Does Science Equal Atheism?

Faith & Science Conversation
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Our understanding of the physical world has improved greatly, so what is believably true on such matters can now be examined and tested. My comment was to point out that the great theologians were inclined to accept the thinking of natural philosophers (nowadays science) within a context which was, and is, theologically sound and robust. When natural philosophers were shown to be in error, this did not cause the great theological teachings to be wrong - the context has always been that we humans study nature. Theology however, considers the teachings of Christ and the Apostles.

I am suggesting error is introduced when mistaken beliefs from natural philosophy are attributed to accepted theology - in most cases, a heretical theology is behind such errors.

The Christian faith has always tried to accept the best scientific and philosophical thinking of the time - and this was at times erroneous. Problems and complexity have resulted when natural philosophy was conflated with orthodox theology, or worse, novel theology was constructed to appear scientific at that time.

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Side-stepping the matter of what is or is not a pro-Biologos position, and speaking mostly from a historical viewpoint, a policy that has science dictating to theology when there is a conflict (as in an apparent conflict between the Bible and current science) is not necessarily wise in the short or long terms (although some New Atheists would of course like to drive home an extreme form of this point).

Already in the early Medieval world Augustine in his De Genesi ad litteram (On Genesis literally interpreted), Book I, chapter 18, was aware that developments in knowledge should make us cautious about being overly dogmatic in the interpretation of obscure parts of Scripture:

In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.

Although Augustine doesn’t mention natural philosophical (scientific) knowledge in this statement directly, in the very next chapter he speaks about astronomical knowledge. So, what would happen if a Christian interpreted a text in the Bible dogmatically on the basis of then current science and that science later fell out of favour? Well, the interpretation would look premature or even foolish.

The most relevant example is in the transition from geocentric to heliocentric astronomy. The early Church Fathers interpreted texts in the Bible that described astronomical events or appearances in a geocentric manner partly because of the pyschological realism of phenomenalistic geocentrism (still a factor for us today) but also partly because it was the science of the day (Aristotelian and Ptolemaic astronomy). A too close adherence to the teachings of the Church Fathers on astronomical phenomena in the Bible, which was coloured by an astronomy that was being overturned by Copernicanism, is one of the backdrops of the Galileo Affair. Thus Christians ended up fighting over different schools of scientific thought.

Another example: does Genesis 1 teach the fixity of species? This hinges on the interpretation of the Hebrew word min, commonly translated ‘kind’. In short, what does min mean? Does it refer to a fixed and unchanging species? The dominance of Aristotelian teaching on the fixity of species helped make it seem like Genesis 1 was speaking in those terms. In fact, min in Genesis 1 is not being used in any precise scientific sense (not possible in any case, as science did not then exist), but rather likely just refers to the easily observable fact that cows give birth to cows, sheep to sheep, goats to goats and so on–something any ancient herdsman knew empirically by experience. Interestingly enough, even some Young Earth Creationists recognise this and thus don’t hold to the fixity of species (albeit still within certain limits). See:

Yet one more example: what about the Big Bang and the interpretation of Genesis 1:3? Does “Let there be light!” refer to the Big Bang, which is current scientific orthodoxy? This is a common Christian interpretation. But what if the Big Bang fell out of favour in science? This is perhaps not likely in the immediate future, but it is not impossible as some pressure has been put on it in recent years. Would Genesis 1:3 still refer to the Big Bang? Or would the interpretation, used in some cases with the intention of bolstering faith, look foolish and bring discredit to Christianity?

So the lessons from history for a Christian interpreter may be that while the Two Books are in harmony since they are both from God, it may be wise to maintain an arm’s length relationship with science when interpreting the Bible precisely because we know that science goes through revolutions. The believer, however, will hold that the central features of the faith do not change. A phenomenalistic approach to interpreting passages that may impinge on modern scientific ideas, especially when interpreted literally, is much more likely to stand the test of time. And here another Augustinian point is apposite: the Bible is not a science textbook. Once this is recognised there is less need to impose science on its interpretation.

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@Steve_Snobelen

  1. The believer should hold that central features of the Faith do not change! The problem is when the believer thinks he is absolutely sure what those “central features” are supposed to be.

  2. If the recurring theme in BioLogos literature is that Biblical text should be “alive” to interpretation based on what a “Reasonable Man” should think about when facing a conflict between what the real time observations of the natural world tell him, and what his “church elders” tell him . . . then, obviously, there is going to be some give and take with each generation.

  3. Your comment that the Bible is not a science textbook is singing to the choir, yes? The problem is that we cannot easily persuade Creationists of this. They believe it is the “Summa” of God’s creation - - including any science that humans would be so bold as to think is important.

If I had to choose between the current dilemma with Creationists, versus the alleged problem that each generation may have to re-adjust its faith corollaries from time to time, obviously I would choose the latter situation.

You seem to think that this would be a bad thing; but it is inherent to the task of matching up one’s faith today to what the believer sees all around him today. I do not think it is unpardonable for one generation to think one way about nature, and then yet another way in the next generation, based on the latest findings and observations of the real world.

Otherwise, you are asking all generations to just “accept” legacy interpretations of the Bible, regardless of what observations of nature tell us.

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At the very least, a Lutheran (and, more generally, a Christian) can appreciate it :wink: I recently read an article by Richard Bauckham (“What is truth?” in The Bible in the Contemporary World) which ended on a note worth sharing:

So just as witness to the truth of Jesus cannot be pursued by coercion and violence, so also it cannot be furthered by minds arrogantly or even fearfully closed to whatever truth there may be to be known.

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To the author: very nice article. … and good to know that old Dawkins is seeing that following Jesus is maybe not so bad, at least when you consider some of the alternatives. As with one of the comments, I was also a little lost on the notion of “complexity”, but you explain it in the comments at least.

Does science = atheism? … well, writing it this way, I would say “no”.

However, we should actually be clear what exactly we mean by science. Is it merely the body of facts, publications and experimental techniques with all the theory, models and mechanisms we have developed up to now? Is it everything science was, is and ever will be?

Even on the “what is” case, I think there are problems. For example, dark matter and dark energy. It is something that is inferred from astronomy, yet it cannot be measured. … sound a bit like God? Of course, inference is more than nothing, and tomorrow they may find some way to measure it. Nevertheless, presently, aside from some peculiarity in the behavior of large celestial bodies, which might be because we just don’t quite understand gravity as well as we think, we can only say that this might be the interpretation. Then there is the notion that the universe simply popped into existence. Whereas I can entertain the notion of virtual particles on atomic scales, it is quite a heavy hand wave to take it to the level “univeralism” (said in jest, since I reckon the new atheist version would be a salvation lite version).

At any rate, the point here is that we Christian thinkers are in many respects just taking that “reaching” even further in thinking about heaven and earth. There is no reason why we should think that the only things that exist are what we can measure. I suspect that there are many things we don’t know and may in fact never know – at least this side of eternity. If new atheists feel free to speculate about their (salvation free version of) “universalism”, for which there is zero proof, and it is hardly “measurable” by the very precious rules they insist that we believers adhere to, then it is also not outside our purview as scientists (who follow this faith) to contemplate what we can say of God and what we can measure of heaven (if anything).

Personally, I think we can say little of heaven, and it is probably good. We have at least two people in the world who have access to a button. Think what could happen if they had the bigger toys of heaven to play with. Then is it any wonder why God put an angel at the gate of the garden to keep us out – to be read metaphorically.

So, with these provisos, then let’s just suppose, for sake of argument, that we discover that there is some faint channel through which we can communicate with an angel (we should actually define how we would know, but just suppose we can know that is what is happening). We did not know that before, we know it now. Frankly, I would call that science. Of course, there are problems on the heaven side of this, because we are supposed to have faith, and if we have this channel, then this is simply fact.

Although I would say that science generally works best when we think about models and mechanism and don’t try to spend time thinking about heaven does its business in the world, I would say that new atheism, because it insists on the view that only material exists, insists that God must be “measured” (like a test animal), and does not acknowledge that there may be many things out there (good or evil) that we simply know nothing about and our pathetic instrumentation may never observe, I would say that they are doing only a subset of what science actually is. Regardless what these many things are, and how poorly we may perceive them, and whether they are good or evil, the humble switch should always be left in the “on” position. This includes dictating how science is done and who is or is not a scientist.

Therefore, the answer is no; atheism ~= science

by Grace we proceed.

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“Does Science Equal Atheism?”

No. Science is a composite of Belief and Observation while Atheism is a Belief like many others: Philosophy, Religion, and Science – NonLin