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Tough Questions about Science by William Lane Craig from Who Made God?
We are in the 3rd chapter of a remarkable book answering tough questions that Christians are often asked or challenged by. The first two explained Who Made God? and answered Tough Questions About Evil. You will find both these chapters on reachmorenow.com and Reach More Now YouTube. In this 3rd chapter Ronald Rhodes answers scientific questions. Any Christian is aware that many scientists and university professors delight in creating any challenge to the Bible. But can the Bible answer for itself and refute theories and falsehoods? Let’s see. Ray begins reading now.
Back in 1896 the president of Cornell University, Andrew Dickson White, published a book titled A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in the relations between science and the Christian faith became widespread during the first half of the twentieth century. The culturally dominant view in our society—even among Christians—came to be that science and Christianity are not allies in the search for truth, but adversaries.
To illustrate, a few years ago I agreed to participate in a debate with a philosopher of science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver on the question “Are Science and Religion Mutually Irrelevant?” But when I walked onto the campus, I saw that the Christian students sponsoring the debate had advertised it with large banners and posters proclaiming “Science vs. Christianity.” The Christian students were perpetuating the same hundred years earlier. ARE SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY ALLIES OR ADVERSARIES?
What happened, however, during the second half of the twentieth century was that historians and philosophers of science came to realize that this supposed history of warfare is a myth. As Charles Thaxton and Nancy Pearcey point out in their book The Soul of Science, for more than three hundred years between the rise of modern science in the 1500s and the late 1800s, the relationship between science and religion can best be described as an alliance. White’s book is now regarded as something of a bad joke, a one-sided and distorted piece of propaganda. Today it is cited only as an example of how not to do history of science.
Historians of science now recognize the indispensable role played by the Christian faith in the rise and development of modern science. Science is not something that is natural to humankind. As science writer Loren Eiseley has emphasized, science is “an invented cultural institution” that requires a “unique soil” in order to flourish. 3 Modern science did not arise in the Orient or in Africa, but in Western civilization. Why is this so? It is due to the unique contribution of the Christian faith to Western culture. As Eiseley states, “It is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear, articulate fashion to the experimental method of science itself.” 4
In contrast to Eastern religions and folk religions, Christianity does not view product of a transcendent creator who designed and brought it into being. Thus, the world is a rational place that is open to exploration and discovery. Up until the late 1800s, scientists were typically Christian believers who saw no conflict between their science and their faith—men like Kepler, Boyle, Maxwell, Faraday, Kelvin, and others.
Tough Questions about Science by William Lane Craig from Who Made God?
Tough Questions about Science by William Lane Craig from Who Made God?
