Christianity and Science II: Unmasking Scientism
[Part 2 of 4 on a Christian’s view of science.]“Follow the science…”
During the past few years, that phrase became a cultural mantra. Whether about medicine, climate, technology, or ethics, we are told that science should lead the way. And Science has an impressive track record of explaining the natural world and developing tools to improve human life. But here’s the problem: science often gets asked to do more than it can. When people say, “science is the only way to know what is true,” they have crossed a line. They are no longer speaking about science itself, but about a philosophy that rides on science’s coattails. That philosophy is called scientism.
If science is a trustworthy map for exploring the natural world, scientism is the overconfident tourist who insists the map explains everything about our existence, even places the map never intended to cover. As Christians, we need to recognize the difference. Otherwise, we will either reject science out of fear or surrender faith out of confusion. Neither response is necessary.
In this article we unmask scientism and see how Christianity gives us the best reason to trust and value science in its proper place.
Science and Scientism: What’s the Difference?
First, some definitions:
Science is a method of inquiry into the natural world. It makes testable claims based on observation and experimentation. Scientific claims are always provisional—they can be confirmed, refined, or overturned by new evidence. For example, Johannes Kepler’s laws of planetary motion described planets moving in ellipses. Later, Isaac Newton refined those laws with a deeper understanding of gravity. Centuries later, Albert Einstein added even more precision through relativity. Science works by building, testing, and correcting models.
Scientism, by contrast, is not science at all. It is the belief that natural science is the only or the best way of knowing anything. Scientism comes in two concentrations:
Strong scientism: Only science gives real knowledge; everything else (philosophy, theology, literature, even history) is mere opinion.
Weak scientism: Other disciplines might give some insights, but science remains the supreme and most authoritative path to truth.
Notice something important: scientism itself is not a scientific claim. You can’t prove scientism in a laboratory. You can’t test it with an experiment. Scientism is a philosophical belief about science. And like many philosophical claims, it fails its own test.
Why Strong Scientism Fails
Beyond the logical problem of its claim, strong scientism also assumes many non-scientific foundations:
Truth and Values – Science assumes that truth exists and that honesty, accuracy, and fairness are obligations in research. These are ethical commitments, not measurable particles or forces, yet without them, data and conclusions would be meaningless.
Minds and Consciousness – Scientific practice presupposes rational minds that can observe, interpret, and communicate results. Yet no experiment can directly verify another person’s inner experience. We take other minds as real on grounds outside empirical proof.
Induction and the Uniformity of Nature – Science projects patterns observed in the past into the future (e.g., gravity will act tomorrow as it does today). But this expectation cannot be demonstrated empirically without circularity—you’d have to assume what you’re trying to prove.
Logic and Mathematics – Every hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion relies on logical reasoning and mathematical relationships. You can’t run an experiment to “prove” logic or arithmetic without already using them. They are the framework that makes experimentation meaningful.
No experiment can test these assumptions. They must be in place before any experiment can happen. As Albert Einstein once noted, the real “miracle” of science is not that we can describe the world with equations, but that the world is describable at all. Or consider Eugene Wigner, a Nobel Prize–winning physicist. He marveled at the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” in describing physical reality. Why should a human invention like math line up so perfectly with the laws of nature? Strong scientism denies or ignores these very supports, sawing off the very branch it stands on.
Why Weak Scientism Also Fails
Weak scientism is unknowingly assumed by a large percentage of the world. It treats science as the best judge of truth. However, even this weaker version collapses when we step outside testable realities.
Science Cannot Test Ultimate Questions. Questions like “Why do we exist?”, “What makes a life meaningful?”, or “Is it morally right to act this way?” are not about measurable properties or repeatable experiments. They are about purpose, value, and meaning—real aspects of human experience that science cannot weigh, time, or chart.
Science Describes, but Does Not Explain Purpose. Science can describe how things happen—the chemical pathways of life or the gravitational forces shaping galaxies—but it cannot say why the universe exists at all or why anything matters. Even asking what counts as “mattering” is already a philosophical and ethical step beyond science’s reach.
Authority Without Competence Is Misplaced. To call science “supreme” in areas where it has no tools is like asking a skilled chemist to settle a question of justice or beauty using a spectrometer. Excellence in one domain does not translate into authority in every domain.
Even Science Relies on Non-Scientific Knowledge. As with strong scientism, weak scientism forgets that science depends on logic, mathematics, moral trustworthiness, and the reality of minds. These are not “lesser” forms of knowing—they are preconditions for doing science at all.
Human Reasoning Is Multi-Faceted. Philosophy clarifies concepts and tests arguments. History preserves memory and context. Literature and art reveal dimensions of human experience no lab could capture. Theology engages ultimate reality and moral meaning. These are not “second-class” disciplines but complementary ways of grasping truth.
Science is powerful within its proper scope—studying the natural world—but it is not rational to treat it as supreme for answering untestable or meaningful questions. To do so is to mistake a brilliant tool for the whole of human understanding. It’s sort of like trying to use Google Maps to give you instructions on how to fix a car’s engine—the scope of scientific enquiry is rightly limited and recognizing those limits preserves its integrity.
Christianity Explains Why Science Works
From a Christian perspective, the intelligibility of the world is no accident. The Apostle John describes Jesus Christ as the Logos—the divine Word, through whom all things were made (John 1:1–3). The Apostle Paul says, “In him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). Creation is coherent because it comes from a coherent Creator. That means our rational minds are attuned to the rationality embedded in the world. As C. S. Lewis argued, if our thoughts were nothing more than chemical reactions shaped by evolutionary accidents, we would have no reason to trust them as truth. But if our thoughts are gifts from a rational God, then we can rely on them as tools for knowing reality (C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics). Science is possible because both the world and our minds reflect our Creator.
Imagine looking out your window and seeing a tree. You conclude, “There is a tree out there.” But notice the assumptions beneath that conclusion: you assume your eyes are reliable, that you are not hallucinating, and that your senses connect you with the real world. Without those assumptions, the simple statement “there is a tree” loses its certainty. Science works the same way. Every experiment assumes that our minds, senses, and the natural order can be trusted. But those assumptions are not scientific—they are theological. They make sense because our Creator is faithful.
Why Not Deism?
Someone might ask: “Couldn’t a deist—someone who believes in a distant, non-intervening God—also affirm that the world is orderly?” In a limited sense, yes. A deist can look at the universe and acknowledge design and consistency. But deism falters when it tries to move from bare order to meaning, morality, or relationship. If God never speaks, how could finite human beings possibly know his purposes or moral will? An impersonal, silent deity might explain the machinery of the cosmos, but offers no basis for trust, worship, or love.
Christianity provides a richer, more coherent answer. God is not silent. He reveals himself in creation—“the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1)—but he goes further, speaking clearly and personally through Scripture, a testimony centered on Jesus Christ. The biblical God is not an absentee architect but a Father who acts in history and draws near to his creatures. In Christ, God stoops to our level, takes on human flesh, and enters into our suffering and sin.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains: “God becomes man in order to reveal God himself. The eternal, transcendent God who is beyond all comprehension enters the realm of human history and human vulnerability, so that we may know him. In Christ, God stoops to us, humbles himself, and takes responsibility for the world he created.”— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (FP, p. 33)
Deism can acknowledge an orderly world, but only Christianity offers the God who enters that world, dies for the world, and redeems it—a movement from distant order to intimate love and presence that deism cannot explain.
The Gifts Christians Bring to Science
If scientism distorts science, Christianity restores it. Throughout history, Christians have seen science as a vocation—a calling from God to serve. Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Pascal, Faraday, Maxwell, Pasteur, and countless Christians today all have pursued science as a way to glorify God and love their neighbors.
Christians bring three vital gifts to science:
Humility — We admit we are fallible. Our models and theories may be wrong. That humility guards against arrogance.
Confidence — We know truth exists. We can persevere in discovery, believing God’s creation is worth studying.
Moral clarity — We pursue knowledge to serve others, not exploit them. Christian ethics reminds us that science should never treat people as objects.
In an age of technological power, where science can be used for great good or great harm, these gifts are more important than ever.
Conclusion: Unmasking Scientism
Scientism is not science. It is a counterfeit philosophy that overreaches, dismissing all other ways of knowing. By unmasking scientism, Christianity does not weaken science. It strengthens it. The Christian worldview explains why science is possible, trustworthy, and meaningful. As Christians, we don’t need to retreat from scientific conversations or surrender our faith to them. We can recognize science for what it is: a marvelous gift of God, powerful but limited, rooted in assumptions that point us back to the Creator. So the next time you hear “follow the science,” ask yourself: is this genuine science, humbly exploring creation, or is it scientism, pretending to answer questions beyond its scope? Science has an honored place in God’s world—but it is not God. Only the Word made flesh claims that title.
Reflection Questions:
Can you think of a time when “science says” was used as if it settled a question that really belongs to philosophy or theology?
How does the Christian doctrine of creation give you confidence in the reliability of science?
Where do you see the dangers of scientism in our culture today?
Suggested Scripture: Proverbs 8:1, 22-36; Colossians 1:15-23
Sources for Diving Deeper:
J.P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology (Crossway, 2018). A Christian philosopher’s clear, accessible critique of scientism and defense of other forms of knowledge.
Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (Oxford University Press, 2011). Shows how science and Christianity are not in conflict, but science and naturalism are.
Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 1958). Classic work explaining why science itself depends on trust, community, and non-scientific assumptions.
Albert Einstein, “Physics and Reality” (1936) and Eugene Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” (1960). Both highlight the mysterious intelligibility of the universe that science cannot explain.
Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority (Vol. 1, 1976). Explores how God’s revelation undergirds all human knowledge, including science.
Institute for Lutheran Apologetics (ILA) – Articles on scientism and Christian epistemology: www.lutheranapologetics.org
