Introduction
Science, as of late, has been a dominant field of study among atheists and a study of apologetics within Christian circles. Despite these conversations, I argue that it important and even imperative that Christianity be the prevailing worldview that supersedes the scientific. Science, to an extent, affirms God’s Biblical design, but it should not be used to rationalize Him outside of His own creation. This paper will briefly outline the history of scientific naturalism, a deviation of science. In my defense of Christianity, I limit myself to refuting against the following two arguments which attempt to deny God’s hand in creation: 1) The claim that our cosmos was born out of nothing and 2) that our conscience was not created by God. My proposition is that science should be used in support of Christianity.
Analysis of Scientific Naturalism
An important first step is to define the meanings of relevant terms such as science, naturalism, scientific naturalism, and theism. Science means “proceeding as far as possible in one’s scientific descriptive enterprise on the basis of the disclosure of the object to be known rather than from prior conceptions and prejudices.”[1] In other words, science is a field where one is able to describe the nature of an object as it befits reality as opposed to describing that object based on one’s own fallible perceptions. Naturalism excludes any form of supernatural explanation as the basis for any process or experience in the world. Scientific naturalism is then a worldview that relies solely on science and reason to explain any and all phenomena. It also eschews any possibility of the supernatural having any effect upon anything observed or felt.[2] Theism is the view that all processes have been designed intelligently and with purpose. Therefore, an intelligent being had to pre-exist and be above all possible conception of man, hence, a divine and transcendent being. As Steven Nemes states, “‘classical theism’ at it is understood here affirms that there is an absolute and fundamental reality upon which everything else depends for its existence in every passing moment. It refers to this absolute reality as ‘God’.”[3]
The Big Bang Theory and the Development of Our Conscience
These definitions are important to understand because they outline the basis for many atheist theories of how our universe came to be and how our conscience emerged. For instance, the Big Bang Model has been the commonly taught explanation for the existence of our cosmos. This theory believes that the “space-time universe originated ex nihilo about 15 billion years ago.”[4] From this context, ex nihilo is a Latin term used to define the existence of our universe having no cause whatsoever and emerging ‘out of nothing’. Atheists will often make the claim that our universe burst into existence without a purpose as well. Could it be possible that our universe was uniquely created as the setting to a greater narrative? Scientific naturalists would refute any possibility of a metanarrative such as that to be a plausible explanation.
They would also say the same for the emergence of our own conscience. Scientific naturalists believe that our consciousness emerged as a result of neurological processes developing. They do not believe that the mind shares any connection whatsoever to the soul, thus denying the possibility of our conscience being a sentient image externally given to us. As Reichenbach summarizes, William Hasker provides a perspective of the soul through his theory of ‘emergentism’. Within this theory, the mind is produced by the brain and is not an independent entity of its own that could have been produced outside the brain. Hasker believes this to be a peculiar arrangement that ultimately brings about one’s ‘being’.[5] Though the gaps remain. If our bodies evolved over time, what about the state of our mind? Is there such a thing as ‘mental evolution’? Contrarily, if our conscience was the result of an external cause, namely God, then such a statement would deny all theories of human evolution because it would acknowledge human beings to have been in the image of God.
Critique of Scientific Naturalism
Brief History of Scientific Naturalism
As part of my discussion on scientific naturalism, there is another important step that must first be taken prior to mentioning any criticisms. This very important step is context. A historical understanding of science should provide a broader definition of scientific naturalism and how such a school of thought came to be. My goal in this part is for the reader to understand that science was, and ultimately is, just man’s philosophy.
To begin, science was originally a philosophy much excelled at and written about by the Greeks. For example, Ptolemy and Hippocrates were Greek scientists and doctors. Although, their theories are outdated today, they sought to understand the world around them as the gods built it. To them, science granted added knowledge about the handiwork of their pagan gods. During the Renaissance, Copernicus endeavored to study and know whether the earth was the center of the universe; however, regardless of his findings, he used it to support his understanding of theology.[6] Science, humbly studied, served as a blessing for man to gain more knowledge of God and to revel further in His glory.
However, as the field of science expanded along with the authority of churches in Europe, science began to take another route to deconstruct God and His total influence upon creation. This led to an era known as the Scientific Revolution, where many intellectuals chose to revel in science than in God. These scientific intellectuals considered what was really just a deviation from the Bible as a ‘revolutionary’ solution. This totalitarian solution sought to usurp the authority of all churches around Europe and the Bible as well. Meanwhile, there were still several faithful scientists at the height of this revolution such as Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton.
As people’s perceptions towards God strayed, Boyle and Newton remained steadfast in God’s ultimate hand in creation. As noted by Robert Koons, “Robert Boyle saw God as the direct and free establisher of the laws of motion. These laws depended solely and perfectly on his will, without any intermediaries or prior constraints.”6 Boyle knew that God, by His own nature, was not restrained to the laws of nature which He himself had created. This establishes God as the free creator of the universe. Likewise, Newton believed in God being the mastermind of a complex puzzle set before man. While many atheists may lay claim that the Scientific Revolution was a period of scientific excellence and achievement, it still remains that scientific explanations were originally Christian in nature.[7]
Criticisms on the Big Bang Model and the Biological Explanation for Conscience
From the smallest atom to our grandiose universe, everything in between is dependent upon some higher being that created it. William Craig puts forth the cosmological argument from Aquinas and Aristotle that “every existing finite thing is composed of essence and existence and is therefore radically contingent.”[8] The concept of a finite thing being contingent means that it is dependent upon something higher than itself for its existence.
For instance, a human is contingent to the biological processes in which they are produced which is by another set of opposite sexes. If we trace that connection to the first human, than the question arises of how the first human came to be. What came first – the chicken or the egg? Likewise, the universe could not have come out of nothing as if to assume that it had no beginning. Even the idea of something having a ‘beginning’ requires some form of authorship as would an ending of a story.
Let us now consider the discussion over the origins on man’s conscience. The argument that our conscience arose out of an organized set of neurological senses is immediately a silly argument. A book may contain an arbitrary set of words that convey no story at all; however, a careful author is sure to use his inspiration to write the words in such a way to give that book literary value. This is the essence of our conscience. It is what makes us unique and what makes our experiences extremely personal to us.
In contrast, organs have a specific purpose in regulating the human body. They do not have the capability of producing thoughts. This is a dangerous way of thinking in our era of AI and robotics. It implies that our conscience can be extracted like any other one of our cells. Strong advocates of AI and robotics are doing so today in hopes of achieving permanent replications of our conscience.
What they are vainly trying to touch is immortality. This scientific notion of eternity is short-lived because even if one were to create an infinite number of human copies, each version would still have uniquely different first-person experiences. Reproducing our conscience is against the laws of nature. Richard Swinburne, states, “As far as we can see, there is no law of nature stating that physical events of certain kinds will give rise to correlated mental events, and conversely, there is nothing in the nature of certain physical events or of mental events to give rise to connections.” [9] If the very laws of nature cannot explain the origins of our conscience, then we certainly cannot counteract them to produce what we cannot comprehend. This is because there is no relationship within the laws of nature nor in its relations to the physical world that could give rise to the existence of the soul.
Defense of Christianity
The Creation Account
In turning to my defense of Christianity being the superior worldview, I rely on the first book of the Bible, Genesis. In refutation of the Big Bang Model, we can consider the creation account in Genesis to be true. In Genesis 1:1, it says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”[10] The first part of that verse means that the beginning of the universe and all of human existence began through God. God works outside of time and is not subject to it. It is far more reassuring to know that God is outside of time because if God were constrained by time, then His acts would no longer be miraculous. Throughout this account, God create everything there is to be found in our universe within six days. Furthermore, God created everything with a purpose. In Genesis 1:26, “And God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea. And over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”[11] Unlike the Big Bang model, the Bible offers reasons for why things were created.
It would be a mistake for someone to read the creation account in Genesis, or any part of the Bible, as a scientific report because the Bible was not written with an empirical emphasis.[12] Genesis is a story of the beginning of mankind and creation. After God had created a part of our world, we see Him use the word, “good”. On the sixth day in Genesis 1:31, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”[13] The semantics of the words “good” and “very good” do not belong in a scientific report because those are unmeasurable values. There is no way for humans to be able to scientifically test whether something is morally good or not.
Similarly, it would be silly to read an artistic poem about a flower with an empirical attitude to measure the poem’s validity when the poem was written to describe the beauty of the flower. Rather the poem would be better read from a literary perspective. If we adopt the same paradigm towards the creation account in Genesis, we see that it is a purposeful story under which all things were created with meaning, intricately placed within a timeline, that has a beginning and an end.
The Godly Conscience
Moving through God’s creation, we can also find a defense for a Godly developed conscience. In Genesis 3:5, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”[14] Adam and Eve knew right from wrong prior to the eating of the fruit; however, the serpent’s cunning is apparent when he says to Eve that she would become ‘like God’. To be ‘like God’ and ‘made by God’ are two different attitudes towards one’s Creator. The conclusion that one can draw from Satan’s tempting remarks is that knowing right and wrong is part of the image of God. No animal knows right from wrong. They cannot be tempted as we are which shows the clearest distinction between who possesses a conscience liken to God’s.
Stinnet defines the moral conscience to be “a mode of the experience of God.”[15] Our conscience, therefore, is what makes us personably loved by God and it places a specially cherished value upon us as individuals. Our conscience further dictates whether to obey or disobey our obligations to God.
Science in Light of Christianity
Given my attempts to defend Christianity, does this mean that I believe science ought to be a forsaken field? Not necessarily. As I stated in my thesis, science has its place and to a certain extent. It should not be an authoritarian belief that trumps God or renders Scriptural accounts of creation invalid. Science is an exercise of our ability to observe, reason, and form conclusions. Used rightly, science can help us better appreciate God’s creation.
If we consider in Romans 1:20, Paul states that “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his external power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”[16] Christian scientists can glean more from God’s glory through His creation and revel in what He has and can do. God’s presence is made known to us every day!
I also encourage the reader to consider the limitations of science. Science lacks moral judgement and cannot provide a meaningful answer for why something exists.[17] Though there are other uses for science from a research perspective. Science can provide supplementary evidence to assist someone in making a good moral decision; however, what is good and bad themselves are not determined by science. For example, we know adultery to be bad, not because science says so, but because we know it to be wrong by the guilt and shame that the adulterer feels, assuming that person still has an ounce of sensitivity in their moral conscience. What empirical science can then provide are the effects that adultery can have on the victim; the damage done towards the relationship; and how the children are affected. Scientific studies on these problems can help people better understand the sin of adultery itself; but again, those studies can determine whether or not adultery itself is a sin or not.
Conclusion
In conclusion, ourselves and the world around us are a testament to the good creation of God. As humans, we have a value that God loves infinitely. So great was his love for mankind that he sent His one and only Son to die for our sins. This is the appreciative and humble stance that we should approach when reading and studying the Bible. The Bible’s reliability should not be questioned by scientific naturalists, nor should these so-called intellectuals be trusted to redefine the moral values of our society. Science was and can still be a humble endeavor to discover God’s glory, but it should never be studied so pridefully so as to build the Tower of Babel. God is the one who extends His hand of knowledge to us, meek observers, whose greatest joy is in knowing the limitations of our knowledge.
Bibliography
[1]Nemes, Steven. 2022. “A PROPERLY SCIENTIFIC NATURALISM CAN BE
COMPATIBLE WITH CLASSICAL THEISM.” Think 21 (62). Cambridge University
Press: 91–102.doi:10.1017/S147717562200015X
[2] Peters, Ted. 2017. “Naturalisms: Scientific? Religious? Theological?” Theology and Science 15 (302-320) doi: 10.1080/14746700.2017.1335059
[3] Nemes, Steven. 2022. “A PROPERLY SCIENTIFIC NATURALISM CAN BE
COMPATIBLE WITH CLASSICAL THEISM.” Think 21 (62). Cambridge University
Press: 91–102.doi:10.1017/S147717562200015X
[4] Craig, William L. 1979. “The Kalām Cosmological Argument” Wipf and Stock Publishers
[5] Reichenbach, Bruce. 2020. “Christianity, Science, and Three Phases of Being Human.” Zygon 56
[6] Koons Robert C. 2023. “Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God.” Routledge
[7] Brooke, John. 2018. “The Ambivalence of Scientific Naturalism: A Response to Mark Harris.” Zygon 53 (4) doi: 10.1111/zygo.12463
[8] Craig, William L. 1979. “The Kalām Cosmological Argument” Wipf and Stock Publishers
[9] Swineburne, Richard. 1979. “The Evolution of the Soul. Oxford University Press
[10] Nelson, Thomas. 2019. “Holy Bible.” HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc
[11] Nelson, Thomas. 2019. “Holy Bible.” HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc
[12] Woolnough, Brian E. “Science and Christianity: Friends or Foes?” Transformation 27, no. 2 (2010): 83–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43055000.
[13] Nelson. “Holy Bible.”
[14] Nelson. “Holy Bible.”
[15] Stinnett, Timothy R. 2019. “Moral Conscience and the Experience of God.” New Blackfriars 70, no. 829 (1989): 329–37. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43248414.
[16] Nelson, Thomas. 2019. “Holy Bible.” HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc
[17] Sangwa, Sixbert, and Mutabazi, Placide. 2021. “The Bible and Science: The Relationship between Science and Christianity.” Science and Philosophy (9) 1. 10.23756/sp.v9i1.596
Image Credit
The Astronomer by Johannes Vermeer, 1668