Science Has Disproved Christianity

At a glance

Relevant Scripture

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

Psalm 19:1 KJV

UECF.NET summary

Keller separates two things often fused together: the scientific method, which investigates the natural, physical order through observation and experiment, and naturalism (or scientism), the philosophical claim that only what can be measured by science is real. The method itself is compatible with belief in God — many working scientists, historically and today, are theists — and does not itself rule out a Creator behind the natural order it studies. Naturalism, by contrast, is an unprovable metaphysical position smuggled in alongside the method, not a discovery the method itself produced.

On evolution specifically, Keller argues Christians are not required to reject the biological evidence for an old earth and common descent in order to affirm that God is the ultimate cause behind the process — he outlines a range of views compatible with orthodox faith (from young-earth to evolutionary creationism) rather than insisting on one. On miracles, he argues that "violation of natural law" is the wrong framework: if a God who set up the natural order exists, that God could also act within or upon it in extraordinary ways without science having the tools to rule such action out in advance. The chapter treats the resurrection, in particular, as a historical claim to be weighed on the evidence (developed further in chapter 13) rather than something science can dismiss before looking. Keller closes by noting phenomena naturalism struggles to explain as comfortably as theism does: the universe's fine-tuning for life, the sheer intelligibility that makes scientific inquiry possible at all, and the reliability of human reason itself.

Main themes

• The scientific method and philosophical naturalism are not the same thing, and only one of them is actually science.
• Evolutionary biology and belief in a Creator are not automatically incompatible.
• Miracles are not "violations" of nature if the God who made nature can also act within it.
• Fine-tuning, intelligibility, and reliable reason are less easily explained by naturalism than by theism.

Key ideas

• "Science has disproved God" usually smuggles in naturalism as if it were a scientific finding rather than a philosophical assumption.
• Orthodox Christian belief is compatible with a range of positions on the age of the earth and the mechanism of evolution.
• Ruling out miracles in advance is a philosophical commitment, not a result the scientific method itself produces.
• The universe's fine-tuning and our capacity for rational thought are clues naturalism has difficulty accounting for as economically as theism does.

Important concepts

• Naturalism / scientism — The philosophical claim that only physical, measurable causes are real — distinct from the scientific method itself, which does not require this assumption.
• Methodological vs. philosophical naturalism — The difference between using natural explanations as a working method in science, and asserting that only natural causes exist in reality.
• Fine-tuning — The observation that basic physical constants of the universe fall within an extremely narrow range compatible with life, taken by some as evidence of intentional design.

Related Bible references

• Psalm 19:1
• Romans 1:20
• Genesis 1:1
• Colossians 1:17
• Job 38:4-7

Practical Christian application

• Next time you hear "science disproved God," ask whether the claim is about the scientific method's findings or about the philosophy of naturalism layered on top of them.
• Read one credible source representing a view of origins different from your own current position, charitably.
• Thank God for the intelligibility of the universe that makes science itself possible.

Questions for study