What Does Nature Teach Us about God?

Kirsten R. Birkett, D. A. Carson

• Editorial: Lexham Press
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781683595106
• Categoría: Theologie & Religion
• Categoría: Christliche Theologie

Embrace science and keep your faith.

For many, God has been banished from scientific inquiry. Only natural forces are at work in our world. Science succeeds without the supernatural. But can everything be explained by natural causes?

In What Does Nature Teach Us about God?, Kirsten Birkett rethinks the relation between nature, science, and faith. God and science are not simply two rival answers to your questions. The Creator makes sense of the creation. Science is only truly possible with God. You can engage with science without losing sight of your Creator.

The Questions for Restless Minds series applies God's word to today's issues. Each short book faces tough questions honestly and clearly, so you can think wisely, act with conviction, and become more like Christ.

1

INTRODUCTION

“You,” your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.… A modern neurobiologist sees no need for the religious concept of a soul to explain the behavior of humans and other animals.1

I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.2

Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.3

I am a secular humanist. I think existence is what we make of it as individuals. There is no guarantee of life after death, and heaven and hell are what we created for ourselves, on this planet. There is no other home. Humanity originated here by evolution from lower forms over millions of years. And yes, I will speak plain, our ancestors were apelike animals. The human species has adapted physically and mentally to life on Earth and no place else. Ethics is the code of behavior we share on the basis of reason, law, honor, and an inborn sense of decency.4

One of the most common beliefs currently expounded in public literature is naturalism. Naturalism is a belief that only natural laws and forces work in the world. The supernatural (anything beyond the natural world, whether spiritual, magical or otherwise) does not exist. The physical universe is all that exists. Moreover, the only way to explain anything within the universe is in terms of entirely natural events and forces within the universe.5

Other terms that overlap with naturalism include materialism (the view that there is only matter, not souls, spirits, or deities) and atheism (the view that there is no God). Naturalism is not a new view. Indeed, some ancient Greek writings contain theories that matter is all that exists. Nonetheless, until very recently in history, it was a view that had very little widespread popularity. It is only in the last century or so that there has been a dramatic shift in public discourse, so that in most of the Western world today public literature generally assumes naturalism rather than otherwise. It is an even more recent phenomenon that atheism is fought for with a thoroughly religious fervor.6

Defenders of naturalism generally point to the successes of science to back up their worldview. Naturalism also assumes that the successes of science will eventually be absolute, that given enough time and effort, humans will be able to discover essentially everything about how the universe works. We are promised that in the near future there will probably be a Theory of Everything—not, despite its name, actually a theory of everything, but at least a theory that unifies all the fundamental forces of the universe. It is a grand claim, and the fact that such success in scientific discovery is indeed plausible is usually taken as support for naturalism rather than otherwise.7

However, despite its popularity, naturalism is a belief system with certain premises that must be assumed. It is not self-evident, nor is it a belief that convinced most people until recent times. How, then, have we come to this stage in history, when it is simply assumed true, without defense, in all sorts of publications? We need to understand a little of the history of ideas to understand how the present situation came about.8

2

HISTORY

As mentioned above, some of the ideas of naturalism go back to the ancient world, but we will pick up the story in the seventeenth century, where modern science has its roots. It was recognized at the time that explanations come in different types. We might ask, “Why does water boil?” One level of explanation would be that fire underneath the kettle makes the water hot. Another level would be that someone wanted to cook dinner. Both explanations give real causes for the boiling of the water, but the causes are of different types. This issue of understanding different levels of causation was very important in the early days of experimental science.9

FRANCIS BACON

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was a philosopher. He was also a solicitor and politician who came to be Lord Chancellor of England, but it is his philosophical views that interest us here. One of his most important achievements was arguing that the best way to gain knowledge of the world was by the empirical method—that is, by making observations through experimentation. Bacon insisted that experimental science, or natural philosophy as it was called at the time, was the way forward. Not only did he advocate this as a philosophy, but he had very practical suggestions to make about the enterprise of science, including government-funded research, international communication through scientific journals, and collaboration in experimentation. Bacon was highly influential in starting what is now known as the Scientific Revolution in England.

Among other concerns, Bacon also wanted to reassure anyone who might have doubts that studying the natural world in no way suggested that God was being forgotten. God, he argued, was the first cause of everything. He is the ultimate reason that anything happens. God makes things happen, however, in certain natural ways. He makes flowers grow, for instance, by providing sunlight and rain. These mechanisms can be regarded as the secondary cause, the way in which God goes about doing things. By separating out first and second causes, Bacon was able to discuss the value of studying second causes while contemplating the first one.

For certain it is that God worketh nothing in nature but by second causes: and if they would have it otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in favor towards God; and nothing else but to offer to the author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie. But further, it is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism, but a further proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion. For in the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man passeth on further, and seeth the dependence of causes, and the works of Providence, then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of nature’s chain just needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter’s chair. To conclude therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain, that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.10

Science was to be a study of God’s creation. In no way was it meant to replace belief in God. Bacon would have thought that ludicrous. Indeed, as we can see from the above quotation, he expected those who studied God’s world to be equally well studied in God’s word. The study of second causes was just that: a study of second causes, not a study of the only causes.

Francis Bacon turned out to be highly influential in the way that science came to be organized as a modern activity. When the Royal Society of London was founded (still one of the leading scientific institutions in the world), its members consciously modeled their new society on Bacon’s ideas. They took seriously his recommendations for establishing experimental, systematic science in order to expand human understanding and benefit humankind. They also took on his philosophical and theological background.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY

The Royal Society was set up in 1660 to study the natural world. That was the interest of its members. That was its charter. It was not to be a society for theological discussion. From the earliest days, then, there was general agreement. Whatever one wanted to do outside the meetings, the Royal Society met for the purpose of natural philosophy. The aim was to search into the secondary causes of things, to discover the mechanisms of how things worked in the world. It was not to matter whether the members were Puritans or Anglicans, a very important consideration given that the entire country had recently suffered civil war over that issue. “As for what belongs to the Members themselves, that are to constituted the Society: It is to be noted, that they have freely admitted Men of different Religions, Countries and Professions of Life.”11 Theology was not to be a topic of discussion: the members of the society “meddle no otherwise with Divine things, than only as the Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness of the Creator, is display’d in the admirable order and workmanship of the Creatures.”12

As the latter part of this quotation reveals, the decision not to discuss theology was hardly because of atheism. On the contrary, although members might differ about church politics, they would have considered themselves Christians. It was typical of their scientific publications to talk overtly of God and that they were bringing about a better understanding of the glory of God’s handiwork. Their focus, however, was on the created things, even if they never forgot the creator, and in practice it was better to restrict their discussions to theories of mechanism rather than politically touchy subjects that theological discussion could easily arouse.

In other words, the Royal Society was going to study (in Bacon’s terms) secondary causes, not first causes. It was assumed that God did things in ways that did not involve frequent miracles but in ways that would proceed in an orderly and understandable fashion. The secondary causes, then, were the ones open to experimentation.13

This should have been a straightforward matter. There is nothing in investigating God’s secondary means of doing things that provides any rivalry to God as the origin of all action. Certainly most of the famous scientific writings of the time, and for more than a century later, gave clear recognition to God as the one who actually made the things that science was investigating. Another writer from the seventeenth century, however, might have been able to give a warning.

WILLIAM PERKINS

William Perkins (1558–1602) is hardly heard of these days, being one of those much maligned individuals known as the Puritans, but in his time he was a widely published author and popular preacher at Cambridge. He was not a scientist, nor did he write much on the natural world. However he was against superstition, and in one work he argued that astrology is a waste of time. Students interested in astrology should rather employ themselves studying God’s real works, not imagined things like astrological influence.

Even in his time, however, Perkins was well aware of what might happen when enthusiastic students started thinking that understanding the natural world was all they needed to know.

This thy dealing is like unto the folly of that man, who having a costly clock in his home, never extolleth or thinketh on the wit and invention of the clockmaker, but is continually in admiration of the spring or watch of the clocke, by whose means all the wheels have their swifter or slower, their backward or forward motions, and by which the whole clock keeps its course. Wherefore I think that in a Christian commonwealth, those only books should be published for thine use, which might beat into thine head, and make thee every hour and moment to think on the providence of God: which being once settled in thy mind, the consideration of the means, which God useth, will follow of itself. Contrarywise, to tell thee the means which God doth use, to thunder out the aspects and constellations of Stars, and seldom to mention of his providence, maketh thee to fear, and admire, and love the means, quite forgetting the work of God in the means.14

It was a timely warning. It is an excellent thing to study the works of God. Even non-scientists such as Perkins warmly recommended it. Nonetheless, he knew the tendency of human hearts. It is all too easy to become so enchanted with the means that God uses to forget that it is God who is using them.

WILLIAM PALEY

For many throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Perkins’s warning might have seemed utterly unnecessary. Virtually no one with any intellectual credibility doubted God. Certainly the study of the natural world was no reason for doing so. On the contrary, the workings of the natural world were taken as one of the most convincing reasons to believe in a creator God. This was the premise of a highly influential book written in the eighteenth century that served as a university text well into the nineteenth: Natural Theology by the English theologian William Paley (1743–1805).

Paley’s work might be seen as a grand argument for the reality of first causes. His argument was that God’s hand was seen clearly in the design apparent in nature. We can know that nature is the work of God because each detail is so carefully crafted to fit its end. Again, we find the example of clockwork (in this case, a watch):

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answ...