any people tacitly assume that science and faith, including Christianity, are
incompatible. Hasn't Christianity and the church, after all, fought scientific
progress at every turn? How can you be a scientist and a Christian?
any people tacitly assume that science and faith, including Christianity, are
incompatible. Hasn't Christianity and the church, after all, fought scientific
progress at every turn? How can you be a scientist and a Christian?
Certainly, the church (broadly speaking) has made mistakes and been guilty of sin, not the least of which has been its regular assimilation of some currently respectable scientific theory as truth. But, in many ways, the claim that Christianity has always discouraged scientific progress is quite far from the truth, historically speaking.
The Christian worldview, especially that associated with the Reformation and fostered by the increased availability of the Scriptures, provided the basis for a rational interpretation of nature. This was a natural outgrowth of the view of a rational God creating rational man and making him the steward of nature. Instead of nature being mysterious, unpredictable, the whim of some unknowable god, or something to be worshiped, the study of nature was viewed as allowing a fuller understanding of God's attributes and could be used to the benefit of humanity (indeed all of creation). Though not enthusiastic about the church, science writer and evolutionary anthropologist Loren Eiseley admits, "We must also observe that in one of those strange permutations of which history yields occasional rare examples, it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear articulate fashion to the experimental method of science itself."[1] In England, thirty years after Galileo's trial, "So many divines doubled as scientists, the coexistence in one head of expert knowledge in both books [Scripture and nature] came to be respected, and the capacity of a man to reveal the glory of God in both spheres was taken for granted."[2]
With regard to the physical sciences, historians recognize that Isaac Newton pursued science in large part for what it could teach men about God. He argued for unified principles and simplicity in nature because "He is the God of order and not of confusion." [3] A student of Scripture in English, Latin, Greek, and sometimes Hebrew, he wrote "the true faith is in the text" and claimed an assurance "which he only can know how to estimate
who shall experience it." [4] Robert Boyle was a Christian and very active in the distribution of Scripture. In the Christian Virtuoso, he connected experimental philosophy with being a good Christian and encouraged a diligent and skillful scrutiny of God's works. [5] We could talk of Kepler, Dalton, and many others as well. One of my favorites was Michael Faraday whom Ernest Rutherford called "one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time." [6] While serving as director of the Royal Institution in London, he may be as well known for his role in popularizing science as for scientific discovery. One biographer in describing the beliefs of the congregation in which Faraday was an elder writes, "They trusted in the personal power of God over the believer; acknowledging that the faith by which they were saved, nay even the penitence for sin which brought them to His feet was His personal gift to them, a gift which they had neither earned nor deserved." [7]
The belief in order and rationality in nature extended to the life sciences as well. Two primary founders of the biological classification system were John Ray and Carl Linnaeus. Perhaps the most publicized of Ray's works was The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation (1691). The Linnaean system of classification (class, order, genus, species) was based on the belief that God had created a system of living things that could be logically ordered. It seems ironic that one of the journals published by the Linnaean Society today devotes itself to evolutionary theory.
Unfortunately, many scientists today enjoy the fruit of these assumptions while denying the tree that produced them. Even more unfortunate is that most people do not realize the implications of their materialistic alternative. Paleontologist Stephen Gould identifies evolution as purposeless, nonprogressive, and materialistic. He quotes Darwin, "love of the deity effect of organization, oh you materialist! . . . Why is thought being a secretion of the brain, more wonderful than gravity a property of matter? It is our arrogance, our admiration of ourselves." Gould muses, "And if mind has no real existence beyond the brain, can God be anything more than an illusion invented by an illusion?" [8]
But if thought is no more than a secretion of the brain brought about by purposeless permutations of matter (wherever that came from) through eons of time, is there reason to expect a rational universe, or that we are rational, or that rationality matters? Being consistent with the presupposition of materialism certainly destroys any concept of morality. Why is the secretion in the brain of a thief stealing your car less moral than the secretion in your brain that says he shouldn't?
Being a Christian and a scientist is relatively easy. The real difficulty lies in becoming a Christian. That is why, as the Scripture puts it, we enter His kingdom by grace through His son. "Ask, and it will be given to you. Knock, and the door shall be opened to you. Seek, and you will find."
