Christianity and Science

    Our term “science” comes from a Latin term, scientia, which meant “to have knowledge.”  The older, Greek term would be gnosis.  Thus, the modern professional “scientist” is, at least linguistically, being held up as the possessor of “knowledge.”  This is why we have been taught to call upon “science” whenever we want the real “truth” about something.

    The Rise of “Modern” Science - In spite of the incredible arrogance that characterizes many intellectual children of the French Enlightenment, “science” is not really a recent development.  People have seriously and studiously looked at the heavens, the earth, and earth’s lifeforms for centuries.  History records the fact that some have made detailed studies of various elements of it and passed these on.  The Babylonians were quite accomplished in the study of astronomy 4,000 years ago.^[1]  Along with evidence of extensive pharmaceuticals, the extent of Egyptian medical science 3600 years ago is demonstrated by an Egyptian document that describes the steps of medical examination and diagnosis as well as listing 48 specific surgeries.^[2]  Around 3,000 years ago, Israel’s King Solomon studied nature in great detail (1Kgs. 4:33).  The Chinese may have used the compass more than 3,000 years ago, as well as investigating numerous scientific areas.^[3]  Aside from the few sixth century B.C. Ionians who suggested a materialistic naturalism approach, many of the early Greeks, in their development of philosophy, did not eliminate the supernatural in their consideration of ultimate origins and, accordingly, did not seek to eliminate metaphysics or supernatural answers.  Without question, the foundations of most “modern” Western sciences have either been borrowed or reinvented from much earlier efforts.

     Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) both stressed that modern Western science arose, after the collapse of the Roman civilization, upon the Reformation’s Biblical-Christian world view.  This is because of the medieval insistence on the rational nature of the God of the Bible.  Rather than being the culmination of random accident and chaotic forces, the early Western European scientists assumed that the world had been created by a reasonable God and that they could confidently expect to find out things about the world by observation and experimentation.^[4]  While a good deal of the “scientific” knowledge we possess today came before the “modern” period, we usually equate the rise of modern science with people like Roger Bacon (1214-1294), Copernicus (1475-1543), Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Galileo (1564-1642), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), and Michael Faraday (1791-1867), etc.  Most, if not all, of these men were theists and, specifically, they were Christians.  Because of their theistic presuppositions, they saw no conflict between their faith in a Creator and their investigations into how nature functioned and they were interested in discovering real knowledge about how the laws of nature functioned.  Accordingly, they had no reason to make philosophical statements about the “impossibility” of divine creation or occasional intervention into the natural system, as many scientists feel they must do in the late 20th century.  This, perhaps, is the major difference between these men and many contemporary scientists - their philosophical presuppositions.

    Biblical Christianity is not hostile to traditional, empirical science.  In fact, modern Western science arose within the Christian worldview of Western Europe, because of the assumption that a rational Creator exists and, while capable of intervening in the natural order, had created the natural universe with consistent and discernible patterns that could be studied.

    The Evolution of "Science" - However, there has been a transition in worldviews in Western civilization since modern science began and this has brought with it a subtle shift in how "science" is defined and understood.  Whereas modern Western "science" began upon the assumption that a rational and consistent Creator had produced it, now "science" is portrayed by its evolutionary priesthood as being a purely "naturalistic" pursuit - With God no longer welcome as an assumed Creator or even a possible answer if the data points that direction.

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.^[5]

How did this shift occur?  Following the Reformation (1520-1648 AD), the secular and humanistic branch of the Renaissance in France developed into the French Enlightenment (1689-1789).  This was a revolt against Judeo-Christian theism that shifted back to Greco-Roman materialism and naturalism for its philosophical base.  Beginning with the foundational assumptions that (1) only the natural realm really exists, (2) everything inherently progresses from simple primitive states toward advanced complex states, and (3) knowledge comes only through human reason, a very different worldview began to develop.  Upon these assumptions, European intellectuals began to retool all of the academic disciplines, during the "Modern Era" (ca. 1800-1960), to reflect this philosophical stance.

    Working from the "evolutionary progress" scenario, Hutton and Lyell re-cast geology in terms of slow and gradual "uniformitarianism" (tiny changes accumulating over immense amounts of time), by eliminating or minimizing catastrophic events.  Charles Darwin, possibly plagiarizing a good bit of material from Wallace and Blythe, became famous for proposing a theoretical explanation for how original inanimate chemicals accidentally self-animated and then gradually transformed themselves into all of the lifeforms that came later by means of beneficial mutations and natural selection operating over immense amounts of time.  Hegel re-cast human history in terms of gradual evolutionary progress, in which the Geist (divine consciousness) developed itself within a series of human societies, empowering each to advance higher than the last and then wearing it out by being more than human society could keep up with, all the way up to the German national state.  Marx portrayed history in terms of evolutionary progress and economic/class struggles, as a progression of syntheses that were produced by the interaction of each thesis and antithesis.  The general story of history became a "survival of the fittest" scenario as each lifeform competes and gradually changes into something else: chemicals -> protozoa/bacteria -> then eventually fish -> amphibians -> reptiles -> mammals -> tree-shrews, and, finally something branching into apes and people.  Human civilization advanced gradually from ape-men living in caves to hunter-gathering, small villages and agriculture, then city-states, and finally the European nations.  Assuming these views of geology, biology, and history to be correct, men in German universities began to re-write the story of where Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible came from in terms of evolutionary development (Higher Criticism & Documentary Hypothesis), thus giving the appearance of having discredited the Biblical story as having anything to do with real history.  Freud and a number of subsequent psychologists have assumed human evolution in their appraisal of human nature and problems.

    Secular Orthodoxy & Heresy - Once you move beyond the naive belief that secular "science" is objective and truth-oriented, it is not difficult to understand the flow of what is happening.

I am, as regular readers of this column know to the point of tedium, an advocate of the position that science is not an objective, truth-directed machine, but a quintessentially human activity, affected by human passions, hopes, and cultural biases.  Cultural traditions of thought strongly influence scientific theories, often directing lines of speculation, especially (as in this case) when virtually no data exist to constrain both imagination and cultural prejudice.^[6]

When human passions, hopes, and cultural biases are involved, then it is not long before the "orthodoxy/heresy" mentality sets in and persecution begins.  Today, evolutionists control Western Education and, while talking about "truth" and open-minded investigation, they seem remarkably adamant that they do not want any serious investigation into the validity of evolution (the first article of faith is "evolution is a fact"), nor any admissions by educators that there may be some holes or problems in the theory-evidence, nor do they want any alternatives (especially anything that includes God/intelligence/ design) discussed or investigated.  In reality, modern Western  evolutionary "orthodoxy" functions increasingly like the medieval Roman Catholic church did to maintain control - monopolize education & allow only those "faithful" to be ordained into the clergy, pressure "clergy" to be faithful to the party line rather than open-minded towards the evidence and better explanations, stifle tough questions and dissent, use civil courts to maintain their control, dismiss dissent in the masses evidence of ignorance, etc.).

    We believe that every explanation of the basic questions is part evidence and part faith and reject the view that "naturalistic science" (i.e. "evolution") is based on evidence and reason alone, while asserting that Christianity is based solely on faith (defined as "belief in what is not seen" -Hebrews 11:1).  To the contrary, we urge consideration of the following:

    1. The Biblical story asserts that it is relating eyewitness testimony for some things, such as the resurrection of Jesus, that are "supernatural" (1Corinthians 15:1-8).  Why is the eyewitness testimony of over 500 people who had nothing to gain by perpetrating a fraud simply dismissed as valid historic fact, while many basic evolutionary notions are assumed true when largely lacking any observational evidence?  We believe this is because "evolutionary science" is built more on a philosophical position (nature is real, the supernatural is unreal) than true empirical "science."

    2. There are many major points of the current "orthodox" evolution story that are materialistic and naturalistic philosophical assertions based in faith alone and promoted as dogma, although never observed in nature nor duplicated under laboratory conditions to show that they are possible or probable!

A. The "Big Bang" - consider the notion that all of the matter in the universe was once compressed into the space of a proton?  Who ever observed this or reproduced it under laboratory conditions?  What evidence is there to explain where all of this matter came from?  What naturalistic force compressed it?  Why did that force suddenly "let go"?  Are there really good and sufficient "scientific" reasons why people should believe that story?  Without an Intelligent Designer, miraculous power is vested in explosions and time.

 

B. Abiogenesis - consider the notion that "life arose from non-life by naturalistic processes."  We are told to believe this as the "scientific" explanation, although the real, valid scientific work in this area by Redi, Spallanzani, Harvey, and Pasteur concluded that life does NOT arise out of inanimate matter, but comes only from pre-existing life.  Add to that the problem that no one has ever observed life arising from non-life in the natural realm nor has such ever been performed under laboratory conditions.  If intelligent scientists have not been able to intentionally manipulate inanimate chemicals into forming a living entity, then upon what "rational" basis should citizens in Western civilization be expected to believe that such happened in the distant past with NO intelligent guidance involved?  In view of these facts, it would seem more logical to believe that life on earth must have come from some pre-existing lifeform, such as a Living Creator God, than something like "given enough time, chemicals turned into people."  Of course, as long as "science" is self-limited to "naturalistic explanations only," the evolutionary story will be the only possible answer, regardless of the evidence and logic problems.

The "warm little pond" scenario was invented ad hoc to serve as a materialistic reductionist explanation of the origin of life. It is unsupported by any other evidence, and it will remain ad hoc until such evidence is found . . . . One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom, a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written.^[7]

C. Biological Transformation - while we do observe "variations" within major kinds of life, the evolutionary story advocates biological "transformation" - chemicals turn into into plant life, fish, animals, and people by naturalistic means alone.  This requires major morphological (body structure) change over time - protozoa gradually turned into fish, fish turned into amphibians, amphibians turned into reptiles, reptiles branched off into birds and mammals, finally, something like a tree-shrew turned into the great apes and human beings.  Such a grand transformation scheme asserts long chains of transitional forms as protozoa or bacteria gradually radiated out, developed new and improved organs/structures, and changed into all of the different phyla we see in the fossil record and alive today.  You would think that such a process would have left at least a few fairly well-documented trails of transitional forms in the fossil record.  However, throughout the 20th century, some of the biggest names in Western science admitted that the fossil record does not reveal anything like the gradually radiating evolutionary "tree of life" that Darwinism proposes.  In fact, the reality of the situation continues to be that there are absolutely NO fossil forms connecting the major groups of lifeforms (phyla).  In 1928, Austin Clark said,

“So we see that the fossil record, the actual history of the animal life on the earth, bears out the assumption that at its very first appearance animal life in its broader features was in essentially the same form as that in which we know it. . . Thus, so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument.  There is not the slightest evidence that any of the major groups arose from any other." ^[8]

 Paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson summarized the situation in 1971,

Possibility for such dispute exists because transitions between major grades of organization are seldom well recorded by fossils.  There is in this respect a tendency toward systematic deficiency in the record of the history of life.  It is thus possible to claim that such transitions are not recorded because they did not exist. . . Transitional types are not invariably lacking in the record.  A multitude of them are known between species, many between genera, a few between classes, but none, it is true, between phyla. ^[9]

Biologist and geologist Stephen Jay Gould made some painfully honest comments about the situation in one of his 1977 articles,

Contrary to popular myths, Darwin and Lyell were not the heroes of true science .... Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument.  We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study. . . . The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.  The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. . . Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. ^[10]

    And the suggested mechanism driving this alleged grand transformation process leaves much to be desired - mutation and natural selection.  A mutation is a mistake in gene replication and these are very rare and almost always harmful (some would deny any "beneficial" mutations).  Even allowing for the possibility, a beneficial mutation is extremely unlikely, yet consider the billions of beneficial mutations that would be required to accumulate in each line of descent to turn protozoa/bacteria into all of the major lifeforms that have existed on this earth - the thought is staggering and when mathematicians tried to calculate the odds of such happening from known mutation rates, their findings were that Darwinism was statistically impossible in the timeframe evolutionists suggest.  The other part of the alleged mechanism, natural selection, asserts that nature selects the "most fit" to propagate the species and thus will honor those individuals with the best characteristics.  It was hoped that mutation would provide these "improved & new" structures, but "beneficial mutations" are very rare (at best) and natural selection can only select what genetics provides, not learned behavior external to genetic information.  Thus, "mutation & natural selection" turns out to be a very dubious (if not doubtful) mechanism for turning chemicals into chemists and one wonders what element makes this highly unlikely story credible for those who embrace it.

 

    All people are capable of being indoctrinated - the only thing that changes is the story and the religion/philosophy/priesthood in charge of the catechism.  Westerners believe in evolution because most of them have, simply, been taught to believe it ("its a fact"/ "all intelligent, educated, and rational people believe it" / "all scientists believe it" / the Bible is a discredited collection of myths" / blah, blah, blah).  Since the French Enlightenment, Westerners have been taught to believe in "nature-only" + progress + human reason only," so some kind of natural development scheme is assumed to be true "by faith."

 

    Evolution's "Miraculous" Element - Second, evolutionists have their own "miraculous" element that overshadows the problems that would otherwise trouble them.  Evolutionists love to portray creationists as ignorant dolts who simply add an imaginary "God" to their story to make it believable.  However, evolutionists have a miraculous element that they paint over the whole scenario to make it credible - time!  Let me explain.  If I walked in front of a college biology class and suggested that I (sorry, I realize this story involves adding an intelligent manipulator to the allegedly unguided evolutionary process) could mix the right chemicals into water and produce a living human being in 4 seconds, I would be laughed out of the room (with good reason).  The same reaction would follow my claims that such could happen in 4 minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, and millennia.  However, because students have been taught to believe that life began "3.8 billion years ago," suddenly the laughing ends and the story becomes believable when I suggest 4 billion years.  Why?  Because "immense time" is the magical/miraculous element that makes the unbelievable into the inevitable in the minds of those so taught.  Stephen Jay Gould wrote, concerning what he was taught,

In Walds view, the spontaneous origin of life was a virtually inevitable consequence of the earths atmosphere and crust, and of its favorable size and position in the solar system.  Still, life is so staggeringly complex that its origin from simple chemicals must have consumed an immense amount of time -- probably more time than its entire subsequent evolution from DNA molecule to advanced beetles (or whatever you choose to place atop the subjective ladder).  Thousands of steps, each requiring the one before; each improbable in itself.  Only the immensity of time guaranteed the result, for time converts the improbable to the inevitable -- give me a million years and I'll flip a hundred heads in a row more than once.  Wald wrote in 1954: Time is in fact the hero of the plot.  The time with which we have to deal is the order of two billion years...Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain.  One has only to wait:  time itself performs the miracles.  This orthodox view congealed without the benefit of any direct data from paleontology to test it . . . ^[11]

    Evolution has a Credibility Problem - Christians do not oppose valid, traditional empirical science - I know of none who believe that the world is flat or oppose atomic theory, principles of chemistry, aeronautical design, gravity, etc.   What they do object to is the gradual redefinition of "science" from neutral empiricism to a philosophical system that dogmatically presupposes materialism & naturalism and predetermines that "evolutionary progress" is the only paradigm allowed in the academic and public realm for explaining the hard evidence that actually exists and the meaning of human life.  Evidence that does not fit well with the evolutionary story tends to be manhandled or ignored, while many of the early "evidences" used to establish and promote evolution as "true" have turned out to be over-statements, misinterpretations, or outright frauds (Haeckel's embryo drawings, Piltdown and Nebraska "Man," the Kelvin-Zallinger chart of human evolution, etc.).  It can be documented that people with good academic credentials have found themselves unemployed or fighting for their jobs for nothing more than admitting to their students, in their writings, or just casual comments that there are some unanswered questions and problems with the evolutionary story.  This sounds more like how an orthodox religion operates to maintain its control over the minds of people than how "science" is supposed to operate!

    Misrepresenting Genesis - The rebirth of the old Greek evolutionary story in modern Western civilization was the outgrowth of the French Enlightenment and, to establish this story as "the truth," many erroneous notions about the Bible and ancient world were put forth - ancient cities in Genesis 10 never existed, Moses could not have written Genesis - Deuteronomy because there were no written languages in 1500 B.C., the Bible writers were ignorant or devious deceivers, Genesis is full of borrowed ancient Middle Eastern myths, etc.).  As I began to do my research, I found that many of these assertions about Genesis and the ancient world were false, as were a number of the "proofs" that I had learned in support of evolution.  That caused me to decide to re-think this whole matter.  In time, I left the evolutionary faith of my youth and embraced the Bible as a more accurate story of our origins, purpose, and destiny.

    Anyone who is really interested in "Truth" should spend some time re-considering the Biblical story in Genesis and its evidences, as well as the evidences and issues surrounding ancient history, the philosophical foundations of materialism, naturalism, and the French enlightenment's agenda for reinterpreting Western thought, and many more things.  Just keep your "thinking cap" and "baloney-detector" on and don't be afraid to "think outside the box" of evolutionary assumption - there are a number of anomalies that ought to raise questions (if not doubts!) about the whole evolutionary story. 

Endnotes:

     [5] Richard C. Lewontin, Billions and Billions of Demons, published in The New York Review of Books (January 9, 1997),  a review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Random House), by Carl Sagan.

     [6] Stephen Jay Gould, "An Early Start," Natural History, Vol LXXXVII (February 1978), pp. 10-22.

     ^[7] Hubert P. Yockey, "A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory," Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 67, 1977, p. 398.

     ^[8] Austin H. Clark, Quarterly Review of Biology (December 1928), p. 539.

     ^[9] George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967 / Bantom Paperback edition, 1971). pp. 209,210.

     ^[10] Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. LXXXVI (May 1977), p. 12,14.

     ^[11] Stephen Jay Gould, "An Early Start" Natural History (February 1978).  pp. 10-21; in his regular column "This View of Life."

A Ministry of Severn Christian Church (Severn, Maryland)

Unless otherwise noted, all material produced by Charles E. McCoy

All Scripture citations/quotations from New American Standard Bible

To send a question to Chuck: chuck@severnchristian.org