Biblical scholars hold that the Bible is inerrant regarding religious truth, not in matters that are of no significance to salvation. St Augustine, one of the greatest Christian authors of all time, wrote: "In the matter of the shape of heaven, the sacred writers did not wish to teach men facts that could be of no avail to their salvation."

He is saying that Genesis is not a book of astronomy. He also noted that in Genesis's narrative of creation, God created light on the first day but did not create the sun until the fourth day, concluding that "light" and "days" in Genesis made no literal sense. The Bible is about religion. It isn't the purpose of its authors to settle scientific questions.

Other religious scholars and authorities have made similar statements. In 1981, Pope John Paul II asserted that the Bible "speaks to us of the origins of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God. Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven."

If evolution is true, it does not follow that humans were not created by God. Science and faith speak about different aspects of reality. An individual human develops from a single cell in the mother's womb, is born, grows into an adult and eventually dies. A person of faith can accept these natural processes and still believe a human to be a creature of God.

The scholarly Protestant theologian A. H. Strong wrote in 1885: "We grant the principle of evolution, but we regard it as only the method of divine intelligence." He explained that the brutish ancestry of humans was not incompatible with their excelling status as creatures in the image of God. Yes, one can believe in both evolution and God. Evolution is a well-confirmed scientific theory. Christians and other people of faith need not see evolution as a threat to their beliefs. Like Strong, many theologians see evolution as the process by which God creates the wonderful diversity of plants, animals and other living beings.

Science and religious beliefs need not be in contradiction because science and religion concern different matters. Science concerns the processes that account for the natural world: the composition of matter, the expansion of the galaxies and the origin and diversity of organisms. Religion concerns the proper relation of people to their creator and to each other, the meaning and purpose of human life and of the world and how to live a virtuous life.