Science

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(A follow up to Scientism Isn’t Science)

Naturalism is defined by Stewart Goetz & Charles Taliaferro in this way:

Naturalism—very roughly—may be defined as the philosophy that everything that exists is a part of nature and that there is no reality beyond or outside of nature. (Naturalism, 6)

Something being “a part of nature” is here meant to exclude the supernatural. Naturalism then is opposed to supernaturalism. It is seeing all things as natural and nothing as being supernatural. It is this view of the world which informs scientism, and it is this same view which informs modern scientific procedure. Although it is important to say that the procedure does not lead every scientist to embrace scientism (the belief that all questions about reality can be scientifically determined), scientism certainly needs the procedure. This procedure is what is called “methodological naturalism” (MN).

These remarks stem from some interchanges I had with some believers about methodological naturalism.

(Read the series so far.)

In the last installment of this series we were looking at a motto which is often misused by the Christian community, and which could mislead young people if not carefully explained. That motto was “All truth is God’s truth.” This time round I want to take a look at another slogan; a slogan which should not be adopted by Bible believers, even though some prominent and respected authorities use it.

The phrase I have in mind is this: “The Bible tells us how to go to heaven; science tells us how the heavens go.”

On the face of it, this legend might seem non-objectionable. We are all aware of the fact that the Bible is not, nor does it ever claim to be, a textbook on Science. It doesn’t inform us about botany or biology or chemistry or physics. Science does—so what’s the problem?