Here is how it works: Science comes up with some new evidence, finding, or law, which contradicts what God has proclaimed. So to resolve the issue and bring peace to the situation, the scientific disciples of that God, must seek to rationalize away the inconsistency. They must change what God said and replace it with what he meant to say, or what He was really saying. Others attack the sources, or the credibility of the witnesses to explain away the contradiction, helping God to conform to science and thus become more palatable. Others rely on the mighty power of the figurative to effect the change. There is real power in explaining away any regrettable Godly utterance as being merely figurative.
The unholy part of all this is that it is always God who must conform to science, never science which must change to conform to His revealed truth. Thus flawed human science becomes the real god, and God, becomes a mere spokesperson for it, a god truly created in man’s image.
One of many examples I have seen among members in the church: God, through his scriptures indicates that there is a group of 10 lost tribes who have their own prophets and scriptures, and who will, as part of the ushering in of the millennial reign, return to Zion from their long dispersion. Their return will be accompanied by miraculous earthly commotions, like a highway coming up out of the sea. Sadly, the fleshy saint realizes that there is no possible way that such a society could exit on this globe without our knowing it. We (humankind) have been everywhere inhabitable, and have taken pictures of every inch of earth, by satellite…no lost tribes there. Human reason declares it simply cannot be that such a group still exists outside our knowledge. So the desperate disciple, not even considering the inestimable power of God, tries to think of a way to make His declarations fit with the realm of human reason. How? They simply claim that all such references were figurative. They teach that the return of the lost tribes and gathering of Israel was not really literal, but only figurative, and thus is being satisfied by the current missionary work, which we all know exists..... Whew, God is back in consistency with human knowledge and is safe again....... at least for now.
The most tragic part of this tendency to humanize God, is that we can then never truly know Him as He is. His mighty power becomes mundane. His marvelous, wondrous, miracles and mysteries become mere figures of speech, manipulations of the human psyche, or group hallucination. Our “Awesome” God become just “some” God as human arrogance seeks to remove the “awe.”
Of course, in the real universe where all purely human endeavors remain flawed, God remains awesome, mighty, powerful, miraculous, perfect and worthy of praise. Our attempts to humanize Him will never work. To mis-paraphrase Brigham Young, the most humankind will ever accomplish in such attempts is to cut the thread that binds us to Him, and sink our souls to hell. Who knows, maybe for those who seek to humanize God that is really what they want, they want to live with the god who possesses human traits, the god who fits comfortably within this fallen world, the being who thinks he is...... the god of this world.
As for me, the sum total of human condition, with all its wisdom, intelligence and knowledge, is like small children playing in a sandbox under the watchful and loving eye of their Father. Thinking they know so much, but actually not even coming close. I rejoice, that as one among them I can occasionally look up from the sand and toys, own the fact of my minuscule understanding, and see Him in all his paternal power and undeniable glory. I know He will one day share all of that with me, but even then, I will never cease to praise His name, and revel in His love.....no not in all the eternities, for not withstanding the whims of the world, My God remains an always will, an awesome God.