Outline of a Christian Naturalism

Christian Naturalism: An Outline

The following amounts to a précis of my book, The Material Image: Reconciling Modern Science and Christian Faith (Fortress Academic, 2020). The fundamental assertions made here are explained, expanded on, refined, and defended at length there.

• Naturalism is a philosophical theory about the nature of the world and how we know it. Some immediately reject the idea of a Christian naturalism as oxymoronic, because they deploy the term essentially as a synonym for atheism. There's little point in arguing with people about how they label theories. However, unless the term naturalism is simply a redundant synonym for atheism, rather than for a theory of the nature of the world and human knowledge of it, we should be able to separate that theory from any actual or alleged implications it has about God and only after that proceed to evaluate it for consistency with belief in God

• I propose a three-part definition of naturalism that says nothing about God: (a)The natural sciences are our most reliable ways of knowing this world we inhabit and ourselves. This, together with a variety of well-confirmed theories of the natural sciences, implies (b) Human beings are entirely material beings. The human mind is the functioning, embodied, socially located human brain, and (c) Human beings are the product of “blind,” mindless, unguided Darwinian evolution, not the product of design.

• This calls for many qualifications and much refinement, most of which I will omit from this outline. Here, I point out that the basic epistemological claim about the superior reliability of science does not imply that it is the only reliable source of knowledge. There are many domains in which the methods of acquiring scientific knowledge do not apply. There are ways of acquiring mundane, non-scientific knowledge. However, the claim should be understood as implying that alleged knowledge acquired by non-scientific means but inconsistent with the well-confirmed theories of science cannot reasonably be regarded as genuine knowledge. Science cannot be reasonably gainsaid in areas where its methods apply. Further, the idea that the beliefs we acquire by theological means, specifically by the interpretation of Scripture, cannot reasonably be held if they are inconsistent with the well-confirmed theories of the natural sciences. On the assumption that whatever the Bible teaches is true, apparent conflict with science signals that we have misinterpreted it. Further, the claim that well-confirmed scientific theories have stronger justification than any theological beliefs, does not imply that theological beliefs are not sufficiently justified for reasonable belief.

• The claim (b) that human beings are entirely material beings follows from the more general naturalistic claim that the natural sciences make reasonable the belief that this world is entirely physical. In terms sometimes deployed by secular thinkers, the concept of physicalism can be set forth by asking this question: suppose that on Monday God created all the forces, fields, and particles of fundamental physics, the quarks, electrons, strings, branes or whatever they turn out to be. And he decrees all the fundamental laws of physics that govern their behavior. Has God completed creation, or must he come back on Tuesday to do more? Physicalism is the view that he has; once the basic entities of physics and its laws are in place, a world like ours, with its multifarious contents, comes about in due course, naturally. No intervention or “guidance” is required. Once the basic physics was taken care of, God did not need to act further for the world to in due course contain atoms, molecules, stars, planets, living things, human beings, minds, values, purposes, beauty, morality, religion and so on. Note that the claim that this world is in this sense entirely physical does not imply that everything is physical, that this law-governed physical world is all there is and there is no God. Note too that the claim does not imply that the concepts of physics are adequate to our understanding this physical world. The austere conceptual repertoire of physics, even augmented by the special sciences, is far from adequate for understanding the world made only of what physics describes. And note that the claim that God would be finished with creating when all the fundamental physical things and laws are in place does not entail deism. It leaves open the possibility that the Creator interacts with what he has created, an essential component of the Christian confession.

• This naturalism, though on its face consistent with the belief that this world is the creation of a God who acts directly upon it, raises various questions in virtue of coming into conflict with beliefs that, for better or for worse, have long been associated with the Christian faith. Anyone defending a Christian naturalism needs at least to explain how these beliefs are not presupposed or implied by faith in the God who resurrected Jesus of Nazareth. At best, the Christian naturalist will show that these non-naturalistic beliefs are less probable in light of the Christian faith than their naturalistic alternatives. These beliefs pertain to the origin of human beings, their material nature, morality, and human religiosity. The Christian naturalist also needs to demonstrate that knowledge of God, miracles, and the resurrection of human persons is not inconsistent with naturalism.

• The origin of the human species resides, as in (c), in evolutionary biology. Evolution, principally a result of natural selection, accounts for the diversity, complexity, and adaptedness of living things. Like all scientific explanations, this is penultimate; ultimate explanation resides in God's choice to create as he did. Humans came about naturally, without divine intervention or some sort of subtle intervention called “guidance.” Whatever occurs naturally in God's creation is his doing, by way of “secondary causation.” If the laws of nature God has authored are deterministic, then whatever comes into existence is precisely what, and as, God intended. It is designed by the Creator. However, if the fundamental laws are indeterministic, as they appear to be, then God did not design biological organisms. God created human beings, but he did not specifically intend the existence of the human species or of human individuals. Despite the long tradition of tying creation to design, on reflection we should realize that God, seeking persons truly distinct from himself he can call into fellowship with him, would choose to create them without design. The naturalistic view that humans are the product of a chancy evolutionary process rather than being, as so many assume, at odds with the Christian faith not only is consistent with it, but probable in light of it.

• The idea that human beings are a hybrid of a material body and an immaterial mind or soul, over the centuries became characteristic of Christian belief. However, science now leaves little or no room for this dualistic idea. We reasonably believe that the human mind is the embodied brain in its social milieu. The human person is the human body, of which the mind, no less material, is the essential part. Common opinion to the contrary, there is no clear biblical reason to believe otherwise. Christians ought to be wary of conceptions of human nature that flatter us as being transcendent of the material world. Thus, we reasonably can prefer a materialist conception of human nature.

• Because we are completely material beings, when at death the brain becomes, in the natural course of events, permanently incapable of sustaining rational self-consciousness, and thus personhood, the person simply ceases to exist. In the natural course of events, he will not exist again. However, the Christian confession is that God will not abandon us to death, but will miraculously resurrect us, not as disembodied souls, but as the bodies that died, now “spiritual,” i.e., no longer subject to sin and death. This is possible because whether a person at one time is numerically identical to a person at another time is a matter of certain causal connections between them. God can miraculously ensure these connections and thus that the material resurrected person is the same—though qualitatively changed—person as the person who died.

• Superficially, it seems that naturalism precludes belief in miracles, but this is a mistake. Science tells us what happens in the natural course of events. By definition, a miracle is an event, directly caused by God, that would not have occurred in the natural course of events. If God, the creator of physical reality and author of its laws, exists, then miracles are possible. Science, the project of ascertaining the laws of nature and subsuming events under them, has nothing to say about the existence of God, so it has nothing to say about the possibility of miracles. The most it can do is show us that some event once thought to be miraculous, is in fact natural, and thus caused by God by naturally means, and thus indirectly. The belief that a miracle has occurred can be reasonable just if there is no reasonable prospect of a natural explanation, and when we can reasonably believe that it is the sort of thing God would have done. Belief that God created the world, that he revealed himself to human beings, that he became incarnate, died, and was miraculously resurrected is not at odds with anything science tells us about the world and thus consistent with naturalism.

• Current science in the form of evolutionary psychology offers naturalistic explanations of human morality and human religiosity. Contrary to the idea that these pervasive features of human life have supernatural origins, they have naturalistic explanations. Our innate moral sentiments, concepts, beliefs, reasoning, and behavior are an adaptation to social life. They do not originate in divine commands, the faculty of practical reason, or a grasp of normative features of reality. They are fully human and mundane. The Christian can properly see human morality as an aspect of being human that God makes critical use of in his project of salvation, and which he values not for its own sake, but insofar as its dictates correspond to what he cares about, viz., the well-being of the human beings he loves. Morality is a natural phenomenon to which the God of love for our sakes condescends.

• Current science also offers a naturalistic explanation of the innate human propensity to religion, to believe in unseen agents who concern themselves with certain aspects of human behavior. In contrast to its explanation of morality as an adaptation, religion is explained as a mere side-effect of the brain's evolved cognitive architecture. Like morality, this is a natural, human reality that God condescends to in the course of redeeming us. But he does so critically and will ultimately dispense with religion.

Contemporary science, and its naturalistic implications for human nature and origins, is a stark and, for some, disturbing challenge to the traditional human self-image. Yet persons of Christian faith have good reason to welcome it.

Donald H. Wacome

Northwestern College

Orange City, Iowa

wacome@nwciowa.edu