The mind of God behind the universe
By Kevin Aldrich
When science and faith meet, is it a zero sum game? In other words, is either evolution right and religion wrong, or faith correct and Darwin in error?
The early giants of modern science--Descartes, Galileo, Bacon, Brahe, Kepler, Newton and Locke—were Christian men. Still, it is difficult in today's secular and materialistic culture not to feel that science and religious faith must be mutually exclusive antagonists.
In the March 7 issue of The Chronicle Review of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Michael Ruse takes to task three philosophers who doubt the truth of Darwinism. In "Philosophers Rip Darwin," Mr. Ruse points out that in a time when many exciting developments are taking place in the scientific field of evolutionary biology, "voices from within the mainstream of philosophy [are] questioning the veracity of evolutionary theory." Mr. Ruse, who directs the program in the history and philosophy of science at Florida State University, critiques three of these doubters. Mr. Ruse says he makes a good living attacking creationism and Intelligent Design in books, lectures, debates and blogs.
While Mr. Ruse is himself a skeptic about the existence of God, he does not think believers are liars or idiots.
The best antidote in book form I have found to the supposition that science and faith are enemies is Mariano Artigas' The Mind of the Universe: Understanding Science and Religion (Templeton Foundation Press, 2000).
The late Mr. Artigas was a Catholic priest, a philosopher, theologian, scientist and philosopher of science. In The Mind of the Universe, Mr. Artigas undertakes to build bridges between philosophy and theology on the one hand, and modern empirical science on the other. He does this by studying the presuppositions of science—that is, the assumptions without which no one would bother to undertake it.
Mr. Artigas offers three presuppositions: 1) There is a natural order in the universe; 2) We can know this order' and 3) It is good to know this order.
If there were not a natural order in the world, science could not exist, because science studies spacio-temporal patterns. In other words, if there it no order, there is nothing to study.
If there were an order but we could not discover it, again science would grind to a halt. You cannot study what you cannot know.
Finally, if there were not a benefit from studying the natural world, we would not bother to do it.
The Western world—and it alone—was able to give birth to science because of the heritage of the Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman tradition and the centuries—long careful work of Scholastic monks. These presuppositions, Mr. Artigas argues, are the gift of the Middle Ages to the Modern Age.
In a nutshell, science was in part a gift from Medieval Christianity and all the first scientists were Christians.
Mr. Artigas next examines what the progress of science tells us about the validity of these presuppositions. Science's progress, he says, actually "retrojustifies, enlarges and refines" these original assumptions.
For example, we have not only confirmed that there is a natural order, but discovered that this order is characterized by self-organization and information. The universe, you could say, is even more ordered than we ever imagined.
Or, we can see that it is good to know the natural order because of all the benefits that technology gives us. It is also good that the scientific enterprise confirms important human values such as regard for the truth, careful observation, cooperation, integrity and intellectual humility.
What does this have to do with philosophy or natural theology?
Philosophy is interested in ultimate causes. It looks beyond what science can do, because science only deals with the material world and natural causes. Science simply has to nothing to say about God or the supernatural. Remember, it can only study naturally occurring spacio-temporal patterns. The problem is that other philosophers-posing as scientists-make the claim that science in fact supports materialistic atheism. It does not.
This philosophy may be called scientism or naturalism or materialism. Scientists may espouse this point of view, but when they do they are acting as philosophers, not as scientists. This is why it gets confusing.
Reasoning from the discoveries of science to ultimate causes is a philosophical task. If you reason to God you are a theist. If you reason to materialism you are an atheist. The question for Mr. Artigas is which conclusion makes more sense in the light of scientific progress? Is the actual progress of modern science friendly to theism or atheism?
This is where Mr. Artigas' "bridges" come in. Using criteria similar to those used by science to validate its own findings, Mr. Artigas argues that science supports-but of course cannot prove-that the theistic conclusion is more reasonable. In fact, he says, "If we take into consideration the present scientific worldview, one may wonder how someone aware of the results of scientific progress can be an atheist or materialist today."
Those who insist that God is the ultimate cause of the material world and its processes must argue philosophically, even though they may use the findings of science as evidence. The same is true for the other side. The claim that nothing but material causes exist, and therefore, the universe is blind and indifferent is not science but philosophy.
Mr. Ruse remains a skeptic whereas Mr. Artigas sees that behind the universe there is a Mind: the Mind of God.
-Kevin Aldrich is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. He can be contacted at kevinaldrich@msn.com.
