What Science Can't Do

by David P. Gushee

I grew up in the home of a scientist. My father is an Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained chemical engineer who for many years was an environmental policy analyst for the federal government. I used to laugh with him at his thrilling magazines like Industrial & Engineering Chemistry and its stories about polymers and methane. I never really had a scientific bone in my body.

Yet I learned much from him that has stayed with me. I learned the absolute centrality of thinking clearly, of weighing all sides of an issue, of making only those factual claims that can withstand examination, and of reflecting on realities in a situation and not just on hopes. I learned a respect for good science and a disdain for bad science, especially ideologically-driven bad science. And I became aware through the years of the limits of science. What are some of those limits? What is it that science can’t do?

Science Can’t Settle the Question of God’s Existence

There is a kind of scientist who overstates the claims of science. Such people take the great explanatory power of science and turn it into total explanatory power. That is, if science can’t prove it, it can’t be true.

Thus one finds scientists like the late Carl Sagan, who became famous for his convinced, strident, scientifically-based atheism. From the perspective of Sagan and those like him, no thinking person, no modern, scientifically informed person, can believe in God. Such a belief is one of the ancient superstitions of the human race. It can now be abandoned because science has provided the answers to all the questions that the former God-hypothesis intended to answer.

This scientific naturalism, as it is sometimes called, is increasingly out of fashion among scientists themselves. Good science realizes that the question of God is not within the purview of the field. Certainly the findings of science-like everything else in this world - are relevant to the issue of God’s existence, but science cannot settle the question either way. Christians should not ask science to do so, though Christians who are scientists will have already made up their mind on the matter of God.

My father experienced something of this pilgrimage himself. He has told me that in his early days as a scientist he was something of an agnostic, and that this was part of the scientific culture which he inhabited. However - thanks be to God - as he grew older the arrogance of this kind of science became clearer to him, and he returned to his relationship with Christ. There are mysteries and divine realities which science itself can never penetrate.

Science Cannot Settle Questions of Morality

As I work in the field of Christian ethics, I bump into scientific claims all the time. It is impossible to deal with most contemporary moral issues without doing so. This is especially the case with contemporary biomedical issues such as abortion, cloning, genetic engineering and euthanasia. Yet the claims and data of science are present in discussions of war and military technology, drug and alcohol use, sexual ethics and so on.

Science cannot settle such moral questions. About this issue some Christians and Christian ethicists are badly confused. Christian ethics, if it is to be competently done, must attend to scientific claims carefully and well. We must use the best and most current scientific data and theories as key sources of information relevant to the issues of the day. But this is not the same thing as allowing scientific claims to settle the moral questions we must consider. Science informs but does not form Christian ethics.

Take the issue of homosexuality. Currently there is much ongoing scientific research concerning possible genetic or biochemical causes of homosexual orientation. Despite broad claims on all sides, the science on this matter remains in development. No conclusive scientific claims can be sustained at this time. However, it is clear that both "sides" of the homosexuality debate want to use the results of science in ways they should not. Pro-homosexuality activists generally want science to find that there is a genetic cause; those on the other side of the issue want the opposite results. Both seem to think that the moral question will be settled on the basis of the scientific data. The problem is that, from a Christian perspective, science can inform but cannot resolve this or any other issue. Scripture is the ultimate source of authority for Christian morality. Whatever science concludes, it cannot override the claims of Scripture. Even if there is a genetic component in homosexual orientation, Scripture makes clear that homosexual behavior (like all nonmarital sexual behavior) is outside the will of God. The same principle applies to any other moral issue.

Science is a God-given tool to be used for the betterment of humanity. Viewed rightly, science helps us read the "book of nature," as the Calvinist tradition puts it, and points us to its divine Author. But science moves from slave to master, from tool to owner, when it is asked to do what it cannot do and be what it must not be.

Gushee is associate professor of Christian Studies at 91卯創利. and director of the .