Christianity and Science

CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE by Herman Bavinck, trans. and ed. N. Gray Sutanto, James Eglinton, and Cory C. Brock. Crossway, 2023. 240 pages. Hardcover; 32. 99. ISBN: 9781433579202. *Among the architects of the neo-Calvinist movement is the Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). In 1902, Bavinck moved from his professorship of theology at Kampen Theological Seminary to the Free University of Amsterdam, succeeding its founder Abraham Kuyper as the professor of theology. He wrote Christelijke Wetenschap early in his professorship in Amsterdam; this English edition has been translated midst the recent reinvigoration of Bavinck studies. *Christianity and Science was written in the same year as, and serves as a complementary expansion to, his treatise Christian Worldview. In Christian Worldview, Bavinck argues that modernity had failed the modern person. Modernity fragments the person, rendering their lived experience as lacking holistic integration. Christianity unites who we are, who we are becoming, and how we relate to the world in an organic unity. In Christianity and Science, Bavinck applies these ideas to scholarly inquiry and academic disciplines. He argues that the Christian worldview offers the believer unity in the life of the mind and, thus, uniquely equips the Christian for the academic endeavor in all fields of science. *What does Bavinck mean by "science"? In contrast to its common meaning of empirical disciplines, he uses the word more broadly, claiming that science encompasses all scholarly activity aimed at knowing truth. "The end goal of science can be none other than the knowledge of the truth--of the full, pure truth" (p. 127). It is for this reason the book covers disciplines from the natural sciences to literature, history, and theology. Bavinck's concept of science does not separate them but sees them as a unified whole. *Throughout his book, he postures an attitude of intellectual engagement between science and faith, and not of fundamentalist retreat. Bavinck stands in the Augustinian tradition of faith as enabling science: "Faith and science thus stand next to one another in relationship like conception and birth, like tree and fruit, like work and wage; knowledge is the fruit and wages of faith" (p. 58). He takes time to trace both the historic precedent of this idea within Christianity, and its later divergence culminating in the Enlightenment. *While still relevant to today's world, Bavinck's work is a challenging read for the contemporary reader, as his turn-of-the-century Dutch context is far removed from ours. Writing against the backdrop of positivism, he spends considerable time interacting with and arguing against it. Its power within disciplines is marked by its own flavor of religious ferocity. Remarkably, Bavinck seems prescient of the wane of positivism, about half a century before its eventual decline. *Positivist science, contrary to what it claims, is not presuppositionless. Bavinck lists several assumptions inherent to the practice of science and argues that no scholarly activity can be conducted from an intellectually neutral place. One's individual personality will always come to bear on the scientific inquiry. This is not a flaw of science but of its essence, for "Science remains bound to life" (p. 115). Building on an illustration Bavinck offers, the agriculturalist might not dig their fingers into the soil with the intimate knowledge of the farmer, but both will carry presuppositions concerning the earth, land, and community that radically influence their treatment and study of the same land. *Considering the natural sciences, Bavinck claims that ". . . all science, including that of nature, rests upon metaphysical presuppositions. . . " (p. 131). After listing several assumptions inextricable from the natural sciences, he argues that the implications of a worldview can be found even in natural sciences: ". . . natural science stands under the influence of a worldview, of philosophy, and thus also of faith and unbelief" (p. 135). While positivism has since fallen as the prevailing philosophy governing natural science, Bavinck's critique is still a welcome point, laying to rest the conception of science as an objective, neutral space, as opposed to theological and liberal arts disciplines. *The alternative to positivism may appear to be subjectivism. But rather than abandoning all hope in the face of apparent subjectivism, Bavinck recognizes that the extent of the influence worldview has on scholarship varies by discipline. He says, "In math, chemistry, and anatomy, the difference in life view may count for little; as soon as subjects like geology, paleontology, biology, and anthropology come into view, faith and unbelief lay their weight on the scales. This comes to the fore to a greater degree in the humanities" (p. 138-39). Such recognition is instructive to all who may be tempted to reject the natural and social sciences altogether merely because they have presuppositions. *The influence of worldview on science, according to Bavinck, is the source of much of the dispute between science and religion. One's worldview can lead scientists to hold onto hypotheses long after they are deemed untenable. "History is abundantly rich in examples in which the so-called undisputable results of science were played against religion and which, after a short period of growth, were themselves rejected after scientific advancement and fell into obscurity" (p. 137). *To his credit, Bavinck covers a vast terrain of scholarship in his book. However, certain discussions felt wanting. For instance, he says regarding a miracle, ". . . it is in no way in conflict with the facts and methods of natural and historical science, because it leaves them fully intact and is itself, by virtue of its nature, withdrawn from the judgment of these sciences" (p. 202). A reader seeking a fuller exploration of the relation of miracles to the natural sciences shall not find it in this book. Indeed, given Bavinck's expansive definition of science, the reader may approach the book with different questions concerning Christianity's relationship to scientific discovery from the answers the book supplies. *The relation of Christianity to science developed within this book is also a manifesto for Bavinck who ends his book by arguing for a distinctly Christian higher education. He contends for state support of Christian universities and not merely of secular ones, for no university can be truly unbiased. He also sees the Christian confession of the Christian university to be beneficial to scholarship--the confession offers guardrails to practitioners within the university and accounts for the noetic effects of sin. In addition, the confession compels Christian universities to stay up to date with science "precisely because they take up a position in the field of science" (p. 217). *Throughout his book, Bavinck helps Christians engaged in higher learning grasp a vision of the relation between Christianity and scholarship. Christianity is the greatest motivation in the pursuit of truth because it presumes the unity of all truth in a world created by God. Even in this day and age, Christianity and Science remains relevant for Christian scholars. For Bavinck is not merely concerned with fitting faith into the ever-changing landscape of science. Rather, he locates the place of science in a world known through faith--an endeavor that shall always remain relevant. *Reviewed by Kevin Valson Jacob (assistant professor of physics at Wheaton College, IL) and Skyler Flowers (PhD student at the University of Aberdeen and associate program director at The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics).