|
By Matt Guerino|Published Date: May 17, 2010
Reversing The Curse (8)
[Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. Hebrews 1:3
Unsupervised and impersonal
Sometimes the most innocent looking statements spark huge controversies – something the National Association of Biology Teachers discovered first hand in 1995.
In an apparent attempt to settle the controversy surrounding how biology should be taught in American high schools (can only evolution be taught as the explanation for life’s origins, or is there some role for Intelligent Design in classroom instruction?), the NABT rendered what was intended to be a simple, clear, layman-friendly definition of evolution. The statement described evolution as: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, historical contingencies and changing environments.
Far from bringing finality to the debate however, this statement touched off a firestorm of controversy. At the heart of the negative reaction to the NABT definition was its second and third words, “unsupervised” and “impersonal.” The reaction to these terms was so strong that the NABT found itself reconsidering its definition two years later in the face of public pressure. After initially voting to retain the two words, they later chose to drop them from their definition of evolution, much to the chagrin of some biologists.
Little words, big meaning
Were two little words worth all the brouhaha? Was this just a case of a handful of fringe fundamentalists making much ado about nothing at best, and undermining the very practice of science itself at worst? Or is there something else going on here?
As it turns out, those two small words reflect a huge philosophical idea: that science must rule out the supernatural. One group of scientists said as much in an open letter they wrote to protest the removal of the two words. In that letter they stated that:
science is based on a fundamental assumption: that the world can be explained by referring only to natural, mechanistic forces. [Religious opponents of this idea are] quite right in affirming that this is a philosophical position. (emphasis added)
In other words, these scientists say that in order for science to work it must assume that the physical world is all there is. This belief is a worldview known as Naturalism, and it rules out the existence of God by definition.
Babies and bathwater
The Bible tells us that Jesus himself is both Creator and Sustainer of the physical universe (Colossians 1:17), and that He upholds everything by His power (Hebrews 1:3). Clearly, the picture painted by Scripture is one in which God is intimately involved in creating and continuing to sustain the physical world. So the Naturalist assumption that God is not involved in the world doesn’t fit the Bible.
However, in reacting against the assumption of Naturalism in science, Christians should be careful not to react against science itself. In some Christian circles, any idea that is based on a scientific discovery is automatically viewed with suspicion. It is seen as an example of man’s wisdom, not God’s, and is thus regarded as antithetical to the Christian life. There is sometimes a knee-jerk tendency to throw the baby of scientific inquiry out with the dirty bathwater of Naturalism, and to assume that the findings of science are incompatible with a Christian worldview.
Recovering our calling
Biblically, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, when we view life through the lens of the Bible we actually see that the sciences are part of our God-given calling. Mankind’s task – the job for which God created us – is introduced in the first chapter of the Bible:
And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion…” (Genesis 1:28).
According to Scripture our job as human beings is to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. We’re supposed to learn about this world in which God placed us so that we can exert control over it and manage it on His behalf.
The sciences are a direct outworking of this purpose. Science is the orderly, empirical investigation of the world around us. It is the quest to decipher this complex world, and to understand its inner workings. And while people have been investigating the physical world since ancient times, the scientific method we know today developed largely in the Christian-influenced West from the 16th century on. Scientists who were Christians saw such ordered investigation as one way to fulfill our mandate from Genesis 1:28.
Reversing the Curse
At its heart, the Curse described in Genesis 3 is mankind rejecting God as Maker, Sustainer, and Master. This rejection can certainly be seen when science is defined as excluding God, and Christians are right to react against this way of defining science.
But for reasons outlined above, science itself is not the problem from the Biblical vantage point. The philosophy of Naturalism is the problem. And Christians should learn to distinguish between the two. It is true, for example, that Sigmund Freud’s Naturalism has colored much of modern psychology. But does it follow that all of psychology’s findings are “man’s wisdom” which should be rejected out of hand? Or take Charles Darwin as an example, whose Naturalism has certainly tainted biology as evidenced by the open letter quoted above. But are all the findings of biological research thus to be opposed by the thinking Christian?
Actually just the opposite is true: science should be done if we are to take our Genesis 1:28 calling seriously. While Christians should oppose any view that does not give God the glory for who He is and what He’s done, at the same time we should support the ordered investigation of His world.
As a Christian, can you distinguish between the practice of science on the one hand and the commitment to philosophical Naturalism on the other? Learning to detect the difference between the two may be a good first step in seeing science and technology from a Christian point of view.
And that’s an inquiry worth pursuing.
For more insight on this topic, get Phillip Johnson s book, Darwin on Trial, from our online store. Or read the article, “Is There a War Between Science and Religion?” by Chuck Edwards.
Give us your feedback on this article.
|
