The Death of Man as Man
The Rise and Decline of Liberty
by
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Therefore, by scientific liberal culture, I mean that meaning, truth, morality, definition and understanding of life, what is normal and what is abnormal, what is good and what is not good, and what is suitable for politics, education, and public policy is ostensibly determined by science; and scientific thinking is the process for objectively knowing. Scientific liberal culture seeks to explain or justify everything scientifically, which necessarily results in culture operating according to naturalism because true science is limited to the systematic study of the physical nature, relationships and interactions of physical phenomena.[i] While individuals or groups may personally and privately operate according to their personal faith in the supernatural, that faith has little or no marketplace value. To put it another way, an individual can at times be permitted to publicly express his personal faith, or tenets of his faith, but such expressions have no value or place in establishing public policy because it is not imposable knowledge, whereas that which is labeled “science” is. At other times even the mere expression of religious faith elicits an invective response.[ii]
Consequently, I use secular, scientific culture, or secularist culture interchangeably with SLC.[iii] Their respective hostility to religion varies according to whoever is in power at any given time, but what is acceptable for public life and policy is essentially the same. The secular/scientific culture is the fruition of bringing to bear the full orb of Enlightenment thinking. This European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries elevated the use of the powers of reason to the supreme mechanism for knowledge about the universe, man, God, and improvement. Reason had been long relied upon and extolled in Christianity, but it was subordinated to the revealed truths of Christianity. These truths were never viewed as contrary to reason, but at times were considered beyond knowing by reason alone. In contrast, the Enlightenment made everything subject to human reason, best exemplified through the methodologies of the natural sciences. This elevation of reason resulted in religion, faith, the supernatural, etc., either being explained or explained away based upon reason, empirical science, and deductions.
It is readily apparent that our culture has moved far from its historical roots of being guided by the Judeo Christian worldview; for example, its legal banishment from being foundational for state education, the primary means for teaching our culture what and how to think. Every discussion that relates to public life must now be seen through a poll, study, experiment, or the recitations of a scientist—regardless if he is trained in the field that he is addressing. Psychologists and sociologists have now replaced religious leaders as the “public experts” regarding the nature and behavior of man, and because both of these disciplines fall under the banner of science, they generally reduce man to merely matter or the epiphenomenal.
A culture dominated by Christianity has plenty of room for science, reason, and nature, but one governed solely by Enlightenment thinking will ultimately privatize faith by banishing the supernatural—including Christianity—to myths, fairytales, and legend, or being publicly illegal, although it may have some psychological value in man’s evolution. That we are inexorably headed in this direction is evidenced by the heretofore unstoppable removal of God from public education and policy debate; and this removal actually has no historical or constitutional warrant.
How are we to manage the relationship between science and religion? Some suggest that we recognize that science and religion function in separate domains: knowledge and faith, objective and subjective, material and immaterial. But there are multiple problems with this suggestion. First, these distinctions are themselves biased. Implied in these distinctions is that faith has no knowledge and that knowledge, i.e. science, operates without faith; faith in God involves no objectivity while science requires no subjectivity; lastly, that religious faith does not involve the material world, and science never ventures into the immaterial—assumptions, presuppositions, definitions, hope, etc. Consequently, the “separate domain” approach is flawed from the outset.
Second, science was not always defined to exclude the reality of the spiritual or the immaterial a priori; therefore, the definition of science, which theoretically excludes the spiritual, and therefore detectability of intelligence within the universe, is not absolute.[iv] Third, all learning and knowledge involve faith and immaterial issues. For example, one takes by faith the existence of Westminster Abbey in London until one has stood and personally set his gaze upon the historic church, and even then there is the element of faith that one can trust his own senses. Fourth, science and religious faith overlap, e.g. progressive education is based upon a scientific model of education, and education addresses fundamental questions of life, meaning, purpose, etc. Fifth is the problem of determining what words such as progress, good, worthwhile, helpful, right, citizen, person, human, rights, etc., mean because they are not merely matter and are therefore neither defined by nor determined solely by science. Finally, there is the problem of scientism—naturalism—where science is expanded beyond its legitimate domanial sphere and is perceived as either the best or only answer to the questions of the day.
A far better approach is to realize that absolute truth is absolute truth. Although different disciplines may discover truth differently, if they do discover absolute truth, it will be the same truth because truth is truth. Religion emphasizes truth from the supernatural realm through revelation. Science emphasizes truth from the natural realm through observation. Philosophy emphasizes truth in the human mind through reason.[v] Now it is obvious that while there are primary realms of investigation in each, these three pathways do overlap, can at times be complementary, and are actually essential to considering man because man and his world cannot be legitimately reduced to only matter, only reason, or only spirit without presupposing the truth of one of these approaches to the marginalizing or exclusion of the others.
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About the Book
The content of this book was first presented in its present form at The Oxford Round Table, Religion and Science Shaping the Modern World, in 2010 at Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, Oxford England. Science, or its handmaiden “separation of church and state”, is absolutely incapable of establishing or sustaining the liberties spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and protected by the Constitution.
The United States was founded upon the astonishing declaration, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Then the Constitution was drafted in order to “…secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”. It is these rights and liberties that are being systematically and surreptitiously dismantled by both the unwarranted expansion of science beyond its legitimate domain and the restricting of religious ideas from public education and policy debate. True science has blessed us, but when employed beyond its legitimate limits of authority, it becomes a dehumanizing tyrant. Science has its place in public life, but to limit religious knowledge to merely opinion and private faith, while concurrently limiting all publicly imposable knowledge to what can be demonstrated scientifically, requires more than science can provide. These liberties are based upon belief in the existence of God who created man with intrinsic worth and liberties. Without a public belief in the existence of God, all talk of unalienable rights is quixotic and assures the continuation of the heretofore unabated evanescing of those rights.
About the Author
RONNIE W. ROGERS serves as Trinity Baptist Church’s senior pastor in Norman, Oklahoma. He holds a B.A. in Biblical Studies and a M.S. in Counseling. He is a member of the Oxford Round Table. The author of The Equipping Church, Reflections of a Disenchanted Calvinist, and Undermining the Gospel: The Case and Guide for Church Discipline. He writes about various issues at ronniewrogers.com. He has served as President - Arkansas Baptist State Convention; Chairman - Board of Trustees for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; Chairman - Nominating Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention; Member – Committee on Committees of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is married with two married daughters and five grandsons.