There are clear cases where scientific discoveries contradict a literal Biblical view. Just as a quick and trivial example, I don’t think anyone seriously believes that the sky is a dome separating the waters above it from those below (and the dry land as well). On the other hand, that may have been a poetic speculation on what seemed the mystery of the blue sky.
Also, few today believe that the length of a day is determined by the revolution of the sun around the earth. All of the “up and down” metaphors can be nothing else when the earth is seen as spherical, rather than flat.
If such Biblical views are seen as simply (or even profoundly) metaphorical, why not simply accept that there may be many metaphors that—if treated as anything else—are or will be contraverted by scientific discovery? Why play the “god of the gaps” game with regard to geology or biology (e.g., evolution), for example?
Let’s take a central Christian doctrine: the Incarnation of Jesus as the Christ. Suppose that after being “overshadowed” by the Holy Spirit, Mary subsequently had intimate marital relations with Joseph and bore the child Jesus (note that both the Matthean and Lukan genealogical constructs go to Joseph, not Mary; could they not overcome their patriarchal/patrilineal biases even in the face of a virgin birth?). Suppose that the “virgin birth” is metaphorical and symbolic. Would that make the incarnation of the logos tou theou less real? The logos through/by whom all things “were begotten” (egeneto) from the beginning? Would it make Jesus less the Christ?
Would a natural conception—according to the laws of biology—destroy Christology? Or pneumatology? Or soteriology? Would it even destroy the all the possible metaphorical and symbolical meanings of Mary’s “virginity”? Would it necessarily mean that one could not recite the second article of the Nicene Creed in good conscience?
Note that I haven’t taken an “adoptionist” view here. Only that the intervention of the Holy Spirit could have resulted in a subsequent natural conception. (The one change in Christian history that I might see is a more benign attitude toward sexuality, and a fuller and more proper inclusion of eros in agape.)
From a strictly theist point of view, does a God who creates nature—whose spirit and logos are involved in all of it—require contra-natural miracles? If all of the miracles reported in the texts have perfectly natural explanations, or of some of them were told in the manner of parables pointing to some underlying spiritual meaning, would that require the theist to become an atheist—or the Christian to become, say, a Buddhist?
Sometimes, I think that the (perhaps unconscious) reason for an overly literalistic and defensive Biblicism is precisely because “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.” Fearful because, existentially, life itself is never as certain and predictable as the graven text. Fearful because we are frightened of the vagaries of an existence within the very nature—and natural circumstances—engendered by a living God. Fearful of accident, fearful of death—fearful of a living intimacy, with all the risk that entails?
Perhaps the ragtag band of Israelites were “merely” inspired to bravely wade across the Sea of Reeds, whose soft bottom would not support the weight of the pursuing chariots; perhaps the inspiration came from YHVH, and the story became embellished in generations of retelling. Perhaps Mary was encouraged by the Holy Spirit toward the risk of loving intimacy with her betrothed; perhaps the original hearers of that story understood it so. Perhaps even the symbol of virginity in that story could be understood, not as somehow “holy” in itself, but a virtue that became a stumbling block to loving intimacy—a stumbling block removed by the encouragement divine intervention.
Note once again that I have not here stepped beyond a religious view; I have not even denied divine inspiration or intervention—I have only tried, in a roundabout way, to make the point that these exasperating wars between religion and science are unnecessary. I think that may have been Whodey’s initial point, too.
Scientists qua scientists study nature, without the assumption of contra-natural events—and rightly so, in my opinion. A scientist qua scientist must assume that whatever she’s studying has a natural explanation, or else she’s not doing science anymore. The scientific method is a powerful and self-correcting methodology. For a hypothesis to attain the level of theory, it has to acquire a lot of evidentiary support. If there are ultimately corrections, based on new evidence, that is a strength—not a weakness—of the paradigm.
A scientist’s philosophy (theist or not) may well be informed by his scientific pursuits. Why not? My philosophy is informed by many things, and subject to change.