Critical Thoughts about Belief in God and Modern Science…

Last updated on: January 13, 2016 at 8:54 am by Roger E. Olson

Critical Thoughts about Belief in God and Modern Science… 2016-01-13T08:54:08-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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.

Critical Thoughts about Belief in God and Modern Science (Using a Case Study: James Burke’s The Day the Universe Changed: Science Revises the Heavens)

James Burke is a British journalist famous for making films and writing books about intellectual history for the masses. He has a unique way of presenting complex subjects about culture—philosophy, the arts, religion, politics, science—in entertaining ways. For years I have used his documentary film series “The Day the Universe Changed” in classes—to illustrate cultural revolutions to which Christian theology has responded. The series has recently been re-released on DVD with enhanced visual and audio features. It is well worth watching—but with a somewhat critical eye.

When I teach about modern theology I begin (as does my book The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction) with the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century (briefly mentioning its roots in Ockham and his “razor”). I write and talk about Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. Burke, in his episode “Science Revises the Heavens: Infinitely Reasonable,” covers much of the same ground but includes Kepler, Boscovitch, and other early figures in the scientific revolution. It’s a delightful episode. To illustrate his points about the rise of modern science Burke rides a bicycle, rides a roller coaster, and does many other things. Many of the scenes of his mini-lectures are “on location”—where great scientific discoveries were made.

Burke makes some mistakes along the way in this fascinating narrative. (I speak of both the entire series and the specific episode mentioned above.) Most of them are fairly minor and understandable as Burke is neither a scientist nor a theologian. Most of them are not worthy of criticism even if they call for correction (should he ever revise the series or the companion print volume by the same name).

However, at the very end of “Science Revises the Heavens: Infinitely Reasonable,” about the rise of modern science, the first “scientific revolution,” he makes a glaring mistake, one that cannot be forgiven or passed over without critical comment. During the last segment of the documentary Burke rides a huge roller coaster and other rides at an amusement park (I’m not sure where but somewhere in Europe) and talks, as he rides, about Newton’s and other early scientists’ discoveries of the laws of nature—especially (but not only) gravity. As always, he presents this as “the day the universe changed”—meaning that these discoveries shook the world and shaped modern culture in ways that cannot be unshaken or unshaped. It is clear that he is personally enamored with this subject—the discovery of the laws of nature that govern everything and make the universe predictable and modern progress possible.

At the very end of the episode, however, Burke is speaking about the meaning of it all while walking around Empress Maria Teresa’s palace library in Vienna—where scientist Roger Boscovitch, Jesuit priest and astronomer, used Newton’s laws of nature and mathematics to predict that Haley’s comet would be late arriving in the solar system.

Then Burke stands at a window of the palace, overlooking nightfall in Vienna, and says (paraphrasing) that all this (viz., the scientific revolution) means that “There is no one ‘out there’ to care” (he points upward toward the sky) and that “We are on our own” in the universe—“Just a cog in the vast machine” of the universe. In other words, so he implies, the scientific revolution disproved God.

Now that irritates me. Imagine the thousands upon thousands of young, impressionable minds (and perhaps old gullible minds) who watched that episode either in school or on public television (the series was shown first on PBS in 1985) and thought atheism is the only option if you want to believe in science.

As I tell my students: First, Burke ignores the fact that both Kepler and Newton described their projects in physics as “Thinking God’s thoughts after him.” In other words, they (and many later scientists and theologians) simply regarded the discoveries of modern physics as the discovery of a function of God’s general providence of the universe. Nowhere, that I have heard or read, did Burke even mention that Newton, for example, saw no conflict between his discoveries and the Bible. Nor did Galileo who, in his “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina,” laid out a method for handling apparent conflicts between the Bible and science. To be sure, these Enlightenment thinkers recognized conflicts between their discoveries and some traditional interpretations of the Bible! Nobody doubts or questions that. And they recognized conflicts between what they were discovering and some teachings of the Catholic Church as it was then. But most, if not all of them considered themselves believers in a personal creator God—even if they were not orthodox Christians. (Newton, for example, probably did not believe in the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.)

One has to wonder about Burke’s motives for concluding the episode that way. Why would he do that? Nothing about modern science itself, as opposed to scientism/naturalism (a philosophy, not part of science), disproves God or demonstrates conclusively that we are “on our own” and “there is no one out there to care.”

Once I point out to watching students the gigantic leap of thought Burke makes—from the discovery of natural laws to atheism—most of them are aghast at the propagandistic sleight of hand (or sleight of thought) Burke has made in front of them—magically leaping from Newton to atheism.

Burke is not the only culprit in this misuse of modern science to establish atheism. Other, even better known names, could be mentioned as equally guilty. The “upshot” of it all is total confusion on both sides—many budding young science majors concluding that science and atheism are inextricably linked and many conservative Christians concluding that science is the natural enemy of faith. Burke isn’t the originator of this confusion; he simply picks it up and makes it seem inevitable and palatable.

In my opinion, however, for what it’s worth, I think that kind of misrepresentation, so common in intellectual culture (but that “trickles down” to the masses) is simply dishonest. At the very least people like Burke and other popularizers and writers/speakers about this subject ought—for the sake of intellectual honesty—say that Galileo, Kepler and Newton did not regard their discoveries as undermining belief in God. At the very least they are obligated by intellectual honesty to say, somewhere in their presentation, that these men of the scientific revolution thought and said that their projects amounted to “thinking God’s thoughts after him.”

Uncategorized

Previous Post

January 10, 2016

Reflections on the Bill Gothard Phenomenom and Scandal...

Next Post

January 15, 2016 Narrative Theology Explained

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Against Liberal Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 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

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In Revelation, what is the correct sequence of events in the End Times?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Dragon cast to earth, beast rises from sea, false prophet rises from earth, mark of the beast given False prophet rises, dragon cast to earth, beast rises from sea, mark of the beast given Mark of the beast given, dragon cast to earth, beast rises, false prophet rises Beast rises from sea, dragon cast to earth, mark of the beast given, false prophet rises