Quicksand for a Foundation

One of the most prevalent myths of modern times is that the Enlightenment produced science and technology. It was in fact the Christian West that produced the scientific method and modern science.

Other civilizations had no rationale for pursuing science. Platonism did not teach, as Christianity does, that the universe was created ex nihilo (out of nothing) and thus good and knowable by mind. It was the Christian doctrine of creation that gave medieval philosophers a basis for pursuing science. The fact that God created the material world good and us in his image provided a basis for doing science. It meant that our senses were reliable, our reason could be trusted for processing our observations, and systematic knowledge could be built and passed on to other minds.

Simply put, God made our senses to know the world and our mind to develop its potential. This is gave us our "proper confidence." The Enlightenment borrowed that confidence in sense perception and reason but removed their basis in God. As a result, we are now smacked down by the post-modern backlash against Enlightenment confidence in reason, sense impressions, and thus science. See Thomas Kuhn's 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions if you doubt. The growing consensus is that we are trapped in our own subjectivity.

As Christians we should be poised and ready to restore our "proper confidence" in our ability to observe, report, test, and draw conclusions. There is a basis for science that is rooted in the Christian doctrine of creation. Otherwise we're left with Einstein's conclusion that "What can't be proven scientifically is the scientific nature of science itself." To build science on science is to use quicksand for a foundation. Science must be based on faith in the God of creation and redemption.