Naturalism, Evolution, and the Bible

Quite a few people don't cotton to the notion that science is a philosophy. You may hear something like, "Science is science", as if it was a separate animal. But if you stop to ponder on it for a spell, you'll see that science (and the scientific methods) have philosophical foundations, as you can see in these definitions of science. However, science is also defined with naturalistic philosophies. That is, even though the logical conclusion of analysis is God, don't go there, girlfriend — the powers that be disapprove because of their naturalistic worldview. In the 2005 Dover trial, "science" defeated "religion", even though Intelligent Design is not a Christian doctrine per se, so the foolish verdict was rendered on the basis of definitions from philosophy.

How did we get there? In early days, Bible-believing scientists were making all sorts of discoveries and advancing science. Along came naturalistic philosophies, and the Christians backed off. From there, anti-theists took over and made their own definitions. Of course, Charles Darwin fit right in with the plan, and evolutionary thinking has impeded science and morality ever since. Worse, all of this has infected the way people approach their understanding of the Bible; naturalists want to explain it their way.

The truth is that evolutionists have many times and in various ways, attempted to explain the Bible. Or to be more precise, the same worldview that gave rise to the theory of evolution in the Western world, also gave rise to a new interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, the West came increasingly to enjoy and appreciate the benefits of the scientific achievements of such biblical, creation-believing scientists as Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, born mainly of the Reformation. Innovation, invention and observation of the universe in which we live were growing exponentially.

In the midst of this scientific and intellectual revolution, anti-theists such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Hume, emboldened by the achievements of science and their own hubris, began to reject all forms of authority other than ‘science’. Philosophers and scientists all over the western world began to apply their own definitions of science to disciplines as diverse as economics and anthropology. This intellectual movement became known as the Enlightenment. It gave rise to any number of ‘isms’. Rationalism held the notion that reason alone was the determiner of truth. Naturalism was a ‘rule’ subjectively applied to the definition of science that excluded the possibility of the supernatural. Positivism claimed that only empirical science could provide real knowledge about the world and universe, including origins. Note two important delusions inherent in these ideas. Firstly these statements are, by their own definitions, self-refuting. Try and think of how one would use the scientific method to determine whether positivism is true or not. Obviously it cannot be tested by its own criteria. Clearly, much of what came out of Enlightenment thinking was not so much scientific but philosophical. Metaphysical anti-theism began increasingly to drive the science; not the other way around.

You can read the rest by clicking on "Evolutionists on the Bible — Philosophical naturalists ‘explain’ the Bible" in its full context.