If we attempt to evaluate the world we live on, make assumptions, draw conclusions, and then go to the Scripture God gave us, it appears to many here that we are taking our "scientific" conclusions OVER Scripture.
Please explain what you mean by this.
I mean that if we make "scientific" conclusions based on our own understanding, and if that understanding is not rooted in the truths of Scripture, our conclusions will be fundamentally flawed. We cannot trust our conclusions because the foundation of our understanding will have come from our own imaginations.
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Why? Because it can be stated that the more appropriate approach to understanding creation is to START with the Scripture God gave us and use that understanding to interpret what we observe in creation.
And where is your evidence for this assertion?
The evidence for this assertion is that the heart of all men are evil. The evidence for this assertion is that pride was the source of our fall. We cannot trust man to make objective observations, because corruption of the human heart will rule out an objective observation. To trust unbelieving man to honestly discern general revelation is to deny that the fundamental philosophy of unbelieving man will be to deny His Creator.
Or, more simply put, there is too much room for human arrogance and vanity to be at the source of his observations about creation unless the foundations of Scripture are used to govern or limit that vanity.
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Ok, we can start with your analogy. Let's say we are given an advanced high-tech automobile engine invented by our friend Jimmy. We are also given a biography of Jimmy's life. If you wanted to know the details about the engine such as the fuel consumption at a certain RPM, the available power, the average temperature of the engine, and the audible volume, would it be better to start with his biography or with empirical testing of the engine?
But measuring RPM is not the same thing as observing how the invention might have been created. Measuring the RPM is not the same thing as determining when the fuel injection was built or the last time the fuel filter was changed. At any point that requires speculation, we could either depend on our own creative abilities to discern an answer ("that filter looks 6 months worth of dirty to me"), or we could first consult the book. That way, if we read that the fuel filter of the engine never needs to be changed, we are not already having to struggle to fit that statement into our own vain conclusions.
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"Must we always begin with interpreting Scripture, or can we also sometimes start with interpreting General Revelation?"
To me, that's a rhetorical question. Of course we should always allow scripture to trump our speculations about creation. We are fallible. We are often wrong. Even within science, the prevailing theories change and new ideas correct old ones. The truth does not change, though. So, why should we come to depend on scientific speculation (regarding creation) when we have the unchanging Word of God?
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Science vs Scripture is not a valid comparison because we don't have _direct_ access to Scripture, but instead to interpretations of it.
That answer is a bit of a cop out, because what we have in Scripture is much more concrete than what we have in our own imaginations. It is easier to interpret a written word than something so extraordinary as our created universe. For example, it is obvious that there is a creator when we take in the wonder of creation, though it is still harder to interpret that data than it is to interpret "In the beginning, God".
