Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Jesus Creed

Home
Evangelical
Investigating the Unnatural – Is Science the Religion of the 21st Century? (RJS)

Investigating the Unnatural – Is Science the Religion of the 21st Century? (RJS)

Last updated on: October 4, 2011 at 9:27 pm by RJS

Investigating the Unnatural – Is Science the Religion of the 21st Century? (RJS) 2011-10-04T21:27:38-05:00 RJS

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Justin Topp on his blog A biologist’s view of science & religion has just recently cleared his google reader and posted a Not so Weekly Links Update. There are many good links here on science, religion, or science and religion. One in particular caught my notice. This post on Naturalism and Investigating the Unnatural is found on a blog written by John Wilkins, an agnostic and a philosopher of science. It refers to and comments on an online exchange between two philosophers on the New York Times site, What is Naturalism by Timothy Williamson and Why I am a Naturalist by Alex Rosenberg. Timothy Williamson has since come back with a third post On Ducking Challenges to Naturalism. Three philosophers shouldn’t have the last word on science, naturalism, and religion, however. Yet another article also crossed my path this week Does God Exist by Alan Lightman. Lightman is a physicist and novelist, currently an adjunct professor of humanities, creative Writing, physics at MIT (faculty page), a rather interesting mix.

These four essays all explore different aspects of the relationship between science, naturalism, and faith. None of the four authors profess to any religious belief. John Wilkins and Timothy Williamson are agnostic (because one cannot know for sure) or atheist. Alex Rosenberg is unreservedly a naturalist – as the title to his essay makes clear. Alan Lightman is also an atheist although his stance is somewhat less rigid than Rosenberg’s.

Lightman starts his essay by reflecting on religion and why religion always seems to come up in discussion – even among those who profess no faith, who come together in a thoroughly secular environment to discuss things like science and art.

What continues to astonish me is the frequency with which religion slips into the room, unbidden but persistent. One member of our group, playwright and director Alan Brody, offers this explanation: “Theater has always been about religion. I am talking about the beliefs that we live by. And science is the religion of the twenty-first century.”

But if science is the religion of the 21st century, why do we still seriously discuss heaven and hell, life after death, and the manifestations of God?

This is an interesting observation. Science – naturalism and the expectation of natural explanation for anything and everything – is the underlying premise of much of modern life, and is certainly the underlying philosophy taught in our colleges and universities. It is in the air and the water, assumed in almost every discussion and premise, whether explicit or implicit. I wonder though, if this is general experience or limited to academics.

Is science the religion of the 21st century?

If so how does this impact your life or your mission?

How does this environment of naturalism impact the gospel today?

There are a number of interesting points we could take up from these four essays, and I’ll touch on several of them over the course of a series of posts, but I would like to start today with the concept of naturalism. First Wilkins’s definition of naturalism.

Naturalism is a project: It aims to try to explain all things, including mental activities and experiences, origins of living things, ethics, and so forth … by natural processes which are nomologically constrained.

I’ve included a link for those who, like me, don’t find “nomological” to be a word in their everyday vocabulary. It is the right word here though because it describes the essence of the approach. Naturalism is an approach to the investigation of the world around us that assumes that there is rhyme and reason, cause and effect in the world. We can put together the pieces in a way that makes sense. The scientific approach to knowledge and knowing, the underpinning principles of much of the present academic exercise, is that natural events are explicable by natural processes and by discoverable laws of nature.

Alan Lightman refers to this as the Central Doctrine of Science:

The first step in this journey is to state what I will call the Central Doctrine of science: All properties and events in the physical universe are governed by laws, and those laws are true at every time and place in the universe. Although scientists do not talk explicitly about this doctrine, and my doctoral thesis advisor never mentioned it once to his graduate students, the Central Doctrine is the invisible oxygen that scientists breathe. We do not, of course, know all the fundamental laws at the present time. But most scientists believe that a complete set of such laws exists and, in principle, is discoverable by human beings, just as 19th-century explorers believed in the North Pole although no one had yet reached it.

The scientific project, whether searching for an explanation for superluminal neutrino’s (either observational error or some new facet of physics) or an explanation for the origin of the universe, the diversity of species, and the origin of life operates under the assumption that there is some natural string of cause and event that gives rise to the reality we observe around us. Science can take no other approach.

This doesn’t mean, however, that scientific knowledge is the only kind of true knowledge. Dr. Williamson tries to make this point in his essays in the New York Times. He points to mathematical knowledge, historical knowledge, and literary criticism as places where there is a kind of knowledge that is not scientific knowledge and calls into question “pure” naturalism as the sole source of knowledge. Dr. Lightman also points out that the Central Doctrine of science is itself an assumption, it cannot be proven.

However we look at it naturalism, the assumption of natural explanation, and the consequences raised by this view is a prevailing and growing view in the 21st century. Naturalism formulates and forms the stories we tell about ourselves and our lives. In this sense it is the 21st century religion.

Naturalism and the Gospel. Scot has a post up today on the Gospel, a discussion of a central premise in his book, The King Jesus Gospel. The gospel is the story of God’s work in the world. Jesus is the culmination of the Old Testament story of Israel and the work of God. We need this book and we need the kind of radical recovery of the story gospel because nothing else will fly in today’s world. People who are embedded in the naturalism and humanism of western civilization are not going to be sold on a need for salvation and escape from hell. The story is what we have to sell – and it is the only thing we have to sell. God’s work in the world is the gospel and is what frames our hope for the future.

What do you think?

How do you understand naturalism? Is it an underlying feature of your view of the world?

How does this impact our understanding and presentation of the gospel?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Science and Faith

Naturalism

Previous Post

October 4, 2011

The Gospel Today

Next Post

October 4, 2011 No Child Left Behind (behind us?)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

To what place did Jacob flee after stealing his brother's blessing?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Haran Egypt Nineveh Bethel