Would the prediction of scientific discoveries give credence to a holy book claiming to be inspired?

Question

The academy cries foul and asks "where is your evidence religious person" and lo and behold here comes this little discovery which validates the very first claim the Bible makes. So with this in mind would such a substantial claim being verified not give credence to a claim that a holy book is indeed the word of God.

The accidental discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation is a major development in modern physical cosmology. Although predicted by earlier theories, it was first found accidentally by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson as they experimented with the Holmdel Horn Antenna. The discovery was evidence for an expanding universe, (big bang theory) and was evidence against the steady state model. In 1978, Penzias and Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint discovery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_cosmic_microwave_background_radiation

Genesis 1 v1

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Answer 1

In order to prove that a book is inspired by God, it would have to be the only possible explanation. And prediction of scientific discoveries could be potentially achieved by a time traveller of some sort, or another entity from the past able to predict the future.

Let's consider a prediction as accurate as possible:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, provoking cosmic microwave background which would be accurately discovered in 1978 by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson.

This would be amazing, but can have been written by either an entity from the past knowing the future, or an entity from the future having travelled in the past. While it would definitely be an argument in favor of the book being the word of God, it would not be a proof.

Answer 2

The question of whether the universe is eternal, cyclical which is, in some sense, also saying that it is eternal, or created. Any of these positions are profound which is why thinkers have struggled with them. Kant uses this difficulty to rule the question out as being amenable to critical discussion. One might say he doesn't want to discuss it.

I think it is a mistake to think that the Bible or Quran, or other originary myth, whether invented for that purpose say by Plato in the Timaeus or by the Hopi Indians should be understood empirically or scientifically. What one can do is discuss the positions that they take, even when one is committed to a certain position.

Empirically, that is within the context of our universe right now, and without going into detailed scientific justifications, it seems that time must have had a beginning - otherwise how can eternity pass to reach now? This is at least good grounds for thinking that the universe had a beginning. For if time had a beginning, the so did space and matter. This is one-half of an Antinomy of Kant.

If God created the universe, then God is Eternal, not in the sense of existing in a time that is infinite, but in being outside of time. In some sense, we've traded the eternal universe for the eternity of God.

One could ask, if the universe is in fact eternal, can a God have created it? Of course, neither the Quran or the Bible endorses this position.

As for the role of inspiration, prophecy - those are difficult questions, which have superficially easy answers. Al-Ghazali endorsed occasionalism for the universe to even occur, that is for causality to happen. Recall here that Hume had the same thought several centuries later. Spinoza, had both thought and extension, the two Descartian substances as two modes of God; further back Plotinus took the universe as an emanation from God, which is also the thought of school of Illumination in Islamic Philosophy. If Spinoza has thought in God, then can we say that our thoughts are our own? Or perhaps that God is within the secret interstices of thought that give it operation? In Platos dialogue, Ion, he has Socrates assert that Rhapsody is inspiration, and inspiration comes from the Gods - the divine spark blown into divine fire by divine wind. It also what inspires Rumis metaphor of the reed in his Masnavi.

Answer 3

A few points

1) In general, an ancient book that makes scientific statements that we know today that would have been unknown or surprising adds to the credibility. A non-Biblical example of this is Herodotus's mentioning of the motion of the Sun during the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa (can't find the verse). Herodotus had a habit of reporting whatever stories he heard as he heard them, even if they seemed unbelievable. In this case, because we know the Sun's motion would be different below the equator, we have reason to believe the report of circumnavigation. That, however, doesn't mean that we believe in flying snakes in Ethiopia.

2) The Bible was written by several human authors over several millenia. I'd imagine that for someone skeptical of the Bible, the Bible predicting scientific phenomena in one section written by one author wouldn't make the author authors more believable.

3) The point of the Bible isn't scientific. Let's say the Bible made predictions about quantum mechanics or electromagnetism. What impact would that have on how Christians worship? What impact would that have on the theological messages delivered by Christ? Would that have any impact on the understanding of the Old Testament covenant by either Jews or Christians? Certainly not.

There are non-theological statements of fact that would have an effect on the above theological questions. The best example of these (for Christians, anyway) is "Jesus was resurrected." I once heard a priest give a homily about this topic. Before becoming a priest, he was with someone about what it would mean if it was scientifically proven that there was no Resurrection. He took the stance (and this seems to be the right stance) that the story of Christianity is the Resurrection, and without the Resurrection everything else is rendered meaningless.

Answer 4

Read Iain M. Banks, "The Hydrogen Sonata", describing a quite sinister possibility.

And that line from genesis is so vague, it could be anything. You're putting the bible on the same level as Nostradamus.

Answer 5

Your unverifiable and unrealistic association of a Big Bang event with the thrice-translated (at least!) Genesis is, among other things, not even vaguely philosophical. I fail to see how anyone would agree this is appropriate to this QA topic.

Take a look at your second quoted sentence, and you'll see it has absolutely nothing in common with the cosmological theories. So why do you see one sentence as evidence of a god yet refuse to see the other sentence as evidence against a god?

Answer 6

That the universe has a beginning is consistent with the the phrase 'In the beginning'. The claim, however is a very weak one which is also consistent with other competing theories, such as that primitive people made up a story which sounded plausible to them at the time.

In order for one theory to have credence over the other, you would need a prediction on which they differ.