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    12 Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs Konsld L. Numbers “Nuthing has come to characterize modem science more than is axecton of appeals to God in explaining the workings of nani Nismetout scientats,philbsophers of science, and scence educator hae made his aim, In 1982 United States federal judge, eager to distinguish science from other forms of knowledge, especially rel- gion, spelled out "the sential characteristics of science” Atthe top fF lis sc appeaed the notion that science must be “guided by nat teal law” No statement, declared the judge, could count 2s science i ic depended on “a supernaninal intervention” ive years later the 5, Supreme Cour afimed the judge's reasoning Srdents of nanire have not lvays shunned the supemanurl Je took centres, indeed millenia, foe naralism to dominate the study of nature, and even at the beginning of therwenty-first century, 2s we shall see, tiny but voel group of “theistic scientists” is chal- lenging what they egard 2 he arbitar excision of the spernani- sal from scence. In exploring bow naturalism eame wo eoetrol the practice of scence hope to answer some basic questions about the Hlentty and motives of those who advocated it. In pater I want to illuminate the reasons why naturalam, described by some schol- ars asthe great engine driving the sscularization of Western society, attracted so much support from devout Christians, who often eagerly cmbraced it as the method of choice for understanding nature. Nat- uralization, as we shall se, did not lead inevitably co secularization. 285 286 Roxio L. Nusa rst, however, we need some clarification about terms. Historians hare em= ployed che word “naturalism” to designate a broad range of views: from a purely methodological commitment to explaining the workings of nature without re- course to the stypematsral, legely devoid of metaphysical implications about God, to a philosophiesl embeacement of materialisn, tantamount £0 atheism, When Thomas H. Husley (1825-95) coined the term “scientific naturalism” in 18g2, he used it to describe a philosophical outlook that shunned the supernatue ral and adopted empirical science asthe only reliable basis of knowledge about the physica, social, and moral worlds. Although such metaphysical naturalis rooted in the findings of science, has played an important role ia the history of philosophy and religion, its significance in the history of scientifie practice has ‘emained small compated to what has recently come to be called methodologi- cal naturalism, the focus ofthis chapter? ‘Naturalism and Natural Philosophy Recorded efforts to explain naturally what had previously been attributed to the whimsy of gods date hack to the Milesian philosophers ofthe ancient Greek world, who, six centuries before the birth of Christianity, declared sch phe- somena a earthquakes lightning, and thunder tobe the resuleof natural auies. Alitee later Hippocratic physicians expanded the realm of the natural to include ‘most diseases, including epilepsy, “the sexed disease.” As one Hippocratie writer insisted, “Each discasc has a natural cause andl nothing happens without a nat- ‘wal cause.” The first-century Roman philosopher Lucius Annacus Seneca, ever suspicious of supernacural causation, calmed the fears of fellow citizens by as- suring them that “angry deities” had nothing to do with most meteorological oF astronomical events: Those phenomena have causes of theit own’ [As these scattered examples show, belie in natural causes and the regularity of nature antedated the appearance of Christianity, with its Judaic notion of God as creator and sustainer of the universe. Although inspired by a man re- garded as divine and developed in 2 milieu of miracles, Christianity could, and sometimes did, encourage the quest for natural explanations. Long before the birth of modern science and the appearance of “scientists” in the nineteenth, century the study of nature in the West was carried out primarily by Christian scholars known 2¢ natural philosophers, who typically expeested a preference for satural explanations over divine mysteries: During the philosophical awakening of the ewelfth century, for instance, Adelard of Bath (ea. o8o-es 150), much- traveled Englishinan familiar with the views of Seneca, instructed his nephew on, the virwes of natural explanations: Scuesee wrrovr Gop 25 will take nothing amay from God: for whatever exists i from Him and because of Him. But the natural order doesnot exiseconfusedly and without rational arrangement, and human reason should be listened to canceming thooe things i treats of. Bat when i completly fis, then the mater chonld be refered to God. A umber of other medicval churchmen expressed similar views, on occasion 63° tending the search for natural explanations to such biblical events as Noal's Flood, previously regarded 2s a miracle.t By the late Midalle Ages the search for natural causes had come to typify the work of Christian natural philosophers. Although characteristcally learing the door open for the possibility of direct divine intervention, they frequently ex= pressed contempt for soft-minded contemporaries who invoked miracles rather than searching for natural explanations. The University of Paris cleric Jean Buri dan (a. 295-ca. 358), described as “pechaps the most brilliant arts master of the Middle Ages,” contrasted the philosopher’ search for “appropriate natural causes” with the common folk’s erroneous habit of attributing unusual astro- nomical phenomena to the supernatural. In the fourteenth century the natural philosopher Nicole Oresme (6a. 1320-82). who went on to become a Roman Catholic bishop, admonished thar, in discussing various marvels of manure, is no reaton to take recourse to the heavens, the Last refuge of che weak, oF demons, oF t0 out glorious God as if He would produce these effecs direcely, more so thaa those effects whose causes we believe are well known to us5 here Enchusiasm: for the aaturalistic study of nature picked up in the sixecenth anil seventeenth centuries as more and more Chuistians earned their attention «0 discovering the so-called secondary causes that God employed in operating the ‘world. The Italian Catholic Galileo Galilei (564~1642), one ofthe foremost pro- ‘maoters of the new philosophy, insisted that nature “never violates the terms of the laws imposed upon hee” In a widely circulated letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, written in 1615, Galileo, as a good Christian, acknowledged the divine inspiration of both Holy Scripture and the Book of Nature—but insisted that interpreters of the former should have no say in determining the meaning of the later. Declaring the independence of natural philosophy from theology, he asserted “that in disputes about natural phenomena one must begin not with the authority of scriptural passages bur with sensory experience and necessary demonsteations”* Far co the west, in England, the Anglican philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon (1s61-1626) was preaching a similar message of independence, waming of “che extreme prejudice which both religion and philosophy hath received and aay receive by being commixed together; as that which undoubtedly will make 28 Roxio L. Nusa am heretical religion, and an imaginary and fabulous philosophy” Christians, he advised, should welcome rather than fear the truth thar God operates the world largely, though not exclusively. chtough natural laws discoverable by human. effort. Although conceding that too great an emphasis on natural law might Gnd, he remained content that further reflection wovld “being the mind back again to religion’? undermine belief in ‘The danger Bacon perceived did not take long co materialize. As natural philosophers came to view nature as “a law-bound system of matter in motion,” a vast machine running with lee or no divine intervention, they increasingly focused on the regularities of nature and the laws of motion rather than on. God’ intrusions. When the French Catholic natural philosopher René Descartes (659-1650) boldly constructed a universe of whirling ethereal fluids and specu lated how the sola system could have been formed by the action of these vor- tices operating according o the God-ordained laws of nature, he acquired con- siderable notoriety for neatly pushing God out of the cosmos altogether. His pious fellow countryman Blaise Pascal (1623-62) accused Descartes, somewhat tunfirly, of trying to dispense with God altogether, according Him only “a flip of the finger in order to se the world in motion” Fearing clerical retribution in the years after Galileo’ trial. Descartes disingentiously declared his own cos mogony to be “absolutely fale."* “The English chemist Robert Boyle (16:7-91)—ae ardent an advocate of the ‘mechanical philosophy as Descartes yet as pious as Pascal—viewed the discow- ey of the divinely established laws of nacure asa religious act. A devout Protes- ‘ane with great reverence for the Bible, Boyle regarded revelation as “a foreign, principle” to the study of the “laws or rules” of nature. Hesough« to explain rat= ‘wal phenomena in terms of matter in motion as a means of combating pagan potions thar granted nature quasi-divine powers, not asa wayto eliminate divine purpose fiom the world. According co the historians Edward B, Davis and Michael Hunter, viewing the cosmos 2s a “compounded machine” run accord- ing to natural laws struck Boyle as being “more consistent with biblical state- ‘ments of divine sovereignty than older, non-mechanistic views” of an intelligent ature. “By denying’Nature’ any wisdom of its own, the mechanical conception of nature located purpose where Boyle believed it belonged: over and behind ‘ature, in the mind of a personal God. rather than in an impersonal semisdeity immanent within the world.” God's customary reliance on natural laws (or see~ cendity causes) did nor, in Boyle’ opinion rule out the possibility of eceasional supernatural inrerventions, when God (the primary caus) mighe at “in special ways to achieve particular ends” This view became common among Christian ‘men of science, 8 wellas among clerics? No one contributed more to the popular image of the solar system as a Scuesee wrrovr Gop 269 giant mechanical device than the University of Cambridge professor of mathe- ‘matics Imac Newton (1642-1727), a man of deep, if unorthodox religious con- Viction, who unblushingly attributed the perfections of the solar system to “the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” Widely recognized as the greatest nanstal philosopher of all rime for his discovery of the role of gravity in the operation of the universe, he insisted that natural knowledge should be based on observations and experiments, not hypotheses. Although he chided Descartes for his attempt to explain the solar system by “mere Laws of Natuse,"he himself believed chat God typically usclthem “as instruments in his works” In private correspondence he even speculated in Cartesian fashion about how God might have used natural laws to construct the solar system from a ‘common Chaos."® Endorsed by such publicly religious natural philosophers as Boyle and New- ton, the search for natural laws and mechanical explanations became a veritable Christian vocation, especially in Protestant countries, where miraculous signs and wonders were often associated with Catholic superstition. As one Anglican divine complained in 163s, some Protestants were even beginning to question of the eficacy of prayer, believing that God. working through second causes, “hath, For ordinary folk the most compelling instances of supematuraisi giving way to naturalim occurred nos in physics or chemistry bu in sich areas assme= tcorology and medicine, in explanations of epidemics eclipses, and earthquakes. ‘Alecady by the sixteenth century, supernatural explanations of disease had largely disappeared from medical Ineratuce exeeptin discussions of epidemies and i= sanity, which remained etiological mysteries, and venereal diseases, the wages of sin. In writing about the common affictions of humanity—fracturs, tumors, endemic diseases, and such—physicins seldom mentioned God o: the devil. Even when discussing the plague, the most dreaded disease of all, they tended merely o acknowledge its supernatural origin before passing quickly to its more mundane aspects. The great French surgeon Ambroise Paré (510-90), for ex- ample, explicitly confined himself to “the natural causes of the plague,” saying that he would let divines deal with its ultimate causes. Priests and theologians may have placed greater emphasis on supernatural causes and cures, but in gen= eral they too easily accommodated new medical knowledge by maintaining that God usually effected His will rough natural agencies rather than by direct in= tervention. Theological interests this seldom preclided searching for nanial causes oF using natural eherspies.? “The most dramatic, and in aome ways revealing episode in the nanuralizs- tion of disease occurced in the Buitish colonies of North America in the easly 17208. Christians had long regarded smullpox, a frighteningly deadly and dis ayo Ronatp L. Noaaeas figuring disease, as God’ ultimate scourge to punish sinners and bring them to their knees in contrition. Thus when an epidemic threatened to strike New Es gland in 1721, the governor of Massachusetts called for a day of fasting and ‘epenting ofthe sins thar had “sirred up the Anger of Heaven against us How= ever, the Puritan Cotton Mather (1663-1738) one of the town of Boston’ lead ing ministerial lights, offered an alternative to repentance—inoculation with an. artenuated but lve form of smallpox—i satural means. Having heard sumors of successful inoculaions against smmllpox in Affica and the Middle East, Mather, a fellow of dhe Royal Society of London, and a natural philosopher in his own tight, proposed that the untested, poten- tally lethal, procedure be tried in Boston, The best trained physician in town, Williams Douglas (1691-1752), fearing that inoculation would spread rather than prevent the disease and resenting the mediling of rainisters in medical matters, turged Mather to rely instead on “the all-wie Providene of God Almighty” and quit trying to thwart God's will. Mather and five other clerics countered that such reasoning would rule out all medical intervention. Cannot pious persons, they asked, hopes of preventing the disease by give into the method or practice without having their devotion and. subjection to the Allwice Providence of God Almighty cll'din «oestion?...Do we not inthe use of all meane depend on coos bleering? Fer, what hand or ar of Man is there in this Operation more thin ia Llceding, blistering and Score more things Mecal Use? which ase allcomsistent with s humble tan in our Great preserve, anda dae ‘Sulbjection to His Allewise Providence Besides, added Mather, Dr: Douglas risked violating the biblical commandment against killing by refusing to use inoculation to save lives. After postepidemic calculations demonstrated the eficacy of inoculation, smallpox, previously adie vinejudgment, becamea preventable disease. Few Christians lamented the meta~ smorphosis. And in generations to come their descendents would give thanks 1 God as medical science brought cholera, diphtheria, yellow fever, and even, venereal diseases under natural control * The same process occurred in meteorology. Benjamin Franklin (1705-00). who asa teenager in Boston had backed Douglass in his quarrel with Mather over smallpox inoculation, found himself on the opposite side of a similar debate a few decades lates, afer announcing the invention of a device co prevent another of Gods judgments on exting humanity: lightning. When a French cleric de- nounced lightning rods as an inappropriate means of thwarting Gods will, che ‘American printer wuned scientific celebrity scomfully replied: “he speaks as if he thought i presumption in man to propose guarding himself against che Tbin- Scuesee wrrovr Gop an ‘ers of Heavea! Surely the Thunder of Heaven is no more supernatural than the Rain, hail or Sunshine of heaven, against the Inconvenience of which we guard bby Roofs & Shades without Scruple” Reflective Christians quickly accepted Franklin’ logie, and before long lightning rods were adoming the steeples of churches throughour Europe and North America, protecting them not from God's wrath but from a dangerous and capricious natural occurrence Reactions to the grea earthquakes of 727 and 1755 further ilkusrate the roads of scientific naturalism on popular culture. On the night of 29 October 1727 a violeat earthquake shook the northern colonies of America, producing widespread damage to property. Terrified residents, humbled by this apparent display of divine anger, set aside fast days and begged God to forgive them for such sins as Sabbath breaking, pride, and drunkenness. To promote repentance among his parishioners, Thomas Prince (1687-1758), the Puritan pastor of Bos ton’s Old South Church, preached a sermon entitled Farthguaes the Works of Gal and Token of His just Displasue ln ihe conceded that the ignition of gases in the ceasth’ interior might have touched off the tremors—but then argued that such, secondary explanations only demonstrated “how the mighty con works invi bly by sensible Causes, and even by those that are extremely itd and weak, pro= duces the greatest and most terrible Effects in the World.” Cotton Mather sim= ilaely insisted om God's ative role in producing such catastrophes. “Let the Natural Cawee of Eathquakec be whar the Wie Men of Enguiny pleat.” he wrote “They and their Cows are still undes the government of ta that is the GoD of [Nature Twenty-eight years laces, on 18 November 1755, a second earthquake jolted New England. This time neaily two months passed before community Teaders called for a public fast. When the aging Reverend Prince reissued his eatlier sermon on earthquakes as tokens of Gods displeasure, Professor John Winthrop IV (+714~79) of Harvard College calmed the timorous with the as- surance that although God bore ultimate responsibility forthe shaking, natural causes had produced the tremors. “I think Mr. Wintheop has laid Mr. Prince flat con [his] back, and seemsto take some pleasure in his mortification,” gloated one of the professor's admirers." Years ago the historian Keith Thonas claimed chat as the mechanical phi- losophy pushed God further and further into the distance, it “killed the con- cept of miracles, weakened the belief in the physical efficacy of prayer. and di= rinished faith in the possibility of diteet divine inspiration.” Undoubredly some people experienced this effect. The revelations of narural philosophy helped to convince the liberal Boseon minister Chatles Chasiney (1705-87), for ‘example, chat Gol does not communicate either being or happiness co his crearues, ar least on this earth, by an immediate act of power, bur by concurring with acy Roxaip L. Nowaens ancstblished course of nature, What I mean is he brings creatures into existence, and makes them happy, bythe intervention of second ‘causes, operating under his direction and influence. ina stated. regular smiform manne. But for every liberal such as Chauncy there were scares of Christians who con tinued to believe in mizacles, prayet, and divine inspiration—while at the same time welcoming the evidence that epidemics, earthquakes, and lightening bolts derived from natural causes. And for every natural philosopher wholost his faith tm science, many more found their beliefs untouched by the search for natural ‘causes of physical exents. For them, the search for natural laws led toa fuller un= derstanding of God, not disbelief. ‘The Decline of Natural Philosophy and the Beginnings of Modern Science No single event matks the transition fiom godly natural philosophy to natural- istic modern science, but sometime between roughly the mideighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries snidents of nature in one discipline after another reached the conclusion that, regardless of one’s personal beliefs, supernatural explanations had no place in the practice of acience. As we have seen, natural philosophers had often expressed a preference for natural causes, bu few, if any, ad ruled out appeals to God. In contrast, vctualy all sicntsts (term coined in the 1830s but not widely used until the late nineteenth century), whether (Christians non-Christians, came by the latter nineteenth century 0 agree that God talk lay beyond the boundaries of science." The roots of secular science can be traced most clearly to Enlightenment France, where the sprit of Descartes lingered. Although not a materalist—he believed in God and the existence of immaterial souls—Descartes had pushed naturalism to the point of regarding animals as mere machines. This extreme form of naturalism scarcely influenced the course of scientific investigation, es- pecially outside of France, buritdlid spur some French Cartesians to go even fur= ther than Descartes. The French physician Julien Offray de La Mette (1709— 5). forexample, suggested thar humans are nothing bur “perpendicularly crawl- ing machines,” a claim thar eren the French fotind sensational. While acknowl- edging God to be the author of the Book of Nature, La Metric insisted that “ex- perience and observation.” not revelation, should be “our only guides.” Such iethods might not lad to absolute truth about human nature, but they provided “the greatest degree of probability possible on this subject.” Like many men of Scuesee wrrovr Gop an science to follow, he was willing to trade theological certainty for such scientific probability: Much more influential on scientific practice was La Mettrie' countryman (Georges-Lowis Leclere de Buffon (1797-88), an ardent admirer of Newton and ‘one of the most prominent nanital historians in the eighteenth century. Buffon called for an emphasis on the regulates of nanute and 3 renunciation of all ap- peals to che supernatural. Those studying physical subjects, he argued, “oughe as muchas possible, w avoid having recourse to supernatural causes” Philosophers “ought not tw be affecced by causes which seldom act, andl whose ation is always sudden and violent. These have no place in the ordinary course of nature. But ‘operations uniformly repeated, motions which succeed one another without n, ate the causes which alone ought to be the foundation of our rez- * Bulfon professed not to care whether such explanations were true— so long 2s they appeared probable. A thest, though not a practicing Christian, Buffon acknowledged that the Creator had originally sec the planets in motion, ‘but considered the fact of no value tothe natural philosopher. Buffor’s method= ‘ological convictions inspired him to propose 2 natural history of the solar sys= tem, based on the notion that a passing comer, “falling obliquely on the sun.” had detached the matter that later formed the planets and their satellites (fig 124), Although his speculations never caught on, some Cheistian eviiesjustif- ably evticized him for trying “to exclude the agency ofa divine Architect, and to representa world begun and perfected merely by the operation of natural, s- clesigning causes."” ‘A far more successful account of the origin of the solar system cane fs the Frenchman Pierre-Simon de Laplace (1749-1827), who had abandoned tain= ing asa cleric for acareer in mathemati and astronomy and eventually became cone ofthe lending men of science in Europe fig. 2.2) Finding Butfon’s method- ‘ology attractive but his theory physically implausible, Laplace in :796 proposed that the planets had been formed from the revolving atmosphere of the primi tive Sun, which, as it cooled and contracted, had abandoned a succession of ‘Saturn-like tings, which had coalesced to form the planers. On the occasion of a Visic in 802 to the country estate of Napoleon Bonaparte, Laplace entertained hhis hose with an account of his so-called nebular hypothesis. When the French, leader asked why he had heard no mention of God, Laplace supposedly uttered the much-quoted words “Site, Ihave no need of that hypothesis.” The only firs hand account of the exchange simply reports Napoleon's disappoinmment with Laplace's explanation chat “s chain of natural eauses would account for the con- atniction and preseevation of the wonderful system.” Either way, chere was no mistaking the impious message” Laplace’ thoroughly naturalistic hypothesis, authored by a notorious un arg Ronatw L. Nowa Pe) Fiece 23, The primes collision ofa comet wi the Sm, secardng to aflon Froen George Leis Lace de allen Has mn, grat pion (Dns ve Sa 9 ssn Cotes of Wim Aceh zed dhe Linds hl Library f Scene Engineering and Teco Choc ck ba Comehe ute te bled ae aan believer, represented the secularization of natural philosophy arits baldese. Not surprisingly, some Christians denounced Laplace for his transparently atheistic science. This was especially rue in the English-speaking world, where the tradi tion of natural theology remained strong and where French science was widely viewed. tending toward godless materialism. Irseemed cleat tothe Scottish di- vine Thomas Chalmers 1780-1847) for example. that if “ll the beauties and be- ‘efits of the astronomical system [could] be referred to the single law of gravie tation, ic would greatly reduce the strength of the argument of a designing ‘eause.” One of the classic arguments forthe existence of God rested on the ob- servation thatan objectappearing to have been made fora particular purpose had teen produced by an intelligent and puxposeful designer. IF the solar system. looked as if it were noc the result of necessity oF of accident, if i appeared to fave been made with a special end in mind, then it must have had a designer, Scuesee wrrovr Gop 25 EXPOSITION SYSTEME DU MONDE; Pa M. LE COMTE LAPLACE, Se eee iapcoatcear eo PARIS, mA LApLAce setae on Figure 2. Left Pree Simon de Laplace. Right: Tite pag of Laplace’ Espn de Spine de mond, sm vhics he develops hs nebul hypodtess Frum RersSmon de Lape pti tn meds gh cl. (Paix Mie. Ve Couecie, 8) ‘namely God, Bue what happened to the argument f che arrangement had 1 sulted simply from the laws of nature operating oa inert matter? John Pringle Nickol (1804-59), a minister-turned-astronomer atthe Univer= sity of Glasgow and an avid popularizer of the nebular hypothesis, offered one plausible answer. He dismissed Chalmets’s argument that “we can demonstrate the existence of a Deity more emphatically from that portion of creation of which we remain ignorant, than fiom any portion whose processes we have e3= plored,” as downright dangerous to Christianity. Such fears, Nichol believed, stemmed from a misunderstanding of the term “aw.” To him, laws simply des- ignated divine order: “Law of itself is no substantive or independent power; no «causal influence sprung of blind necessity, which carries on events of ics own will and energies without command.” [As more and more of the artifacts of nature, such asthe sola system, came robe seen as products of natural aw rather than divine miracle, defenders of de= sign increasingly shifted their attention to the origin of the laws that had proved capable of auch wondrous things, Many Christians concluded that these laws had been instituted by God and were evidence of His existence and wisdom. Jn this way, as John Le Conte (1818-1) of the University of California pointed out in the early 1870s, the cosmogony of Laplace helped to bring about a wansfor- 26 Roxaip L. Nowaens tation in the application ofthe principle of design “from the region of facts to that of laws.” The nebular hypothesis thus strengthened, rather than weakened, the argument from design. opening “before the mind a stupendous and glorious feld for medication upon che works and character of the Great Architect of the Universe" Chistian apologist: proved equally adepe at modifying the doctrine of di- vine providence to accommodate the nebular hypothesis, Instead of pointing to the miraculous creation of the work! by divine fat, a “special” provisential act, they emphasized God's “general” providence in creating the world by means of natural laws and secondary causes. While the Creator’ role in the formation of the solar system thus changed, itneither declined nor disappeared, a8 some tirnid believers had feared. Daniel Kirkwood (1814-95),a Presbyterian astronomer who contributed mote to the acceptance of the nebular hypothesis in America than anyone else, argued that if God's power is demonstrated in sustaining and gov- ceming the world through the agency of secondary causes, then it should not “be regarded as derogating from his perfections, co suppose the same power to have been exerted in a similar way inthe process of is formation.”=* God’ reliance on secondary causes in the daly operation of the world made irseem only reasonable to suppose that He had at least sometimes used the same means in creating it. “God generally effects hic purposes... by intermediate agencies, and this is especially the ease in dead, unorganized matter” wrote one author When, dhe rasn of heaven, an the gerle dew, ana the Boos, and storms, and voleances, and earthquakes, areall products of material forces, exhibiting no evidence of miraculous intervention, there i nothing profane or impious in supposing that the planets and satellites cof our system are not the immediate workmanship ofthe great First, (Case... God is till present: bu itis in the operation of unchangeable laws; in the sustaining of efficient energies which he his imposed on the smuterial world that he has created: in the preservation of powers propertcs, and affinities, which he has transferred out of himself and given tothe matter he has made. Ta at least one observer, Laplace's cosmogony offered an even mote convincing, demonstration of divine providence than did che traditional view: [How much more sublime and exalted a view docs t give ws of the work of creation and of che Great Architect, to contemplate him evolving a systems ‘of worlds froma difused mass of matter by the establishment of cet Scuesee wrmovr Gop a77 |hws and properties, than to consider him as aking portion of that ‘matter i his hand and moulding itas ie were into a sphere,and then imparting to it an impulse of motion So eager were many Christians to baptize the nebular hypothesis that they even read itback into che free chapter of Genesis. The Swiss-American Amold Guyor (1807-84), a highly respected evangelical geographer at Princeton Col- lege, wok the lead in educating fellow Chuistians on the close correspondence between the nebular hypothesis and dhe Mosaic narrative. Assuming the “days” of Genesis 1 to represent great epocks of creative activity, he argued that if the formless “waters” created by God at the beginning actully symbolized gaseous matter, then the light of the first day undoubtedly had been produced by the chemical acion resulting from the concentration of this matter into nebulae. ‘The dividing of the waters on the second day symbolized the breaking up of the nebulae into various planetary systems, of which ours was one. During the third epoch the earth had condensed to form a solid globe, and during the fourth, che nebulous vapors surrounding our planet had dispersed to allow the light of the ‘Sun to shine on the earth. During che fifth and sich epochs God had populated the earth with living creatures. “Such isthe grand cosmogonic week described by Moses.” declared the Christian professor. “To a sincere and unprejudiced mind i must be evident thar these great outlines are the same as thote which modem science enables us to tace, however imperfect and unsettled the daca afforded by scientific researchers may appear on many points." ‘Daring the second half of the nineteenth century Guyor'’s harmonization of the nebular hypothesis and the Bible became a favorite of Christian apologists, especially in America, e,en winning the endorsement of such staunchly ortho- dos theologians as Charles Hodge (1797-1878) of Princeton Theological Seri nary. "The best views we have met with on the harmony between science and the Bible” Hodge wrote in his immensely influential Systematic Tho, “are those of Professor Amold Guyot, a philosopher of enlarged comprehension of nature and a truly Christian spirit" In Christian classrooms across the United Seates and Canada, at least, students learned that Laplace's nebular hypothesis, despite itsauthor’s own intention, testified tothe wisdom and power of God and spoke to the truth of Scripture A Priininary Discourse on the Study of Nawal Pilooply (}830) by English as- tronomer John Herschel (1792-1874) was described by one scholar as “the first attempt by an eminent man of science to make the methods of science explicie” Frequently extrapolating from astronomy, the paradigmatic science of the time, Herschel asserted char sound scicatifie knowledge derived exclusively from ex- prin" the great, and indeed only ultimate source of our knowledge of nature a8 Roxaip L. Nowaens and its laws” —which was gained by serio and exgerinen, “the fountains of alll natural science.” Natural philosophy and science (he used the terms inter= changeably) recognized only those causes “having a eal existence in nature, and sot being mere hypotheses or figments of the mind” Although this srierare riled out supernatural casses, Herschel adamantly denied that the pursuit of science fostered unbelief. To the contrary he insisted that science “places the ex- ‘scence and principal arributes of « Deity on such grounds as to tender doube absurd and atheism ridiculous.” Natural laws testified to God's existence; they slid not make him superfluous.” Efforts to naturalize the history of the earth followed closely on the nacu~ alization of the skies—and produced similar results. When students of Earth, history, many of them Protestant ministers, created the new discipline of geol- ogy in the early nineteenth century, they consciously sought to reconstruct, Earth history using narural means alone. By the 18208 virtually all geologists, even those who invoked catastrophic events, were eschewing appeals to the su- pernatural. When the British geologist Charles Lyell (1797=1875) set about in. the early 18305 to “free the science from Moses,” the emancipation had already largely occurred. Nevertheless, his landmark Principles of Gedloy (1830-33) con- veniently summed up the accepted methods of doing geology. with the sub= title, Bang am Attn to Explain the Former Change of the Earth’ Surf, by Reference 16 Cowes Now in Operstin, conveying the main point. As Lyell described his proj ect to afriend, it would in good Hershelian fashion “endeavour to establish the principles of reasoning inthe seience,” most notably the idea “that no iss wh «ver have from the carliest time 10 which we can look back to the present ever acted but those now acting & that they never acted with different degrees of energy from that which they now exert." Lyell applauded his geological colleagues for following the lead of astron- ‘omers in substituting “fixed and invariable laws” for “immaterial and super= satural agents”: Many appearances, which for long time were regarded a indicating ‘mysterious and extraordinary agency, are finally recognized asthe necesiary esult of the laws new governing the material world; and the clscovery ofthis unlooked for conformity has induced some geologists to infor that there has newer been any interruption to she same niform onder of physical evens. The same aseemblage of general cates they conceive, may havebeen aificent to produce, by thet various combinations, the cendles diversity of effects, of which the shall ofthe earth has preserved the memorial, and, consistently with these principles the recurrence of analogous changes i expected by them i time ro come. Scuesee wrrnovr Gop 279 ‘The community of geologists, comprising mostly Christian men of science, thus embraced “the undeviating uniformity of secondary causes" —with one troubling exception." Like so many of his contempocates, Lyell, communicant of the Church of England, for years stopped short of extending the domain of natural law to the origin of species, especially of humans. Ar times he leaned toward areibuting new species to “the intervention of intermediate causes”; on other occasions he appealed to “the direc intervention of the First Cause,” thus transferring the i= sue from the jurisdiction of science wo that of religion. He used his Pravipls of Goleg asa platform to oppose organic evolution, particularly the theories of the late French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829), and he professed not to be “acquainted with any physical evidence by which a geologist could shake the opinion generally entertained of the creation of man within the period gen= erally assigned." ‘The person most responsible for naturalzing the origin of species—and thereby making the problem a scientific matter—was Lyells younger fiiend Charles Darwin (1800-82). As early a 1838 Darwin had concluded that atteibut= ing the structure of animals to “the will of the Deity” was “no explanation—it has not the character ofa physical law 8 i cherefore utterly useless.” Within a couple of decades many other students of natural history (or naturalists, as they were commonly called) had reached the same conclusion. The British zoologist “Thomas H. Huxley, one of the most outspoken erties of the supernatural or in of species, ame to sce references to special creation as representing litle more than a “specious mask for our ignorance.” IF the advocates of special ee ation hoped to win a hearing for this views as science, he argued, then they had an obligation to provide “some particle of evidence thatthe existing species of animals and plants did originate in that way.” Of course, they could not. "We haave not the slightest scientific evidence of such unconditional erative acts; no, indeed, could we have such evidence,” Hurley noted in 1836 lecture; “for, if a species were to originate under one's very eyes, know of no amount of evidence which would justify one in admitting ito bea special creative act independent of the whole vast chain of causes and events in the univers.” To highlight che scientific vacuity of special creation, Darwin, Huxley, and other naturalists took to asking provocatively whether “elemental atoms flashed] into living tissues? ‘Was there vacant space one moment and an elephant apparent the next? Or did a lahorious God mould out of gathered earth a body to then endue with life?” Creationists did their bes co ignore such taunts Inhis revolutionary Origin f Sets (1859) Darwin aimed primarily “to over- throw the dogma of separate creations” and extend the domain of natural Law throughout the organic world. He succeeded spectacularly —not because of his 280 Roxio L. Nusa clever theory of natural selection (which few biologists thought sufficientto ac- ‘count for evolution) nor because of the voluminovs evidence of organic devel- ‘opment that he presented, but because, as one Christian reader bluntly put there was “literally nothing deserving the name of Science to putin its place “The American geologist William North Rice (1845-1928), an active Methodist, nade much the same point. “The great strength of the Darwinian theory.” be wrote in 1867, “lies in ies coincidence with the general spirie and eendeney of science. Ie is the aim of science to narrow the domain of the supernatural, by bringing all phenomena within the scope of natural laws and secondary In reviewing the Origin of Species for the Allamic Moni che Harvard botanist ‘Asa Gray (1810-88) forthright addressed the question of how he and his col- leagues had come to feel so uncomfortable with a “supernatural” account of spe- ciation. “Sufficient answer,” he explained, “may be found in the activity of the suman intellect, ‘the delirious yet divine desire to know’ stimulated ait has been. by its own success in unwiling the laws and processes of inorganic Nature.” Minds that had witnessed the dramatic progress of the physical sciences in re- cent years simply could not “be expected to lt the old belief about species pass tnquestioned” Resides, he later explained, “the business of science is with the course of Nanure, not with internuptions of i, which mast rest on theirown spe- al evidence” Organie evolition, echoed his friend George Frederick Wright (8sk1921), a geologise and ordained Congregational minister, accorded with the fundamental principle of science, which states thar ‘we arc to press known secondary causes a far as they willgo inexplamtion of facts. We are net to resortto an unknown (., superatural) cause for explanation of phenomena til the power ‘of known causes has been exhausted. If we cease to observe this mle theres an end to all science and all sound sense Allof the above statements welcoming Darwinism asa legitimate extension of ratural law into che biological world came from Christian scientists of i= peceable religious standing: Rice, a Methodist; Gray, a Presbyterian; Weight, a Congregationalist. Naturalism appealed to them. and to a host of other Chris tians, in part because it served asa reliable means of discovering God's laws. As the duke of Argyll, George Douglas Campbell (1823-1910) so passionately af- agued in his widely read book The Regn of Law (1867), che natural awe of seience represented nothing less chan manifestations of God will. Christians could thus cclebrate the rule of nanural law as “the delight, che eward, the goal of Science.” Even the evangelical theologian Benjamin B, Warfield (1831-1921), leading d= fender of biblical inersancy in wwrn-of-the-century Americ, argued that tle- Scuesee wrrovr Gop ah ‘ology (Chat is, belief ina divinely designed world) “is in no way inconsistenc with, a complete system of natural causation” ‘The adoption of naturalistic methods did not drive most nineteenth-century scientists into the arms of agnosticisin or atheiem. Long after God tale had dis appeared from the heartland of science, the vast majority of scientists, at least in the United States, semained Chaiatians or theists. Their acceptance of aacsral- istic science sometimes prompted them, as Jon H. Roberts has pointed out, “to reassess the relationship between nature and the supernatural.” For exarape, when the American naturalist Joseph Le Conte (1821-1901), John Le Contes brother, moved from seeing species as being “introduced by the miraculous in= terference ofa personal intelligence” to viewing themas the products of divinely ordained natural laws, he rejected all ‘anthropomorphic notions of Deity” fora God “ever-present all-pervading, everacting.” Nevertheless, Le Conte remained anactive churchgoing Christian.” ‘The relatively smooth passage of naturalism tumed nasty during che last third of the nineteenth century, when 2 noisy group of British scientists and philosophers, led by Husley and the Irish physicist John Tyndall (1820-03) bee {gan insisting that empirical, naturalistic science provided the only eliable know! cedge of nature, humans, and society. Their anticlerieal project, aimed at snder= mining the authority of the established Anglican church and dubbed “scientific anurslien” hy Huxley, had litle to do with naruralizing the practice of science bur a lor to do with creating positions and influence for men suchas themselves. “They soughe, as the historian Prank M. Turner has phrased it, “to expand the i uence of scientific ideas forthe purpose of seculatizing society rather than for the goal of advancing science internally: Secularization was theit goal; science, their weapon." For centuries men of science had typically gone our of their way to assure the religious of their peaceful intentions. In 874, however, during his presiden= tial address 0 the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Tyndall declared war on theology inthe name of science. Men of science, he threatened, would ‘wrest from theology, the entire domain of cosmelogical theory. All schemes and systems which thus infringe upon the domain of sience ‘mus in so far as they do this submit to ite control, and rlinguishall thought of controlling it. Acting otherwise proved always cicactrnt in the part and ite simply Fatuous today: In contrast eo most carlicr naturalists, who had aspited simply to eliminate the supematural from science while leaving religion alone, Tyndall and his crowd sought to root out supernaturaism from all phases of ife and co replace taadi= a Roxio L. Nusa tional religion witha rational “religion of science.” As described by one devotee, this secular substitute rested on “an implicit faith thac by the methods of physi ‘al science. and by these methods alone, could be solved all the problems arising ‘cut of the celtion of man to man and of man towards the mniverse.” Despite the protests of Christians thar the scientific naturalists were ilegitimately trying to “sesociate natualsin and science in a kind of joint supremacy over the thoughts and consciences of mankind” the linkage of science and seculatization colored the popular image of science for decades wo come." ‘The rise of the sovial sciences in the late ninetench century in many ways reflected these imperialistic aims of the scientific naturalists, As moral philos- cophy fiagmented inco such new disciplines as psychology and sociology, many social scientists, insecure about their scientific standing, loudly pledged theit al- legiance not only tothe naturalistic methods of science but to the philosophy of scientific naturalism as well. Most damaging of all, they turned religion itself into object of scientific scrutiny. Having “conquered one feld after another.” noted an American psychologistar the time, science now entered “the most com= plex, the most inaccessible, and, of all, che most sacred domain—that of reli gion” Under the naturalistic gaze of social scientists the soul dissolved into nothingness. God faded into an illusion, and spirituality became. in the words of a British psychologic, “‘epiphenomenal’ a merely incidental phosphores= cence, s0 say, har regularly accompanies physical procestes of a certain type and complexity." Here, at last, Christians felt compelled to deaw che line? [Reclaiming Science in the Name of God By the closing years of che twentieth century naturalistic methods reigned supreme within the scientific community, and even devout Christian scientsts scarcely dreamed of appealing to the supernatural when actually doing science. “Naturalism rules the secular academic world absolutely, which is bad enough,” lamented one concerned layman. “What is far worse is that it rules much of the ‘Christian world as well” Even the founders of scientific creationism, who bea- 2zenly rejected so much of the content of modem science, commonly acknowl- ‘edged naturalism as che legitimate method of science. Because they narrowed the scope of science to exclude questions of origins they typically limited it to the study of “present and reproducile phenomena” and left God and miracles to. religion. Given the consensus on naturalism, it came as something of a surprise in the late 19808 and 19908 when a small group of so-called theistic scientists and ceanp followers unveiled plans “to reclaim science in the name of God.” They launched thei offensive by attacking methodological naturalism as atheistic— Scuesee wrrovr Gop 25 ‘or, a8 one partisan put it, “absolute rubbish’—and by asserting the presence of “intelligent design” (ID) inthe universe** ‘The roots of the intelligent design argument run deep inthe soi of natural theology but its recent flowering dates from the mid-igSs. The gars of ID, Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson (b. 1940), initially sought to diserecit evolution by demonscrating that ie rested on the unwarranted assumption that naturalism was che only legitimate way of doing science. This bias, argued the Presbyterian layman, unfairly limited the cange of possible explanations and ruled out any consideration of theistic factors. Johnson's writings inspited a Catholic biochemist at Lehigh University, Michael J. Behe (1.1952), 9 speak. out on the inadequacy of naturalistic evolution for explaining molecular life. In ‘Darwin's Blak Box (1996), Behe maintained that biochemistry had “pushed Das wwin's theory to the limit. .by opening theultimate black box, the cell, thereby making possible our understanding of how life works.” The “astonishing com= plexity of subcellular organic structure” led him to conclude—on the basis of scientific daa, he asserted, “not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs’ —that intelligent design had been at work. “The tesult isso unambiguous and so sig- nificant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the his- tory of science” he gushed. “The discovery [of intelligent design] rivals those of Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schroedinger, Pasteur and Darwin” — and by implication elevated it: discoverer to the pantheon of modern science (Big. 125)# “The partisans of ID hoped to spark “an inelleceual revolution” chat would rewrite the ground rules of science to allow the inclusion of supernanural e3- planations of phenomena. If Carl Sagan (1934-96) and other reputable re- searchers could undertake a Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SET) in the name of science, they reasoned, why should they be dismissed as un= scientific for searching for evidence of intelligence in the biomolecular world? Should logical analogies fail co impress, ID advocates hoped that concerns for cultural diversity might win thema hearing. “In so pluralistic a society 2s ours” pleaded one spokesman, “why don't alternative views about life's origin and de- velopment have a legitimate place in academic discourse?” ‘This quixotic attempe to foment a methodological revolution in science ere- ated little sti within the mainstream scientific community. Most scientists either ignored itor dismissed its “the same old creationist bullshit dressed up in new clothes." The Britith evaluioniry biologist Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) wrote it off as “a pathetic cop-out of [one!] responsibilities 2: a scientist” Significantly, the most spirited debate over intelligent design and scientific naturalism took place among conservative Christian scholars. Having long since come to tems with doing scicace nacuralisically, reported the editor of the evangelical journal 84 Roxaip L. Nowaens gure t2y, Prcnaits nthe ongoing debates over evolaton creation and itlget

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