Does belief in God oppose science or inspire it?
It is widely believed that religion in general and Christianity in particular has resisted and discouraged scientific progress. While there have certainly been instances of this, this general belief is largely founded on false information.
In fact, much of the scientific revolution of the Enlightenment was only considered possible because of the Judeo-Christian world view in which it emerged. This world view includes:
- The Universe is intelligible, rather than chaotic, because it was deigned by a Creator.
- The Universe is has an order which can be discovered by investigation.
- The Universe as it exists is contingent. In other words God could have created it differently.
- Humans are fallible and have biases so the checks and balances of the scientific method are necessary.
Although the Greeks believed that the Universe was ordered, they did not believe that it was contingent.
In reality, it was the Judeo-Christian culture which provided a fertile ground and the inspiration for the development of science in Western Europe at that time.
There are a number of widely held, but erroneous, beliefs about science and faith and how they related to each other in the West throughout history. They owe more to legend and folk tales than to history. In order to follow the evidence where it leads, we need to separate fact from myth.
Here, a number of commonly held, but false, beliefs are examined:
In the Middle Ages people believed that the Earth was flat
This is false. The Earth was known to be a sphere right back to 5th century BC by the Greeks and all major medieval scholars accepted the Earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology.
This is false. On the contrary, the Church was one of the main driving forces of that time. Examples of believing scientists include the astronomer and historian the Venerable Bede who lived until 735AD and Thomas Bradwardine, who in the mid 14th century was discussing whether the Universe was infinite or whether there were actually an infinity of Universes. The idea of the multiverse was proposed in the Middle Ages by a man who became the Archbishop of Canterbury!
This is false. On the contrary, he was treated with respect and his ideas received with interest by the clergy in Rome. When he died in 1543 he was a member of the Church in good standing.
This is misleading. Galileo got into trouble with the Church not for his Copernican views per se, but because he asserted them to be fact when he had insufficient proof. In addition, his insulting and offensive behaviour towards people in power, theologians and academics alike, led to them treating his views with less charity than they otherwise would and finding ways to get back at him. Galileo lived and died as a devout Roman Catholic.
This took place in 1860 and is presented as a striking example of conflict between science and religion but the facts do not support this and at the time it was not considered important or significant. The reality appears to be that this debate was hyped up by people who wished to drive a wedge between science and religion with the consequence that a myth about the debate developed during the early 20th century. At the time there was criticism of Darwin’s theory by religious and non-religious people alike.
This is a famous test case in 1925, brought in response to an Act which was the result of lobbying by a farmer in Tennessee, John Washington Butler, which prohibited the teaching of Evolution as fact. Interestingly, Butler later stated, "I didn't know anything about evolution ... I'd read in the papers that boys and girls were coming home from school and telling their fathers and mothers that the Bible was all nonsense."
This case was hyped up and, in the 1960s, a sensationalised and factually false portrayal of the trial in a play and then a film called “Inherit the Wind” was released. This film deliberately gave the impression that the trial was between ignorant bible-thumping fundamentalists and the forces of scientific progress.
While there are certainly Christians who would dogmatically oppose scientific hypotheses without looking at the facts, there are many who see no need for conflict. What we see is more about personalities and politics than Theism or Christianity.