In Part One, “The Formation of the Scientific Worldview,” Ward examines four major advancements in scientific thinking whose impact extended well beyond the fields in which they originated. These are the heliocentric theory of the solar system, associated with Copernicus and Galileo, Newton’s laws of motion, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the advent of quantum theory. Each of these theories have seemed, to both proponents and detractors, to upend a traditional religious understanding of the universe and have been high points in the familiar story of the conflict between “science” and “religion.”

Of course, as Ward points out, it was never this simple. Galileo and Newton were devoutly religious, and Darwin was probably a theist of some sort, even if he came to doubt the deity’s benevolence. But none thought that their theories entailed atheism. What they did, Ward argues, is prompt a rethinking of traditional notions of God and God’s relation to the cosmos.

In the case of the shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric solar system, the result was to deemphasize an anthropocentric view of the physical universe that placed human beings, literally, at the center. It became difficult to see humankind as that for the sake of which the physical universe existed. Instead, Ward argues, it teaches us to think of the universe as something which God delights in for its own sake and for which God may have purposes not directly related to human beings. The “cosmos is a product of the divine mind, so its creation can be compared to the work of a supreme artist, enjoyable and worthwhile for its own sake, without reference to possible finite persons at all” (p. 16)

The beauty and elegance of the universe were futher affirmed by Newton, who identifed mathematical laws governing the motion of bodies. To Newton this reflected a supremely rational God who created and sustains a universe which is intelligible and beautiful. Ward points out that Newton certainly didn’t think that physical laws provided an exhaustive account of reality; he saw the intelligibility and elegance of the physical world as manifestations of a supremely good and intelligent spiritual reality. “Newton believed that, for those who have eyes to see, that hidden reality even makes itself known in the mysterious operation of gravity and the movements and dispositions of the planets” (p. 33)

All of these discoveries were more or less compatible with a fully traditional religious worldview, even if they required a bit of tweaking. Christian tradition had always affirmed that creation was good independent of its usefulness to human beings, and that there were levels and aspects or reality far beyond those that we were directly acquainted with. What they highlighted was the idea of a universe that was rational and intelligible. But this wasn’t something entirely new either; certainly at least since the Scholastics the rationality of God and, by implication, God’s universe was a key belief.

However, Newton’s theory in particular gave rise to the metaphor of the universe as a machine which ran according to deterministic laws. Later philosophers and scientists ran with this metaphor and, perhaps inevitably, the role of God was minimized. But logically, Ward argues, there’s no reason this should be the case. “Perhaps the existence of laws of nature depends, after all, on the existence of God. If that is so, it is hardly possible to exclude just by definition God’s action in the universe, miraculous or not” (p. 31). A deterministic and physcialistic reductionism is not a logical consequence of Newtonian physics, however irresistible it may have seemed to some.

But Darwin’s theory of evolution has presented a challenge that, in some people’s minds, still hasn’t been adequately met, which brings us to the subject of the next post…