Materialism, Supernaturalism, and
Creationism
Evolution is a materialistic explanation for the
origin and adaptation of species
Philosophical Materialism
“The theory that physical matter is the
only reality and that everything, including
thought, feeling, mind, and will can be
explained in terms of matter and physical
phenomena.”
- American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd Ed.
Creationism is a supernatural explanation for
the origin and adaptation of species
Supernaturalism
“Above the natural” - relating to phenomena
or events that occur outside of the laws of
nature and that cannot be attributed
to the effects of matter and energy. Usually
supernatural events are attributed to the
actions of a divine being capable of
suspending or violating natural laws.
Methodological Materialism
The principle implicit in modern scientific
inquiry - only hypotheses that invoke
matter, energy, and natural law are valid
subjects for inquiry because these are
testable and potentially falsifiable.
Supernatural explanations are not valid
subjects of scientific inquiry because the
supernatural cannot be tested or studied
by the methods employed to study the
natural world.
Belief in the supernatural is common to all
cultures and may be an intrinsic part of
human nature.
Materialism came later to human thinking.
Democritus
460-370 B.C.E
• Atomism
• Atoms and Void
• Time is infinite.
• No divine
intervention.
• No free will.
• Happiness is an
undisturbed soul.
Democritus Laughing,
Hendrick ter Brugghen, 1628
in Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Epicurus
341-271 B.C.E
• Materialistic metaphysics
•atoms moving through void
•no gods, no immortal soul
•no divine intervention or
purpose
• Empiricist epistemology
•knowledge from direct
observation and logical
deduction
•no divine revelation
Bust of Epicurus,
Capitoline Museum
Rome
Titus Lucretius Carus
c.99-c.55 B.C.E
• Roman poet / Philosopher
• Author of De Rerum Natura
(The Nature of Things) a poetic
exposition of Epicureanism
• Materialistic explanations for
all natural phenomena.
• Postulated that the Earth
gave birth to all plant and
animal life, including humans.
Bust of Lucretius
By the end of the 1st
Century, C.E., Lucretius,
Epicureanism and
Materialism are discredited
by Christian philosophers
and suppressed.
Lucretius manuscripts are
rediscovered during the
Renaissance.
St Jerome in his Study 1480 Fresco,
Ognissanti, Florence
De Rerum Natura is again
widely read by the 17th
Century.
Methodological materialism (as
opposed to philosophical materialism)
becomes an increasingly accepted
approach to studying and
understanding the natural world
beginning in the Late Renaissance.
Copernicus
Da Vinci
Galileo
Astronomer
Steno
Leeuwenhoek
Isaac Newton
Physicist
Charles Lyell
Geologist
Beginning in the 17th Century, the epicurean principles
of materialism and mechanism become the operational
assumptions of a new human enterprise called science.
Creationism
The belief that species“Design
are must have had
a designer. That
created by God through
designer must have
been a person. That
supernatural intervention.
person is GOD.”
Natural
Theology
1802
• Creation may be ongoing - new
species appearing through time.
• Adaptation is the evidence of
design by an intelligent creator.
• Creationism was the widely
accepted explanation for the
history and diversity of life on
Earth until Darwin.
William Paley
(1743-1805)
Paley’s most popular work was the
book Natural Theology (1802). In it
he argues that adaptation and
function in species provide evidence
that they were designed by their
creator.
In order to pass the B.A. examination, it
was also necessary to get up Paley's
'Evidences of Christianity,' and his
'Moral Philosophy.' This was done in a
thorough manner, and I am convinced
that I could have written out the whole of
the 'Evidences' with perfect correctness,
but not of course in the clear language of
Paley. The logic of this book and, as I
may add, of his 'Natural Theology,' gave
me as much delight as did Euclid.
The idea that living things bear the
hallmarks of an intelligent designer
is an attractive one because so
many aspects of organisms appear
to be purposeful.
Like Paley’s pocket watch, which was
manufactured to keep track of time,
organisms and their parts appear to have
a predetermined function or “final
cause”. Bee wings function based on an
intricate mechanism to allow bees to fly.
And bees fly so that they can pollinate
flowers. How could these functions come
about except through deliberate design?
By the 1830’s biology remained the only major branch
of science still rooted in a supernatural foundation.
This would soon change due to the work begun by a young man
named Charles Robert Darwin, who almost settled down to the
life of a country parson.
“Considering how fiercely I have
been attacked by the orthodox it
seems ludicrous that I once intended
to be a clergyman.”