Last week, I wrote about George Marsden‘s address to InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries staff, “The Soul of the American University Revisited.” Dr. Marsden suggested that worldview naturalism — also called ideological or metaphysical naturalism — was losing its hold on the academy. In contrast, methodological naturalism remained strong and, indeed, was an appropriate stance for Christians in academia. It’s this form of naturalism that I want to focus on today.
Here’s how J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig describe methodological naturalism in their (massive) book, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview [n. b. this is Moreland and Craig’s description of the position, not necessarily their own positions]:
[In the natural sciences, e]xplanations should refer only to natural objects and events and not to the personal choices and actions of human and divine agents. Natural science seeks knowledge of the physical properties, behavior and formative history of the physical world….Within science, we should adopt methodological naturalism, according to which answers to questions are sought within nature… (358, emphasis added)
I appreciate their inclusion of human agents in this definition, because I think it can build a bridge to scientists who don’t share a theistic perspective. If I’m a scientist asking why a cannonball falls toward the earth, it’s not appropriate to answer “because I dropped it out the window,” even though that might be a perfectly acceptable answer in, say, a court of law in which I’m being prosecuted for assaulting someone with said cannonball.
Likewise, there are other contexts in which methodological naturalism is highly inappropriate. Staying with the law court example, I would be cited for contempt if I began describing gravity wells when the prosecutor asked me, “How did the cannonball come to strike Tom Grosh in the head?” [Read more…] about How can Christian scholars avoid privatizing their faith?