Did Early Scientists really believe?

Kevin Rogers

(Investigator 124, 2009 January


Review

In the spring edition of the Skeptic Jon Jeremy argued that a Christian cannot practice science and be consistent with their beliefs. According to Jon, all scientists should be atheists. His argument was basically that since the Christian God operates the universe in accordance with his will, therefore the urnverse would be unpredictable and not amenable to scientific investigation.

In the summer edition Bill Moriarty and I challenged this thesis. The main point that we both made was that Jon falsely assumed God was arbitrary and capricious. The Christian has just as much reason as an atheist to believe that nature will act consistently. I added that the origins of modern science were deeply influenced by Christians and that many of the major scientists have been Christians. Our letters evoked responses from Paul Barclay and Brian Hewson in the autumn edition and from Jon Jeremy in the winter edition.

A number of issues have been raised and space prevents me from addressing them all. However, both Paul Barclay and Jon Jeremy claimed that early scientists maintained "a facade of conventional religious belief" to avoid persecution. In other words, Paul and Jon inferred that the early scientists were really closet atheists. Neither Paul nor Jon provided any evidence for their assertion. Being a good skeptic, I did some research.


Early Scientists
 
There were many scientists who called themselves Christians.
 
Some prominent examples born prior to the 20th century were
 
Roger Bacon (1214-1292),
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543),
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601),
Francis Bacon (1561-1626),
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642),
johannes Kepler (1571-1630),
Rene Descartes (1597-1650),
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662),
Robert Boyle (1627-1691),
Robert Hooke (1635-1703),
Isaac Newton (1643-1727),
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716),
William Herschel (1738-1822) and
his astronomer son John Herschel (1792-1871),
Leonhard Euler (1707-1783),
John Dalton (1766-1844),
Johann Gauss (1777-1855),
Louis Cauchy (1789-1857),
Michael Faraday (1791-1867),
Charles Babbage (1791-1871),
Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884),
James Joule (1818-1889),
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895),
Joseph Lister (1827-1912),
Lord Kelvin (William Thompson 1824-1907),
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879),
Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919),
J.J. Thomson (1856-1940),
Max Planck (1858-1947) and
Arthur Compton (1892-1962).

There were many more that I have not listed.


Were they faking it?
 
Was their faith real, or were they faking it? If you read their biographies you will find that many of them were quite overt in their profession of faith and demonstrated their faith by what they did.
 
Roger Bacon was a Franciscan Friar and Copernicus was a Roman Catholic cleric. Mendel was an Augustinian priest who became abbot of his abbey. Francis Bacon wrote in "The Essays: Of Atheism" that "a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." Galileo, despite his altercations with the Roman Catholic Church was a devoted Roman Catholic all of his life. Pascal wrote the Pensées ("Thoughts"), which was intended to be a coherent examination and defense of the Christian faith. The original title was "Apologie de la religion Chrétienne" (Defense of the Christian Religion).

Boyle, as a director of the East India Company, spent large sums in promoting the spread of Christianity in the East, contributing liberally to missionary societies, and to the expenses of translating the Bible or portions of it into various languages. Isaac Newton, although unorthodox in some of his beliefs, was a member of the Anglican Church and was involved in the distribution of Bibles to the poor and the construction of new churches. He wrote more on the Bible and theological topics than he wrote on science. Gottfried Leibniz was the co inventor of calculus with Isaac Newton. He was also a theologian and philosopher and was responsible for developing a form of the cosmological argument for the existence of God based on the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Michael Faraday was an elder and regular preacher in the Sandemanian (foot washers) Church. Babbage originated the concept of the programmable computer. In 1837 he published his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, "On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation".

Maxwell's faith is well documented. He attended both Presbyterian and Episcopalian services as a child and later underwent an Evangelical conversion in April 1853. Compton was a deacon in the Baptist Church. Joseph Lister was originally a Quaker and subsequently joined the Scottish Episcopal Church. J.J. Thomson put the text "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" over the Cavendish Laboratory in England.
 
Max Planck was a devoted and persistent adherent of Christianity from early life to death. The God in which Planck believed was "an almighty, all-knowing, benevolent but unintelligible God that permeated everything, including physical laws." Planck objected to atheism.
 
I could go on and on, but hopefully you will get the point. This information is very accessible. The truth is out there. Jon and Paul claim that they were faking it. Well then, which of the above were faking it? Where is your evidence?


Conclusion
 
Some contributors to the Skeptic magazine give the impression that atheists are the sole custodians of science and rational thinking. This has as much credibility as the Burmese government rebadging foreign aid to pretend that it came from them. The modern scientific movement certainly did not arise from atheism. It had its roots in the Christian West. Many of the early scientists were Christians and their words and deeds indicate that their profession was genuine.

Jon claimed that theism is incompatible with the scientific method. On the contrary, theism provides the rational source for the laws of nature. To quote Paul Davies, "Science is based on the assumption that the universe is thoroughly rational and logical at all levels. Atheists claim that the laws of nature exist reasonlessly and the universe is ultimately absurd. As a scientist, I find this hard to accept. There must be an unchanging rational ground in which the logical, orderly nature of the universe is rooted."
Quoted from page 111 of "There is a God",  by Antony Flew.



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