Science vs Religion

In every instance, religion will take precedence over science for my own convictions. This is because I credit what I deem to be divine witnesses more than I credit the theories of man. However, I’ve found several topics of both science and religion that coincide with one another. I’ve found that religion, or scripture, expounds upon the answers of the question, “why,” while science expounds upon the answers of the question, “how?” One of these topics is the age of the earth.

In the Bible, it states that the Earth was created in 6 days. In science, we theorize that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old. To most, these seem to contradict each other — but I believe in both.

In 2 Peter 3:8 we read that, “the one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” This scripture could imply that the creation took much longer than what we perceive to be 6 days. Even in science, time is relative. In my own opinion, when the scriptures refer to “days” in the creation I believe it’s referring to (or translates to), simply, a long period of time — such as an era. When we say “the day of the dinosaur,” we’re saying, “the age when dinosaurs lived,” not, “dinosaurs existed for one day.” Thus, these unspecified durations of time could add up to 4.54 billion years in our own measurement of time.

Outside of the age of the Earth, I believe that the order in which the Earth was created scientifically and as recorded in the Bible are very similar. In the end, however, religion will always be one step ahead of science.

For more information, see: Ensign, January 1994, “I Have a Question”