MATERIAL NATURALISM
Mary Poplin
Presbyterian Church of the Master 2 of 4
April 2015
FOUR GLOBAL WORLDVIEWS
Material Naturalism **
Secular Humanism
Pantheism
Monotheism (Judeo-Christianity)
MATERIAL NATURALISM
Not Science but
Scientism
In the beginning the universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and
has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
FAITH OF MATERIAL NATURALISM
Everything is ultimately only
Matter
Energy
Laws
Including human consciousness, love, conscience,
and religious belief (e.g., moral molecule)
“Trying to discover why we believe is
more intriguing than the debate over
whether anyone is up there looking
down.”
David Sloan Wilson
SCIENTISM:
SCIENCE IS THE ONLY TRUTH
• There is simply no way for science to prove that
all that exists is material
• The methodology of science begins only after the
identification of material
• Thus can only state facts about material
• All else is outside of science
“Suppose you think that there is no such person as
God, and that we have been cobbled together by natural
selection.
Can you then sensibly think that our cognitive faculties
are for the most part reliable? . . .
There is no particular reason to think they would be:
natural selection is interested but in appropriate
behavior, not in truth.”
• Alvin Plantinga
SCIENCE VS. RELIGION?
SCIENCE VS. SCIENTISM
Modern Western science originated and flourished
in the bosom of Christian theism and originated
nowhere else…The fact is it was Christian Europe
that fostered, promoted, and nourished modern
science…modern science is a legacy of
Christianity.
Alvin Plantinga
NON-OVERLAPPING MAGISTERIA
(NOMA)
Gould’s proposal to reconcile science and
religion
LAW GOVERNED UNIVERSE
• Physical Laws – physics, chemistry and astronomy
• Natural Laws – biology, botany, zoology
• Laws of Human Flourishing – psychology, medicine
• Laws of Social Flourishing – ethics, policy/law/govt,
sociology, history, anthropology
• Spiritual Laws – spiritual transactions
UNIVERSE EMERGES FROM NOTHING
Stephen Hawking – “Because there are laws of gravity
the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.”
John Lennox – “Clearly Hawking assumes that gravity
exists. That is not nothing….If I say “x creates x” this
presupposes the existence of x in the first place…The
world of strict naturalism in which clever mathematical laws
all by themselves bring the universe and life into existence
is pure (science) fiction.”
Materialist Controversy
THEORIES OF ORIGINS
Many were increasingly of the opinion that
they’d all made a big mistake in coming down
from the trees in the first place. And some said
that even the trees had been a bad move, and
that no one should ever have left the oceans.
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
FIVE DISTINCT VIEWS OF ORIGINS
1. Neo-Darwinian Evolution (atheist)
2. Theistic evolution
3. Intelligent design
4. Old-earth special creation
5. Young-earth special creation
ALL FIVE BELIEVE…MICRO EVOLUTION
• Within a species, over time, there is a change in
genetic material to adjust to conditions
• White moths turned black around industry
• Beaks of finches on Galapagos Island
• Bacteria become drug resistant
THREE NOTE THESE ARE SAME FINCHES
MOTHS AND BACTERIA
Intelligent Design
Old Earth Creation
Young Earth Creation
ALL EXCEPT YOUNG EARTH BELIEVE …
The universe is approximately 14 billion years old
The earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old
1. ATHEIST EVOLUTION ACROSS SPECIES
• Universe begins “big bang” (origin unknown)
• Non-living material appears (origin unknown)
• Single cell living organisms appear (origin unknown)
• Single cell living organisms increase in complexity
through the undirected processes of genetic mutation,
drift, natural selection - producing survival advantages
2. THEIST EVOLUTION ACROSS SPECIES
• Universe begins “big bang” (God causes)
• Non-living material appears (God causes)
• Single cell living organisms appear (God causes)
• Single cell living organisms increase in complexity
through the GOD undirected processes of genetic
mutation, drift & natural selection producing survival
advantages
• Biologos Institute –Theistic Evolution – Francis Collins,
NT Wright, Tim Keller, Ard Louis, Darrel Falk
Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular
religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with
meaning and morality.
I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must
admit that in this one complaint the literalists are
absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of
evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still
today. . . .
Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular
ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity.
Michael Ruse
PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION
ACROSS SPECIES
• Missing Transitional Beings
• Cambrian Explosion
• Irreducible Complexity
• Mutations
• Common Design NOT Descent
Gould said there are no transitional fossils.… “You say that I should at
least show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was
derived.” I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which
one could make a watertight argument.”
-Colin Patterson, British Museum of History
3. INTELLIGENT DESIGN
A PARADIGM SHIFT
• Rather than material as the prime cause of the
universe …
• First cause is intelligence
• Intelligence has designer
• Designers communicate
• Discovery Institute – Steven Meyer, William Dembski,
Michael Behe, Michael Denton, Jonathan Wells, Guillermo
Gonzalez
4. OLD-EARTH SPECIAL CREATION
• Demonstrate that scientific evidence never
erodes belief in Bible or transcendent God
• A model of biblical creation that squares
with science and is testable, falsifiable and
predictive.
• Reasons to Believe Institute – Hugh Ross,
Fazale Raza, Ken Samples, Jeff Zweerink
5. YOUNG-EARTH SPECIAL
CREATION
• Argue from Bible to science
• Flood account important, age of earth
• Six 24 hour creation days (Days in Hebrew)
• Inherit the Wind movie (McCarthy)
• Institute for Creation Research - Carl Baugh, Duane
Gish, Ken Ham (Gerald Schroeder – Jewish)
FIVE DISTINCT VIEWS OF ORIGINS
1. Neo-Darwinian Evolution (atheist)
2. Theistic evolution
3. Intelligent design
4. Old-earth special creation
5. Young-earth special creation
DO YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ONE OF THESE
TO BE A SCIENTIST?
PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY SCIENCE
Variety of Origins Beliefs
• All five depend on faith
• None inhibit scientific inquiry or discovery
• They all encourage science
• Judeo-Christian science with a moral tether
SCIENTISM ALLOWS NO MIRACLES
• Craig Keener’s book
• Candy Gunther Brown
• Heidi and Roland Baker
• Heaven is for Real example
There is not to be found in all history, any miracle
attested by a sufficient number of men, of such
unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as
to secure us against all delusion in themselves.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary
to what we know about nature.
Augustine
Craig Keener notes, “If even a handful of
miracle claims prove more probable than
not, Hume’s argument fails, removing the
initial default setting against miracles.”
PLANTINGA CHALLENGES THE NOTION THAT IT HAS
BEEN ESTABLISHED THAT THE UNIVERSE IS A CLOSED
SYSTEM
HTTP://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=YUUYZBU1OLC
COMPLEXITY OF THE CELL
With music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKW4F0Nu-UY
With narration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzcTgrxMzZk
MOST CONTESTED MIRACLE
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
Most probably Jesus did die, and his physical body rotted in the tomb. But
the disciples felt his presence. By rights they should have been depressed
and downtrodden. The very contrary was the case. They felt a surge of
comfort and power. They knew that Jesus’ death had not been in vain. He
had conquered death in the only sense that was needed. They were thus
emboldened to go forth and to preach the gospel. This is what happened
and was all that needed to happen. That there may be a naturalistic
explanation for all this, something in terms of group psychology, is
absolutely irrelevant. It is what you would expect. It was the meaning of it
all that made for the miracle. Michael Ruse
LESSLIE NEWBIGIN
PLAUSIBILITY STRUCTURES
“The difference between the two plausibility
structures is seen most sharply at the point where
we have to come to terms with the Christian
tradition about the resurrection of Jesus. The
community of faith makes the confession that God
raised Jesus from the dead and that the tomb was
empty thereafter.
LESSLIE NEWBIGIN
PLAUSIBILITY STRUCTURES
“Within the plausibility structure of the modern
world, this will become something like the
following: The disciples had a series of
experiences that led them to the belief that, in
some sense, Jesus was still alive and therefore to
interpret the Cross as victory and not defeat...
LESSLIE NEWBIGIN
PLAUSIBILITY STRUCTURES
“This experience can be accepted as a ‘fact.’
People do have such psychological experiences. If
this is what is meant by the ‘Easter event’ it
qualifies for admission into the world of fact.”
LESSLIE NEWBIGIN
PLAUSIBILITY STRUCTURES
“The former statement (i.e., that the
tomb was empty) can be accepted as a
fact only if the whole plausibility structure
of contemporary Western culture
[secular] is called into question.”
NO NATURAL ETHIC IN
MATERIAL NATURALISM
• Strong overcome the weak
• “We know no scientific justification can be given
for moral beliefs. There is no metaethical
foundation to be found in nature.” -Michael Ruse
DEFINING DEVIANCE DOWN
• Importance and role of changing language
• Defining Deviancy Down – Daniel Moynihan,
sociologist and senator, 1993
FREE WILL OR BIOLOGICAL DESTINY?
The more the physical processes of consciousness have
been defined by scientific research, the less has been left
to any phenomenon that can be intuitively labeled as free
will. We are free as independent beings, but our decisions
are not free of all organic processes that created our
personal brains and minds. Free will therefore appears to
be ultimately biological.”
Edward O. Wilson
FREE WILL OR BIOLOGICAL DESTINY?
“If we came to believe that our capacity for
objective theory [true beliefs] were the product of
natural selection, that would warrant skepticism
about its results . . . [and] would provide absolutely
no confirmation of its capacity to get at the truth.”
Thomas Nagel
It is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism.
The critique of every experience from below, the
voluntary ignoring of meaning and concentration on
fact, will always have the same plausibility. There will
always be evidence, and every month fresh
evidence, to show that religion is only psychological,
justice only self-protection, politics only economics,
love only lust, and thought itself only cerebral
biochemistry.
C S Lewis
SUMMARY MATERIAL NATURALISM
• Only material
• No consciousness, love, conscience, spirit…
• No miracles
• No material ethics
• No free will
• It’s all chemistry
COUNTERING GOD AS CREATOR AND
REVEALER OF MORAL LAW
Material Naturalism
PRINCIPLES OF ALL FOUR
WORLDVIEWS
• Faith – All begin with metaphysical statement
• Some overlap with Judeo-Christianity
• Some principles lie outside Judeo-Christianity
• Judeo-Christian principles transcend other worldviews
• People poorly educated, 95% world believes
• No longer free, open marketplace of ideas
• Denial of central value of diversity and pluralism
• Reduction of speech by secularization and ideology
• Silencing of religious voices, ideas, issues
SECULARISM CONSEQUENCES
UNIVERSITY AND CULTURE
Is reality secular? Is adequate knowledge secular? And is that
something that has been established as a fact by thorough
and unbiased inquiry? Is this something that today’s secular
universities thoroughly and freely discuss in a disciplined
way?
Certainly not! Nowhere does that happen.
It is now simply assumed that every field of knowledge or
practice is perfectly complete without any reference to God. It
may be logically possible that this assumption is true, but is it
true?
Dallas Willard