The Self-Contradiction of Naturalism

                                                                                                                                                             Vol. XXII, No. 8, September 2009

Christians ought to argue that scientific naturalism is incoherent and self-contradictory, for scientists must exempt themselves from the very framework they prescribe for everyone else. All human beings are reduced to mechanisms operating by natural causes except scientists themselves. Why? Because to carry out their experiments, they must assume that they, at least, are capable of transcending the network of material causes, capable of rational thought, of free deliberation, of formulating theories, of recognizing objective truth. They themselves must form the single glaring exception to their own theory. This is the fatal self-contradiction of naturalism. ...

The task for Christians, then, is clear: to expose the flaws in scientific naturalism, which has invested science with ultimate intellectual authority. We must do this not because we are against science but because we want to restore science to its proper role as a means of investigating God's world and alleviating suffering. And Christians are the ones to lead the way because the original conception of science was developed in the context of the biblical worldview, and only in that context can it function properly. In fact, surprising as it may be to many people, without Christianity there would be no science.

[Chuck Colson & Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live?, Tyndale House, 1999, p. 421]