The document discusses the Christian foundations of modern science. It argues that many assumptions necessary for the development of science, such as the ideas that nature is real, orderly, lawful, precise, and knowable, arose from Christian theology. In contrast, other ancient cultures lacked these assumptions and did not develop science. The document outlines how Christian theology, through figures like Aquinas, established a high view of nature and empirical investigation that paved the way for the scientific revolution in 17th century Europe.

1. THE CHRISTIAN FOUNDATION
OF MODERN SCIENCE
DR. SARAH SALVIANDER
Defending Christianity
October, 2017

2. Evolution
is a fact!
It’s a fact the
way gravity
is a fact!
Arguing with atheists about science…

3. Fact: g = 9.8 m/s2
Which theory explains it?
It’s a fact the
way gravity
is a fact!

4. Newtonian gravity General relativity

5. Aristotelian theory of gravity
Le Sage's theory of gravitation
Ritz's theory of gravitation
Nordström's theory of gravitation
Kaluza Klein theory
Whitehead's theory of gravitation
Brans–Dicke theory of gravity
Induced gravity
ƒ(R) gravity
Horndeski theory
Supergravity
String theory
Modified Newtonian dynamics
Self-creation cosmology theory of gravity
Loop quantum gravity
Nonsymmetric gravitational theory
Conformal gravity
Tensor–vector–scalar gravity
Gravity as an entropic force
Superfluid vacuum theory of gravity
Chameleon theory
Pressuron theory

6. ”
“
WHAT IS SCIENCE?
Henri Poincaré, mathematician
and physicist
Science is built up of facts, as a house is
built of stones; but an accumulation of
facts is no more a science than a heap
of stones is a house.

7. WHAT IS SCIENCE?
Not just a collection of facts
Not just explanations
A system of knowledge held together by a way of
thinking
That way of thinking is the philosophy of science

8. PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
o is the search for truth about the material universe
o follows the scientific method
o follows all of the evidence
o is based on faith in natural laws
Everything else is elaboration and details.

9. THE POWER OF SCIENCE

10. THE POWER OF SCIENCE

11. SCIENCE VS. RELIGION?
Science and religion
are fundamentally
incompatible…
Vic Stenger, physicist

12. SCIENCE VS. RELIGION?
As the centuries go by religion
has less and less room to exist
and perform its obscurantist
interference with the search
for truth.
Richard Dawkins, biologist

13. SCIENCE VS. RELIGION?
The conflict between religion
and science is inherent and
(very nearly) zero-sum. …the
maintenance of religious
dogma always comes at the
expense of science.
Sam Harris, neuroscientist

14. ORIGIN OF MODERN SCIENCE
It is indisputable that modern science
emerged in the seventeenth century in
Western Europe and nowhere else.
“
”Edward Grant, historian

15. MODERN SCIENCE EMERGED IN CHRISTIAN EUROPE
Not in spite of Christian faith...
...because of it.

16. BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
WHEN WHO WHAT
DAWN OF MAN Everyone Rudimentary technology, astronomy
3rd MILLENIUM BC Predynastic Egyptians Math (numerals, calculations)
… Indians Math
2nd MILLENIUM BC Mesopotamians Math, astronomy
Ancient Egyptians Empiricism
7th CENTURY BC Pre-Socratic Greeks Thales, “father of science”
… Indians Brahmagupta, concept of zero
5/6th CENTURY BC Indians Trigonometry, algebra

17. BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
WHEN WHO WHAT
… Ancient Greeks Pythagorus, atomism, astronomy
4th CENTURY BC Classical Greeks Plato, Aristotle, deductive reasoning,
empiricism, pre-physics, cosmology

18. BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
4th CENTURY BC Classical Greeks Plato, Aristotle, deductive reasoning,
empiricism, pre-physics, cosmology
Laid the foundation for modern science:
o Deductive reasoning
o Observation and induction
Explosion in pre-scientific advances
o Anatomy
o Astronomy
o Botany
o Mathematics
o Zoology

19. BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
WHEN WHO WHAT
… Ancient Greeks Pythagorus, atomism, astronomy
4th CENTURY BC Classical Greeks Plato, Aristotle, deductive reasoning,
empiricism, pre-physics, cosmology
4th CENTURY BC+ Chinese Astronomy
3rd/4th CENTURY BC Hellenistic Greeks Euclid, Archimedes
3rd CENTURY BC Hellenistic Greeks Aristarchus, heliocentrism (rejected)
?-1st CENTURY BC Chinese Decimals, negative and fractional
2nd CENTURY BC ROME CONQUERS GREECE

20. BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
WHEN WHO WHAT
2nd CENTURY Greco-Egyptian Ptolemy, consolidated
geocentric cosmology
3rd – 9th CENTURY Greeks Astronomy, algebra, medicine,
anatomy (Platonic)
Arabs Medicine, mathematics, astronomy,
alchemy (Aristotelian)
10th CENTURY Persians/Arabs Optics
11th CENTURY Arabs Optics, medicine
Everyone Supernova 1054 observation
Chinese Geomorphology
12th CENTURY Arabs Gravitation, precursors to
Newton’s laws, mechanics

21. BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
WHEN WHO WHAT
13th CENTURY Western Europeans Robert Grosseteste, Roger
Bacon, the scientific method
Establishment of universities,
paper mills
14th CENTURY Western Europeans Occam’s Razor, Oxford Calculators,
mechanics, refraction
15th CENTURY Western Europeans Spring-driven clocks
Movable type, Gutenberg Bible
16th CENTURY Western Europeans Copernicus, Brahe
17th CENTURY Western Europeans SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

22. ARISTOTLE AND THE CHURCH
o Early Church fathers like Augustine were influenced by
Plato
o Aristotelian philosophy came from Christians in the
Middle East ~12th century
o Scholasticism
o Thomas Aquinas most influential promoter
of Aristotelianism in the Church

23. PLATO VS. ARISTOTLE
PLATO
o Mystic
o Inductive reasoning
o Spiritual more real than physical
o Senses are unreliable for
perceiving truth
o Perfect forms; crude copies
o Form is static
o Math is highest form of thinking
o Minimal scientific contribution
ARISTOTLE
o Logician
o Deductive reasoning
o Authenticity of everyday world
o Senses are necessary to perceive
truth
o Objects are form + matter
o Change is inevitable
o Separated math and science
o Highly influential in science

24. MEDIEVAL PRE-SCIENCE AND MATH
o Aristotle and the Church
o Neo-Platonic crisis
CHRISTIANITY SCIENCE
Logic, realism Mathematics

25. Greeks
Romans
1200 AD
Scientific
Revolution
Industrial
Revolution
Modern
Civilization
400 BC 500 AD 1620 AD 1760 AD 1900 AD
Medieval
Europe
COMPLEXITY à SCIENCE?

26. COMPLEXITY à SCIENCE?
Human need to understand our place in the world
More complex societies need greater depth of
understanding
Does complexity necessarily lead
to science?

27. WHY DIDN’T OTHERS CULTURES INVENT SCIENCE?
Some were insufficiently advanced. However…
Greeks
o Philosophically advanced
o Didn’t invent science
Babylonians, Romans, Chinese
o Technologically advanced
o Didn’t invent science
Arabs
o Intellectually advanced
o Didn’t invent science

28. WHY DIDN’T OTHERS CULTURES INVENT SCIENCE?
Science is the study of nature, and the
possibility of science depends on your
attitude toward nature

29. NON-CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is not real
Pantheism and idealism:
o Individuality and separateness are an
illusion
o Everything is an appearance of some
absolute “One”

30. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is real
o God made everything
o The world and everything in it is real
o They can be studied philosophically
and experimentally

31. NON-CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is denigrated
o Material world associated with evil
o The material is denigrated
o Slaves did all the labor while the
upper classes pursued “higher
things”
à Major reason Greeks did not invent
science

32. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is good
o “And God saw that it was good”
o Church defended a high view of the
material world as God’s creation
o Respect for craftsmen
o Dignity in work, including scientific
work

33. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is good
“I give you thanks, Creator and God, that you
have given me this joy in thy creation, and I
rejoice in the works of your hands. See I
have now completed the work to which I was
called. In it I have used all the talents you
have lent to my spirit.”
Kepler’s spontaneous notebook prayer

34. ”
“
SCIENCE AS TRUE WORSHIP
…[Newton’s intensity was] a measure of his devotion
to God. For Newton, “To be constantly engaged in
studying and probing into God’s actions was true
worship.” This idea defined the seventeenth-
century scientist, and in many cases, the
scientists doubled as theologians.
Mitch Stokes, Isaac Newton

35. NON-CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is deified
Pantheism and idealism:
o Nature is the abode of gods or
emanation of God’s own essence
o Pagan man “lives in an enchanted
forest” alive with spirits, sprites, and
demons; focus is on appeasing or
warding them off
o Nature is sacred

36. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is a creation
o Nature is good, but not a god
o It is merely a creation, not a deity
o De-deification of nature was a crucial
step toward science

37. NON-CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is arbitrary
Paganism:
o A multitude of immanent gods who
are personifications of natural
phenomena
o Arbitrary and capricious

38. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is ordered
o Nature was created by God
o God is trustworthy
o Creation is regular, ordered, dependable

39. NON-CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is alive
Paganism:
o Nature is alive and operates through
mysterious forces

40. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is ordered
o The world is the creation of a Law-Giver
o It is governed by laws; God is the
“legislator” of natural laws

41. NON-CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is crude
Greek paganism:
o The world was structured by a lesser
god who struggled against stubborn
matter
o Material world is rough, imperfect
copy of Forms and Ideas
o Mathematics is in the realm of the
divine, separate from the material
world

42. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is precise
o God is sovereign
o The universe is precisely what God
intends it to be
Kepler’s stubborn refusal to ignore a
discrepancy à Kepler’s laws

43. NON-CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is inscrutable
Paganism:
o If there is any order in nature, it was
not ordained by a rational being
o It is inscrutable by human minds

44. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is knowable
o Science arose from the leap of faith that
the universe is ordered by God and
knowable by rational minds
o Faith comes from the belief that
humans are made in the image of God
o Humans are endowed with the gift of
reason

45. Science is different to all the
other systems of thought…
because you don’t need faith
in it. You can check that it
works.
Brian Cox, physicist
SCIENCE DEVOID OF FAITH?

46. Science is different to all the
other systems of thought…
because you don’t need faith
in it. You can check that it
works.
Brian Cox, physicist
SCIENCE DEVOID OF FAITH?

47. NON-CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature need not be tested
Aristotelianism:
o Once an object’s purpose has been
determined, we can deduce
everything else we need to know
about it
o No need to test
o Inspired by geometry

48. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature must be tested
o Voluntarism vs. scholasticism
o God’s freedom to impose his will in the
world
o God could have created any sort of
world
o Inspired experimentation
o God is not constrained by Forms, but by
his own nature

49. NON-CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature must be conformed to
Animism and pantheism:
o The divine is immanent
o Humans should try to know nature
only to conform and adapt to it

50. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
Nature is for the glory of God and the benefit of mankind
o We are made in God’s image
o Our kinship is with God, not nature
o We are free to manipulate God’s
creation intellectually and with
experimentation
o 17th century Protestant ideal: studying
nature was a duty imposed by God

51. CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS AND IDEALS
o Nature is real
o Nature is good
o Nature is a creation
o Nature is orderly
o Nature is lawful
o Nature is precise / mathematical
o Nature is knowable
o Nature must be tested
o Nature is for the glory of God and the benefit of
mankind
o Time is linear

52. MEDIEVAL PRE-SCIENCE AND MATH
o Aristotle and the Church
o Neo-Platonic crisis
CHRISTIANITY SCIENCE
Logic, realism Mathematics

53. SCIENCE VS. RELIGION?
The conflict between religion and
science is inherent and (very
nearly) zero-sum. The success of
science often comes at the expense
of religious dogma; the maintenance
of religious dogma always comes at
the expense of science.
Sam Harris, neuroscientist

54. John Philoponus
Bede the Venerable
Rabanus Maurus
Leo the
Mathematician
Hunayn ibn Ishaq
Pope Sylvester II
Hermann of
Reichenau
Hugh of Saint Victor
William of Conches
Hildegard of Bingen
Robert Grosseteste
Pope John XXI
Albertus Magnus
Roger Bacon
Theodoric of Freiberg
Thomas Bradwardine
William of Ockham
Jean Buridan
Nicephorus Gregoras
Nicole Oresme
Nicholas of Cusa
Otto Brunfels
Nicolaus Copernicus
Michael Servetus
Michael Stifel
William Turner
Ignazio Danti
Bartholomaeus Pitiscus
John Napier
Johannes Kepler
Galileo Galilei
Laurentius Gothus
Marin Mersenne
René Descartes
Pierre Gassendi
Anton Maria of Rheita
Blaise Pascal
Isaac Barrow
Juan Lobkowitz
Seth Ward
Robert Boyle
John Wallis
John Ray
Gottfried Leibniz
Isaac Newton
Colin Maclaurin
Stephen Hales
Thomas Bayes
Firmin Abauzit
Emanuel
Swedenborg
Carolus Linnaeus
Leonhard Euler
Maria Gaetana
Agnesi
Joseph Priestley
Isaac Milner
Samuel Vince

55. Linthus Gregory
Bernhard Bolzano
William Buckland
Agustin-Louis Cauchy
Lars Levi Laestadius
George Boole
Edward Hitchcock
William Whewell
Michael Faraday
Charles Babbage
Adam Sedgwick
Temple Chevallier
John Bachman
Robert Main
James Clerk Maxwell
Andrew Pritchard
Arnold Henry Guyot
Gregor Mendel
Philip Henry Gosse
Asa Gray
Francesco Faà di Bruno
Julian Tenison Woods
James Prescott Joule
Heinrich Hertz
James Dwight Dana
Louis Pasteur
George Jackson Mivart
Armand David
George Stokes
George Salmon
Henry Baker Tristram
Lord Kelvin
Pierre Duhem
Georg Cantor
Henrietta Swan Leavitt
Dmitri Egorov
Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin
Pavel Florensky
Agnes Giberne
J. J. Thomson
John Ambrose
Fleming
Max Planck
Edward Arthur Milne
Robert Millikan
Charles Stine
E. T. Whittaker
Arthur Compton
Ronald Fisher
Georges Lemaître
Otto Hahn
David Lack
Charles Coulson
George R. Price
Theodosius
Dobzhansky
Werner Heisenberg

56. Michael Polanyi
Henry Eyring
Sewall Wright
William G. Pollard
Aldert van der Ziel
Mary Celine
Fasenmyer
John Eccles
Carlos Chagas Filho
Sir Robert Boyd
Richard Smalley
Mariano Artigas
Arthur Peacocke
C. F. von Weizsäcker
Stanley Jaki
Allan Sandage
Charles Hard Townes
Ian Barbour
Freeman Dyson
Richard H. Bube
Antonino Zichichi
John Polkinghorne
Owen Gingerich
John T. Houghton
Russell Stannard
R. J. Berry
Gerhard Ertl
Michał Heller
Robert Griffiths
Ghilean Prance
Donald Knuth
George Frances Rayner
Ellis
Colin Humphreys
John Suppe
Eric Priest
Christopher Isham
Henry F. Schaefer, III
Joel Primack
Robert T. Bakker
Joan Roughgarden
William D. Philips
Kenneth R. Miller
Francis Collins
Noella Marcillino
Simon Conway Morris
John D. Barrow
Denis Alexander
Don Page
Stephen Barr
Brian Kobilka
Karl W. Giberson
Martin Nowak
John Lennox
Jennifer Wiseman
Ard Louis
Larry Wall
Justin L. Barrett

57. ARCHITECTS OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
Rodney Stark surveyed 52 scientists key to the
Scientific Revolution
o 50 Christian
o 1 unknown
o 1 atheist
Of the 50:
o 60% “devout”
o 40% “conventional”

58. Scientific
method
Copernican revolution
Empiricism and
mathematics in science
United the heavens and
earth, gravity, calculus
Relativity Quantum
revolution
Big bang
theory

59. Scientific
method
Copernican revolution
Empiricism and
mathematics in science
United the heavens and
earth, gravity, calculus
Quantum
revolution
Relativity
Big bang
theory

60. SCIENCE VS. RELIGION?
The significance and joy in my science
comes in those occasional moments of
discovering something new and saying
to myself, 'So that's how God did it.' My
goal is to understand a little corner of
God's plan.
Fritz Schaefer,
Quantum chemist

61. SCIENCE VS. RELIGION?
I find it as difficult to understand a scientist
who does not acknowledge the presence of a
superior rationality behind the existence of
the universe as it is to comprehend a
theologian who would deny the advances of
science.
Wernher von Braun
Rocket scientist

62. SCIENCE VS. RELIGION?
It seems to me that when
confronted with the marvels of
life and the universe, one must
ask why and not just how. The
only possible answers are
religious.
Arthur Schawlow
Physicist (Nobel laureate)
I find a need for God in the
universe and in my own life.

63. SUMMARY
o Modern science arose in 17th century Christian Europe and
nowhere else
o Greek philosophy + Christian theology à science
o Science arose because of Christianity, not in spite of it
o 96% of the architects of the Scientific Revolution were
Christian
o Christians need to embrace science as one of the
blessings of their religion