This is from the book written by prof emeritus Kjell J. Tveter, «How and why the west lost its faith»
This book can be downloaded free of charge by entering the link below
We all have thoughts about life and our world. We create our own worldview. In our secular society, few people have a conscious
Christian worldview. Most people have what we can call a secular worldview in which God means little or nothing. It is natural for those with a secular worldview to put emphasis on science as giving us certain knowledge, while believing that religion cannot tell us the truth about our reality. Scientific knowledge has taken God’s place and becomes a new form of faith. In the Western world, Naturalism is considered to be the correct way to interpret the natural sciences, meaning it is exempt from criticism, and implying we should accept its tenets. Naturalism is a worldview that assumes everything that exists has a completely natural explanation. Naturalism adopts the premise that everything can be explained by two causal mechanisms:
Coincidence in the form of random chemical and physical
reactions between the matter and energy in the universe
regularity relying on nature’s built-in order formulated by the
Laws of Nature.
Naturalism claims that everything can be explained by random reactions between matter and energy, determined by the innate rules that constrain the Laws of Nature. This means that Naturalism holds that the whole world came into being by pure coincidence without a plan. Naturalism also rejects the idea that nature has a built-in intentionality and advocates that the causes of Naturalism are blind and cannot intentionally achieve a specific goal. In other words, everything happens, and has happened,
by accident. Naturalism also cannot learn from experience. This book you are reading intends to show that our reality, our world, is difficult to explain if we do not reckon on intelligent causes in nature. It is important you understand that Naturalism excludes the possibility of intelligent causes and does not consider our world to be the work of God’s hand.
Before the Enlightenment, most people believed that God had created everything. The Enlightenment led to God’s significance being lessened and human reason became the supreme authority. Naturalism goes a step further, and demotes God totally. As Naturalism claims that everything that happens in our physical universe takes place by nature’s own mechanisms, God is not necessary to explain our reality.
Naturalism believes that our world is the result of a completely random gamble, yet the Laws of Nature indicate that our universe has a distinct order. This adherence to prescribed rules is the very foundation of science. Without this order, it would be impossible to undertake research and systematic studies. Naturalism has no explanation for how the Laws of Nature came into being, but every law requires a legislator, i.e. someone who writes the laws. One thing that has puzzled the wisest brains is that the Laws of Nature can be described in mathematical formulas. One Nobel Prize winner, Eugene Wigner, who was a theoretical physicist, said this was bordering on mystery and seems incomprehensible. Albert Einstein is known for the statement that ‘The only incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible’. An explosive event with a temperature many millions of degrees Celsius led to the formation of a universe that is strongly characterized by order, but chaos might have been a more expected outcome of the Big Bang, because that is what explosions usually cause. Galileo believed that mathematics is God’s
language of the universe. Mathematics is the result of human wisdom and knowledge. In other words, some scientists find it peculiar and incomprehensible that the human brain is made in such a way that it can understand nature and its processes. It is rather like being able to think God’s thoughts in retrospect. Another thought that comes to mind, is whether God actually wants people to be able to understand creation, and that the universe behaves according to understandable laws.
The word Materialism is also used about science and means much the same as Naturalism, but it emphasizes the idea that matter forms the basis of our whole reality. In other words, everything we know about comes from the matter, and even abstract concepts such as our thoughts, opinions, love, kindness, and concern have their origins in the physical part of our universe. These ideas are pure assumption for which there is no evidence, but those who deny God is a reality have to believe that matter is the cause of everything in our world.
Naturalism dramatically alters the view of humankind, and people are seen as machines without moral responsibility that feel neither obligation nor shame. Consequently, the word ‘sin’ has no meaning, neither do concepts like dignity, respect, love, or goodness. ‘Sin’, ‘soul’ and ‘eternity’ are words not found in the vocabulary of naturalists, as they assume we
cease to exist when we die. On this basis, Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709 –1751), a French physician and philosopher and the originator of Materialism, thought evil could be considered an illusion and the wickedness of human beings could be dismissed. For de la Mettrie, the idea that man is a machine became an ‘antidote to misanthropy’, and thuspeople are dehumanized and become like other animals, and life has no purpose or meaning. In this respect Richard Dawkins has commented that ‘There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference […] We are machines for propagating DNA’
George Gaylord Simpson famously put it: ‘Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.’
Another author has put it this way: ‘The contributions of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge, the researches of the doctor to alleviate pain and suffering, the efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in the world, the sacrifices of good people everywhere to better the lot of the human race – all these come to nothing. In the end they don’t make one bit of difference, not one bit. Each person’s life is therefore without ultimate significance. And because our lives are ultimately meaningless, the activities we fill our lives with are also meaningless. The long hours spent in study at the university, our jobs, our interests, our friendships –all these are, in the final analysis, utterly meaningless’
In Naturalism, the ultimate reality is physical and material. It provides an impersonal universe without a moral and rational being. Nature then becomes non-moral, non-rational and non-personal. The universe has no meaning or purpose. There is no reason why something exists or something happens. Naturalists will usually believe that objective truth exists, but limit such truth to scientific data only. If what you believe cannot be scientifically confirmed, then it is not certain knowledge. If goodness exists, such goodness cannot be given a metaphysical explanation. Nevertheless, naturalists face an insoluble problem in terms of values
and morals, since science cannot explain the verb ‘ought’. Naturalism has two answers to what may constitute goodness:
Subjectivism: everything that I like, want, or prefer is defined as goodness.
Utilitarianism: the thing(s) that give(s) the most pleasure to most people.
Scientism is a radical form of Naturalism, which states that only the science can reveal the truth about our reality. Scientism also claims that ethics, morals, theology, and philosophy are based solely on personal feelings, blind faith, or a particular cultural upbringing, even if these have been regarded as truth and a source of wisdom for hundreds of years. Scientism asserts that no truth can be discovered by a non-scientific method. Every culture has a sphere within which exists the perceptions
about which most people agree, both rationally and emotionally. Anything that exists outside this sphere cannot be considered reasonable or true. Since Scientism defines Christianity as being on the outside of this sphere, it cannot therefore be taken seriously.
Most people believe in science quite naturally, because they can hardly grasp all the important things that science has given them that affect their lives and our welfare. Machines make possible vibrant industries that have all the things that make life easier for us, like cookers, refrigerators and the many other things powered by electricity. Recently there has been a revolution of items that make all forms of communication possible.
Human wisdom has produced cars, planes, and boats to carry people and goods. Science has given us advanced equipment for the diagnosis and treatment of the sick. Science is credited with all these things, so much so that you will not be taken seriously if you allow yourself to doubt science. Science has demonstrated its worthiness, and therefore,
Scientism has become a dominant view in Western culture. Since Scientism believes everything we know stems from matter, it
rejects that God is the creator of everything. Therefore, it is important that you, as a reader, familiarize yourself with Scientism, and that you understand the arguments that show Scientism does not tell us the whole truth.
Scientism embraces the following points:
1. A belief that religion and ethics are based on blind faith rather
than knowledge. Religious claims are not based on actual
knowledge and are thus not subject to a rational assessment or
approach.
2. Our way of life. Since science says that there is no purpose or
deeper meaning in life, that there is no difference between right
and wrong, it rejects both God and an eternity. Its message
is that the purpose of life is to satisfy our wishes and desires.
Thus, truth dies and is replaced by an individual’s need to satisfy her needs.
Progress becomes more important than truth.
3. Ethical behavior moves away from positive attributes such as
duty, responsibility, and an effort not to harm others, to being
able to behave the way you want as long as you do not hurt anyone.
The impact of ethics is thereby minimized, and thoughts
about religion and ethics become neither true nor false.
4. The concept of freedom is redefined from ‘doing what on
oughts’ to ‘doing what one wants’. Some people believe this
way of living will inevitably lead to chaos and lawlessness.
5. Redefines tolerance. A classic view of ethics assumes that individuals
have knowledge of what forms the very basis for ethics
and morality. The modern perception of tolerance states that
one should tolerate all views. No meanings are more truthful
or veracious than other meanings, leading to people being
considered intolerant if they disagree with someone else’s view
of morality.
6. Scientism has led to increased hostility towards the Theistic worldview.
The first natural question to ask is whether there are conditions in the world that science cannot explain. Science cannot explain mathematics. Science assumes mathematics and is based on mathematics. Likewise, science cannot explain the laws of logic, which are often called the First Principles. The First Principles are not based on science, but quite the opposite. Science rests on these principles, and if it did not, we would not be able to perform science. Science denies what we call a metaphysical reality, as opposed to the physical reality we can feel and touch. What we can register with our senses is called empirical knowledge, but we have no empirical knowledge of the origins of the universe. Science cannot currently prove by scientific methods that our universe came into being of its own accord. Because nature was made by the Big Bang, natural mechanisms cannot explain the origin of the universe, since nature is the result of the Big Bang. Therefore, there were no natural causes until our universe came into being.
The same applies to the origins of life. Science has searched in depth for more than sixty years to find a naturalistic explanation for the origins of life, but all this research which has probably cost billions of dollars, has not met with success. What this research has shown is that life is far more complex than science has assumed. Even the simplest cell is far more advanced than anything humans have ever made. Life consists of four of the following basic substances:
Proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates (sugars) and lipids (fats). There are no scientific facts that show these substances could have been created on the primitive Earth before life existed. Professor James Tour, who has a channel on YouTube, specializes in synthesizing the substances that form the building blocks of life. All his research has convinced him that the foundational substances of life could not have come into being as a result of nature’s own mechanisms.
If humans are the result of blind natural forces without any plan, meaning or purpose, as science says, then we can ask the question as to where morality comes from? All people are born with a conviction of right
and wrong, it is not something we learn. We were born with this ability. When we do something that we know is wrong, our conscience tells us, and we get a bad conscience. We feel guilty. All people are born with the understanding that it is wrong to lie, steal and murder. All people think it is wrong to abuse young children and scare others for fun. Science has no explanation for this ‘ought to be’ – that lies outside the domain of science.
Science also fails to explain human consciousness. Our awareness enables us to record everything that is happening around us.
Scientism claims that science alone can give us the truth about our reality. If we study this sentence more closely, we will find that the sentence is not scientific. The sentence is not the result of a scientific examination. Nothing has been weighed or measured, and nothing has been recorded to indicate this sentence is correct. The sentence does not describe a scientific result, it tells us something ABOUT science. That means the sentence is a statement about science, and that the sentence is not scientific, but
philosophical. It is about our thoughts on science. That is what we call philosophy. So, the sentence expresses an opinion on science. Scientism says that a phrase that does not build on science, cannot be true. Therefore, Scientism disproves or denies itself, and is thereby contradictory. Spend the time you need to understand this, as it is of great importance when considering the different views that you will come across in life.