Friday, May 28, 2010

"Beyond Consolation": vital apologetics from John Waters III

This post continues is third part of a series of posts reviewing John Water's book, Beyond Consolation.


It would appear, at first glance, that the unfettered ‘rationality’ that disposes of God and mocks at trusting faith is true enlightenment. Our emancipation from the shackles of believing faith is liberation. After all, isn’t religion always something imposed by authority and tradition? Certainly, as Waters writes, that is the assumption of our secular/agnostic age. Religion moulds, distorts and brainwashes; it is an inherited manacle that ought to be dispensed with. As such, enlightenment and liberation is construed as the ‘rational’ disposal and rejection of religion, that which formerly imposed a benighted ignorance upon us. Religion, especially Christianity, is therefore often caricatured as being intellectually naïve, a belief that rests on no solid evidence; pure fideism and credulity. However, as Waters points out:

“…my religious belief is my very being, my relationship with the entire order of reality. I am connected to everything that ever was and ever will be. I am alive in infinite time and space, which eventually converge in what cosmology calls space-time. This incomprehensible reality is what keeps me alive, keeps me connected, keeps me charged with the human appetites – for hope, beauty, truth, justice, happiness, love, good – for what is called God. This condition pre-exists me. I cannot shake it off. I can deny it, but that won’t change my fundamental structure in nature, which is dependant, which is created, which is charged with a unique destiny, and which is fundamentally mysterious, perhaps most of all to myself” (pp.32)

Fundamentally, as Waters writes, we are contingent, dependant creatures. We are irrevocably shaped by three undeniable truths; we are created (brought into being by a Cause outside of ourselves), dependant (at any given moment we are utterly dependant for our existence on a multitude of factors we are largely unconscious of; molecular and chemical mechanisms, the physical laws that govern reality and so on) and mortal (everyone of us will die; we are transient beings who will pass out of existence.) Religious faith recognises these inviolable truths and it provides us with the vocabulary to effectively articulate and understand them. Our condition of dependency and connectedness to all things pre-exists us, so to speak. We cannot shake it off or liberate ourselves into independence and autonomy. No matter how technologically advanced or ‘liberated’ or ‘rational’ we become, we remain created, dependant, mortal creatures.

We cripple ourselves when we jettison the language of religious faith, for only it can properly understand the human condition in all its frailty and mystery. It connects us to a reality in a way that the straitened, limited, narrow vocabulary of clinical ‘rationality’ never can. Waters notes:

“…It is as if the words to hope with have been stolen from under our noses. There are other things you could say: that we have lost some or all of our faith, or innocence, or gullibility; that we have freed ourselves from the tyranny of imposed superstition; that we are more realistic than our ancestors were. But you also have to conclude that we have become more limited…that our capacity to think of ourselves and our total relationships with time and space has been reduced to ways that render us less happy, less peaceful and oddly enough or perhaps not, less free” (pp.37)

As we pick apart the fabric of Christian faith we have inherited we do not realise that we throttle something vital to our humanity. In the wake of the loss of something so vital, we are left with an alternative account of reality that sources our freedom and significance solely in the material world. As a result, our sense of personal significance, worth and purpose is supplanted from the realm of our relationship to the eternal God. No longer are we defined by what Martin Buber called the “I-Thou” relationship, the transcendent, interpersonal union between man and God. Rather, we become increasingly defined by “I-it” relationships. Having jettisoned a vision of reality that sees all things as charged with the grandeur and presence of the unseen God, we are left with a vision of reality that views matter and chance as the base ground of all things. As such, there is no “Thou” who sustains all things; nothing can mediate the presence and glory of God to us anymore.

What we engage with, then, on a day-to-day base, is purely material. On the basis of a purely scientistic, materialist account of reality even the individual human being is the sum of matter-plus-energy-plus-chance. Of course, we cannot live with such an inadequate view of the human being. We remain haunted by a sense of our own personal significance and worth. Now, the devotion and communion that was reserved at one time for the eternal infinite God is channelled toward ideals (generally the secular, liberal ideal of tolerance) or perhaps, scientific methodology and theory and so on. An ideal or theory is an “it” and so fundamentally cannot slake our profound thirst for communion with a personal and ultimate God who is a “Thou”. As such, in the wake of the “death of God” we are inclined to imbue secular ideals with characteristics that belong only to a personal being. The loss of a religious vocabulary that formerly framed our day-day reality in the context of the infinite and the eternal is a loss that ultimately corrodes and impoverishes our concept of the human being. A culture based on a purely materialist account of reality no longer affords us a way of seeing ourselves as we really are.

Waters suggest that contemporary social discourse is underpinned by a subtle pincer movement that often goes unidentified:

“…Religion, the means by which we once achieved a semantic accommodation with total reality, has been discredited, by a pincer movement between the reductions and abuses perpetrated in the name of religion and the opposing reaction from outside. One side claims the franchise on redemption, the other victory over unreason; but the vast bulk of modern populations are, as a consequence, left unable to claim either. Stripped of their language of absolute reality, our cultures begin to squeeze and oppress us in ways we are incapable of perceiving. What we have lost has been a loss to ourselves, to our essential humanity, and yet we have been persuaded to read it as a liberation…Because we have created for ourselves a culture that in so many ways denies our humanity, we have, each one of us separately, become trapped in a terrifying avoidance of the most unavoidable fact of life: that death is certain…A culture that denies this reality is, to say the least, unkind to those who inhabit it” (pp. 40)

We live in a culture that has unmoored itself from a vision of reality that could accommodate and neutralise the terrifying fact of death: the terminus of all life, the event that signals the swift end of all that we cherish. Death spells despair for a vision of reality that insists that human significance is rooted solely in the material world. Even the atheist feels the keen pinch of nostalgia for a vision of reality that assures the human soul that death has not got the last word. After a debate in UCC with the well-know atheist thinker Peter Atkins, Waters writes:

As we walked across the campus afterwards, I jokingly said to him that it was somewhat ironic, given his vehemence in the argument, that of the two of us, I alone had a chance of being vindicated. He asked me what I meant. I said, ‘If you’re right, neither of us will ever know, whereas if I’m right, we’ll both know.’ He laughed, fell silent for a moment and responded: ‘It’s much worse than that, I’m afraid, because if you’re right, I’m going to be very happy!’" (pp. 113)


And yet, the insistence remains; our secular/agnostic mindset convinces us that life beyond death is a myth to be debunked at all costs. Tune in to the next post to see how Waters demonstrates that, in fact, the atheistic concept of extinction at death and the prospect of a waiting nothingness beyond death are wholly illogical. Despite their intrinsic irrationality, such beliefs are touted as unquestionable orthodoxy and the epitome of good sense, the ‘rational’ alternative to a naïve belief in everlasting life.

Sincerely,

The Scribbling Apprentice



Monday, May 24, 2010

A Brief Rejoinder

By the by – I am in no way anti-science. By no means. Below I am simply arguing that science collapses when it is weighted with the burden of answering the fundamental questions of human existence. When natural science is rallied upon to answer the fundamental questions (“Who am I”, “Is there a God?”) it fails to satisfy. That is all.

Until next time –

The Scribbling Apprentice

“Beyond Consolation”: vital apologetics from John Waters II

John Waters writes on pp. 31 of Beyond Consolation:

“The cultures of present-day societies appear to construct themselves or be constructed so as to avoid contemplation of the great questions. This is certainly the case with Irish society. In our public square today there seems to be more open discussion than ever about how reality is structured, where human beings came from and why we are here. But this discussion exists almost entirely on the level of abstraction, removed from the fundamental reality of the individual human being…There is much talk about evolution and the fact that we know, up to a point, how mankind developed from an uncertain moment of initiation. But most of us have no more than a crude grasp of this story…Behind the easily trotted out ‘rational’ assumptions are the ineffable mysteries: where the first spark of life came from; where there might be a ‘come from’; what happened in the aeons of time before everything we know about?”

I think John Waters puts his finger on a significant current of contemporary thought in the passage above. It appears that today, generally speaking, people will appeal to a seemingly ‘rational’ account of human nature – our significance, origins and destination is thought to be accounted for in the abstract language of what might be called ‘science’. On closer examination, what appears to be a forthrightly and rigorously ‘rational’ or ‘scientific’ account of human nature and significance is seen to be anything but. Under-girding scientific discourse of any kind whatsoever is an array of fundamental beliefs that are in no way rational in the sense so many people assume (that is, many assertions about reality deemed to be ‘scientific’ rest on beliefs about reality that cannot be empirically proven – see Refuting Scientism post below.) In a sense then, what is deemed to be true, proper and enlightened ‘rationality’ is nothing of the sort; rather it is an agglomeration of unexamined presuppositions that have the appearance of rationality.

This is precisely what John Water’s driving at when he states:


“...in our public square today there seems to be more open discussion than ever about how reality is structured, where human beings came from and why we are here. But this discussion exists almost entirely on the level of abstraction… Behind the easily trotted out ‘rational’ assumptions are the ineffable mysteries: where the first spark of life came from; where there might be a ‘come from’; what happened in the aeons of time before everything we know about?”

So much of the current-day story of origins is built, as John Waters says, on a crude (often second-hand, lazily borrowed) account of biological evolution. Although the public sphere is rife with scientific debate and press-releases disclosing recent discoveries and breakthroughs, no part of contemporary scientific discourse comes close to setting its finger on “the ineffable mysteries”; the elements of reality that simple cannot be grasped by a system of thought built purely on the premises of natural science – a system of thought limited to the description and classification of natural, physical phenomena. Ultimately, natural science cannot hope to answer the baffling question of human origins and significance.

What we do have, then, is a form of discourse that pushes around a ‘scientific’ language of ever-growing complexity, which seemingly addresses the question of our origins and significance, yet leaves us strangely unmoved. Indeed, as I’ll try to show in the next post, not only does a purely ‘scientific’, ‘rational’ (in the false sense) account of reality fail to satisfy the lingering question of human significance, it also leaves us with a greatly impoverished account of reality – in every sense. Not only (and especially) intellectually, but also spiritually and artistically.

What, then, is the alternative? If ‘science’ so-called cannot furnish us with intellectually, existentially, spiritually and emotionally satisfying answers to the riddle of human existence, beauty, death and The Ultimate, what can?

To furnish a proper answer to this question, I must begin a new post – and unfortunately, due to time constraints, I cannot do that now. So, to see where Waters takes us for the uncovering of a viable alternative, tune into the next post -

Until then,

Sincerely,

The Scribbling Apprentice.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

"Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul." - Simone Weil, Gravity & Grace
"Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire." - Dr. Martyn Llloyd Jones, Preaching & Preachers

"Beyond Consolation": vital apologetics from John Waters I

I apologise, first, for the lack of recent posting. Various things have conspired to keep me away from the blog over recent weeks (not least sermons on 1 Peter). Also, for those of you who are tired of the morass of words that meet your gaze when you do log on; I am slowly working my way round blogger technology and the hope is that I'll be able to alter the setting for the blog feed. So: for those of you who have minimal interest in scientism, apologetics methods or otherwise, at some time in the near future, the morass of words will be more limited and you will be spared the full, lengthy articles! In the meantime, the recent apologetiXperiment seminar material has been posted below. More to come on postmodernism.

Well, it has been some time, but Beyond Consolation (or How We Became Too Clever for God...and Our Own Good) has finally been published! I picked my copy up from Hodges Figgis just the other day. This book, John Water's latest offering, makes for riveting (and enlightening) reading. To my mind, every thoughtful Christian concerned to understand contemporary Irish culture and its relation (and dogged oppostion) to Christian faith, ought to read this very timely book. Water's last book, Lapsed Agnostic offered a thrilling account of his journey from the traditional Catholicism of his youth to the atheism of his early-to-mid adulthood and back to (something like) the Catholic faith of his childhood. It made for touching and often poignant reading. But, more than that, Water's offers a clear-eyed, intelligent and riveting critique of Irish culture and the irrational, destructive currents of thought undergirding the present indeference toward "traditional" Christian faith and morals . Peppered throughout Lapsed Agnostic are reflections and insights Waters has gleaned from the work of Catholic theologian Luigi Giussani, founder of the Catholic Movement, "Communion ad Liberation".

Now, following on from the central theme of Lapsed Agnostic, John Waters has written an equally riveting work. Presently, I am working my way through chapter 8 so I do still have a sizeable chunk to go. Nonetheless, what I've read so far suggests to me that this may well be a contemporary work of landmark importance for Christian witness in contemporary Ireland (evangelicals take note!) Waters begins Beyond Consolation with a discussion of Nuala O'Faolain's final radio broadcast, in which she was interviewed by Marianne Finucane. In the face of death from terminal cancer, O'Faolain found no consolation in religious belief. She was terrfied of her impending death and surveyed in despair the short time of life left to her. This interview transfixed the Irish public. According to Waters, it marks one of the most important moments in Irish cultural history. As the back-cover of the book states:


"O'Faolain had many times been the sokesperson for her own generation of women seeking equality and liberation; but here, reviewing a culture she had inhabited and helped to ferment, she emerged as a voice of several generations of Irish people who had conjured up for themselves an abyss of unhope."

The interview with Nuala O'Faolain on national radio is Water's point of departure. What follows is a coruscating indictment of contemporary Irish culture in its subtle but oppressive efforts to stamp out the presence of traditional Christian faith in society at-large. This mainly takes the form of critical rebuttal of older, traditional Catholicism, the subtle mockery of the media toward religious belief and the patronsing attitude of a culture that sees Christ as a kind of consolation prize for those who are just not able to "keep up" with the tenor and strain of modern life. Even Seamus Heaney comes under the whip, somewhere around pp. 115, in the chapter entitled "The Poetics of Nothing" - I've yet to get on to it but it is clear Waters levels his passionate criticism at our nobel prize winning poet for his irrational dismissal of religious faith. Personally, I think it's high time the unquestioned views of our unofficial poet laureate are properly interrogated and challenged. Waters will do it gallantly, no doubt.

I've not the time to offer a full review so a few quotes to follow will suffice for now. It's important that I learn the art of brevity, in any case - I realise my posts can be a jot too long.

pp. 76: "...ours is a culture that sabbotages hope. It impies that hope is possible, and yet has removed from sght the only source of hope that exists beyond the baubles and sensations offered by the marketplace and the false promise of eternal youth rather than eternal life. A culture constructed over 2,000 years on the awareness of Christ has been reduced in forty years to a culture in which hope is defined merely by the prospect of some more of that which has already failed to satisfy, until, at a moment specific to each life, the whole thing becomes untenable, at which point the accumulated and postponed despair of a lifetime of false seeking enters in with a vengeance...The culture insistently tells us that, if we have been trying out these baubles and sensations and are not satisified, it is only because we have been doing things wrong...And becasue our societies are driven by these misapprehensions about freedom, and because of the fear we share that if our illusions are laid bare we shall have nothing to live for but death, we refuse to look at the absolute horizon of reality, which has come to signify nothing in our cultures but the edge of the abyss, occassionally glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. When, from time to time, perhaps at the funeral of a friend of in the presence of the blurt of despair of another, we are brought face-to-face with reality, we turn away in terror or bewilderment."

pp.77: "...In this culture, faith is doomed to the function of consolation for those who come to realise they cannot measure up to the ideal or anything like it. And something in the demeanour of the religious sensibility confirms that this is true. An embrace opens up which itself betrays the characteristics of disappointment, of resignation, of terror, of a kind of failure. Christ is offered as a consolation prize for those who cannot meet the standards of the culture. In other words, religious culture, in spite of itself, acquiesces in the marginalisation of religion...Perhaps the most urgent task of the coming time is to analyse how it has become possible to replace mankinds' seeking after the absolute meaning of reality with a narrower ambition (ie., wealth, pleasure, entertainment etc.) and yet to claim that this narrower ambition as more enlightened and progressive. Part of this excercise will be an examination of the logic calling itself 'reason' which enables this narrow vision of reality to remain plausible."

Powerful stuff. Ultimately, Waters questions the orthodoxy of our age, the assumption undergirding so much contemporary Western culture; the self-destructive belief that dismisses the infinite and eternal, and insists that this belief is itself evidence of a growing intelligence. When all is said and done, how reasonable is it, asks Waters, to believe in nothingness?

For a scrupulous, passionate, illuminating analysis of the nihilism and despair that runs like a thread through the collective psyche of modern Ireland, take up and read Beyond Consolation. You will never view contemporary Ireland in the same way again. This is vital apologetics.

Yours,

The Scribbling Apprentice

The ApologetiXperiment: Refuting Scientism

“The theorist who maintains that science is the be-all and end-all – that what is not in science textbooks is not worth knowing – is an ideologist with a peculiar and distorted doctrine of his own. For him, science is no longer a sector of the cognitive enterprise but an all-inclusive world-view. This is the doctrine not of science but of scientism. To take this stance is not to celebrate science but to distort it.”

(Nicholas Rescher, The Limits of Science)

Many who commit themselves to the naturalist position feel it is warranted to discount the existence of God. After all, it is often reasoned, evolutionary biological theory can account for the genesis of the universe, the origin of mankind and presents a supposedly realistic account of what humans are really like. Similarly, modern science can explain the mechanisms underlying phenomena that perplexed previous generations. What need have we of God? There is no longer any need to posit the existence of some mysterious all-knowing Being. The idea of God was the refuge of our less-enlightened ancestors when they needed an explanation for things they didn’t understand. There is no place for God in the present scheme of things; science will eventually explain everything. Science therefore commits us to naturalism.

A contemporary and vibrant expression of the above mind-set is known as scientism. It contains all the assumptions built into (what Alvin Plantinga calls) Perennial Naturalism but is more virulent in its assertion that only scientific knowledge offers a valid account of reality. All other forms of knowledge are therefore deficient. As such, only science can give us the answers to the questions that perplex the human mind. In fact, science is seen as the panacea for all the world’s ills. It is currently a very popular ideology and the New Atheism is broadly based on it.

Although we will engage with the atheistic worldview broadly based on this type of mindset in two weeks time, it is worth pointing out the contradictions that underpin this form of thinking. In fact, as we’ll discover, scientism is basically self-refuting:

First of all, scientism is a philosophical commitment. It is not inherently scientific at all. In fact, it is anti-scientific. Its inherent philosophical assumptions actually serve to undermine the possibility of real science. Indeed, its claims go far beyond the bounds of what science in itself can tell us. This is because science is a form of knowledge based only on what our five senses can tell us. It is a method of research which involves the devising of hypotheses that are rigorously tested in controlled conditions. The perimeter of its scope is limited to a particular method of testing and verification. As such, for example, it cannot judge or arbitrate ethical issues. Not only pressing ethical issues, but all sorts of other considerations are completely outside the ken of scientific method; beauty, truth, the existence of numbers, the reality of human consciousness – none of these things can be accounted for on the basis of a purely scientific account of reality. To provide other examples, the following propositions are completely outside the reach of science to either verify or deny: “Scientism is true”, “Two is an even number”, “Torturing babies for fun is wrong”, “I am now thinking about science” – in each case, these statements are philosophical propositions that can only be understood and discussed on a philosophical basis. Such propositions simply cannot be proved or disproved on the basis of scientific method.

The first statement (“Scientism is true”) is an evaluative statement about what is true. It concerns a belief that something is true. This is outside the bounds of what scientific methodology can determine. Science cannot adjudicate questions of truth and what is true; this is an epistemological question (“What can I know and how can I know it is true?”) outside the bounds of strict scientific methodology.

The second statement (”Two is an even number”) is based on our knowledge of the nature and existence of numbers (a presupposition science rests on but cannot prove). Again, to defend the existence of numbers is a philosophical task. Numbers are abstract entities; they are not concrete “in-the-world” objects. Our assumption that numbers exist cannot be scientifically verified. Their existence must be merely assumed. We cannot prove that numbers exist by relying on what sense-data can tell us.

The third statement (“Torturing babies for fun is wrong”) is an ethical one; it involves moral judgement and assessment. Again, the language and concepts of science cannot assist in the resolution of ethical dilemmas. Furthermore, a purely scientific account of what makes up a person cannot properly underline the significance and value of individual human beings. The language and conceptual framework of science is unsuited to such a task. To affirm the value of human life we must step outside the bounds of purely scientific discourse.

The fourth assertion (“I am now thinking about science”) is a statement about personal consciousness. Science tells us a lot about the neural mechanics of the brain. It can speak in the technical language of physics, chemistry, neuroscience etc. but that is all. The mystery of human consciousness is not reducible to the mechanics of neuro-physics; the language of science cannot properly account for the complexity and meaning of unique, individual human consciousness. When we explain the mechanics of neurophysiology, the mystery of human consciousness is not exhausted. In order to understand it further, we must move beyond the bounds of scientific methodology and language into philosophical discussion about the nature of the human mind.

Science itself is based on prior philosophical presuppositions that cannot actually be proved by science (for example, that numbers exist, that there are objective ethical standards and that we are thinking beings with internal consciousness.) Rather, they are assumed from the outset. Assumptions about the existence of numbers, ethical standards and the reality of human consciousness are merely three of many that underpin the scientific enterprise. There are a load of others: for example, scientific inquiry also rests on the assumption that there is an objective world external to the minds of scientists; that this world is governed by causal regularities and the laws of logic; that human language is adequate to describe these regularities…and so on. Since science presupposes these things, it cannot attempt to justify them without arguing in a circle.

Furthermore, the above assumptions are not empirically verifiable (they cannot be proved on the basis of our five senses alone – we cannot “see” logic and therefore “prove” it. We cannot test and prove it in a laboratory; it is assumed without any sensate knowledge of it.) As such, by insisting that only those things which are scientifically verifiable are real, scientism actually denies the reality of the very things the very discipline of science rests on.

Scientism is based on the so-called “genetic fallacy”. The fact that we can explain the physical properties of the universe and how it works does not discount the possibility of a Creator God. Science merely explains the content and workings of created things. Theology concerns the nature and attributes of the Creator. The two are not mutually exclusive. We can continue to seek scientific knowledge of the created world in order to explain it further. But that does not rule out the need to explain the deeper reasons for its existence. The mere explanation of how things work in no way rules out the need to ask the “why?” questions science cannot begin to answer.


The following illustration demonstrates the genetic fallacy: suppose you heard a knock at your front door. You go to open the door to see who is outside your home. However, when you do so, there is no-one waiting outside – but, there is an intricate car engine sitting on the door mat. You’ve never seen such a thing before. You look around, astounded. Then, you begin to examine the engine and (as you have some knowledge of engines) you can begin to understand how it works and fits together. However, no matter how well you can explain the workings if that engine, you haven’t the foggiest notion as to why it is there or how it got there in the first place – the kind of knowledge that enables you to understand the inner workings of the engine is useless to help you discern who left the engine on you doorstep and why. Precisely the same applies to our scientific knowledge of the universe; no matter how adept science is at explaining the mechanisms of the created world, is cannot answer the question of (for example) why on earth the universe began to exist in the first place (“Why is there something rather than nothing?”)

The same applies to the human brain. Just because we can (partially) explain the physics of mental perception does not mean that our thought and action is meaningless and purposeless. It is often said that humans are automatons without real freedom because we are determined by the seemingly random motions of particles. However, human freedom and significance is not reducible to a scientific account of the mechanics of neuro-physiology. Again, this is because science merely explains the mechanisms of brain chemistry; it cannot adjudicate or discern the deeper value, meaning or purpose of such phenomena. This kind of reflection properly belongs to the realm of philosophy and theology. To insist that human beings are essentially valueless because science suggests that we are physically determined by chemical reactions in the brain is to commit the genetic fallacy. The same applies to human love; a scientific explanation of neuro-chemical brain reactions does not exhaust the relational mystery we call love.


Finally, as soon as we try to offer purely scientific answers to the “why?” questions we end up with explanations that are logically absurd and unsatisfactory. For example, in terms of the question of origins and the beginning of the universe, most agnostic/atheist scientists will insist that the universe spontaneously emerged (uncaused) out of nothing whatsoever. Their scientism prevents them from admitting the truth they live by in everyday life; things do not simply “appear” spontaneously out of nowhere at any given moment. Things and events are always caused by factors outside of themselves. For example, it is unthinkable that a pink elephant would just materialise suddenly, out of nothing, appearing beside you as you as you sipped a coffee and watched the morning news. Because science itself has demonstrated that physical, biological and chemical laws govern reality, we know such a thing could not happen.

In fact, the key doctrines of science are built on the fact that things happen according to discernable, predictable laws that are part of nature. If such laws did not exist, or were unpredictable (changing from one moment to the next), science simply would not exist. The discipline of science could not possibly flourish in such an environment. This is because science can only develop on the basis of observable, predictable mechanisms that can be tested and verified over time, allowing us to gradually build up a unified picture of how the world works.

Furthermore, one of the basic assumptions underlying science is that out of nothing, nothing comes. Our scientific knowledge of the world demonstrates that something cannot come from nothing. As such, the origin of the universe presents most scientists with a troubling quandary; it is illogical to say that the universe simply began to exist because science says so, and leave it at that. This is an unscientific attitude that curtails further scientific discovery. Alternatively, some will simply make the illogical “leap of faith” and say that the universe did in fact spring out of nothing; it just appeared, suddenly. Out of nothing, something came. Again, as we’ve seen above, this is intrinsically unscientific. It is in fact a philosophical assumption; science does not necessarily prove such an assertion. Logically, an entity like the universe begs a cause. The alternative causal agent of the universe is often said to be “chance”. It is often said that randomly, somehow, chance caused the universe. Again, this is a logical absurdity. How could “chance” exist in nothing?
Chance is an abstract mathematical principal. It cannot “cause” anything. It is not a dynamic, active causal agent.

Finally, how can chance produce a refined, ordered cosmos that obeys the laws of physics and logic? Out of chaos (random chance) only chaos can come. But, we exist in a universe that fosters the practise and flourishing of science. We exist in a universe governed by predictable, ordered, discernable physical laws. Science simply could not exist in an unpredictable universe governed by chance. As such, the scientist who insists that the universe is the product of mere chance is contradicting what he/she knows to be true of the world he/she inhabits and affirms daily as he/she goes about applying the principles of science to an ordered world that yields itself to scientific exploration and discovery – a world that simply would not be, if chance were the ground cause of everything that exists.

These are just some of the difficulties and contradictions that scientism leads to. Overall, we can see that it is untenable and cannot offer a comprehensive and satisfying account of reality. In no way does science commit us to a naturalistic worldview. As soon as someone discounts the reality of God in the name of science, they have leaped outside the proper boundaries of science and are making a philosophical claim. To insist that science discounts the reality of God and commits us to atheism is not scientific at all; rather, it distorts the nature and scope of science. Such an assertion is an expression of scientism, which distorts science into an all-inclusive worldview.