The Problem with Naturalism - Bellator Christi

By: Jerry Bogacz | June 6, 2022

Scientific revolution coupled with the rallying call of the 17^th and 18^th century Enlightenment rationalists and empiricists proclaimed there were no limits to the power of human reason. Human reason, operating with the data from sense perception and armed with the scientific method, is the only reliable means of attaining knowledge about the universe. This unbridled optimism concerning the inevitability of progress of science and its ability to explain everything continues to be a strong characteristic of the scientific community today. Harvard molecular biologist Walter Gilbert has called the genome the “holy grail” of human identity and has suggested that understanding the human genome provides the ultimate answer to the commandment “Know thyself.” With boldness he states, “Knowing the complete human genome, we will know what it means to be human.”[1] James Watson and the late Francis Crick, Noble Laureates for their discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, have expressed similar views. Crick has suggested that “you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the [genetically determined] behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”[2] His longtime colleague, James Watson has posited that the HGP’s (Human Genome Project) ultimate aim is the quest for “ultimate answers to the chemical underpinnings of human existence….we used to think our fate was in the stars, now we know, in large measure, our fate is in our genes.”[3] Science used to be about telling us about the natural world through observation and experimentation; but now science has taken on the self appointed task to speak authoritatively with respect to metaphysical investigations and conclusions.

Naturalism and the Age of Reason

The 17^th and 18^th century Age of Reason or the enlightenment spawned a new liberation movement toward the goal of removing the shackles of religion and open the way for a progressive and autonomous utopia. It was the dawn of secularism. The relationship between science and religion became dissonant and fractured. The complete rupture came abruptly in the late 19th century when Charles Darwin provided a naturalistic creation story that was needed to allow for the naturalistic picture of reality to be further defined and developed. Darwinian evolution was the booster rocket science needed to propel science on its path meta explanatory methodology. Darwinism is implacably naturalistic, explaining life’s origin and development by strictly natural causes.[4] Microbiologist Michael Denton makes the following critical observation, “Darwinian theory broke man’s link with God and set him adrift in a cosmos without purpose. No other intellectual revolution in modern times so profoundly affected the way men viewed themselves and their place in the universe…what was a deduction from materialism has today become its foundation”[5] The broad sweeping impact of Darwinian evolution does not lie in the details of mutation and natural selection, but in something far more significant, a new criterion of what qualifies as objective truth with a new metaphysical understanding known as philosophical naturalism.

Reality According to Naturalism

According to naturalism real is nature consisting of the fundamental particles that compose matter and energy, together with the natural laws that govern how those particles behave. What is real is the material world alone and is determined by one’s senses and what can be empirically verified. Nothing exists outside of nature or as C.S. Lewis states, nature is “the whole show.” ^[6] Lewis states the clear epistemological deduction from naturalism: “If naturalism is true, then we do know in advance that miracles are impossible: nothing can come into nature from the outside because there is nothing outside to come in, nature being everything.”^[7] Consequently, there is no room for immaterial human components that cannot ultimately be reduced to physical or material substances. Consciousness, self-awareness, and ethics must be explained by brain chemistry. Spiritual and non-material notions such as the soul and the image of God do not exist on a priori grounds. Naturalism as expressed in the 21^st century is the fulfillment of David Hume’s (18^th century empiricist philosopher) contemptuous remarks about special revelation or non-naturalistic explanations: Any volume of “divinity or school metaphysics should be consigned to the flames since it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”[8]

Naturalism: The Philosophical Giant

The philosophical Goliath in the western world is naturalism. It is philosophical orthodoxy among Western intellectuals.[9] Any endeavor that desires acceptance as scientific must submit to the dictates of philosophical naturalism or scientific materialism; however, not content with ruling the scientific landscape, naturalism has spilled over its banks as it attempts to take full control at all levels of the educational and intellectual landscape. Issues in theology, ethics, anthropology and even economics must also be sourced in naturalistic presuppositions. Naturalism, wielding the epistemological club of science, is being transformed into a universal worldview that is aggressively taking over every aspect of human life and society.[10] Naturalist philosopher of mind Jaegwon Kim notes that naturalism is “imperialistic; it demands ‘full coverage … and exacts a terribly high ontological price.”[11] By first biting the bullet of imperialistic naturalism and then ingesting it, one takes a very bold metaphysical leap of faith.

Can Naturalism Make a Valid Claim on Reality?

If the natural world is all there is and scientists, via the hard sciences, are about telling us how it all works, this grants science tremendous authority as they discover and give us knowledge of what is real. Scientific knowledge is at the top of the epistemological mountain in our culture with the grandiose claim of having unlimited scope concerning knowledge attainment and explainability. Scientific knowledge is either the only kind of knowledge we have or is vastly superior to non-scientific claims, which amount to private expressions of belief. According to the naturalist, beliefs, as opposed to facts, are private and subjective that cannot be tested. They are a matter of personal preference, and can make no valid claim to truth or authority over someone else’s beliefs. Therefore, from an epistemological perspective, all that can be known is what is scientifically verifiable, and such things are the only things that count as knowledge. This epistemology is known as scientism.[12] Next article I will take a closer look epistemological scientism and its and impact and problems concerning truth and knowledge.

About the Author

Jerry Bogacz was born and raised in the Chicago area. Jerry and his wife Kathy relocated to Lexington, Virginia in 2015 where they reside to this day. As a scientist, Jerry worked as a research scientist and project manager in immunodiagnostic and DNA diagnostic product development for Abbott Laboratories in northern Chicago. Jerry is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Ph.D. in Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He graduated from Biola University with two degrees–an MA in in Apologetics and an MA in Science/Religion. He was a resident in 2013 at the C. S. Lewis Fellowship at the Discovery Institute. Also, Jerry received training at the CrossExamined Apologetics training in 2014. Ministerially, he served as a pastoral and teaching elder at Evanston Bible Fellowship in Evanston, IL (2001-2015). Jerry’s primary areas of research are focused around the integration of science and theology, biblical anthropology, bioethics, and worldview studies.