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Historically there seems to have developed a popular presupposition that the best extra-biblical evidence for the existence of God is the absence of physical explanations for certain natural or physical processes. It was thought that the lack of a scientific explanation validated supernatural explanations. Although some supernatural explanations were no more than superstition this false validation had the consequence of permitting superstition considerable authority for a time. As science began to explain heretofore mysterious processes the elimination of superstition was viewed as invalidation of belief in the supernatural. This lead to another false tenet - mechanical reductionism. Mechanical reductionism asserts that physical explanations are complete in their description of reality and that the properties of the whole are determined entirely by the properties of its parts. Since the evidence for the existence of the supernatural was believed to reside in the "mystery" of nature, as science endeavored to eliminate that "mystery" it was viewed as defeat by some Christians and as a victory by some atheists. Some Christians viewed growing scientific knowledge as a threat. To the contrary, the real threat to any true belief, be it scientific or religious, is ignorance, not knowledge acquired through scientific methods. While science has its deficiencies it has had incomparable success in explaining and developing an understanding of our natural surroundings. This point is brought home by John HoughtonFootnote1 who quotes a friend as commenting, "Penicillin is worth an awful lot of prayer!".
The threat from ignorance is particularly manifested when certain philosophical presuppositions are confused with the conclusions drawn from scientific data or biblical text (i.e., ignorance of presuppositions). This produces the false appearance of sound conclusions when these philosophical presuppositions become unconsciously embedded or concealed in the interpretative methods applied to the data or text. Thus scientific explanations and conclusions become confused with the philosophical interpretations that frequently accompany them. This problem is evident in the following excerpt from David L. Bender and Bruno LeoneFootnote2.
"Religion requires mystery. In other words, where there is mystery there is ignorance: where there is mystery, there you can find god offered as an explanation to fill the void of ignorance. Prehistorical humans invented gods to answer the mysteries of nature, and invented religions as a means to influence divine will. What is mystery's mortal enemy? Science! Every time science clears up a mystery, explains the heretofore unexplainable, a little of religion's realm is taken from it. Each time science pushes the boundaries of our ignorance back a little, god has less territory in the human mind to roam in.
Religion is not science's sibling, Atheism is! Atheism is the only philosophy that has nothing to fear from science because Atheism grows stronger with each new advance of science."
Unfortunately certain Christians have subscribed to this view of science and perhaps unwittingly adopted this view of their religion as well. Thus modern cosmology's attempt to demystify the physical details of creation have been viewed as a threat to the biblical account. While science has dispossessed superstition of its authority and hopefully some of its influence it has not invalidated the existence of the supernatural. Although there have been many claims that science frequently casts a menacing shadow on the supernatural components of Christianity this is more a matter of perception than fact.
12. John Houghton, Does God Play Dice?, Cantilever Books, Inter-Varsity Press, 1989.
13. David L. Bender and Bruno Leone, Science and Religion, Opposing Viewpoints, Greenhaven Press, 1981, "Science Verifies Atheism", G. Richard Bozarth, pp 29-33.
Read on to the next section in "Cosmology"
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