Evaluating Warfare Myths about Science and Christianity and How These Myths Promote Scientism

Abstract

Many people assume that there has been ceaseless conflict between science and Christianity. I argue that the real conflict has been between scientism and religion. Scientism is the view that only the sciences generate knowledge or rational belief. Scientism, as typically articulated, entails the opinion that reliable belief about divinity (theological realism) is impossible. I debunk four historic science–Christianity conflict myths and show how they have promoted scientism. These four science–religion myths function as part of a larger warfare narrative about science and Christianity. This misleading warfare thesis often comes packaged with an alternative anti-theistic “myth” in the anthropological sense—in this case, a worldview-shaping narrative that awakens the imagination to interpret the world in scientistic and non-theistic ways. I call this the scientistic warfare myth and explore its major flaws.

Christianity Cultivated Science with and without Methodological Naturalism

“…I contribute to this multidisciplinary reenvisioning within the domain of the history and philosophy of science. It has already been shown that the real conflict has not been between science and Christianity, but between scientism and Christianity (Plantinga 2011;Keas 2021). Scientism is the view that only the sciences (especially not religion) generate knowledge or rational belief.…”

Star Stuff: An Exploratory Case Study of the Cosmos Television Franchise

“…Likewise, the Cosmos series also continues to be looked at in science and religion studies. This includes articles by Lance E. Cummings of the University of North Carolina, Michael N. Keas at Biola University, and Ted Peters at the Graduate Theological Union (Cummings, 2017;Keas, 2021;Peters, 2018). All this ongoing research demonstrates how Cosmos's goal of presenting "astronomy and space exploration in the broadest possible human context" makes it widely relevant academically to this day (Sagan, 1980b, p. 1).…”