The Chord-of-Three-Strands Worldview vs. Scripture

(This blog series continues what I began addressing last week – namely, asserting the Bible to be the authoritative, inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of/from God, over and against contemporary objections.)

Philosophical naturalism – the belief that asserts the material universe is all there is – impedes countless millions from believing the Bible to be the Word of God (a God-breathed document in every letter, word, clause, sentence, paragraph, book, and cumulative collection of 66 books, per 2 Tim. 3.16). Darwinian science is the authority upon which philosophical naturalism rests, and these two forces constantly work hand in hand to promote cultural secularism – the doctrine that society should be sanitized of all religious influence. Thus, to challenge cultural secularism is to challenge philosophical naturalism; to challenge philosophical naturalism is to challenge the authority of Darwinian science. To put it another way, Darwinian science is more akin to “scientism” – the religious authority of the worldview of philosophical naturalism which gives rise to cultural secularism.

Should one ever challenge this chord-of-three-strands worldview, the apologetic is always the same. “Well, science says…” Bring God into the conversation and you’ll likely hear, “Science has conclusively proven that the material universe is all there is.” But isn’t it hypocritical for Darwinian science to use the word “conclusive”? Isn’t it somewhat arrogant to make pronouncements about “all of life” for society when the very authority of Darwinian science lacks the very omniscience it claims?

Isn’t it more reliable to find our meaning for life and the universe not from first testing and studying the universe itself but from first relying on information given from something (or – dare I say – Someone) outside of our universe? This I would assert is what we have in the Scriptures, the Bible, the Word of God. And if we don’t start there, our life trajectory will never be right.

Because of limitations of method, science has so little basis for fixed and final truth about reality that it must stand ready to alter every pronouncement it makes and then to alter that alteration ad infinitum…The evangelical Christian lays no claim to omniscience, nor even to have the whole truth about some empirical concerns. But he claims nonetheless to have, on adequate grounds, a sure and final Word on certain crucial matters, and that is something more than worthy of a hearing in a scientific age.” – Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Vol. I: God Who Speaks and Shows (173-74)