No doubt it seems presumptuous to speak of the failure of science in a scientifically saturated age. Nevertheless, there is a failure aspect to science which ought to be recognized and exploited by evangelical Christians today. For this failure represents a unique opportunity for the proclamation of the Gospel with renewed effectiveness.
Faith in a New Savior
There was a time when science was hailed as the new savior. It was the modern wonder drug for the age-old ills of mankind, both collectively and individually. August Comte’s hierarchy of intellectual disciplines perfectly illustrates this idea. He claimed that the development of human society patterned the development of man’s intelligence. This occurs in three stages, the first, or earliest, of which is the theological. This is a primitive approach and will be outmoded and cast off in a progressive society, which passes through the next stage, the metaphysical, and culminates in the scientific, or positive stage.
Comte believed that man guided society into this stage by utilizing scientific principles. Darwin’s evolution gave impetus to another viewpoint, which is especially associated with Herbert Spencer. Spencer maintained that the forces that cause progress are not man-made, but part of natural evolution. But however the method, the idea of progress was in full flower, and the optimism it generated continued unabated until it was shattered by the First and Second World Wars. The intellectual world was shocked and disillusioned, and the hope of inevitable progress and belief in man’s “natural goodness” was discredited.
This whole attitude of faith in science, however, is by no means dead. There are a few scientists who still cling to their test tube faith, although they are outnumbered by those who recognize the limitations of their discipline. But it is at the grass-roots level that, consciously or unconsciously, “science” remains a magic word. For many people, to say that something is “scientific” is automatically to verify it.
One need only follow the methods of Madison Avenue, observe the content of advertising, to perceive the effect that “science” has on the average person. Television announcers counsel us to watch their “scientific comparisons,” “scientific demonstrations,” and “scientific proof.” We are constantly made aware of the results of research. This is not to disparge such research, but to point out that the use of such appeal by ad men testifies to the effect on the grass roots of anything “scientific.”
It is time to get the situation in perspective. For such an attitude is not inherent in science itself. The early scientists were not led to worship their discipline by the discoveries which they made. Such men as Kepler, Galileo, and Newton looked upon their findings as validating their faith rather than leading to its rejection. Science of itself does not beckon us to idolatry; to the contrary, it can be used to intensify the wonder and majesty of our God. Dr. Howard Kelly was both a world-famous gynecologist, and a devout Christian. His scientific training did not preclude an evangelical faith. In fact, he arrived at his faith by “treating the Bible as I would any branch of science.… I reached, then, this point, ‘I will see carefully just what the Bible says of itself, and will accept its own dictum as my working hypothesis in studying it’ ” (A Scientific Man And The Bible, The Sunday School Times Co., pp. 43–44). As a result of his study he was able to affirm “that the Bible is the Word of God, with an assurance greater than all other convictions directing my course in this brief earthly pilgrimage” (ibid., p. 41).
Thus it is not science per se but, science wrenched from its natural moorings that leads to its distorted image as savior. If science is contained within its objective boundaries, it becomes a real factor in the enrichment of human life. But unfortunately scientists themselves have abandoned the scientific method and ventured arrogantly into philosophy, metaphysics, and theology. Hugh Elliot, for example, declares that there is no such thing as “spirit” or “purpose” in the universe. Why? Because there is no room for such concepts in the subject matter of astronomers and physicists! “No sign of purpose can be detected in any part of the vast universe disclosed by our most powerful telescopes” (quoted in Harold H. Titus, Living Issues In Philosophy, American Book Co., p. 110). One can expect Khrushchev to point out that the Soviet space probes fail to see anything of God, but one hardly expects such nonsense from a man supposedly committed to scientific method.
In other words, the failure of which I speak is not the failure of science as such, but the failure of the attempt to thrust science into the role of savior. It is the failure of scientism, the idolatrous enthronement of science as the final judge of all truth, the sure guide for every decision, and the ultimate hope for the redemption of mankind. Science fails at this task for the same reason that theology would fail at the task of formulating laws of planetary motion. The only difference is that no theologian, we trust, would be so foolish as to make the attempt.
Many scientists today, as we have noted, do realize the limitations of their discipline. Herbert Butterfield, for example, in speaking of academic history wisely observes:
“… those are gravely wrong who regard it as the queen of the sciences, or think of it as a substitute for religion, a complete education in itself. Those who promoted its study in former times seemed to value it rather as an additional equipment for people who were presumed to have had their real education elsewhere, their real training in values (and in the meaning of life) in other fields. Those who complain that technical history does not provide people with the meaning of life are asking from an academic science more than it can give …” (Christianity and History, Fontana Books, pp. 34–35).
Such perspective will bring science down from its idol’s stand, and make it a tool of man, as it should be.
The failure of science, or, more properly, of “scientism,” can be illustrated in a number of ways. One is the widespread agreement that ours is the “Age of Anxiety.” And this in the face of the flourishing science of psychology! Psychology, and its sister psychiatry, were expected to take care of the psychic, marital, and social ills of man. But psychic, marital, and social problems have shown marked increase rather than diminishing. And there is growing skepticism regarding the effectiveness of psychotherapy. At least it must be admitted that this science has not been able to fulfill its expected role as the psychic savior of man.
Again, we want to emphasize that this is no disdain of the science as such; psychological studies have much to contribute to our understanding of man. But the idolatrous enthronement of the psychic scientists will only result in disillusionment. To understand the pervading anxiety of the age one must not only observe the psychic stresses, the social and political uncertainties, and the rapid changes occurring in every facet of life, but also the crumbling of man’s spiritual foundations. Man, created by God, cannot thrive in a godless life.
A second illustration of the failure of “scientism” is seen in the rise of despair, which is reflected in modern man’s art, literature, philosophy, and even some theology. The most scientific of any age is also one of the most despairing of ages. The reign of reason has given birth to irrational despondency over the meaning of life. Thus we have witnessed the rise of the “beat generation” and the “angry young men,” who plunge to the depths of their hell to pick up handfuls of foul invectives and hurl them at the society they detest.
And we see the atheistic existentialists, forlornly drifting on their vast, meaningless, inpersonal sea. Jean Paul Sartre writes a novel and entitles it Nausea. The newest fiction to come out of France is the alitérature, which reduces man to an atom, bounced around by impersonal scientific laws. In the theater a new movement is called “the theater of the absurd,” which portrays life as disordered, distorted, and thoroughly repulsive.
Every facet of modern art and thought is, to some extent, tainted by this despair, whether it is the philosopher W. T. Stace who speaks of the “disease of existence,” or the painter, George Grosz, who paints a hole to symbolize the “nothingness of our time.”
A third, and penetrating, illustration of the failure is seen in what Cherbonnier has called “sophisticated nonsense,” the absurdities to which science leads those who blindly worship it. He quotes Lin Yutang who has dug up some doctoral dissertations which are sheer nonsense. One is on ice cream, which concludes that the sugar used in its manufacture has the primary function of sweetening it! Another studies the bacterial content in cotton undershirts, and discovers that this content tends to increase with the length of time such garments are worn.
Pitirim A. Sorokin levels his guns at the same sort of thing in the results of small group researchers. He says:
“ ‘The term (of group) cohesiveness refers to phenomena which come into existence if, and only if, the group exists.’ (How wonderful!) Or ‘The members of a group who are … friends … are likely to be more interested in one another as persons, perhaps more supportive of each other, more cordial in interpersonal relationships.’ (What a revelation again!…) Reading these revelations I am inclined to borrow G. Saintsbury’s expressions: ‘O cliches! O Tickets! O fudge!’ ” “Physicalist and Mechanistic School,” in Joseph S. Roucek, ed., Contemporary Sociology, Philosophical Library, pp. 1168–69).
As Cherbonnier observes, “… the irrationalities of an Age of Reason are due, not simply to a residue of ‘prescientific thought-ways,’ but to a direct consequence of the dictatorship of science itself” (E. La B. Cherbonnier, Hardness of Heart, Doubleday & Co., Inc., p. 155). Such irrationalities lend credence to Anatole France’s skeptical remark: “The Sciences are beneficent. They prevent man from thinking.”
Opportunity and Obligation
This failure has significance for the Christian church. It presents us with both the opportunity and the obligation to proclaim with renewed vigor and intensity the biblical message: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:22). When men become aware that, concerning their idol, “… one shall cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor save him out of his trouble” (Isaiah 46:7), then it is the imperative of the people of God to capture the imagination of men with the true God, the living God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the situation today. Karl Heim said that secularism goes through two stages of development. In the first stage, man is infatuated with his own ability to create; he is awed by his own technological progress, and thinks that through it he shall become lord of all. In this stage, God is irrelevant. The second stage finds man with a wealth of technological inventions, but a poverty of spirit. He has not become lord; he is an empty slave. In this stage, says Heim, man is able to ask questions concerning God, his own existence, etc. in a way impossible to him in the first stage. Further, said Heim, to a great extent Europe and America has passed into this second stage. (“Christian Faith and the Growing Power of Secularism,” in Walter Leibrecht, ed., Religion and Culture, Harper and Bros., p. 188).
Thus, man’s idolatrous enthronement of science has clearly failed. This failure needs to be recognized at the grassroots level, as has been increasingly done among the intelligentsia. And along with this awareness, the call of God is to a renewal of forceful proclamation of the Gospel of Christ, of the God who “will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”
ROBERT H. LAUER
Pastor
Salem Baptist Church
Florrisant, Missouri
