search out two things in particular namely, its shape and its size. Now Origen with reference to the shape says: "I think myself that, from what is said about it, the ark must have rested on a quadrangular base, of which the corners, as they went up, were drawn together gradually, so that it narrowed at the top to the space of a single cubit." 

Many things seem to refute this view; for one thing, this shape does not appear such as would keep afloat. For it is indisputable that so massive a structure, laden with so many and such large animals, and also with provisions, could not possibly keep afloat when the waters came, unless the greater portion of its bulk were at the bottom; this fact we can put to the proof today with ships that carry heavy loads. If, then, as is stated, the ark began to narrow from the bottom upwards, so that the sides sloping towards each other took the swelling billows and did not throw them back, and it was thus not so much the waters that carried the ark as the ark the waters, how was it that the whole thing did not forthwith sink to the bottom? 

Hugh of St. Victor, Noah's Ark, chap. 12.