es which may or may not prove true, and though
modifications in certain widely accepted views may be expected, there
are many conclusions which may be considered firmly established. This
being the case, if at the present time the conflict between science and
the Bible is discussed, it is a conflict between scientific conclusions
reached after prolonged, careful study and investigation and the
teaching of the Bible as determined by the scientific use of all
legitimate means of interpretation.

Does such conflict exist? Many geologists, astronomers, biologists,
and other scientists have claimed for some time that they have reached
conclusions not in accord with certain statements of the Bible. Take
as an illustration the biblical and scientific statements concerning
the age of the earth, or creation in general.[5] The general
conclusion reached by an overwhelming majority {42} of the most
competent students of the Bible has been that according to the
information furnished by the Scriptures, the date of creation was, in
round numbers, four thousand years before the opening of the Christian
era.[6] At that time, in the words of the Westminster Confession,[7]
"It pleased God ... to create or make of nothing the world and all
things therein whether visible or invisible in the space of six days
and all very good." This was accepted as the plain teaching of the
first chapter of Genesis even after scientific methods had been
introduced in the study of the Bible. Then came geology, pushing back
the "beginnings," adding millions of years to the age of the globe, and
insisting that there is abundant evidence to prove the existence of
life upon earth many millenniums before B.C. 4,000. Other sciences
reached conclusions pointing in the same direction, until it became
perfectly evident that Bible students must reckon with what seemed a
real conflict between the conclusions of science and the teaching of
the Bible.

No wonder Bible lovers were troubled when scientists in ever-increasing
numbers advanced claims that appeared to involve a charge of scientific
inaccuracy against the Sacred Scriptures. Many were convinced that
this could not be, for they feared that if the Bible contained
inaccuracies of any sort, its value would be {43} completely destroyed,
and with the Bible Christianity must fall into ruins. In Brother
Anthony, intended to picture the perplexed soul of a monk in the days
of Galileo, Mark Guy Pearse gives a