(In actuality, science by definition can have nothing to say about the supernatural or the miraculous, because science by definition is limited to that sort of study of natural phenomenon that is able to proceed through repeated experimentation. The super-natural is outside the so-called natural realm and thus outside the scope of scientific enterprise. The miraculous, by definition, is always a unique event and therefore cannot be replicated by scientific experiment. It is scientism [the philosophy/religion of science] that makes such un-scientific pronouncements. RST)
In this chapter, I want to look at how science and Christian belief relate and, in particular, whether there is a conflict between “the assured results of modern science” and the Christian faith.
Science and Christian Faith Are Not Incompatible:
It was the Christian worldview that provided the right environment for modern science to emerge. First, the Christian faith is monotheistic. Belief in one God led people to expect a uniformity in nature, with the underlying laws of nature remaining the same in time and space. A universe that was capricious and irregular could not be systematically studied.
Second, the Christian doctrine of creation by a rational God of order led scientists to expect a world that was both ordered and intelligible. Sixteenth-century scientists reasoned that the universe must be orderly and worthy of investigation because it was the work of an intelligent creator. “Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator.” C.S.Lewis, Miracles, pg.110
Third, the Christian belief in a transcendent God, separate from nature, meant that experimentation was justified. This would not have been the case under belief systems that regarded forms of matter as gods. Nor would it have been wise to experiment if you believed, as some did, that matter was essentially evil. The Christian worldview was that matter was good, but it was not God. So the Christian doctrine of creation “provided and essential matrix for the coming into being of the scientific enterprise.” John Polkinghorne, One World p.1
