Re: [asa] More WLC on Evolution, ID, and Genesis

>>> Schwarzwald <schwarzwald@gmail.com> 11/25/2008 1:36 AM >>> writes some
interesting things about Bill Craig's views, among them this one:
"The Bible doesn't intend to be a science textbook, so it would be silly
to
look to it for scientific discoveries. But modern science was birthed by a
biblical worldview which saw the world neither as divine nor as inhabited
by
spirits but as a rational place created by God and therefore amenable to
scientific exploration. And a theistic view of the world can most
certainly
contribute to our understanding of scientific truth."

I think the power of this observation is tremendous, and it's the sort of
thing I'd like to see built up in the future.

***

Ted cautions:
Actually, very few historians would agree with this conclusion. While most
would not deny that religion and science were closely intertwined prior to
ca. 1800, not many would say that "modern science was birthed by a biblical
worldview," as if Christianity were the one main cause of modern science.
One does get this impression from Rodney Stark's book, "For the Glory of
God," but Stark is a sociologist not an historian, and he overlooks most of
the best historical work on science & religion in the early modern period.
It's one thing to say, e.g., that monotheism is very well suited to modern
science, and that many of the leading scientists during the Scientific
Revolution quite readily read nature through theological glasses, or even
that Xty shaped modern science in some major ways. It's another thing
entirely, however, to say that Xty caused modern science, as if there
wouldn't have been anything like it without Xty --a counterfactual
hypothesis that can't really be tested. Furthermore monocausal accounts of
major historical episodes are notoriously difficult to demonstrate
convincingly. There's an axiom in history that, the larger the historical
target, the harder it is to hit. (Think about that, and you'll start to see
the problem.)

I understand why a Christian apologist like Craig would be attracted to the
idea that "Xty caused modern science," thereby conveying the cultural
authority and respect that many modern people have for science back onto
Christianity, but unfortunately it's overreaching. Denying the old
proposition that Christianity had nothing positive to contribute to science
is one thing, but affirming this one is quite another. I urge considerable
caution here.

Ted

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Received on Tue Nov 25 10:12:22 2008