From Amy K.Hall at Stand to Reason:
Are naturalistic assumptions necessary for doing science? In the video below (or see the transcript here), Stephen Meyer argues that not only is naturalism not necessary, but in fact, it was a Christian worldview that gave rise to modern science. More.
From Transcript:
The first thing to say is that science did not arise because of a set of naturalistic presuppositions. It actually arose because of a conviction that there was a lawful order in nature, that human beings could discern and understand it because they’d been made in the image of the creator of that order, and that also they needed to go investigate. While they might expect that there’s a rational order there (the Greeks believe the same), they also knew the rational order was contingent on the choice of the creator.
This was a product of recovering the doctrine of creation in the late Middle Ages. Since the order in nature is contingent on the act of the Creator, we have to go and look and see what kind of order he put into it. We can’t just simply sit in our armchairs and deduce it from logical first principles.
Hmmm.Would that mean we can’t just conclude that there must be a multiverse, based on no evidence whatever, because the alternative would suggest that our universe was fine-tuned? Awkward.
How Christianity Gave Rise to Modern Science from Crossway on Vimeo.
Hat tip: J. R. Miller
See also: How naturalism rots science from the head down