25 - SCIENCE & NON-CONTRADICTION

February 15, 2025                                                            

Not only is science corrosive to religion,

but religion is corrosive to science.

Richard Dawkins

Atheists frequently claim that there is an “existential” conflict between the Bible and Science – that, ultimately, the world/universe/reality can be explained either by “Science” or by Scripture.  Of course, only Science is "true." This is the outlook that lies behind Richard Dawkins’ quote above (and I will return to him at the end of this post).

For the orthodox Christian, this is an easy issue to resolve: there is no conflict, and there can be no conflict, because God created “Science!”  As we have seen, the Creator is without contradiction in Himself, and what He has created reflects his divine nature (through the Principle of Non-Contradiction. (Again, see Romans 1:20.)  End of argument!!

But what does it mean that God “created Science?”  Well, Science, itself, is a thing: a tool for studying material things that God made.  Science has proven to be a powerful tool, providing all kinds of information about how various things in the Universe work, and, through thus opening the door to a better understanding of the physical world. But Science, itself, is a merely method for collecting data…

To be a bit more technical, Science is a way to study cause-and-effect in a closed system. (NOTE: A closed system is, by definition, a collection of “parts” where no part of the system can enter or leave on its own.  Think of any machine, as opposed to the machine operator.)

The results of a given chain of cause-and-effect in a closed system can be repeated: with a given set of components (or variables), the result will always be the same. “Good” science, then, provides data that becomes an explanation (i.e. theory).  However, change one or more variables and the result changes.  

Open systems,* on the other hand, are not uniformly predictable.  These systems are “open” to the coming and going of factors which are beyond the observer’s control.  History, for example, studies open systems; human behaviour may follow certain general patterns but it is not rigidly predictable in the way that Science demands – hence the distinction between Natural Sciences (physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc.) and Social “Sciences” (history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.). Remember the old adage, “History does not repeat itself.”

What we might not see in a quick reading of the study of cause-and-effect in closed systems is that cause-and-effect (aka the Law of Causality) is a restatement of the Law of Non-Contradiction! (Yes, you simply cannot escape the Principle of Non-Contradiction!!)

Science puts the Law of Non-Contradiction – i.e. “a truth claim cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same relationship” – in a different form: “a thing cannot be a cause and an effect at the same time and in the same relationship,” or “an effect cannot be its own cause.”**

This being the case, then the conflict between Science and Religion that Richard Dawkins claims is a “straw man.”  If scientific investigation operates on the same principles of Non-Contradiction that are in the Bible and that appear everywhere in Creation, then claims that science and religion are “corrosive” to each other is, at best, misplaced and, at worst, fake news.

It is also fair to say, that, in the quote, Dawkins takes the posture of speaking as a “scientist,” but he is not speaking scientifically, and he glosses over this point.  He claims that Science and Religion are mutually “corrosive,” but he cannot provide any empirical evidence from scientific experimentation to support that.; he is merely offering an opinion – and it is a philosophical or political opinion – for which his position as a “Evolutionary Biologist” offers him no particular standing.

It is also fair to say that he ignores the underlying issue of causality.  He may do so because he is blind to it or because he does not want to draw attention to it, but he should, based on his education and his “trade” know of it and its importance. 

In defending our Biblical faith, we need go no further than this to answer any question about conflict between Science and Biblical Christianity.  I want to reflect further on this topic in the next post…

Next time: Suppressing Non-Contradiction