Why Science Works? It was a belief in God that began modern science!

Talking real history and real science. (Hat tip to David Coppedge)

All quoted excerpts of summaries of great Creation scientists of the early days when science split off from superstition are from:
  
One of the world's most wicked lies is the one perpetrated on youth by Darwinists.   I will demonstrate that this evil lie is indeed a lie!  The Scientific Method is Methodological Investigation.    The evil lie is that is that it is rather Methodological Naturalism.   What if we declared that it was Methodological Creationism?   Imagine the cries of despair and anger?   How dare we insert religion into science?   Well, that is what the Naturalists have done.   Will you let them hoodwink YOU?

  Stevie live

What is Naturalism?  The Definition from Free Online Dictionary:

nat·u·ral·ism  (nchr--lzm, nchr-)

n.
1. Factual or realistic representation, especially:
a. The practice of describing precisely the actual circumstances of human life in literature.
b. The practice of reproducing subjects as precisely as possible in the visual arts.
2.
a. A movement or school advocating such precise representation.
b. The principles and methods of such a movement or of its adherents.
3. Philosophy The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.
4. Theology The doctrine that all religious truths are derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation.
5. Conduct or thought prompted by natural desires or instincts.

Notice that the philosophy of Naturalism rules the theology of Naturalism?   See that it has no place being forced upon science?  Is it any wonder that men who want to follow their "natural desires or instincts" no matter how wicked or perverse tend to be Darwinists? Naturalism is simply Paganism with a veneer of respectability.  To quote from my own post (presented in my modern format) of Saturday, February 04, 2006

"There is a faction of scientists who exclude the supernatural from their possibilities not on the basis of science, but philosophy. Let's hear from some of them:

"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually- fulfilled atheist." - Richard Dawkins, Darwinian apologist.

"I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption ... For myself, as no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneous liberation from a certain political and economic system, and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom." - Aldous Huxley, philosopher, author, lecturer -(REPORT, June 1966. "Confession of Professed Atheist."}

"We [scientists] have … a prior commitment to materialism [and] we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations… Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” -Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31.

"The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails." - H. L. Mencken

“[I suppose the reason] we all jumped at the Origin [of Species] was because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.” - Julian Huxley, British biologist...:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(H.L. Mencken was an idiot for believing that ANYONE but a few landlocked uneducated serfs thought the Earth was flat.   Not in the 13th Century, not in the 1st Century, not in the days of Noah and in fact probably never.   No one who had any familiarity with sailing ships and no group of Christians thought so either).  Yet another common Darwinist lie.


"...atheistic evolutionist, William Provine, said: “Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods (worth having) exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent..."   From the article at the end of this blogpost.

The great early scientists would have rejected such nonsense out of hand.   It was a pagan concept to believe that nature is all there is and it is certainly a pagan belief that life makes itself  e.g. Vitalism.    Darwinists have brought superstition through the front door of science and then closed it to the logical foundation upon which science was built in the first place, that a Logical God created a world that could be studied and used logically!

The history and science that get taught in the average American school these days is full of untruth, half-truths and absolute lies.   No surprise as the schools get more secular, the average SAT score keeps going down even with admittedly dumbed-down standard questions.   One of the really warped ideas is that the Renaissance led humanity out of the Dark Ages.  Hardly!   The Renaissance was a movement primarily among the elites, concerning the elites and having no real effect on the masses.   Just as the majority of the Ivy League Elitists who tend to enter politics today, the majority of elitists in the early part of the emergence of science and literacy and the chance for prosperity and success for the middle class and lower class really were not involved and probably didn't care.

It was the Reformation, led by men like Martin Luther, that freed the vast majority of mankind from the rule of a quasi-Church that was the marriage of tyranny and ignorance for the purpose of enslaving the majority of mankind so that the leaders could continue to live rich and leisurely lives.  It was the Reformation that broke the yoke of the elitists off of the serfs and merchants and it was the education of the common man that helped this to happen.  Nuremberg's printing press began printing Bibles in defiance of the law.   Yes, it was illegal throughout most of Europe for a commoner to even possess a Bible! 

Why?  Uninformed people don't know that they can be anything more than they are, that they could actually understand things the priests and rulers told them were beyond their ken.   Ignorance is always one of the great weapons of tyranny and propaganda and brainwashing help spread and maintain ignorance.  But the Bible and men dedicated to educate mankind and discover truths about the wonders of God's creation brought about the end of the Dark Ages and started modern science.  Here are a few heroes of both faith and discovery: 

Robert Grossteste

The man who was (to the best of our knowledge)  the first to conceive of the forerunner of the Scientific Method was Robert Grossteste.   The Bishop of Lincoln, who came up with the "resolution and composition" idea (observation and application of observations) and was actually either Headmaster or Chancellor of Oxford University for several years.  He was an early proponent of hypothesis followed by experimentation and/or observation.  He was also part of the movement of the Reformation from within the Church itself.

"When studying any historical biography, we have to understand the tenor of the times.  The conditions in medieval Europe, totally dominated by the Catholic church, often corrupted by its own power, were often far from Christlike.  We would hasten to distance ourselves from the abuses that were all too pervasive: bloody Crusades, immoral popes, dogma and human tradition exalted above Scripture.  As mentioned in the Introduction, however, many of the abuses were done by the rulers, not the monks, pastors, and common people, except to the extent they believed and obeyed false doctrines.  Those nearest to the teachings of Jesus were the monks and pastors who knew the ancient languages, copied the Scriptures and had dedicated their lives to the gospel as they understood it (this can be illustrated by the fact that Jon Hus, Martin Luther and other later reformers often came from the ranks of monks).  Corrupted as church doctrine had become with works and extra-biblical traditions, there still remained a Christian outlook on the world of nature, though compromised at times by Greek philosophy (particularly of Aristotle).  It was the Christian worldview, in contrast to the mythologies of pagan empires, that was to be the seedbed of the scientific revolution.  (See our section on worldviews in the Introduction).

Robert Grosseteste was a seminal figure in the history of science; some have even characterized him as an early practitioner of the scientific method.  Although a theologian and bishop by profession, he took great interest in the natural world.  What drove this interest?  That is the question we want to explore.  Certainly most of his attention was devoted to the pastorate and the training of pastors, of which the Grosseteste website says, “During his eighteen years as a bishop, Grosseteste became known as a brilliant, but highly demanding, church leader.  He insisted that all his clergy be literate and receive some training in theology.” His insistence on high moral and intellectual standards even led him, on several occasions, to rebuke the church leadership.  He did not hesitate to lecture the pope on practices he felt were intolerable and unscriptural, such as corruption and political favoritism.  The InfoPlease online encyclopedia says, “Some historians see in Grosseteste’s protests against Rome an influence upon Wyclif and a foreshadowing of the Reformation.”  In particular, out of outrage for the corruption with which papal appointees were collecting church revenues, he resisted Pope Innocent IV to his face..." 

"...Notice how Genesis gave him the inspiration to pursue a mathematical analysis of light.  Robert Grosseteste is a prime example of how a Biblical worldview stimulated science.  In more than one case, an actual Bible verse was the stimulus.  This counters the criticism of naturalistic scientists that presume scientific research comes to a halt when the answer is “God did it.”  On the contrary, the question How did God do it? often spurred great thinkers to uncover the laws that they believed the great Lawgiver had designed. Grosseteste is memorable not only for his own scientific pursuits, but also for the fact that he was mentor to Roger Bacon, who caught the spark and envisioned even greater possibilities for the experimental method. "

Roger Bacon 

Roger Bacon is said to have produced a more modern iteration of the Scientific Method, building on Grossteste's  Method of Verification that resembles that final formulation we associate with Sir Francis Bacon.  

"Roger Bacon was a man ahead of his time.  In the so-called “Dark Ages,” he foresaw a world of flying machines, powered ships, telescopes and other inventions that would result from experimental science.  His faith in science was born out of his faith in God.  

Bacon studied at Oxford under the eminent Bishop of Lyons, Robert Grosseteste, who advocated the study of nature as evidence of the Creator.  Bacon performed systematic experiments on lenses and mirrors.  When he caught the excitement of what experimental science could do, he became an ardent promoter of the experimental method as a way to understand the world, improve the human condition, and avoid the errors of superstition and magic.  To Bacon, experimental science was superior to deduction from authority, having better accord with experience.  Bacon also saw the value of science as an apologetic, to draw people to faith in Christ. 

On this theme, Roger Bacon wrote to Pope Clement IV in 1266, suggesting it would be good for the church to gather the work of scholars into a great encyclopedia of the sciences.  The pope misunderstood his request and asked to see this encyclopedia, believing it already existed.  Fearing to disobey the pope, Bacon hurriedly performed a monumental achievement - writing a three-volume encyclopedia of the known science of his day (which even included a description of how to make a telescope).  He worked feverishly on this project in secret, since his superiors at the monastery did not approve of it.  Bacon wanted to demonstrate to the Pope that science was the friend of faith and should be a worthy part of the University curriculum...

"...Roger Bacon is rightly honored as being one of the fathers of the scientific method, fully 300 years before it became popular (largely through the philosophical writings of another but unrelated Bacon, Sir Francis, also a Bible believer).  While others in the thirteenth century were content with superstition, habit and acceptance of authority, Bacon saw the value of glorifying God through study of the world.  He believed science would draw people to faith in God.  It is interesting to note that it was the Christian thinkers in the Universities and in the monasteries who connected the dots between the Bible and science.  Bacon made errors, and had some superstitions of his own about alchemy and astrology (as did most people in his day), but he saw how experimental science could lead people away from the errors of superstition and magic by demonstrating how the world really works.

In order to think along these lines, clearly Roger Bacon had to have a Christian world view that nature was rational and obeyed natural laws.  While other cultures achieved successes in engineering or medicine through pragmatism, luck or necessity, Bacon’s point was philosophical (philo=love, soph=wisdom); he valued knowledge not just for its practical benefits, but for its own intrinsic value both as a means of avoiding error and for understanding the mind of God.  This was the foundation that led to a sustainable scientific enterprise.  His prophecies were to be vindicated hundreds of years later as experimental science was taken up vigorously by more great Christians - Kepler, Boyle, Newton and others - and the world would never be the same.

A crater on the moon is named in Roger Bacon’s honor..."

Sir Francis Bacon

This gentleman would be aghast and appalled with what Naturalists have done to science, dragging it back to the point of view prevalent during the days before real science began.  

If modern science was ethical and true, the metaphysical stance of the scientist would not be considered and his experiments, observations, publications, assertions and discoveries would be reviewed and considered logically without bringing religion into the discussion.   EVERYBODY has a religion.   Modern science suffers and is thereby harmful to mankind by refusing to allow non-Naturalists to join in normal peer review or normal organizations or have an opportunity to obtain tenure in Universities and probably even teach in them at all!   This is a shameful chapter in the history of science as a book written 150 years ago, much of it from ignorance, from lies, taken from the work of others and ignorant of much about which it addressed has been allowed to be an albatross around the neck of scientific discovery.  

If Richard Dawkins was placed in a room and forced to provide a logical and coherent worldview consistent with the evidence in order to leave that room,  we would never see him again.

"Is Christian philosophy good for science?  In this series we showcase many examples, but the case could hardly be made stronger than to point to Mr. Scientific Method himself, Sir Francis Bacon.

Although not a practicing scientist, Bacon is considered by many historians to be the “founder of modern science.”  His philosophy and writings were largely responsible for igniting the scientific revolution in the 17th century.  Numerous intellectuals like Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton seized on the “new philosophy” of Bacon that emphasized empiricism and induction.  Casting aside dependence on authorities like Aristotle, the new science exploded on the scene, yielding a wealth of discoveries and inventions that has continued unabated to this day.  But this “new philosophy” was really nothing new; it was a return to the principles of the Bible.  The “founder of modern science” was a Bible-believing Christian, and Christian doctrine was the foundation of his thinking..."

It is certain that the Scientific Method was Methodological Investigation.   It was the foundational thought by which the Maxwells and Newtons and Boyles considered and studied and discerned the world around them and provided new discoveries and even invented entire scientific disciplines.   Pretty much any major branch of science was started by a Creationist scientist.

"...The essence of Baconian philosophy is induction: instead of deducing the nature of Nature from authorities like Aristotle and Galen, scientists should build from the ground up.  Gather facts.  Measure things.  Collect and organize observational evidence, then build a hypothesis to explain them.  Test all hypotheses against the facts.  Bacon was convinced this method would provide a more certain path to truth than trust in fallible human reason, and would issue in a golden age of discovery.  The scientific method we learn in school is largely Baconian: gather observations, make a hypothesis to explain them, test the hypothesis, and reject all causes inconsistent with the observations.  Hypotheses that pass empirical tests can advance to theories and laws.

Philosophy of science has changed and matured quite a bit since Bacon, and philosophers continue to debate what constitutes science vs pseudoscience.  The Baconian ideal seems a little simplistic and impractical; we now recognize the need for scientific theories to make predictions, and the requirement for falsifiability in hypotheses.  No matter; the value of Bacon’s method was seen in its fruits: major new discoveries in chemistry, physics, biology and astronomy; the founding of new branches of science; the overturning of long-held false beliefs, and new institutions like the Royal Society.  One of the ironies of history was that the other Bacon in our series (Roger Bacon), had promoted the same value of experimental science three and a half centuries earlier.  It would make a good research project to look for any connections or influences of Roger on Sir Francis, other than that they were both Englishmen..."

One fraudulent doctrine taught by the high priests of Darwinism is that the early Christian scientists and philosophers were closet skeptics who wore a cloak of religion while having no personal belief in God.   This lie is easily dismissed by studying the volume of works and letters of these men discussing God and philosophy.   Sir Isaac Newton wrote more about God than he did about science.   Francis Bacon made it clear where he stood:

"...Francis Bacon was no closet skeptic; for him, the Bible was the key to liberating man from the fallible opinions of human authorities, and Genesis gave the impetus to take seriously our God-given role as stewards of creation.  That included doing science.  He viewed atheism as plebeian: “A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism,” he quipped, “but depth of philosophy bringeth a man’s mind about to religion.” (To an Elizabethan, religion was synonymous with Christianity.)  Similarly, he said “Philosophy, when superficially studied, excites doubt; when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.”  In a statement congruent with the modern Intelligent Design Movement, he declared, “I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran [Koran], than that this universal frame is without a mind.”  For Francis Bacon, science was an act of worship as well as a shield against falsehood.  He said, “There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error: first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the Creatures, which express His power...”

It is fitting to end with a piece by a great Creation Scientist of Y3K, Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, Chess Grandmaster, genius, scientist, author and one of the most respected and accomplished of scientists who do acknowledge the creation of the Universe by God.

Why does science work at all?

by Jonathan Sarfati
Telescope
 stockxpert
Many anti-Christians claim that Christianity and science have been enemies for centuries. This is the opposite of the truth. Informed historians of science, including non-Christians, have pointed out that modern science first flourished under a Christian worldview while it was stillborn in other cultures such as ancient Greece, China and Arabia.1

This should be no surprise when we ask why science works at all. There are certain essential features that make science possible, and they simply did not exist in non-Christian cultures.2
  1. There is such a thing as objective truth. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6). But postmodernism, for example, denies objective truth. One example is, “What’s true for you is not true for me.” So maybe they should try jumping off a cliff to see if the Law of Gravity is true for them. Another postmodern claim is, “There is no truth”—so is that statement true?; or “We can’t know truth”—so how do they know that?
  2. The universe is real, because God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1). This sounds obvious, but many eastern philosophies believe that everything is an illusion (so is that belief an illusion as well?). There is no point in trying to investigate an illusion by experimenting on it.
  3. The universe is orderly, because God is a God of order, not of confusion—(1 Corinthians 14:33). But if there is no creator, or if Zeus and his gang were in charge, why should there be any order at all? If some Eastern religions were right that the universe is a great Thought, then it could change its mind any moment.
    A postmodern claim is, ‘We can’t know truth’—so how do they know that?
    It is impossible to prove from nature that it is orderly, because the proofs would have to presuppose this very order to try to prove it. Also, in this fallen world with natural disasters and thunderstorms and general chaos, it is not so obvious that it was made by an orderly Creator. This is a major message of the book of Ecclesiastes—if we try to live our lives only according to what is “under the sun”, the result is futility. Hence our chief end is to “Fear God and keep his commandments” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
    A fundamental facet of science is deriving laws that provide for predictable outcomes. This is possible only because the universe is orderly.
  4. Since God is sovereign, He was free to create as He pleased. So the only way to find out how His creation works is to investigate and experiment, not rely on man-made philosophies as did the ancient Greeks.
    This is illustrated with Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). He showed by experiment that weights fall at the same speed (apart from air resistance), which refuted the Greek philosophy that heavy objects fall faster. He also showed by observation that the sun had spots, refuting the Greek notion that the heavenly bodies are “perfect”. (See also p. 49.)

    Many eastern philosophies believe that everything is an illusion (so is 
    that belief an illusion as well?).
    Another example is Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), who discovered that planets moved in ellipses around the sun. This refuted the Greek philosophies that insisted on circles because they are the most “perfect” shapes; this didn’t match the observations, so they added an increasingly cumbersome system of circles upon circles called epicycles.
    Images Wikipedia.org
    Scientists
    But when it comes to origins as opposed to today’s processes, God has revealed that He created about 6,000 years ago over six normal-length days, and judged the earth with a globe-covering flood about 4,500 years ago. It’s thus no accident that Kepler calculated a Creation date of 3992 BC, and Isaac Newton (1643–1727), probably the greatest scientist of all time, also strongly defended biblical chronology.
  5. Man can and should investigate the world, because God gave us dominion over His creation (Genesis 1:28); creation is not itself divine. So we don’t need to sacrifice to the forest god to cut down a tree, or appease the water spirits to measure its boiling point. Rather, as Kepler said, his scientific thoughts were “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”
    Many other founders of modern science also saw their scientific research as bringing glory to God. Newton said:
    “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. … This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called ‘Lord God’ Παντοκράτωρ [Pantokratōr cf. 2 Corinthians 6:18] or ‘Universal Ruler’. … The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect … ”.3
    “Opposite to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.”4
  6. Man can initiate thoughts and actions; they are not merely the results of deterministic laws of brain chemistry. This is a deduction from the biblical teaching that man has both a material and immaterial aspect (e.g. Genesis 35:18, 1 Kings 17:21–22, Matthew 10:28). This immaterial aspect of man means that he is more than matter, so his thoughts are likewise not bound by the makeup of his brain.

    The immaterial aspect of man means that he is more than matter, so his thoughts are likewise not bound by the makeup of his brain.
    But if materialism were true, then “thought” is just an epiphenomenon of the brain, and the results of the laws of chemistry. Thus, given their own presuppositions, materialists have not freely arrived at their conclusion that materialism is true, because their conclusion was predetermined by brain chemistry. But then, why should their brain chemistry be trusted over mine, since both obey the same infallible laws of chemistry? So in reality, if materialists were right, then they can’t even help what they believe (including their belief in materialism!). Yet they often call themselves “freethinkers”, overlooking the glaring irony. Genuine initiation of thought is an insuperable problem for materialism, as is consciousness itself.5
  7. Man can think rationally and logically, and that logic itself is objective. This is a deduction from the fact that he was created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26–27), and from the fact that Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, is the logos (John 1:1–3). This ability to think logically has been impaired but not eliminated by the Fall of man into sinful rebellion against his Creator. (The Fall means that sometimes the reasoning is flawed, and sometimes the reasoning is valid but from the wrong premises. So it is folly to elevate man’s reasoning above what God has revealed in Scripture.6) But if evolution were true, then there would be selection only for survival advantage, not necessarily for rationality.
  8. Results should be reported honestly, because God has forbidden false witness (Exodus 20:16). But if evolution were true, then why not lie? It is not that surprising that scientific fraud is an increasing problem.7
    Flasks
    stock.xchng
    Note, it’s important to understand the point here—not that atheists can’t be moral but that they have no objective basis for this morality from within their own system. The fanatical atheistic evolutionist Dawkins admits that our “best impulses have no basis in nature,”8 and another atheistic evolutionist, William Provine, said: “Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods (worth having) exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.”9
If evolution were true, then there would be selection only for survival advantage, not necessarily for rationality.
It is thus no accident that science has flowered since the Reformation, where the Bible’s authority was rediscovered. And it is no accident that the country with the strongest remnants of Bible-based Christian faith, the USA, leads the world by a mile in the output of useful science.

However, the Western world is largely living on the capital of its Christian heritage. But the push to indoctrinate students into evolution, and therefore atheism (at least for all practical purposes), undermines these Christian foundations of science (cf. Psalm 11:3). Thus evolutionary teaching will not improve science, but destroy it.

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being.”—Sir Isaac Newton

Related articles

Further reading

References and notes

  1. Stark, R., For the Glory of God: How monotheism led to reformations, science, witch-hunts and the end of slavery, Princeton University Press, 2003; see also review by Williams A., The biblical origins of science, Journal of Creation 18(2):49–52, 2004; . Return to text.
  2. I acknowledge Sean Wieland’s input into such a list. Return to text.
  3. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newton’s Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, ed. Thayer, H.S., Hafner Library of Classics, New York, USA, p. 42, 1953. Return to text.
  4. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, p. 347, 1855. Return to text.
  5. Thompson, B. and Harrub, B., Consciousness: the king of evolutionary problems, CRSQ 41(2):113–130, 2004. Return to text.
  6. Sarfati, J., Loving God with all your mind: Logic and creation, Journal of Creation 12(2):142–151, 1998; . Return to text.
  7. Bergman, J., Why the epidemic of fraud exists in science today, Journal of Creation 18(3):104–109, 2004. Return to text.
  8. Evolution: The dissent of Darwin, Psychology Today, 30(1):62, January/February 1997. Return to text.
  9. Provine, W.B. (Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University, USA), Origins Research 16(1/2):9, 1994; Darwin Day at the University of Tennessee, Dr William Provine (abstract), . Return to text.
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