Tag: Religious Roots of Science

Was Christianity the Soil from Which Science Grew?

📘 About This Series

This post is part of a daily response series to The Problem of God: Answering a Skeptic’s Challenges to Christianity by Mark Clark. The series critically engages with each chapter and section of the book, examining Clark’s arguments through the lens of reason, historical evidence, and The God Question’s core philosophy: what’s true doesn’t fear investigation.

Today’s post responds to content found in pages 28–30 of the book — the section titled “The Garden of Christianity.”

If you’re just joining us, you can view all prior entries in this series here: godordelusion.com\thegodquestion

🌱 Was Christianity the Soil from Which Science Grew?

Examining Mark Clark’s claims about religion and the roots of modern science

In The Problem of God, Mark Clark continues his case that Christianity is not only compatible with science — it was the fertile ground from which science itself grew. In the section titled The Garden of Christianity, Clark argues that the Christian worldview laid the necessary philosophical groundwork for the development of modern science, while other religions and worldviews (animism, Buddhism, polytheism, Judaism, Islam) failed to do so.

Clark’s central claim is this:

“Christian theology was the garden out of which modern science grew… No other worldview, philosophy, or religion of the ancient world offered the unique perspective Christianity did.”

But does this hold up under scrutiny? Let’s take it one root system at a time.

🧱 Clark’s Key Assertions

1. Christianity provided a worldview that made science possible:

  • Nature is not divine (unlike animism or polytheism), so it can be studied.
  • The universe is orderly, rational, and governed by laws.
  • Human beings are made in God’s image and capable of rational thought.

2. Other worldviews actively discouraged science:

  • Animism deifies nature and discourages investigation.
  • Buddhism treats the world as illusion, making inquiry pointless.
  • Polytheism attributes natural events to capricious gods.
  • Judaism and Islam, Clark says, emphasize legal interpretation rather than scientific exploration.

3. Modern science emerged from the biblical mandate to “take dominion over nature.”

🔍 Let’s Break This Down

✅ What Clark Gets Right

  • It’s true that many early scientists were Christians, and that some were inspired by theological ideas like order, design, and rationality.
  • It’s also true that many pre-modern worldviews didn’t prioritize empirical investigation as we know it today.

But the conclusion that Christianity was uniquely necessary for modern science is far more ideological than historical.

🚨 Problem 1: Science Advanced When It Broke Free from Theological Control

The Scientific Revolution didn’t happen because everyone followed the Bible. It happened when intellectuals began questioning dogmatic interpretations of nature, rejecting biblical literalism, and relying on experimentation and evidence rather than authority.

Yes, many scientists were Christians — but science grew by separating itself from theology, not by obeying it.

🚨 Problem 2: Non-Christian Cultures Also Pioneered Scientific Thought

Clark ignores or downplays massive scientific contributions from:

  • Islamic civilization (algebra, optics, medicine, astronomy)
  • India (zero, early atomic theory, surgery)
  • China (magnetism, seismology, paper, printing, gunpowder)
  • Greece (geometry, natural philosophy)

These civilizations didn’t lack “the philosophical framework necessary for science” — they lacked the geopolitical and economic conditions that allowed science to institutionalize the way it did in Enlightenment Europe.

Science is not a Christian invention. It’s a human endeavor.

🚨 Problem 3: Clark’s Treatment of Other Religions is Shallow and Dismissive

Saying things like:

“Buddhism sees the universe as illusion, so science is pointless,” or “Polytheists just blamed Poseidon for ocean bubbles”

…isn’t careful scholarship. It’s caricature.

Religions and philosophies are internally diverse and evolve over time. Many Buddhist schools, for instance, have engaged seriously with psychology, consciousness, and physics. Islamic thinkers advanced optics and astronomy. Clark paints with a very broad, very self-serving brush.

🚨 Problem 4: His 10-Point “Christian Science Framework” Is Cherry-Picked

Clark lists 10 ideas from Kenneth Samples that supposedly made science possible — things like “the universe is intelligible,” “God encourages exploration,” and “human beings can discover truth.”

But none of these are uniquely Christian.

  • Greeks believed in rational order.
  • Muslims developed math and astronomy in service of religious duties.
  • Confucian thought emphasized harmony, pattern, and intelligibility.

What was uniquely Christian was this: the Church’s control over education in the West for centuries. That explains why science emerged in a Christian context — not because Christianity was necessary, but because it was omnipresent.

🔚 Final Thought: Science Isn’t a Product of Faith — It’s a Product of Freedom

Clark wants to argue that Christianity deserves credit for the rise of modern science. But the historical record shows something more complex — and less flattering.

Science flourished when thinkers were free to question, free to test, and free to follow evidence wherever it led — even when it contradicted religious assumptions.

So yes, Christianity played a role in shaping the context. But to say it caused science, or that it was the only worldview capable of doing so, is not a historical argument.

It’s an apologetic one.