Does Science Support Atheism?
A frequent topic that arises when discussing spiritual things with non-believers is the question of the relationship between science and Christianity. It is a common assumption that science is, in some way, opposed to or contrary to Christian belief. Some may describe this by claiming that science is opposed to the Bible. On this view, if one is to be “scientific and informed,” then one cannot believe the Bible or Christianity as traditionally understood. Such a perspective characterizes the view that many non-believers have towards science and Christianity (although certainly not all non-believers share this view). At times, Christians can fall prey to a similar perspective. For some Christians, science itself carries the aroma of atheistic thinking. This results in a background assumption that science as a discipline is somehow contrary to the truthfulness of the Christian worldview. The outcome of this perspective can influence some to walk away from Christianity because they view it as conflicting with science. It is important to see that, for those who believe this, they are convinced that Christianity does not fit with reality.
The relationship between science and Christianity described above can be characterized as the “warfare model.” It says that science and the Christian worldview are “at war” with one another; they are fundamentally opposed at the worldview level. One reason why this model is presupposed by many people is that the early 2000s were dominated at the popular level by atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett who promoted such thinking. We could also mention Carl Sagan and Neil Degrasse Tyson who promoted an atheistic view of science in the Cosmos series. Many imbibed the warfare model based on the charisma and rhetoric of such figures. However, despite the popularity of this way of thinking, it is simply not true. The warfare model is a bad way to think about the relationship between science and Christianity.
Much could be said in support of the above truth. In this article, the main focus will be on establishing one part of this overall claim. Focusing on a key distinction can help to shed light on why this is true. Many fall prey to the warfare model and atheistic rhetoric regarding science because they miss the distinction between naturalism and science. Naturalism itself is a worldview, or a total account of “the way things are.” Everyone has a worldview and it serves as the lens through which we see and interpret the world and our place within it. As a worldview, naturalism claims that the only real things are physical things. This entails there is nothing supernatural and that all explanations reduce to material cause and effect. Clearly, if this was true, then God would not exist and any supernatural explanation would be an illegitimate and irrational explanation. Now, science is both a body of knowledge (there are various domains of scientific investigation) and a methodology for investigating the physical world. One way to characterize the methodology is the scientific method (generate a hypothesis based on observation, test the hypothesis with an experiment, reach a conclusion).
These clarifications of naturalism and science help us arrive at a crucial point. This is that the discipline of science does not require or entail the worldview of naturalism. When anyone practices science (or any discipline for that matter) they bring a worldview “to the table.” The important thing to see here is that this point is often lost in discussions about how science relates to Christianity. Atheistic writers and science promoters of the early 2000s spoke often of “science” and “what science shows” but these comments were undergirded by an assumption of naturalism. Such thinkers used the word “science” but often they were merely asserting the worldview of naturalism and then baptizing it with scientific language. The truth is, the origin of science (the scientific revolution) was tied to a theistic way of understanding the universe and our place within it. The founders of modern science viewed their task as using the minds God had given them to investigate the world He created. They saw no conflict between science and belief in God. If someone is going to promote the warfare model between science and Christianity, they need to deal with this significant fact about the origin of modern science.
The topic of science and Christianity is multi-faceted and there is certainly much more that needs to be said. But a crucial first step in thinking better in this area is seeing that science itself is not equal to the worldview of naturalism.