Exploring the Foundations of the Scientific Revolution
Illustrating the integration of faith and reason from key Christian scientists.Several notable and important people led to the modern Scientific Revolution. It grew from their faith rooted in a Christian worldview. These philosophers and scientists founded their beliefs on a rational knowable Creator believing He would leave this universe imbued with rational laws that do not change. As a result using a sound investigative method those laws might be discovered.
The initial start to the development of modern science was heavily influenced by two philosophers who taught and developed the methodology of scientific empiricism: Roger Bacon in the 13th century and Francis Bacon in the 16th/17th century.
Roger Bacon (c. 1219/20–1292), known as Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English Franciscan friar, philosopher, and polymath who is considered one of the earliest European advocates of the scientific method and empiricism.
His philosophical contributions include:
- Empirical Science: Bacon emphasized direct observation and controlled experiment as essential correctives to authority and tradition, influencing the addition of optics to the medieval university curriculum.
- Major Works: In 1267, he submitted the Opus Majus to Pope Clement IV, a comprehensive encyclopedia covering grammar, logic, mathematics, optics, and moral philosophy.
- Scientific Innovations: He was the first European to record the formula for gunpowder and made significant studies in geometrical optics, vision, and refraction, anticipating developments in lenses and spectacles.
- Imprisonment: Between 1277 and 1279, Bacon was likely imprisoned or placed under house arrest by his Franciscan superiors due to his interest in astrology, alchemy, and “suspected novelties,” though modern scholars debate the historical accuracy of this event.
- Legacy: While deeply rooted in medieval scholasticism and theology, his insistence on experimental science (scientia experimentalis) positions him as a precursor to modern scientific inquiry.
However the next Bacon has had the greatest influence on the fundamentals of modern science.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an English philosopher and statesman widely regarded as the father of empiricism and a foundational figure in the development of the scientific method. He argued that knowledge should be derived from inductive reasoning and careful observation of nature, rejecting the deductive Aristotelian logic that dominated his era.
His philosophical contributions include:
- The Baconian Method: A systematic approach to science emphasizing experimentation, data collection, and the elimination of biases (known as the “Idols”).
- Key Works: He authored Novum Organum (1620), which outlined his new logical framework, and The Advancement of Learning (1605), advocating for the practical application of science to benefit humanity.
- Philosophy of Science: Bacon believed that “knowledge is power,” asserting that scientific inquiry should not only seek truth but also produce tangible improvements in human life.
- Legacy: His ideas heavily influenced the founders of the Royal Society and helped usher in the Scientific Revolution, shifting natural philosophy toward empirical and experimental practices.
Francis Bacon was a devout Anglican Christian who sought to reconcile his faith with the emerging scientific method. He believed that studying nature through empirical observation was a way to understand God’s creation and that scientific progress served a spiritual duty to alleviate human suffering.
While Bacon argued for keeping theology and natural philosophy in separate spheres to prevent religious dogma from hindering scientific inquiry, he remained critical of atheism.
Bacon famously stated that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion,” viewing the increase of knowledge as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
However he was not a biblical creationist in the modern sense. He believed that mixing theological dogma with natural philosophy (science) corrupted both, famously criticizing those who tried to build systems of physics based on Genesis or Job.
Bacon articulated the metaphor of “Two Books” written by God:
- The Book of God’s Word (Scripture): Reveals God’s will, moral laws, and the path to salvation. Bacon considered this essential for spiritual truth and believed it should be studied deeply.
- The Book of God’s Works (Nature): Reveals God’s power and omnipotence. He argued that studying nature was a religious duty that helped humanity understand the Creator’s greatness.
He urged scholars to pursue “endless progress” in both books but warned strictly against “unwisely mingling or confounding” them.
Of course, I totally disagree his “unwisely mingling” view. There are “Two Books” representing one creation, One Creator. The two books are interwoven by the very nature of the creation. It is all one system created by God and any philosophy that ignores this fact is ultimately doomed to failure.
However he rightfully is credited with what is nowadays called the Scientific Method: hypothesis, experiment and data collection that may disprove the initial hypothesis. No experimental results can ever prove the hypothesis. If you want proofs, try mathematics, which is a closed artificial universe.
I have no doubt that this method gave a big start to the Scientific Revolution, which really started with Francis Bacon in the early 1600s. However in all my own experience in university research labs what was actually used were Bayesian Methods.
Bayesian Methods are statistical techniques that use Bayes’ theorem to update the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence or data becomes available.
Instead of treating unknown yet-to-be-determined parameters as fixed, Bayesian analysis interprets probability as a degree of belief, allowing for the incorporation of prior knowledge or subjective beliefs alongside observed data. Bayes’ theorem uses a conditional probability to update the prior knowledge.
That means that Bayesian methods build on prior knowledge. And that also means prior biases, which is often seen when a parameter is measured over time. The prior measured value is considered with more weight than it should be and so new values are chosen that fall closest to the prior. What results is a progressive creep in the value towards the final accepted value, the true value. This can be seen in the historical measured values for the round-trip speed of light, c.
Historical measurements of the speed of light, cAlso in the measurements of the electron charge (e).
Historical measurements of the electron charge, eThe bias is not due to the error bounds not overlapping the final correct result but due to weight placed on the priors. So a results that favour a prior is accepted before newer values which may be more accurate. This bias is a feature of a worldview.
Thomas Bayes (c. 1701–1761) was a Presbyterian minister and a member of the English Nonconformist (Dissenter) religious tradition. While his father was a traditional Presbyterian, scholars describe Bayes’ personal theological beliefs as Unitarian or Arian, indicating he strayed from standard Christian orthodoxy. (That is the same accusation leveled against Isaac Newton, so perhaps there is some doubt there.)
Bayes mathematical work, specifically Bayes’ theorem, was originally developed to provide a probabilistic defense of Christianity against the skeptical arguments of philosopher David Hume, who had questioned the validity of miracles.
Bayes published two works during his lifetime: a theological tract titled Divine Benevolence (1731) and a mathematical defense of Isaac Newton’s calculus (1736).
Barring a miraculous revelation from God, in a dream or vision, most experimental development comes from a long list of prior researchers, scientists who slowly advanced the field — one building on the work of another. This is what the oft quoted expression means.
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
The expression is most famously attributed to Isaac Newton, who used it in a 1675 letter to his rival Robert Hooke. However, the metaphor actually originated in the 12th century with the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres, who described humans as “dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.”
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was an English polymath and a central figure in the Scientific Revolution, renowned for his foundational contributions to physics, mathematics, and optics.
Newton attended Trinity College, Cambridge, ostensibly preparing to become an Anglican minister, but spent his time developing his groundbreaking theories. The years 1665–1666 was a period of intense personal productivity known as his annus mirabilis.
He was a deeply religious Christian whose theological writings vastly outnumbered his scientific works. Newton believed in God the Father as the sole creator and Jesus Christ as His divine Son, but some have claimed he denied their co-equality, rejecting the Trinitarian doctrine.1,2 Don’t be misled by such claims. He was an alchemist too, but he wasn’t a witch. Alchemy at that time was the start of modern chemistry and metallurgy.
He viewed his scientific discoveries as a means to understand God’s design in nature, believing that the laws of physics revealed the order of a rational Creator. Newton spent decades studying biblical prophecy (particularly Daniel and Revelation) and church history, seeking to restore the “pure” faith of the early apostolic era.
His major works include Principia Mathematica (1687), which established the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and Opticks (1704), which detailed his experiments on light and color, including the invention of the reflecting telescope (1668).
Isaac Newton adapted and popularized the concept to acknowledge that his scientific discoveries built upon the work of predecessors like René Descartes. And this situation has been the norm since Isaac Newton.
René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist widely regarded as the father of modern Western philosophy and a key figure in the Scientific Revolution.
He is most famous for the epistemological foundationalist dictum “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum) and for developing Cartesian dualism, the theory that the mind and body are distinct substances.
René Descartes was a Roman Catholic who actively sought to align his philosophy with Christian doctrine. He worked diligently to provide rational proofs for the existence of God, aiming to reconcile the new science with Christian beliefs and avoid conflict with ecclesiastical authorities.
He insisted that truths of faith were superior to human reason and separated theological doctrines (like the Trinity) from his rational metaphysics.
In works like the Meditations, he offered arguments for God’s existence (such as the trademark and ontological arguments) to establish God as the guarantor of truth and the creator of the universe.
His distinction between mind (immaterial soul) and body (material matter) was intended to support the immortality of the soul, a core tenet of Christian theology.
Despite his personal devotion, critics accused him of atheism because his mechanistic view of the physical world seemed to exclude God from daily natural processes, leading to the prohibition of his books by the Catholic Church in 1663.
Ultimately, Descartes is viewed as a figure who tried to rationalize religion without abandoning it, positioning human reason as a path to understanding God rather than a replacement for faith.
That is quite different to the humanist arguments of atheistic human reason without any foundation in God.
What we now need to understand is that not all science is science. It is not all subject to the Scientific Method even allowing for the human biases and Bayesian inference.
When an hypothesis cannot be tested because the subject lies in the past for the researcher it cannot be called operational or experimental science.
One problem that arises here is that the scientists themselves cannot recognise their own biases and proceed as if they are validly testing their assumed hypothesis. Their minds are dominated by their worldview, and that could be based on there being no Creator (atheism), or that the Creator is no longer around (deism) and all universal parameters evolve from their initial conditions.
In cases where an historical parameter is sought, the science should be called forensic or historical science because no direct evidence of the sought-after parameter is available. As a result proxies are used. But the proxies also cannot be directly tested for what they are assumed to mean.
For example, when trying to determine historical Earth temperatures tree rings or Oxygen isotope ratios are used as proxies. They need calibration but even the calibrations cannot be unequivocal since no one has a time machine. No past measurement is possible. All are inferred from some measurement done in the present.
Francis Bacon kept separate his “Two Books”. To keep them separate is a flawed approach, which other Christian apologists have also used. It is very similar to what Hugh Ross (of Reason to Believe ministry) teaches. He speaks of the 66 books of the bible but then there is the 67th book of nature. Ross claims God revealed that to him before he was even a believer in Christ.
It is a compromise because it does not allow the Creator to work. It assumes that in terms of a literal history in the Genesis account there is error and the language must be reinterpreted to fit in with modern science.
In Ross’ case he believes in the big bang origin of the universe, and so he squeezes the big bang timeline into the 6 x 24-hour days of Genesis creation. Ross accepts the multi-billion-year ages of the Earth and its rock strata, fitting in long periods for each day of creation. He employs a sequence of progressive creation acts that are intended to correspond to the sequence of events in the Genesis account. But one problem with that is the order. They are out of sequence. As well, his progressive “creation” events are, for all intents and purposes, infinitesimally close to Darwinian evolution of species (which he denies).
Each flash indicates a conflict in sequence between the biblical account and the big bang evolution story. Note that ‘long-age creationists’, though they deny biological transformism, hold to the identical order of appearance as evolutionists. There are 23 conflicts in total shown here. Credit: Idea from Dr. Russ Humphreys.Why is it so difficult for even the men of faith to completely accept the Christian worldview in all its details. Thankfully there have been many who have done so. But even among the believers there have been many who compromised on the scriptures in favour of secular interpretations of the physical sciences. They could not fully integrate into their worldview one big picture for the handiwork of God.
Footnote:
- Some have accused Newton of Arianism, but this is rejected by Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian?, Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997. See here.
- A very detailed defense of Newton’s Trinitarianism is Van Alan Herd, The theology of Sir Isaac Newton, gradworks.umi.com, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 2008. This documents much evidence, including Newton’s words refuting tritheism and affirming Trinitarian monotheism:
That to say there is but one God, ye father of all things, excludes not the son & Holy ghost from the Godhead becaus they are virtually conteined & implied in the father. … To apply ye name of God to ye Son or holy ghost as distinct persons from the father makes them not divers Gods from ye Father. … Soe there is divinity in ye father, divinity in ye Son, & divinity in ye holy ghost, & yet they are not thre forces but one force.
Related Reading
- Why Don’t Scientists Believe in God?
- The Lawgiver is the Biblical Creator God
- True Science and Science Falsely So-Called
- The Laws of Physics Point to the Creator
- How Much Can You Trust in Science?
- Evolution is Not Operational Science
- Why Believe in God in an Age of Science?
- The Bible is Still Relevant in This Age of Science!
- Religion in Science
- The Problem with Science is that So Much of it Simply Isn’t
- The Big Bang is Not a Reason to Believe!
- The Immortal Soul | Neuroscience vs. Materialism
- Can Artificial General Intelligence Have a Soul?
- Young Earth Creation vs. Modern Cosmology
- Operational and Historical Science: What Are they?
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