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Continuing with early modern science…

Boyle was not alone in his belief that scientific discovery not only reinforces religious belief but also enhances one’s devotion to God. Sir Isaac Newton was a deeply religious scientist. Newton wrote Principia mathematica in 1687, a foundational text for physics. In it he freely discusses the attributes and activities of God. Of Newton, Richard Westfall noted:

The fact is that Newton was convinced from the beginning that the universe is an ordered cosmos because he knew as a Christian that God had created it.

Galileo and Descartes were both devout Catholics. Galileo referenced Augustine’s doctrine of the Two Books in explaining his science. Descartes appealed to God’s immutability as a foundation for his work on the conservation of motion. Gassendi, a priest, discussed the soul and the resurrection in his works on physics. John Ray, an ordained Anglican priest, who proposed early classification systems for plants, was an esteemed fellow of the Royal Society of London, the oldest scientific society in continuous operation. In The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation, published in 1691, he claimed,:

There is, for a free man, no occupation more worthy and delightful than to contemplate the beauteous works of nature and honor the infinite wisdom and goodness of God.

Other men whose devotion to God found manifestation in science include Roger Bacon, Copernicus, and Lemaitre.

The founders of the scientific revolution were very much aware of the order of the cosmos. However, over time the universe began to be thought of as a large machine running according to certain unchangeable laws and principles. The God of theism began to be replaced in the minds of many by the God of deism – a God who wound up the watch in the beginning but is now removed from the world and the universe now functions on its own without further help or guidance from God. It was not long until some disposed with the watchmaker altogether and became metaphysical as well as methodological naturalists. The natural theology of William Paley gave way to a positivist view of science that included the uniformity of nature, the regularity of law, and most significantly, the full sufficiency of physical causes. William Dembski traces the demise in three stages. Initially, nature was seen as replete with evidences of God’s action in nature. Then, divine action was located within divine laws. Finally, a mature positivism set in which explained nature without recourse to design. When Darwin arrived on the scene with his theory of natural selection, he made it, in the words of Richard Dawkins, “possible to become an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

Next, more on naturalism in science.