Joshua Moritz has a great essay, Christian Theology of Creation and the Metaphysical Foundations of Science, found HERE
These presuppositions are non-empirical philosophical beliefs about things such as the orderliness and regularity of reality, the ontological objectivity of reality, the intelligibility and contingency of existent structures and entities, the agential passivity of non-conscious nature, the unity and uniformity of the physical universe, and so on....As preconditions they are absolutely required for science to take place and are not open to experimental confirmation or falsification by scientific experimentation. The nature of these general presuppositions is such that “for science to develop, these beliefs must be held, at least implicitly, by society as a whole and by scientists themselves.”
A Belief that the Order of the World is Contingent Rather than Necessary
According to physicist and philosopher of science Mariano Artigas, “Science shows us an order that is both rational and contingent (that is, its laws and initial conditions were not necessary). It is the combination of contingency and intelligibility that prompts us to search for new and unexpected forms of rational order.”75 Trigg explains that “it was the constant temptation of ancient thinkers, such as Aristotle, to work out how the world had to be from first principles and to discount the need for a rigorous program of empirical observation and experiment.”76
A Belief that the World is Orderly and Rational
If physical reality were assumed to be unstructured, disorderly, or fundamentally chaotic, science would be impossible.66 The presupposition that order exists in nature is thus a necessary condition of scientific inquiry because if one did not believe that order existed at all in nature, then searching for it scientifically would be pointless.67 For example, Einstein’s development of the general theory of relativity was premised on the assumption that the universe is a puzzle to be solved, and his lifelong search for a unified field theory (to unify general relativity with electromagnetism) assumed that there is a deeper cosmic rationality waiting to be discovered.
As physicist Paul Davies comments,
All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.
A Belief that the Order of the World is Open to the Human Mind
Scientists assume there is an order and rationality behind the universe that science studies and at the same time they assume that the human mind is able to access and understand that rationality. According to philosopher of science Roger Trigg, “an absolute presupposition of science is the human ability to recognize what is true and reason about what could be true.” This is a metaphysical presupposition because it necessarily precedes the study of the nature of the world.
As physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne elaborates,
We are so familiar with the fact that we can understand the world that most of the time we take it for granted. It is what makes science possible. Yet it could have been otherwise. The universe might have been a disorderly chaos rather than an orderly cosmos. Or it might have had a rationality which was inaccessible to us. . . . There is a congruence between our minds and the universe, between the rationality experienced within and the rationality observed without. This extends not only to the mathematical articulation of fundamental theory but also to all those tacit acts of judgment, exercised with intuitive skill, which are equally indispensable to the scientific endeavour.71
Physicist James Gates explains that in order to do science “one has to have a kind of faith that the universe is understandable.” Science, says Gates, “is in fact a conversation, and you have to have faith that the universe is willing to have that conversation.”72 Every new scientific research venture assumes that the order present within the universe will lend itself to being understood by the human mind. Because this assumption that the universe will “talk back” is based on faith and cannot be given a scientific explanation, many scientists have found this relationship between our minds and the universe to be surprising and mysterious. Considering this metaphysical mystery, Einstein once reflected, “the most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible.”73 Indeed, remarks Trigg, “the intelligibility and intrinsic rationality of reality cannot be taken for granted” because “this is presupposed within science and cannot be given a scientific explanation.” The presumed rationality and intelligibility of the cosmos is a “metaphysical fact, and the explanation for which, if there can be one, must come from beyond science.”
Ok, there are more, but you get the picture. Now Moritz shows the theological origins of these presuppositions. He says :
These general presuppositions about the nature of reality—the orderliness and regularity of reality, the ontological reality of reality, the intelligibility and &contingency of existent structures and entities, and the unity and uniformity of the physical universe—necessarily precede and underpin all scientific experimentation
Each of these presuppositions developed within a specific religious context and all were supported and affirmed by particular religious concepts within a particular religious culture.
“Christian theology provided several of the beliefs on which science is based.” - Hodgson
Physicist, philosopher, and theologian, Ian G. Barbour explains that a number of key metaphysical presuppositions of science are grounded in “the basic theological affirmations in the first chapter of Genesis.” Among them are the convictions that “the world is essentially good, orderly, coherent, and intelligible,” that “the world is dependent on God” and thus contingent because “God is sovereign, free, transcendent, and characterized by purpose and will.” Barbour points out that “these are all assertions about characteristics of God and the world in every moment of time, not statements about an event in the past. They express ontological rather than temporal relationships.”101
Below are some extracts from that essay, I leave the footnotes in, check out the paper to search them.
First Moritz explains what these presumptions are, and then why they are theological :
These presuppositions are non-empirical philosophical beliefs about things such as the orderliness and regularity of reality, the ontological objectivity of reality, the intelligibility and contingency of existent structures and entities, the agential passivity of non-conscious nature, the unity and uniformity of the physical universe, and so on....As preconditions they are absolutely required for science to take place and are not open to experimental confirmation or falsification by scientific experimentation. The nature of these general presuppositions is such that “for science to develop, these beliefs must be held, at least implicitly, by society as a whole and by scientists themselves.”
A Belief that the Order of the World is Contingent Rather than Necessary
According to physicist and philosopher of science Mariano Artigas, “Science shows us an order that is both rational and contingent (that is, its laws and initial conditions were not necessary). It is the combination of contingency and intelligibility that prompts us to search for new and unexpected forms of rational order.”75 Trigg explains that “it was the constant temptation of ancient thinkers, such as Aristotle, to work out how the world had to be from first principles and to discount the need for a rigorous program of empirical observation and experiment.”76
The empirical focus of modern science contrasts with the mental and mathematical investigations of the ancient Greeks. “The genius of modern, empirical science, as compared with mere speculation about the nature of the world, is the realization that the physical world does not have to be as it is. It is contingent.”77 While necessary order could be discerned through pure introspective thought (like the truths of mathematics, geometry, or logic), contingent or dependent order can be discovered only by making experiments and through investigating what the world is really like.
In this way the early scientist Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) derived from his faith in the
contingency of the cosmos a “conviction that empirical methods are the only way to acquire knowledge about the natural world and that the matter of which all physical things are composed possesses some properties that can be known only empirically.”78 The concept of contingency “is essential to science because contingency demands an empirical method.”79 Yet, the contingency of the rational order of nature may not be investigated or established through empirical investigation. “The comprehensive presupposition upon which the whole contingent order of things reposes in order to be what it is . . . cannot be established in any way from within the rational frame of the contingent order” itself.
A Belief in Metaphysical Realism
“Metaphysical realism,” says philosopher of science Nicholas Rescher, is not the result of an inductive inference, but is rather “a regulative presupposition that makes science possible in the first place.”81 Metaphysical realism is “a precondition for empirical inquiry,” and “a presupposition for the usability of observational data as sources of objective information.”82 In this way, says Rescher, “We do not learn or discover that there is a mind-independent physical reality, we presume or postulate it.”83 Trigg explains, “Science has to assume that it is investigating a world that has an independent existence. Otherwise it is a mere social construction reflecting the conditions of particular societies at a particular time.”84 The reality of the material world places crucial constraints on scientific theorizing, so true theories must match up with the structures and relationships already existing in nature.
A belief in the unity and uniformity of the physical universe.
The assumption that physical reality at some deep level is consistent, and that nature functions uniformly, is a fundamental presupposition of all scientific activity. “The idea of the general uniformity of nature,” says Trigg, “underpins the conduct of science, and the alternative is to give up science. Discovering it by scientific means begs the question.”87 The “scientific method,” explains philosopher of science Karl Popper, “presupposes the immutability of natural processes, or the ‘principle of the uniformity of nature.’”
This principle of uniformity, says Popper, is a “metaphysical faith in the existence of regularities in our world” that necessarily underpins the scientific method as a whole.88 According to historian of science Reijer Hooykaas “it was not experience alone but also a belief in an order as yet undiscovered—that is, in a certain uniformity of nature—which played, and still plays an important role in science.”
In this way the early scientist Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) derived from his faith in the
contingency of the cosmos a “conviction that empirical methods are the only way to acquire knowledge about the natural world and that the matter of which all physical things are composed possesses some properties that can be known only empirically.”78 The concept of contingency “is essential to science because contingency demands an empirical method.”79 Yet, the contingency of the rational order of nature may not be investigated or established through empirical investigation. “The comprehensive presupposition upon which the whole contingent order of things reposes in order to be what it is . . . cannot be established in any way from within the rational frame of the contingent order” itself.
A Belief in Metaphysical Realism
“Metaphysical realism,” says philosopher of science Nicholas Rescher, is not the result of an inductive inference, but is rather “a regulative presupposition that makes science possible in the first place.”81 Metaphysical realism is “a precondition for empirical inquiry,” and “a presupposition for the usability of observational data as sources of objective information.”82 In this way, says Rescher, “We do not learn or discover that there is a mind-independent physical reality, we presume or postulate it.”83 Trigg explains, “Science has to assume that it is investigating a world that has an independent existence. Otherwise it is a mere social construction reflecting the conditions of particular societies at a particular time.”84 The reality of the material world places crucial constraints on scientific theorizing, so true theories must match up with the structures and relationships already existing in nature.
A belief in the unity and uniformity of the physical universe.
The assumption that physical reality at some deep level is consistent, and that nature functions uniformly, is a fundamental presupposition of all scientific activity. “The idea of the general uniformity of nature,” says Trigg, “underpins the conduct of science, and the alternative is to give up science. Discovering it by scientific means begs the question.”87 The “scientific method,” explains philosopher of science Karl Popper, “presupposes the immutability of natural processes, or the ‘principle of the uniformity of nature.’”
This principle of uniformity, says Popper, is a “metaphysical faith in the existence of regularities in our world” that necessarily underpins the scientific method as a whole.88 According to historian of science Reijer Hooykaas “it was not experience alone but also a belief in an order as yet undiscovered—that is, in a certain uniformity of nature—which played, and still plays an important role in science.”
A Belief that the World is Orderly and Rational
If physical reality were assumed to be unstructured, disorderly, or fundamentally chaotic, science would be impossible.66 The presupposition that order exists in nature is thus a necessary condition of scientific inquiry because if one did not believe that order existed at all in nature, then searching for it scientifically would be pointless.67 For example, Einstein’s development of the general theory of relativity was premised on the assumption that the universe is a puzzle to be solved, and his lifelong search for a unified field theory (to unify general relativity with electromagnetism) assumed that there is a deeper cosmic rationality waiting to be discovered.
As physicist Paul Davies comments,
All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.
A Belief that the Order of the World is Open to the Human Mind
Scientists assume there is an order and rationality behind the universe that science studies and at the same time they assume that the human mind is able to access and understand that rationality. According to philosopher of science Roger Trigg, “an absolute presupposition of science is the human ability to recognize what is true and reason about what could be true.” This is a metaphysical presupposition because it necessarily precedes the study of the nature of the world.
As physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne elaborates,
We are so familiar with the fact that we can understand the world that most of the time we take it for granted. It is what makes science possible. Yet it could have been otherwise. The universe might have been a disorderly chaos rather than an orderly cosmos. Or it might have had a rationality which was inaccessible to us. . . . There is a congruence between our minds and the universe, between the rationality experienced within and the rationality observed without. This extends not only to the mathematical articulation of fundamental theory but also to all those tacit acts of judgment, exercised with intuitive skill, which are equally indispensable to the scientific endeavour.71
Physicist James Gates explains that in order to do science “one has to have a kind of faith that the universe is understandable.” Science, says Gates, “is in fact a conversation, and you have to have faith that the universe is willing to have that conversation.”72 Every new scientific research venture assumes that the order present within the universe will lend itself to being understood by the human mind. Because this assumption that the universe will “talk back” is based on faith and cannot be given a scientific explanation, many scientists have found this relationship between our minds and the universe to be surprising and mysterious. Considering this metaphysical mystery, Einstein once reflected, “the most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible.”73 Indeed, remarks Trigg, “the intelligibility and intrinsic rationality of reality cannot be taken for granted” because “this is presupposed within science and cannot be given a scientific explanation.” The presumed rationality and intelligibility of the cosmos is a “metaphysical fact, and the explanation for which, if there can be one, must come from beyond science.”
Ok, there are more, but you get the picture. Now Moritz shows the theological origins of these presuppositions. He says :
These general presuppositions about the nature of reality—the orderliness and regularity of reality, the ontological reality of reality, the intelligibility and &contingency of existent structures and entities, and the unity and uniformity of the physical universe—necessarily precede and underpin all scientific experimentation
Each of these presuppositions developed within a specific religious context and all were supported and affirmed by particular religious concepts within a particular religious culture.
“Christian theology provided several of the beliefs on which science is based.” - Hodgson
Physicist, philosopher, and theologian, Ian G. Barbour explains that a number of key metaphysical presuppositions of science are grounded in “the basic theological affirmations in the first chapter of Genesis.” Among them are the convictions that “the world is essentially good, orderly, coherent, and intelligible,” that “the world is dependent on God” and thus contingent because “God is sovereign, free, transcendent, and characterized by purpose and will.” Barbour points out that “these are all assertions about characteristics of God and the world in every moment of time, not statements about an event in the past. They express ontological rather than temporal relationships.”101
Artigas explains how these presuppositions became deeply embedded within the intellectual milieu that gave rise to science:
“The development of empirical science as a self-sustaining enterprise required . . . a kind of faith in the rationality of the world and also in the human capacity to know that world. In short, empirical science is possible only if our world possesses a strong kind of order and if we are capable of investigating it. Actually, after sharing the Christian faith for several centuries, Medieval and Renaissance Europe was built on a common ground that included, as a basic tenet, the doctrine of creation with all its implications: that the world had been created by an omnipotent and wise God and that, therefore, a natural order exists; that the natural order is contingent, because God’s creation is free and thus the world cannot be a necessary product of God’s action; that human beings, as creatures who participate in God’s nature, can reach a knowledge of that natural order; and finally that owing to the contingent character of the world, in order to reach that knowledge we must not only think, but also perform experiments that allow us to know how our world really behaves.”
That God Created an Orderly and Rational Cosmos
The orderliness and rationality of the natural world were similarly assumed by early modern scientists on the basis of the Christian doctrine of creation that was part of their cultural matrix.111 “The very idea of rationality has certain theological origins, and science as we know it arose in the context of a belief in the rational structure of reality mirroring the higher wisdom of a Creator God.”112 The concept of God’s creation of all material reality out of nothing (Latin: creatio ex nihilo) “allowed the scientist to approach nature with the expectation that the divine rationality would be reflected in its structures and workings.”113 According to Hooykaas, “The faith in order, law, simplicity, harmony, beauty has often been connected with the faith that there is logos, reason, mind at work in the universe.” The idea that the universe is deeply rational emerges from a “belief in a Mind to which the human mind has, however remotely, some resemblance, so that it is able to recognize these attributes in a creation which is the work of that Mind.”114
Past interpretations of the history of science attributed the rationality underlying the scientific endeavor to the influence of the ancient Greeks. This idea that natural science came to the modern world as a legacy from ancient Greece, says Harrison, “continues to exercise a tenacious hold on the popular imagination and still informs many nonspecialist accounts of science and its history.” However, he continues, “historians of science have now largely abandoned much of this narrative.” A “significant deficiency in this common reconstruction of the history of science lies in the assumption that these ancient Greek accounts of the cosmos partake of the ethos of modern science, and that they share to a significant degree its goals and methods.”115
“The development of empirical science as a self-sustaining enterprise required . . . a kind of faith in the rationality of the world and also in the human capacity to know that world. In short, empirical science is possible only if our world possesses a strong kind of order and if we are capable of investigating it. Actually, after sharing the Christian faith for several centuries, Medieval and Renaissance Europe was built on a common ground that included, as a basic tenet, the doctrine of creation with all its implications: that the world had been created by an omnipotent and wise God and that, therefore, a natural order exists; that the natural order is contingent, because God’s creation is free and thus the world cannot be a necessary product of God’s action; that human beings, as creatures who participate in God’s nature, can reach a knowledge of that natural order; and finally that owing to the contingent character of the world, in order to reach that knowledge we must not only think, but also perform experiments that allow us to know how our world really behaves.”
That God Created an Orderly and Rational Cosmos
The orderliness and rationality of the natural world were similarly assumed by early modern scientists on the basis of the Christian doctrine of creation that was part of their cultural matrix.111 “The very idea of rationality has certain theological origins, and science as we know it arose in the context of a belief in the rational structure of reality mirroring the higher wisdom of a Creator God.”112 The concept of God’s creation of all material reality out of nothing (Latin: creatio ex nihilo) “allowed the scientist to approach nature with the expectation that the divine rationality would be reflected in its structures and workings.”113 According to Hooykaas, “The faith in order, law, simplicity, harmony, beauty has often been connected with the faith that there is logos, reason, mind at work in the universe.” The idea that the universe is deeply rational emerges from a “belief in a Mind to which the human mind has, however remotely, some resemblance, so that it is able to recognize these attributes in a creation which is the work of that Mind.”114
Past interpretations of the history of science attributed the rationality underlying the scientific endeavor to the influence of the ancient Greeks. This idea that natural science came to the modern world as a legacy from ancient Greece, says Harrison, “continues to exercise a tenacious hold on the popular imagination and still informs many nonspecialist accounts of science and its history.” However, he continues, “historians of science have now largely abandoned much of this narrative.” A “significant deficiency in this common reconstruction of the history of science lies in the assumption that these ancient Greek accounts of the cosmos partake of the ethos of modern science, and that they share to a significant degree its goals and methods.”115
While the various Greek philosophical schools employed logic in their speculative understandings of the world, they did not generally see the structure of the cosmos as an expression of a rational plan that could—and should—be investigated on a more practical and empirical level.116 Hooykaas explains that “although the Greek atomists made Chance into Necessity (ananke), it was a blind necessity, not representing a rational plan. They were not looking for a fixed order (though they did have to admit some fixed principles in nature such as the indivisibility of atoms and the intrinsic heaviness of matter). Their system did not purport to further scientific creativity.”117
Thus, says Ratzsch, the “general Greek view was in various ways philosophically fruitful, but it did not directly result in any enduring tradition that was identifiably scientific, in the sense of the later Scientific Revolution. In fact, several of the aspects of Greek thought . . . may have hindered development of anything like modern science.”118 In contrast to the Greek philosophical mindset, Jews and Christians believed that the ways of nature, as the product of the Divine Mind, were reflections of reason and that “even those aspects of nature that threatened human safety were not lawless in themselves. They served God’s purposes and had laws of their own, even if unknown to humans (Job 28:25-27).”1
That God Created the Human Mind to Comprehend God’s Cosmos
Since God’s creative activity in the cosmos reflects the rationality of the Divine Mind, Christians believe that the inner workings of the cosmos “are open to human comprehension, at least in principle.”120 As historian of science Christopher Kaiser explains, “The creation of all things by God, the consequent order and rationality of the cosmos, and the ability of human reason to comprehend this order all stem from the Judeo-Christian belief in creation, dating back at least to the second century BCE.”121 In this way, says theologian Alister McGrath, “human rationality thus bears a created, contingent relationship to—but is not identical with—divine rationality.”122 Affirming that the natural world could be comprehended, “early Christian scientists sought intelligible order in nature, regarding it as an indication of God’s rational plan for the universe.”
The Created Contingency of the Cosmic Order
According to the Christian theological context within which the natural sciences developed, “God is the creative ground and reason for the contingent but rational unitary order of the universe.”124 The “Christian doctrine of creation” affirms that “the universe is both inherently intelligible and inherently contingent, its intelligibility reflecting its contingent origins in the rationality of God.”125 The belief that the order of the world is contingent rather than necessary is ultimately grounded in the Christian conception of the freedom of God.126 Inherent in the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, which provided the conceptual matrix for early modern science, is the belief that God was free to choose how to create the universe. “Biblical thought held that the world’s order is contingent rather than necessary. If God created both form and matter, the world did not have to be as it is, and one has to observe it to discover the details of its order.”
Given this understanding of nature, one can never say a priori (independently of observation) how God must have acted, and thus one can never say a priori how God’s creation must behave. To obtain true knowledge about God’s creation one must proceed in an a posteriori manner—by studying the material creation and by conducting experiments.129 Thus early scientists such as “Gassendi described a world utterly contingent on divine will. This contingency expressed itself in his conviction that empirical methods are the only way to acquire knowledge about the natural world and that the matter of which all physical things are composed possesses some properties that can be known only empirically.”130 More recently, the essential affirmation of the contingency of the cosmic order “can be seen as lying behind both James Clerk Maxwell’s insistence that there exists an inner relation between the laws of the mind and the laws of nature, and Albert Einstein’s belief in a ‘pre-established harmony’ between the intelligibility of the independent world and the perceiving subject.”
The Unity of Creation as Grounded in the Unity of God
The affirmation of the unity and uniformity of the physical universe was likewise a core belief emerging from a Judeo-Christian understanding of the unity of creation as the product of a single Creator. While many ancient schools of thought “drew a sharp line between the starry heavens and the terrestrial realm,” the Christian tradition insisted on “a single physics for both heaven and earth.”
When early modern scientists, such as Isaac Newton, argued for the universality of the laws of nature they justified this principle in theistic terms. Newton says, “If there be an universal life and all space be the sensorium of a thinking being [(God)] who by immediate presence perceives all things in it, [then] the laws of motion arising from life or will may be of universal extent.”143 In the nineteenth century, the “quest for a unification of electricity, magnetism, and optics, culminating in the work of James Clerk Maxwell, was still inspired by this theological ideal.”144
That God Created the Human Mind to Comprehend God’s Cosmos
Since God’s creative activity in the cosmos reflects the rationality of the Divine Mind, Christians believe that the inner workings of the cosmos “are open to human comprehension, at least in principle.”120 As historian of science Christopher Kaiser explains, “The creation of all things by God, the consequent order and rationality of the cosmos, and the ability of human reason to comprehend this order all stem from the Judeo-Christian belief in creation, dating back at least to the second century BCE.”121 In this way, says theologian Alister McGrath, “human rationality thus bears a created, contingent relationship to—but is not identical with—divine rationality.”122 Affirming that the natural world could be comprehended, “early Christian scientists sought intelligible order in nature, regarding it as an indication of God’s rational plan for the universe.”
The Created Contingency of the Cosmic Order
According to the Christian theological context within which the natural sciences developed, “God is the creative ground and reason for the contingent but rational unitary order of the universe.”124 The “Christian doctrine of creation” affirms that “the universe is both inherently intelligible and inherently contingent, its intelligibility reflecting its contingent origins in the rationality of God.”125 The belief that the order of the world is contingent rather than necessary is ultimately grounded in the Christian conception of the freedom of God.126 Inherent in the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, which provided the conceptual matrix for early modern science, is the belief that God was free to choose how to create the universe. “Biblical thought held that the world’s order is contingent rather than necessary. If God created both form and matter, the world did not have to be as it is, and one has to observe it to discover the details of its order.”
Given this understanding of nature, one can never say a priori (independently of observation) how God must have acted, and thus one can never say a priori how God’s creation must behave. To obtain true knowledge about God’s creation one must proceed in an a posteriori manner—by studying the material creation and by conducting experiments.129 Thus early scientists such as “Gassendi described a world utterly contingent on divine will. This contingency expressed itself in his conviction that empirical methods are the only way to acquire knowledge about the natural world and that the matter of which all physical things are composed possesses some properties that can be known only empirically.”130 More recently, the essential affirmation of the contingency of the cosmic order “can be seen as lying behind both James Clerk Maxwell’s insistence that there exists an inner relation between the laws of the mind and the laws of nature, and Albert Einstein’s belief in a ‘pre-established harmony’ between the intelligibility of the independent world and the perceiving subject.”
The Unity of Creation as Grounded in the Unity of God
The affirmation of the unity and uniformity of the physical universe was likewise a core belief emerging from a Judeo-Christian understanding of the unity of creation as the product of a single Creator. While many ancient schools of thought “drew a sharp line between the starry heavens and the terrestrial realm,” the Christian tradition insisted on “a single physics for both heaven and earth.”
When early modern scientists, such as Isaac Newton, argued for the universality of the laws of nature they justified this principle in theistic terms. Newton says, “If there be an universal life and all space be the sensorium of a thinking being [(God)] who by immediate presence perceives all things in it, [then] the laws of motion arising from life or will may be of universal extent.”143 In the nineteenth century, the “quest for a unification of electricity, magnetism, and optics, culminating in the work of James Clerk Maxwell, was still inspired by this theological ideal.”144
Theological presuppositions about the unity of creation also clearly motivated Michael Faraday in his scientific quest to discover the fundamental principles underlying electromagnetism and electrochemistry. As historian of science Colin Russell says, “No doubt Faraday’s belief in the unity of the forces of matter was reinforced by his faith in a Creator who made the whole universe work together in harmony.”145 The influence of this theological affirmation also played a vital role in the development of cosmological theory in the 20th century. According to Brooke, “the inculcation of a Jewish monotheism early in life had a lasting effect in the way Einstein was driven, as many physicists still are, to seek a theory that would unify the fundamental physical forces.
Many of the values and presuppositions that the practice science is founded upon come either directly or indirectly from the specific theological context of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In fact, it would seem that the Judeo-Christian understanding of a real and unified cosmic physics with an intelligible, orderly, and rational structure that could and should be discovered was a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for the rise of science.1
For the present, the vast majority of science is produced under the guiding light of theistically derived philosophical presuppositions.
Many of the values and presuppositions that the practice science is founded upon come either directly or indirectly from the specific theological context of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In fact, it would seem that the Judeo-Christian understanding of a real and unified cosmic physics with an intelligible, orderly, and rational structure that could and should be discovered was a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for the rise of science.1
For the present, the vast majority of science is produced under the guiding light of theistically derived philosophical presuppositions.
As Davies says, “Science began as an outgrowth of theology, and all scientists, whether atheists or theists accept an essentially theological worldview.”163 Whether or not there can be a different science, however, a science with alternative— non-Judeo-Christian or atheistic—guiding assumptions, and whether or not such a science can thrive as a knowledge producing enterprise, will remain to be seen if and when individual scientists decide to give up the classical philosophical assumptions of science in exchange for a novel set of assumptions.”
There’s even more, check out the whole essay HERE
There’s even more, check out the whole essay HERE
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