“One of the best books I have read in my entire life.” So said Ulrich Lehner, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and himself the author of twelve books. He was talking about Peter Harrison’s new book, Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age.
Harrison served as Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford, and his book is a thorough debunking of many false narratives about science, religion, and naturalism.
What is “naturalism”? Harrison describes naturalism by means of a quotation from Sean Carroll: “There is only one world, the natural world, exhibiting patterns of what we call the ‘law of nature’, and which is discoverable by the methods of the sciences and empirical investigations. There is no separable realm of the supernatural, spiritual, or divine; nor is there any teleology or transcendent purpose inherent in the nature of the universe or in human life.” Naturalism, argues Harrison, has its own foundational fairy tales, dubious historical narratives created in the nineteenth century. According to these narratives, atheistic naturalism has a long, distinguished history going back to the ancient Greek philosophers.
But, Harrison points out, Plato and Aristotle were not atheists but rather deeply religious. Stoics like Marcus Aurelius were materialists, but the Stoics nevertheless believed in a Divine Logos pervading the entire universe and guiding each human being. Ancient Greek Epicureans denied divine providence, but they did not deny the existence of the divine. For example, the Epicurean Lucretius wrote, “The nature of divinity must necessarily enjoy immortal life along with the greatest peace, far removed and separated from our affairs; for without any pain, without any danger, itself mighty by its own resources, needing us in nothing, it is neither moved by benefactions nor touched by anger.” This metaphysical claim from Lucretius sounds not like the atheism of Thomas Nagel but like the theism of Thomas Aquinas.
Harrison also argues that premodern Western cultures like the ancient Greeks (as well as non-Western cultures) simply did not sharply distinguish “natural” and “supernatural.” The distinction between naturalism and supernaturalism didn’t arise until the nineteenth century. Indeed, there was not even a category of “supernatural” until the thirteenth century, and Harrison argues its meaning in figures like Thomas Aquinas (itself a matter of great controversy) does not exactly track with the current meaning. So, it is a fiction that people have always believed in “supernaturalism” as opposed to “naturalism,” for such categories simply were not in the minds of human beings for most of human history. Harrison also notes that “the terms ‘atheist’ and ‘atheism’ did not even enter the English lexicon until the later decades of the sixteenth century, with a similar pattern of emergence in the other European languages.”
Although some people believe the myth that science and naturalism have always been allies against religion and faith, this is another fiction. Harrison writes, “The nineteenth century also witnessed attempts to reconstruct the history of science with a view to arguing for a long-standing alliance between naturalism and science. A more accurate portrayal of the relevant history shows, to the contrary, that ‘science’ had consistently been aligned with theistic assumptions about the regularities of nature.” In fact, many of the most prominent scientists in history, including Kepler, Descartes, Boyle, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, and Heisenberg, did not accept naturalism. “The fact that the imagined scientific heroes of Enlightenment had, for the most part, urged the complementarity of science and religion was either silently ignored or countered with a rewritten history.” The leaders of the scientific revolution attributed the regularity of the laws of nature to nature’s God.
Harrison also points out that Enlightenment figures did not simply reject religious narratives but rather extended common Protestant views. Protestants had argued against Catholic accounts of present-day miracles, and Enlightenment figures like Hume extended this argument also to apply to miracles in days long past. Harrison writes, “In a sense, naturalistic science is an ersatz theology, a disenchanting Protestantism pushed to the extreme.” In other words, “advocates of scientific naturalism simply helped themselves to the basic plot lines of Protestant histories.”
God’s will produced its effects in nature in a continued, regular, constant, and uniform manner which allowed scientific investigation to be possible.
Some New World also debunks the narrative that the scientific revolution rested on a rejection of religion. Harrison writes, “The common assumption of a scientific revolution premised on a break with the theological understandings of nature cherished by a medieval ‘age of faith’ is at best half-true. It is not that theological understandings were replaced by secular ones. Rather, a different set of theological understandings came to the fore.” God’s will produced its effects in nature in a continued, regular, constant, and uniform manner which allowed scientific investigation to be possible.
Harrison’s Some New World might be likened in some ways to Tom Holland’s fantastic book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. In Dominion, Holland argues that key concepts central to contemporary life—the care due to victims, the equality of women, and the centrality of love—were conceived, born, and grew in Christian thought. In Some New World, Harrison argues that the theory of science relies on secularized theological concepts such as “laws of nature.” Both Harrison and Holland note how Christian beliefs continue to inform those who style themselves as post-Christian. Like fish not knowing they are in water, we can be blind to the pervasive Christian beliefs of our culture.
We may also be tempted to believe the myths of modernity about the origins of science and its incompatibility with religious belief. As Harrison put it, “These narratives have the hallmarks of all good stories—heroes and villains, courageous individuals willing to stand up to repressive authorities, and a general plotline of the victory of reason over ignorance. These modern fables also have the advantage of reassuring us of our intellectual superiority.” But however comforting to our complacency and however appealing to our supposed intellectual superiority, myths are myths.