The Christian has nothing to fear from science per se. This is because the proper role of science is to deal with things that are empirically observable, repeatable, and demonstrable: that which occurs within the ordinary and everyday experience of common humanity. When science limits its methodologies to this sphere, it does well. However, when science steps out of this domain and seeks to comment upon things that are beyond the empirical, conflicts with spiritual claims ensue. This is because science is not properly equipped to parse non-empirical claims; neither does the scientific method have the capacity to ramify spiritual concerns. This is not to say that science cannot corroborate some spiritual truths or provide veridical support for some empirical claims that the Bible makes. The science of Biblical Archaeology, for example, has helped us understand the Bible tremendously. Neither is this to say that science cannot make inferences regarding empirically verifiable data. However, the scientific method is limited to the role of falsification, and any hypothesis, no matter how trustworthy (scientifically speaking), can only be affirmed as a probability.
When scientists begin to make claims beyond empirical data (whether they are believers or non-believers), they have left their work as scientists and have begun promulgating a philosophical position. Scientists who claim that nothing exists beyond the physical world or who suggest that everything that exists can be explained with science are actually promoting the worldview of naturalism. Naturalism is grounded upon the philosophical claim that the material universe is all that exists, and that all experiences within the material universe can be wholly explained through the laws of nature. This is not a scientific claim because science can purport no knowledge of anything beyond the material. Yet to say that nothing exists beyond the material is purporting knowledge beyond the material. In other words, science may say that it, as a discipline, has no knowledge beyond the material, but it cannot say that no one can know anything beyond the material. The claim that there is no knowledge beyond the material is itself a claim that is beyond the material. The claim that all knowledge is empirically verifiable is itself a knowledge claim that is not subject to empirical verification, but these are precisely the claims of the naturalist worldview.
The implications of such a worldview ought to be immediately evident to all Bible-believing Christians. If all that exists is the material universe, the implications are: 1) God does not exist; 2) Jesus was not God; He was just a man, nothing more; 3) the Bible is not inspired; 4) worship/prayer is pointless; 5) neither heaven nor hell exist; 6) there is no life after death and no resurrection; 7) humans have no soul/spirit; 8) man is not made in the image of God; 9) the universe has no overarching purpose or end. This list echoes the apostle Paul’s sentiments in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19: “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” These nine claims are not the conclusions of science; they are the conclusions of the Naturalist Worldview. Indeed, these claims are not appropriate objects of scientific inquiry since their central axis inherently involves inquiry outside of the material world. One simply cannot use empirical methods to come to such conclusions.
The Naturalist Worldview, however, has a great problem explaining some of humanity’s key common experiences. Try as they may, naturalists cannot consistently ply 1) morality, 2) consciousness, or 3) freedom with their worldview. When seeking to explain morality, they must do so without any appeal to God or any other unchanging and objective standard. This they cannot do because if God does not exist, then no standard beyond man himself exists whereby one may adjudicate right from wrong, and when man becomes that standard, then anything goes; the iron rule prevails; might makes right. In the words of one atheist, “That is a horrible ethic.” Yet such is the ground upon which the natural world of plants and mindless animals persists on a daily basis. The naturalist worldview would reduce men to mere beasts, livestock, brute varmints. Moreover, ethical systems put forth under this worldview offer no personal intrinsic value. Humans only possess value instrumentally, or as they may be usefully employed. If a human’s usefulness does not exist, then the naturalist can hold no moral compunction in ending said human’s existence. This translates to abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.
Consciousness is also a vexing problem for naturalism. If, as one atheist put it, “Our brains secrete thought like our liver secretes bile,” then how is it that we all have unique conscious experiences? How is it that humans have the very personal experiences of awareness, focus, attention, recollection, thought, the experience of redness, pain, pleasure, and other such uniquely first-person experiences? If such experiences are simply chemicals coursing through our brain, then how is it that we have such unity of thought? What is the locus of the billions of chemical interactions coursing through our skulls? If these chemicals are constantly working, then why is it that we ever become unconscious? And how is it that we can be conscious of dreams, something that occurs while our bodies are unconscious? Why is it that chemistry alone has failed to solve the mental problems of millions of suffering people? If man has no soul to explain consciousness, consciousness becomes inexplicable.
Perhaps the most difficult problem for naturalists to solve is the existence of human freedom. Each one of us has the unique personal experience that we are fundamentally in control of our own lives. We may make decisions for good or ill, but they are our decisions— decisions that we have individually chosen and accepted. If the Naturalist Worldview is correct, then humans (and all of their component parts: limbs, organs, cells, atoms, etc.) are nothing more than a complicated collection of matter in motion, not unlike a massive chain of dominoes that operates upon the fundamental law of cause and effect. That is to say that the Universe itself is simply a closed system of cause and effect, and our various component parts are simply acting as dominoes in that closed system. Once the first one fell, nothing could impede the eventual fall of the last. If our bodies are all that exist, and we operate upon such laws, then humans are no more free than the atoms fusing at the core of the Sun.
Ultimately, the Naturalist Worldview holds no basis for criticizing or even objecting to the beliefs of Christians, because it holds no basis for concluding that the beliefs of the Christians have been produced by anything but naturalistic processes. The very processes they claim are solely responsible for the existence of the Universe are the very processes that brought about Christianity itself. How can one criticize that which naturally must occur? I may not like the fact that a rock is in my driveway, but I cannot say that it is immoral. Naturalism stands in exactly this predicament. Consequently, humanity has full autonomy to pursue spiritual claims without worry that one is not being scientifically honest.