Method or Materialism?

SCIENCE: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws

Derived from Latin scientia, “knowledge,” the Old French science referred to the body of human know­ledge. Until about the 14th century, science meant the knowledge gained from theology and philosophy. The word first appeared in the Middle English work, Apocalypse of St. John: A Version.

Its meaning actually began to shift in the 13th century, when Albertus Magnus (d. 1280) asserted a distinction between revelation and experimental science. Around the same time, Roger Bacon (d. 1292), a Franciscan friar, challenged unquestioning acceptance of Aristotle’s teachings, which relied more on reasoning without physical evidence. Later, Renaissance scholar Francis Bacon (d. 1626) articulated the scientific method, which requires the application of inductive reasoning to observation of the world, and Isaac Newton (d. 1727) applied mathematics to the process, inadvertently feeding the materialism that dominates scientific understanding today. These men were all devout Christians whose interest in science stemmed from their desire to understand God’s creation, but by the 1800s, the definition had shifted to apply to natural and physical science, knowledge of the material world alone.

Science or Scientism?

The scientific method involves the development of hypotheses, experimental inquiry, and revision of theories. Curious people have applied it to study every aspect of the world. Though some theories have become well-established through tests and observations, all are—or should be—subject to challenge in light of new evidence that contradicts earlier conclusions.

Yet, materialists increasingly speak of “settled science.” In popular media, the phrase seems attributable to any statement by a favored scientist. Ironically, many materialists hold certain scientific theories in the same regard as people of faith regard Scripture. Thus, science evolves into scientism, which Merriam-Webster defines as “an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities).” Such was the case with social Darwinism, which applied Darwinian principles to social science. In The Abolition of Man, C.  S. Lewis critiques scientism for asserting that scientific methods are the sole legitimate ways of understanding the world.

Scientism takes science from a method of expanding understanding to an ideology that limits it. For example, lawn signs that proclaim, “in this house we believe in science” bind scientism with political allegiances and anodynes that serve as a credo implying anyone who disagrees with one statement must disagree with all. This credo also serves the false notion that science and faith are distinct and opposed to one another. Thus, the materialists who shun faith—perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not—remake science into scientism, which itself becomes a false religion. What Christians created out of desire to understand God’s handiwork, materialists have applied to exclude the Creator.

Light Shining in the Darkness

However, the scientific method rests on a foundation of testing and retesting current understandings. As scientists have learned more about genetics and the finely tuned universe, for example, it is clear that Darwinian evolution is far from settled.

In Light of the Mind, Light of the World, Spencer Klavan writes, “the world described by science increasingly looks like the world revealed by faith.” From the Big Bang, to finely tuned forces, to intricate microscopic bio-mechanisms, evidence of an intelligent designer has grown ever more persuasive. Though materialists resist any notion of an Intelligence greater than their own, science itself traces its roots to intellects who humbly sought to understand the Designer’s cosmos.