The Moral Argument as a Scientifically-Minded Approach to Understanding God
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Last week, an experienced and prominent physician told me that faith was utter nonsense, and that only empirical study has value. He expressed irritation at people of faith, any faith, who “obstinately cling to things they say are true and happened thousands of years ago because they say they are true and are unwilling to consider proof.” I asked him what he would think of a group that agrees with him about the value of explaining faith, that craves intellectually rigorous and defensible answers and seeks them out, but that comes to different conclusions from his because we value many types of evidence. He is a researcher, after all – could he with any intellectual honesty brush aside the conclusions of people as intelligent as he and better studied in a particular area? What did he think of this new thing I described; what did he think of apologetics?
“I think,” he replied after a pause, “apologists sound like scientists. I would tell you that if they, if you, seek intellectually defensible answers, then you are in the realm of science. You have moved beyond faith at that point, which means that you make more sense to me, but that you cannot come to any conclusion that does not have facts.”
I do not agree with this doctor’s extremely exalted view of science. I noticed his consistent and mistaken notion of faith, and his narrow view of what constitutes evidence. I thought of how very modern is the notion that science and theism are at odds, and of everything I know about the historical validity of the Resurrection. Data flooded my brain and arguments poured into my mind, but not onto my lips. The Spirit formed more simple words.
“You know from whence scientific study arose, don’t you?” I asked. “This entire way of studying the world, the observation and thinking that you value so much, began as a quest for knowledge of God. Your statement that we are in the realm of science by professing faith is a foregone conclusion. Science arose and has been sustained in the realm of faith.”
“Quite right,” he said, a twinkle in his eye, “but…” A knock from the next patient sounded on the door.
Time will tell whether this conversation continues, but in the meantime, it is worth replying that I believe the researcher is correct in his assessment of apologetics as being like science in some real respects. If we think specifically of moral apologetics as a study of human behavior and a quest to best explain that behavior, we see how both fields look for trends and seek to explain them. Clinical researchers often criticize me for the assertion that apologists could possibly think like scientists – apologetics is too soft, they say, there’s too much philosophy and not enough numbers - but they’ll stay for a conversation of trends.
These critics hold a deficient notion of philosophy, in my opinion, but both sides tend to agree that there is proof in actualized human behavior, outside of what we read in books or theorize about in laboratories or classrooms, whether we have gone to the trouble to assign numbers to the behavior or not. The intellectual curiosity shared by apologists and scientists creates great potential for fruitful interaction. Is it a surprise, then, that scientist Francis Collins, former lead of the Human Genome Project and current Director of the National Institutes of Health, credits the moral argument with his conversion from atheism to Christianity?[1]
Collins adopts the position in Language of God that science cannot fully reveal God or answer our questions about God, because claims concerning God go beyond what modern scientists consider empirical evidence. The discussion mirrors a debate that has long raged in history over whether historians are justified in exploring claims of miracles, including those surrounding Jesus Christ and the Resurrection, and the theme here is the same – what are the limits of empirical study and where do they fall? Are there limits?
Though apologetics often starts with reason apart from special revelation, when it comes to things beyond human understanding in the given moment, we can look to the Bible for ways of knowing. In the Scriptures, we find these truths:
1. God made man in his image (Gen 1:26-28).
2. Creation as an image, then, constitutes a relationship between God and man.
3. God crafted man from the dust of a world created by God (Gen 2:7), rather than “poof!”ing man into existence.
4. Therefore, the dust is important to man's nature.[2]
5. Man, then, has a relationship both with God and with the dust.
6. Conversely, the study of this dust must be at root a study of God and of humanity.
7. Therefore, the things that we learn in the study of this dust are things we learn about God and about humanity.
8. Finally, our reactions to the study of this dust, and the things we learn about God through study of the dust, are indicative and reflective of our relationship with God.
That last bit? That is the moral argument manifest in scientific study. What a fitting conclusion for the subjects of a God who created and then “saw” that creation was good (Gen 1:4). The NET Bible tells us in translation notes that the verb “saw” in this passage carries the meaning “reflected on,” “surveyed,” “concluded.” God created, God observed, and God drew a conclusion. Sounds a lot like science, to me. We are justified, then, in immersing ourselves in science for the sake of drawing closer to God, and we are justified in upholding the moral argument as, in certain respects, an empirical and even scientifically-minded approach to understanding God. Much work remains to be done, but given these conclusions I believe that yes, expansively empirical apologetics can be developed and effectively deployed in the world of modern science. The moral argument is a powerfully salient example.
[1] Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (New York: Free Press, 2006), 22.
[2] There are many perspectives on imago Dei, and the specifics of any given interpretation of what it means to be made in God's image influence how we might explain this relationship between man and the dust from which he was formed. Look for more discussion in blogs to come.
Jan Shultis is a Naval Academy graduate, author of two books, and Associate Editor at moralapologetics.com who plans to pursue her DMin at Houston Baptist University. After 14 years in uniform serving around the U.S. and in Afghanistan, she founded a faith-based non-profit focused on veterans, law enforcement, first responders, and families that supports warriors in need throughout Texas, with a special focus on ministry in local courts and jails. Jan brings to the Moral Apologetics team additional professional experience in biotechnology, public relations, and ethics curriculum development. Jan shares that she is extremely excited to spearhead the Center’s innovative exploration of the organic connections between moral apologetics and moral injury, including but not limited to military veterans. She is local to Houston and looks forward to contributing to the Center’s robust on-campus presence at HBU
