One
We have seen1 that modern science was the product of Christian scientists of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. We have also seen2 that unfortunately, by the end of the Nineteenth Century that theistic consensus had been largely supplanted by a new paradigm, best known as scientific naturalism. That shift has proven so important to the mission of the church that I set myself to understand how it could have occurred. The next several posts to this weblog will address that theme. As a sort of primer, please enjoy the following essay, my answer to an exam question from my time at Biola University in 2011, addressing that very question.
Dr. Cornelius George Hunter
Thomas O. Alderman
Historical Perspectives – Unit 2
Reading Response Question #4.
Word Count: 697
Exam Question #4: Christopher Kaiser argues that ancient and medieval Christian creational theology interacted with science in four main ways. What are the first three of those four modes of interaction (excluding the “ministry of healing”) and what difference did they make in the cultivation of science? How did the later medieval development of conceiving of God’s “two powers” set up natural philosophers to significantly depart from the original creationist tradition? How does Kaiser’s research inform your view of how science and religion have related (history) and how they should relate (a matter of philosophy and theology)?
The Rise of Naturalistic Science
The myth of the conflict between faith and reason is perpetuated almost entirely through ignorance of the time when science was conducted as the “handmaiden” of the Gospel, and of the spurious reasons why that model lost its hold on the Western mind.
Christopher Kaiser3 lays his axe to the root of the myth by showing by whom, when, and why it first germinated. The theme of the book as a whole is the multifaceted dialogue of Christianity with science between the Fourth and Twentieth Centuries. Kaiser emphasizes four topics in the dialogue:
The comprehensibility of the world: A rational God has created both a rational world and a rational humanity capable of comprehending that world.
The relative autonomy of nature: The regularities of nature stem from the physical laws which God has imposed on physical matter.
The unity of heaven and earth: The heavens are governed by the same laws as the Earth.
The ministry of healing and restoration. [Kaiser, 5.]
In all of these areas of dialogue, the biblical view was far more conducive to empirical investigation of nature than the classical view. Aristotle’s conception of the cosmos was based more on his suppositions about the divinity of the celestial objects and his assumptions about what kinds of motions would be suitable to the divine. By contrast, the biblical view invites man to investigate and see what God has actually done.
Nature is seen as comprehensible for several reasons. One, it is subject to God’s command and laws. Two, the same Logos which ordered the world is also reflected in human reason, which is ours as created in the image of God. Three, the universe is finite.
The biblical view of the unity of heaven and earth also encourages empirical investigation. The sun, moon and stars move at God’s command and in accordance with his laws. Josh 10:12; Job 9:7. And Christ is Lord over all things. Matt. 28:18; John 1:3-4.
The relative autonomy of nature, or the notion that nature was created by and governed by a rational God and hence amenable to the human rational faculty, was also rooted in scripture. Plants and animals were created to propagate after their kind, Gen. 1:11f., 21f., 24f. God governs the universe: the sun, moon, and stars (Job 38:33; Ps 104:9; the tides (Job 38:8-11); the seasons (Gen. 8:22); and the wind, rain, and lightning (Job 28:25ff.; 38:24f.; Ps. 148:8).
Unfortunately, the seeds of the unraveling of this consensus were present almost from the beginning of the Church Age. It was Augustine (354-430) who posited that God implanted “seminal” causes in nature at Creation “so as to have their effects in a predetermined sequence.” Kaiser, 41. Thus the “ordinary course of nature,” was contrasted with the power which God reserved to act contrary thereto. Thierry of Chartres (d after 1156) developed this idea further by explaining the work of the six days of Creation as the mechanical outworking of physical principles.
The Church’s uncritical stance toward non-biblical authorities led her to a slow surrender of the authority of God over His creation. The Scholastics pushed Augustine’s distinction between God’s regular power and his absolute power so as to form a separation between the natural and the supernatural. God had been seen as acting continuously to uphold the creation; now, that seemed unnecessary: He only acted when He wished to overturn the natural order of things. The relative autonomy of the cosmos was being pushed into full autonomy. Ultimately, the rationalistic spirit of the time led to the conception of nature as inherent in the elements of which it consists, and hence the notion that miracles are violations of the laws of nature (William of Conches, c. 1120).
This made science a purely rationalistic endeavor, leaving the Church with authority in matters of religious faith and morals only, and it constitutes the epistemological dichotomy which besets us today. As Stephen J. Gould has stated, “Science treats factual reality, while religion struggles with human morality.”
Even the greatest theologians of the Church are fallible, and the more influential they are, the more damage they can do. The human rational faculty is glorious, but must be exercised in reverence. Augustine also taught that wherever the truth is found, it is the Lord’s, and he taught that our understanding of scripture may inform our natural philosophy, and vice versa. But until an idea is confirmed by both the Word and the data, we should be tentative in our opinions.
1 (Exploding the Myth of Conflict Between Science and Religion, (https://joshualetter.com/2024/12/05/science-and-religion-exploding-the-myth-of-conflict/)
2 https://joshualetter.com/2024/12/27/science-and-religion-exploding-the-myth-of-conflict-4/
3 Christopher Kaiser, Creation and the History of Science, (William B. Eerdmans 1991)]
