Peter Harrison, “The birth of naturalism,” Aeon, 4 February 2025.
C. S. Lewis wrote that the project of the modern scientific enterprise is not to get the facts in but to keep God out (Weight of Glory). Peter Harrison shows just how true that observation is.
Since the middle of the 19th century, Harrison explains, certain leaders in the sciences—notably, Thomas Huxley and his intellectual heirs—have carried on a relentless campaign to banish God from the sciences. They have done this in two ways: First, by misrepresenting the provenance of modern science and, second, by promoting a “natural/supernatural” vision of the world.
The “war on science”—much touted by opponents of God—and the accompanying “natural/supernatural” debate is typically laid at the feet of Christians. Fearful of the advances of science and its patent successes and sweeping claim, Christians, the argument goes, posed science as the enemy to faith and truth, and they continue to bolster that view today.
But this is simply wrong. Worse, it’s a lie. The “war on science” has never been a Christian campaign—except in isolated and much-publicized incidents, such as the trial of Galileo. This idea has been promoted by advocates of a secular scientific worldview as a way of banishing all “supernatural” thinking from the disciplines of science. Harrison explains, “In Huxley’s view, science was the enemy of super-naturalism, and the march of civilisation was to be understood in terms of naturalism gradually gaining the upper hand over supernaturalism.”
But the “natural/supernatural” divide was itself an invention of secular thinkers. Christians have always maintained a “one world” view of the creation which includes both the material and spiritual realms. Harrison again: “[T]he contrived histories of naturalism that purport to show its victory over supernaturalism were fabricated in the 19th century and are simply not consistent with the historical evidence.”
Far from being the enemy of science, Christianity provided the impetus for its early successes and the spawning ground for its most fundamental presuppositions, including those by which science continues to do its work today. Harrison concludes, “History suggests that our regnant modern naturalism is deeply indebted to monotheism, and that its adherents may need to abandon the comforting idea that their naturalistic commitments are licensed by the success of science. As for the idea of the supernatural, ironically this turns out to be far more important for the identity of those who wish to deny its reality than it had ever been for traditional religious believers.”Christians have allowed themselves and their times to be held captive by this secular deception for nearly 200 years.
It’s time Christians woke up to the witness of history and the realities of how science—and every other intellectual discipline—do their work. The advocates of purely secular knowledge continue to borrow on foundational teachings of Scripture and the excellent work of our Christian forebears, all the while positioning Christianity as the real enemy of truth. We must no longer allow this lie to prevail in the marketplace of ideas.
T. M. Moore
