“Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain.”

Thomas Huxley¹Quote from Huxley’s review of “On the Origin of Species”, 1860. http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE2/OrS.html

Introduction

Seeing the “conflict” between science and Christianity was never intuitive for me. As a young kid interested in both science and Christianity, I thought science supported Christianity and opposed other religions. I never imagined any conflict might exist between the two. But now as an adult engaged with the broader irreligious population, I’ve learned that a perceived conflict between faith and science is a widespread problem for many. Shocking, I know. If you can overlook my younger naivete, I submit that my original intuition was quite correct. In this collection of essays, I intend to analyze the many versions of the conflict, reveal their weaknesses, and propose some efficient responses that are easy for the Christian to deploy as needed.

This article is a “home-page” that covers introductory content and records the list of conflicts between faith and science. My analyses of each conflict will be linked below.

Defining terms

Faith

In casual English, “faith” typically means “religion” or “religious beliefs”. In popular atheism, “faith” means “belief without any justification, often in spite of contrary evidence”. In the Bible, “faith” means “non-propositional trust in a personal being”, where the normative being is God.²The Bible doesn’t explicitly define its terminology, but identifying “faith” with “trust” best captures the common Biblical usage. There are a few exceptions, but they are not important right now. These definitions are often confused by both Christians³In fact, the careless use of terminology by well-meaning Christians can be very harmful. Christians who promote an emotion-based faith that is devoid of any intellectual justification (AKA, “blind faith”) are at risk of blaspheming the God who opens the eyes of the blind, gives light to darkened hearts, and encourages people to gain wisdom and knowledge. and non-Christians. We can save ourselves some trouble if we stay aware of the differences. Furthermore, “faith” is not identical to “belief”, nor does “faith” mean “doctrine”. Christian faith entails certain beliefs, but it cannot be reduced to mere beliefs. Similarly, while Christian faith involves certain doctrines, neither belief in the doctrines nor the doctrines themselves are rightly called “faith”. In what follows, I attempt to use non-ambiguous language to enhance clarity, and I will point out when the careless use of terminology artificially generates conflicts between faith and science. Unless otherwise noted, my use of “faith” will refer to the Biblical definition.

Science

In popular culture, “science” is often seen as an oracle of truth. Science becomes personified when it “says” something, and it is imagined to be perfectly objective. In reality, none of this is true. Science is not a divine agent that delivers knowledge to pious scientists. Science is something people do. When we practice science, we are observing and stimulating nature in organized ways to discover patterns. Humans design experiments and interpret results, neither of which is perfectly objective. We work hard to eliminate subjective bias, but the human element necessarily remains.

Is science objective? Not exactly, since science often contains human bias. Is science subjective? No, good science addresses real truths about the world external to consciousness. If I may invent a new term, science is approximately objective. By “approximately”, I don’t mean that it is a mathematically continuous property, just that it possibly contains error. So, science is objective where people practice objectivity, but science is not objective where people neglect objectivity due to inattentiveness, irrationality, or ignorance. However, since all three of those obstacles to objectivity can be defeated with time, science can become more objective with time.

Now for a definition: The term “science” can be defined as the rational practice and systematic field of conscious, investigative work intended to discover useful truths about the real world. By this definition, both metaphysics and theology could be considered sciences so far as their intended scope of study concerns the real world. However, when people usually speak of science, they tend to mean specifically the physical sciences, such as physics, chemistry, or biology.

Some critics may claim that my definition is too broad, so let me offer a brief defense: First, science is more than just empiricism since the former requires presupposing nature’s intelligibility and regularity, neither of which is allowed by empiricism without circular reasoning. Second, science is more than physical naturalism⁴I argue that this statement is true even if the real world is completely physical. for the following reason: If you are a naturalist, then you believe physical nature exhausts the real world. Your study of the real world is thus constrained to nature. If, however, you somehow come to believe that the real world contains things other than physical nature (e.x. immaterial souls, spirit beings, abstract objects, etc.), then you would presumably like to study such things in addition to physical nature. If you find that your scientific toolkit is insufficient to study these new things, then you ought to add new tools (i.e. new analytic methods) as needed. Any experienced scientist has added new tools to their toolkit thousands of times before. To reject my second point of defense is to claim that the study of immaterial things would be an altogether different discipline than science rather than merely an expansion of science. This claim, however, multiplies entities beyond reason, and therefore falls under Occam’s razor. Finally, even if physical naturalism is true, it is only an accurate description of the scope of science but not a good definition.⁵Note that my definition is perfectly compatible with methodological naturalism, which only applies to the physical sciences. So, my definition should be acceptable to atheists and theists alike, without requiring any new beliefs. Regardless, if you still prefer to define science as restricted to the physical world, none of my following arguments will be affected anyway. I will abide by normal convention and use “science” to refer to the physical sciences.

The perceived conflict

I am aware of several distinct forms of the conflict. In what follows, I try to distill the different conflicts into clear arguments. Not all of these arguments have logically valid structure, but they accurately represent the real-life chain of reasoning. Skeptics almost never explicitly state any of the following arguments, but they can be found implicitly if you listen well enough. These are all pulled from real conversations with people.

If you think any of the following arguments should be modified, or you would like to add more arguments, please share your thoughts. Consider how you might steal-man the arguments and respond to them before looking at my own answers.

(Currently, I have a written response to only the first of these. Stay tuned for more.)

Does science contradict religion?

1. If God exists, then religion and science would not contradict each other.
2. Religion and science do make contradicting claims.
3. Therefore, God does not exist.

Is God too good to be true?

1. Religious belief depends on the use of God as an explanation for certain natural phenomena.
2. God can effortlessly be invoked as the perfect explanation for everything since God can possibly do anything.
3. The explanations for natural phenomena offered by science cannot be effortlessly invoked since they must discovered through reason and inquiry.
4. Because reason and inquiry are not required to appeal to God to explain natural phenomena, but reason and inquiry are required to use science to explain natural phenomena, the explanations offered by science are rationally superior to the explanations offered by invoking God.
5. Religious belief depends on rationally inferior explanatory models of the world, and therefore is irrational compared with non-belief.

Is science unified while religion is split?

1. If a source of beliefs is reliable, then the source will yield only one view since only one true answer exists to any question about objective reality.
2. There is only one science, so science is reliable.
3. There are many different religions (and objects of faith), so religion (and objects of faith) is/are not reliable sources of beliefs.

Is science self-correcting while religion is dogmatic?

1. All people can and do make mistakes and believe errors.
2. Scientific beliefs are self-correcting, which means science acknowledges the truth of human fallibility.
3. Religious beliefs are (due to the nature of dogma) not self-correcting, so they deny the truth of human fallibility.
4. Therefore, faith is irrational because it denies a known truth.

Is science versus faith like knowing versus believing?

1. Faith is about believing.
2. Science is about knowing.
3. Knowledge is rationally justified, while belief may not be.
4. Therefore, science is rationally superior to faith.

Is God just a god of gaps?

1. The purpose of God is to explain mysteries about the world by appeal to supernatural powers.
2. Science has explained many past mysteries without appealing to God.
3. Science will likely continue to explain all remaining mysteries.
4. Scientific (natural) explanations are rationally superior to supernatural explanations.
5. As science progresses and existing mysteries are gradually answered, God is needed less and less. So, it is very likely that God will eventually no longer be needed at all.
6. Since God only fulfills his purpose because of our temporary ignorance, it is rational to reject God just as we desire to move past our temporary ignorance.

Does God prevent science?

1. Belief in God entails belief that God can do virtually anything.
2. Science depends on regularity in nature, since the fundamental scientific practice is to discover patterns in the observable world.
3. The belief that God can do anything entails that anything can happen at anytime, without any associated physical causes or predictable patterns.
4. Belief in God undermines the foundation of science.
5. Therefore, given that science is a rational enterprise, belief in God is irrational.

Is religious belief non-falsifiable?

1. Scientific belief is falsifiable.
2. Religious belief is not falsifiable.
3. Since falsifiability is important (if not necessary) for theories to be good, science can offer good theories while religion cannot.

Doesn’t God lack predictive power?

1. Good theories have predictive power.
2. God does not provide good predictive power.
3. Scientific theories provide good predictive power.
4. Science provides better theories than religion.

“Whoever does not know astronomy and anatomy is deficient in the knowledge of God”⁶An academic motto from the House of Wisdom in Baghdad during Islamic Golden Age. Quote from chapter 1 of Thomas Dixon’s “Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction”, 2008.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”⁷Psalm 19:1, ESV.

End-notes

• 1
  Quote from Huxley’s review of “On the Origin of Species”, 1860. http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE2/OrS.html
• 2
  The Bible doesn’t explicitly define its terminology, but identifying “faith” with “trust” best captures the common Biblical usage. There are a few exceptions, but they are not important right now.
• 3
  In fact, the careless use of terminology by well-meaning Christians can be very harmful. Christians who promote an emotion-based faith that is devoid of any intellectual justification (AKA, “blind faith”) are at risk of blaspheming the God who opens the eyes of the blind, gives light to darkened hearts, and encourages people to gain wisdom and knowledge.
• 4
  I argue that this statement is true even if the real world is completely physical.
• 5
  Note that my definition is perfectly compatible with methodological naturalism, which only applies to the physical sciences. So, my definition should be acceptable to atheists and theists alike, without requiring any new beliefs.
• 6
  An academic motto from the House of Wisdom in Baghdad during Islamic Golden Age. Quote from chapter 1 of Thomas Dixon’s “Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction”, 2008.
• 7
  Psalm 19:1, ESV.