It's a Choice

Naturalism is the philosophy that says that everything we observe must have a naturalistic explanation – one that can be formulated as a law of nature and verified by careful observation with the physical senses and scientific instruments. It is the philosophy governing scientific method, and has worked very well when the things being observed are physical phenomena such as those studied by physics and chemistry. In fact it has worked so well that some scientists, having been carefully trained to accept only naturalistic explanations in their area of expertise, have chosen to believe that everything that is must have a naturalistic explanation. If it can’t be explained in this way, even in principle, it does not exist. Atheist Carl Sagan summed it up with his famous statement, “ The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be,” no God, therefore no miracles, no objective morality, no evil, no goodness, no truth, no souls, no human consciousness, no forgiveness of sin, and no healing for the brokenness of this world caused by sin.

There are probably other things all of us encounter in our everyday lives which must be explained away by the naturalist, but this is a good beginning for my next series of meditations. But wait a minute!  There is one more thing! The existence of the Cosmos itself is a problem for the naturalists.  They do have the Big Bang theory.  It all started with the Big Bang, but they can’t explain what caused the Big Bang. When that theory was first unveiled, many scientists did not like it because it sounded too much like Genesis.  It says there was a beginning.  Dumb matter – particles in motion – did not always exist, so their origin must now be explained.  Most scientists have learned to live with the unanswered question, but naturalists must take every thought captive and make it obedient to the restrictions of their worldview.  “Have faith.” they say, “Everything that is must have a naturalistic explanation at least in principle, so just wait awhile, one will come along eventually. Remember the joy we knew back in 1859 when Darwin published The Origin of Species. We could finally explain how life emerged out of inanimate matter.” So says the naturalist. 

Naturalism has become well established as the worldview of academia, but recently atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel stunned the establishment with his book, “Mind and Cosmos – Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False.”  We must now choose our worldview. Do we want a naturalistic “Conception of Nature, which is almost certainly false,” or do we want the real world?  I choose the real world in which there really is objective morality, real good as well as real evil, real truth not just “true for you but not for me,” real human consciousness, real forgiveness of sin, and most importantly, healing for the brokenness of this world caused by sin. My next series of meditations will be on Faith, Hope, and Charity:  Living in the real world.