Video: On Bringing Home the Bacons: Reflections on Science, Faith, and Scripture

In Session 4, Dr. Iain Provan reflects on what the two Bacons—Roger (medieval experimentalist) and Francis (early-modern methodologist)—have come to symbolize for conversations about the Bible and science. He argues that importing a narrowly Baconian ideal of “hard facts first, meaning later” into biblical interpretation distorts Scripture’s aims and genres. Instead of forcing concord or conflict, Provan urges hermeneutical patience: let the Bible speak in its ancient literary forms and theological cadence, and let the natural sciences pursue their own questions about mechanisms—neither sphere exhaustive of all truth, both needing wisdom to relate well. He shows how “methodolatry” can flatten the text and how a richer account of knowledge—historically aware, genre-sensitive, and ecclesially practiced—better honors revelation and inquiry alike.

Dr. John Walton responds by sharpening the hermeneutical stakes: Scripture communicates in the conceptual world of the ancient Near East, so we misread it whenever we demand modern scientific deliverables (his familiar caution from work on Genesis). Walton appreciates Provan’s retrieval while pressing practical tests—How do we guard against concordist shortcuts? How do churches cultivate interpretive virtues that resist treating the Bible as a data repository? Together, the paper and response model a way beyond culture-war binaries: take Scripture’s authority and purposes seriously, take science’s methods seriously, and refuse to force either to answer questions it was not given to answer.

Timestamps

• Opening & introductions 00:00

• Who are “the Bacons”? Why they matter for method ~04:00

• When Baconian habits misread the Bible (genre, purpose, authority) ~12:00

• Two books, many limits: science, Scripture, and wisdom ~20:00

• Case study: origins texts without concordism/controversy ~28:00

• Hermeneutical virtues for the church (patience, humility, community) ~36:00

• Response (Dr. John Walton): ancient context and category errors ~45:00

• Audience Q&A: testability, providence, pastoral implications ~55:00