Worldview & Culture

C.S. Lewis on the Limited Domain of Science

Kirk E. Miller

I’ve been reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis lately. Over the next few weeks I plan on sharing some sections with some occasional commentary. (If you follow me on social media [Facebook; Twitter], you will see that I will be sharing some quotes there too.)

In Mere Christianity Lewis makes the following comment:

You cannot find out which view  is the right one by science in the ordinary sense.[1] Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, ‘I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2:20 a.m. on January 15th and saw so and-so,’ or, ‘I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such -and such a temperature and it did so-and-so.’ Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what its job is. And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science–and a very useful and necessary job it is too. But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes–something of a different kind–this is not a scientific question. If there is ‘Something Behind,’ then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, ‘Why is there a universe?’ ‘Why does it go on as it does?’ ‘Has it any meaning?’ would remain just as they were?

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, book 1, chapter 4, paragraph 2 (emphasis added).

In short, Lewis is pointing out that science has a particular domain, and as such, has a limited object of study. It cannot, by definition of being that discipline which studies the observable (not the non-observable), reach outside of the observable into the realm of the non-observable (e.g., God) or into matters of meaning, e.g., why the observable is the way it is.

To be specific, Lewis’ comments serve as a rebuke to those who adapt the following sorts of arguments:

  • I believe what we can know through science (observation).
  • Science cannot observe God.
  • Therefore, God does exist.

(Besides the fact that this sort of argument is non sequitur) what this sort of argument fails to recognize is the limited domain of scientific study (i.e., it is limited to the observable). This form of argumentation makes a huge assumption–that science is not merely a means of gaining knowledge, but the means (i.e., the sole means) of gaining knowledge. But this is merely to preclude a prior–not by demonstration or argument, but simply out of hand, without any justification–all other means of inquiry.

Notes

[1] Here Lewis is referring to the following two views: on the one hand, a view that all there is is the material world and that there is no God, for instance (what he calls “the materialist view”), versus a view, on the other hand, that holds to a belief in a God who in some way stands behind the material world (“the religious view”).

A Review of What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense

Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

The following are notes from a presentation delivered in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course ME 8000 Contemporary Sexualities: Theological and Missiological Perspectives taught by Dr. Robert Priest and Dr. Stephen Roy at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, October 2015.

Summary

Introduction

  • Authored by Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson, and Robert George.
  • Published in December 2012, about two and a half years before the Obergefell decision (June 2015).
  • Based on an article published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.[1]
  • Considered by many to be the most formidable defense of the conjugal view of marriage and has been highly read and engaged.[2]
  • Seeks to defend the conjugal view of marriage and demonstrate its rational and therefore constitutional basis.[3] The authors argue that “redefining civil marriage is unnecessary, unreasonable, and contrary to the common good.”[4]
  • They seek to do so without appeal to religious authority[5] or historical precedent (i.e., “It’s always been this way”),[6] and only secondarily by the support from the social sciences.[7] Their argument is mainly philosophical in nature.[8]

Framework

The underlying assumption that drives the entire project is the following: To argue that gay and lesbian couples ought to have equal access to marriage assumes a priori that same-sex couples can actually constitute a marriage. But this begs the question—the question that serves as the title to this book—what is marriage? A couple is not restricted from access to marriage if that couple cannot—by definition—constitute a marriage. We cannot simply argue that everyone ought to have equal access to marriage. We first need to make a case for what that marriage is to which we think everyone, i.e., everyone who can actually constitute it, ought to have equal access. As they state very succinctly, the issue at stake here is “not about whom to let marry, but about what marriage is” (emphasis added).[9]

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Legal Protections for the Church in Light of SOGI Rights and Laws

Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

Gavel

The following is a paper submitted to Dr. Robert Priest and Dr. Stephen Roy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course ME 8000 Contemporary Sexualities: Theological and Missiological Perspectives at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, December 2015.

** Note: This is not an opinion piece. And, therefore, I do not express my opinions about same-sex sexuality, gender dysphoria, and contemporary laws related to them in this paper. Thus, you will note, I refer to differing views on the subjects without expressing my approval or disapproval. Please do not interpret my silence in this regards as either an endorsement or condemnation of any of the herein mentioned views.

Introduction

Recent U.S. legislation and court decisions regarding sexual-orientation and gender identity (from now on SOGI) rights create a new frontier of potential legal concerns for American churches that affirm a traditional, historic view of marriage, sexuality, and gender. Although only time can tell what implications such laws will have for religious liberties,[1] as Justice Roberts said in his dissenting opinion of the Obergefell ruling, “Today’s [i.e., the Obergefell] decision . . . creates serious questions about religious liberty.”[2] From potential loss of tax-exempt status[3] to non-discrimination suits,[4] churches have reason to demonstrate concern. For example, think of the following scenarios that are now imaginable:

  • A discrimination lawsuit is filed against a church that refuses to accept a practicing gay man into its membership.
  • A church is sued for discrimination when it denies a gay couple’s request to host their wedding.
  • A church disciplines a member for unrepentant lesbian activity. She sues the church for malpractice and discrimination.
  • A church discovers that an employee is undergoing sex-realignment surgery. Is the church legally able to discharge them on these grounds?
  • A church’s pastor is sued for malpractice by an ex-counselee due to claimed damages caused by counsel to “repent of your homosexuality.”
  • A church with a housing ministry is sued for discrimination when it restricts applicants to heterosexual couples.

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The Use of Scripture in Politics: A Comparison and Analysis of Jim Wallis and Wayne Grudem

Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

The following is a paper submitted to Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course ST 7505 Use of Scripture and Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in December 2015 in Deerfield, Illinois.

The full title of the paper is The Use of Scripture in Evangelical Political Proposals – A Case Study: Comparing, Contrasting, and Analyzing Jim Wallis and Wayne Grudem’s Use Of Scripture to Authorize Their Distinct Approaches to Economics.

Note: I’m not the proudest of this paper. Due to time restraints I was forced to write it in the timespan of merely two days. Nonetheless, I share it in case anyone may benefit from it by its prompting critical reflection. I only ask they you read with an extra dose of grace on this one. Thank you.

Introduction

“Our guys won!” Those were the words of one of my fellow church members after Republican candidates largely swept their Democrat counterparts in the 2014 midterm elections. A neither small nor insignificant assumption was present in her statement: the Republican candidates were the evangelicals’ candidates; a victory for the Republicans meant a victory for Christendom.

Such a wedding of the religious right with the political right is not uncommon in the American evangelical consciousness, and, by extension, the perception of the popular culture at large. For example, if one listens consistently enough to Albert Mohler’s daily broadcast The Briefing,[1] one will be repeatedly “informed” that the ultimate difference between the political right and political left is one of worldview: progressive policies are spawned out of what is an unqualifiedly non-Christian worldview (either that or political liberalism is equated with theological liberalism) while political conservatism is described in such terms (and without nuance) so as to lead one to believe it is essentially a Christian (evangelical) worldview gone political.

One can trace this formalized “hypostatic union” of evangelicalism and republicanism—deeming theological conservatism and political conservatism “equally yoked,” and “deifying” the political right in the process—back to (at least) the emergence of the Moral Majority movement beginning in the 1980s with Christian leaders such as Jerry Falwell. However, authors such as Carl Trueman in his work Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative challenge this “sacramental union” as “accident” not “essence.” As Michael Horton writes in his recommendation to Trueman’s work,

Carl Trueman points out in his witty, provocative, and deeply well-informed way [that] the alliance of conservative Christianity with conservative (neoliberal) politics is a circumstance of our own context in U.S. politics—neither historically nor logically necessary.[2]

“Amen, amen!” says fellow Brit N.T. Wright:

The combinations of issues [i.e., the bundling up of certain political issues as “conservative” and others as “liberal” and binding evangelicalism to the former] seem to make sense in America, but they don’t make sense to many people elsewhere in the world. . . .[3]

[T]he political spectrum in the United Kingdom, and indeed in Europe, is quite different from the spectrum in the United States. In Britain, issues are bundled up in different ways than in America. What’s more, over the last forty years, those in the United Kingdom who have tried to integrate faith and public life have mostly been on the left of the spectrum, while those who have done the same in the United States have tended to be on the right.[4]

“The British are coming! The British are coming!” and they are challenging our American political-religious bundlings in the process.

But lest we think these Brits are just off their rockers, interestingly a 2007 study by Baylor Religion Survey found that the more frequently one reads the Bible the more likely one is to lean politically liberal on certain issues. And, statistically, those who read their Bible’s most were found to be evangelicals—the stereotypical political conservatives. Expectedly, frequent Bible reading correlates with opposition to abortion and gay marriage. But it also surprisingly (at least given the contemporary stereotype of evangelicals) has the effect of making readers more prone to agree with political liberals on issues like criminal justice, the death penalty, environmental conservation, and, most interestingly for the purposes of this paper’s case study, social and economic justice. These results hold true “even when accounting for factors such as political beliefs, education level, income level, gender, race, and religious measures (like which religious tradition one affiliates with, and one’s views of biblical literalism).”[5]

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