history – Joshualetter

On the Origins of Scientific Naturalism

Part Two

As further background to my forthcoming study of our topic, please consider also the following essay, written in response to an examination question during my 2011 sojourn at Biola University.

Dr. Cornelius George Hunter

Historical Perspectives

Thomas Alderman

Unit 4 Reading Response

Question #4

Word Count: 698

Question #4: Leibniz’s theology mandates a non-intervening creator, for god is all the greater if his world operates autonomously. How does this “greater god” theology support theological naturalism? What are the other three theological arguments, identified in pp. 19-33 of Science’s Blind Spot, that support theological naturalism? How do they support theological naturalism? Did Charles Darwin reason from theological naturalism in arguing for his theory of evolution? Historian Alan Charles Kors writes that 18th century French atheism arose from “within the deeply Christian learned culture.” Can this also be said of theological naturalism and Darwin’s theory of evolution? Is theological naturalism biblically orthodox? Most models of the relationship between Christianity and science treat Christianity with a broad brush, and do not substantially discern variations, and biblically orthodox versus unorthodox influences. Consequently, the unorthodox influences have typically been under appreciated or gone unnoticed. Do we need a new model that acknowledges unorthodox influences? Is it true that after the 17th century, theology no longer was influential in science?

Response: Scientific Naturalism

Naturalism is the view that nature is one interlocking system of physical (i.e., impersonal) causation. It comes in two forms: “strong” (atheistic) naturalism, which posits that only matter exists; and weak (deistic) naturalism, which holds that if God exists, his existence and activities are not scientifically detectable and therefore not the concern of science.

A majority of scientists today, especially in the field of biology, are naturalists; of those, the vast majority are deists, few of whom can guess the genealogy of the idea. It arose in the late Seventeenth Century with the supplanting of Aristotelian physics by atomistic mechanical philosophy. It became part of the anti-clerical agenda of the so-called Age of Reason of the Eighteenth Century, and for further spurious reasons became nearly synonymous with science.

Most, or nearly all, of the arguments for naturalism were theological (hence, “theological naturalism”). Certain assumptions were made concerning the nature of God which were inconsistent with His continuing involvement in nature. Many could be characterized as variations on the theme of God’s perfection: since God is perfect, He must have created a perfect universe.

Further assumptions were then made concerning what a perfect universe would look like. As Immanuel Kant (1754-1804) put it, God is wise; therefore, Creation should reflect that wisdom by being beautiful, perfect, and harmonious. As others put it, there is nobility and perfection in regularity and order; God’s immutability implies a natural order which operates autonomously; and ultimately, God would not create a universe which required any adjustment – by miracle, for instance.

In each case, naturalistic philosophers began with a conception of God. It was not the biblical God – in both the Old and New Testaments, God is revealed as acting in history in many ways, both by miracle and by providence. Prophecies have been fulfilled, and God’s fingerprints – or rather, His very signature – are everywhere in nature. Romans 1:20.

Indeed, God is perfect; however, He is not accountable to human reasoning: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.” Isaiah 55:8. The point, however, is not that the naturalists of the Seventeenth Century were not Christian; the point is that they were theists, and their naturalism was a consequence of their theology.

In any event, the God of the naturalists became undetectable to science; for if God is not involved with nature, there is no activity to detect. Neither can a spirit, or an immaterial God, be physically detected – or so it is assumed.

Science has no difficulty detecting the personal, however: human agency is identified routinely in archeology and forensic science. The criteria for identifying design – when the putative agent is a human person – are simple, straightforward, and metaphysically neutral. The same criteria, applied to “natural” phenomena, lead in the same way to the same kind of conclusion: natural phenomena result from the activity of an intelligent, or personal, agent. But science is not permitted to follow that evidence where it leads, because, so they say, to posit a divine person is not science at all. Why is it not science? Because science (again, so they say) has to do with the discovery of naturalistic – which is to say, mechanistic, impersonal – explanations for natural phenomena. Why is that? They do not say. And again, most of them do not know.

There was another notable argument against God’s direct involvement with nature, based on the need to explain how evil can exist in a world created by a loving, omnipotent God. It can exist, it was said, because nature is autonomous from God.

The autonomy of nature was central to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. A naturalistic theory for life was necessary in order to exculpate God from natural evil. Said Darwin,

I cannot see . . . evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae [the parasitic wasp] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars. . . .”

To Darwin it was impossible that God would make a world in which there was so much inefficiency and waste. By 1859 he found theological naturalism ready to hand, and he made the best use of it he could.

On the Origins of Scientific Naturalism

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)]

Person of the Century

On X today, February 2, 2026, Charles Krauthammer nominates Winston Churchill for Person of the Twentieth Century. I concur.

For Christmas a few years ago my daughter-in-law gave me Andrew Roberts’ Churchill biography. I thanked her as follows.

March 7, 2020

Dear Mary,

I just finished Andrew Roberts’ Churchill and I want to say again, thanks!

It was quite a few years ago that I first realized how indebted we are to “the Greatest Generation,” and I have since then had a heightened interest in the history of the 50-year period prior to my birth in 1949. One of my regrets is that I did not quiz my parents more closely about their experiences.

But now I realize for the first time the extent to which we owe our freedom and prosperity to one man.

Roberts concludes by saying (p 975) that if Hitler had delayed the Anschluss [the annexation of Austria] and Czech crises for a few years, Churchill’s moment would have passed. Halifax would have become Prime Minister, and he would have sought, quite reasonably, to discover Hitler’s terms of peace. Those terms might not have been very onerous, since all Hitler needed at that moment was a single front. Churchill saw that if the Soviets were alone, they would more likely face defeat; whereupon there would be nothing to prevent Hitler from disavowing the settlement with England, who in turn, then, would also have been alone. Then it would have been too late for the US to re-arm.

Churchill maintained that it was the British people who had the lion heart, and that he merely “had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.” Roberts denies that: “[I]t was much more the case that Churchill had the lion heart and also gave the roar, and in so doing taught the British people to rediscover the latent lionheartedness in themselves.” (p 980.)

Whether one believes in Providence, as I do, we can only regard these things with gratitude and awe.

By the way, thanks, too, for the WhatsApp call the other day for Leona to chat with us. So great to see her walking and flourishing as she is clearly doing in every way. Thanks for thinking of us.

Love,

Tom