Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age
Harrison, Peter. Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Pp. 488. $49.99.
Peter Harrison’s most recent work on the history of faith and natural philosophy is a masterful contribution to a growing body of literature that seeks to provide an accurate account of the historical relationship between Christianity and late modernism in the West. Harrison, Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy at the University of Queensland in Australia, is an internationally respected scholar of the history of religion and science. His book thoroughly documents the descent of scientific naturalism from its theistic antecedents, a lineage that was deliberately and successfully obscured by its later champions. This metanarrative of the late modern period is still assumed and promulgated today.
As an evangelical Christian who has spent over forty-five years steeped in methodological naturalism, with its attendant temptations, I find this book to be an invaluable and refreshing testimony to the faithfulness of God in graciously making his fallible people to be salt and light in their cultural milieu. I also find it helpful in evaluating the sources and validity of my own beliefs. This is not a book for the faint of heart. Harrison documents the history of naturalism in almost fractal detail, weaving his narrative in a recursive and scholarly style. Even though I found this method of argumentation engaging, it was challenging for this philosophical amateur.
The author defines naturalism, not surprisingly, as “the view that there are no supernatural entities or spiritual powers” (5). He notes that the practice of science requires a commitment to methodological naturalism, that is, the hypothesis that the physical process one is investigating can be explained physically, without recourse to the metaphysical or supernatural. He further explains that scientists often slide into a naïve metaphysical naturalism—a philosophical choice to believe that non-material entities do not, in fact, exist. This position is usually accompanied by the assumption that the success of scientific endeavors demonstrates or proves this belief to be correct. Recognition of this distinction is essential to evaluating naturalism as a philosophy, but Harrison does not return to it. His purpose here is not to argue directly against naturalism, but to show that its assumptions about its own history are incorrect, and, thus, its argument is weakened.
Harrison begins his story by recounting the essentials of David Hume’s argument against miracles, an argument that assumes definitions of key terms are invariant across eras and cultures—an assumption the author will show to be false. Second is a description of “Hume’s dilemma,” namely that if belief ought to be grounded in cumulative (empirical) testimony, as scientific conclusions are, what should we make of the cumulative historical testimony to the reality of miracles? Hume’s solution was to mount an ad hominem attack on the races and cultures from which that testimony comes—people and cultures that are “ignorant and barbarous”—which he imagined would seem like “some new world” to an enlightened European, a world in which natural laws were transfigured. Harrison avows that his intention is not to return attack for attack, but to ask whether present-day acceptance of naturalism might not be ignorantly founded upon incorrect or unethical assumptions.
The author structures his argument around four key terms—faith/belief, supernatural, religion, and laws of nature, and examines their origins and how their definitions have changed over time. He demonstrates that each term originated in a context of theism, but was modified over time and appropriated, with redefinition and altered application, by philosophical naturalists. Along the way we learn about key concepts (implicit faith, ethics of belief, the principle of sufficient reason, natural theology, and the natural/supernatural divide) that were accepted, rejected, or developed in conjunction with major historical and ecclesiastical events, including the European rediscovery of Aristotle and the Protestant Reformation.
Although it is neither possible nor advisable for me to recapitulate all his major points here, I will try to describe some of them, especially as I found them helpful:
Harrison traces the meaning of “faith” (Greek pistis) beginning with its primary sense in the New Testament era of trust in, an active principle that manifests itself in relational and other communal dimensions, with the reasonableness of faith in God being demonstrated by practicing it (cf. Romans 12:2). In the creedal era, doctrinal belief became more prominent. By the time of the Aristotelian synthesis in the High Middle Ages, the idea of implicit faith in ecclesiastical authorities that began as an accommodation for the uneducated masses in the early church that did not exclude individual doctrinal responsibility, evolved into a blind trust in the clergy that was thought to be salvific even if it consisted of participation in rites without cognitive apprehension of their meaning.
The Reformers’ rejection of the implicit faith of the medieval church along with its abuses was also, according to Harrison, the beginning of individual autonomy in the West, since the authority of the church was superseded by individual judgment over, and responsibility for, doctrinal matters. The fragmentation of the united Church also made it harder to rely on ecclesiastical authority. The term “religion,” which had referred to virtue or piety (cf. James 1:27), and later to monastic orders, became “religions,” discrete sets of beliefs and practices to which individuals subscribed.
Here, in my opinion, lies a deficit in Harrison’s account: not once in this section does he explain that Luther and his coreligionists replaced ecclesiastical authority not with mere individual judgment and conscience, but with the authority of Scripture as the standard by which doctrine ought to be judged. He does allude to sola Scriptura two or three times in the remainder of the text, but it is never emphasized.
By the time Renè Descartes and others in the early modern period began investigating the nature of the rational mind, “belief” had been transfigured almost completely by the philosophers to mean (cognitive) assent to propositions. Today we might use the expressions “belief in” and “belief that” to distinguish different points in this transition. Unproveable first principles were still considered derived from theology. Thus, for example, “laws of nature” were universally believed to be rooted in God’s providence, as was the human ability to reason. Because rational justification of faith was now required, the discipline of epistemology was developed to provide it, along with the principle of sufficient reason, and natural theology followed later. Late modern philosophers would declare that propositional belief was only ethical if it was supported by evidence that is mainly material, evidence which in the past might have been either material or rational.
By the late nineteenth century, the explanatory metanarrative of mature naturalism, whose chief proponent was T.H. Huxley—its myth—was complete. First principles were ignored (Hume had not explained the origin of laws of nature) and theological roots denied. The only acceptable evidence was material evidence, and the philosophical neutrality of naturally generated reason was assumed. Consistency in nature had become an argument in favor of naturalism rather than evidence of God’s superintending provision. Religion, defined as “belief in the (imaginary) supernatural,” (3) was a holdover from primitive, ignorant (non-European) cultures, and the only effect it had ever had on science was to impede it. Science, it was said (in keeping with the historical progressivism of the time), began to thrive when it threw off the strictures of religion and recovered the materialism of the Epicureans. Naturalism, it was claimed, would ride the wave of social Darwinism fueled by scientific advances, with a culture purified of religion and the supernatural as its apotheosis.
I found Harrison’s account of the transformation of “belief” edifying on two counts: first, that the New Testament view of pistis is essentially what I have been taught in my years in evangelical churches; and second, that this transition explains why we today struggle so much to “reconcile” the uses of the word by the apostles James and Paul, why our churches have had to contend with “easy believism,” and why local church membership may encompass the unconverted. Furthermore, I see in this work a demonstration of the importance of historical context for understanding Scripture, as study of the Ancient Near East can do for the Pentateuch (provided it is not combined with materialism, as happened in 19th century higher criticism).
The transition in the meaning of belief is related to another major difference between premodern and modern worldviews. In premodern society the world was viewed as a unitary whole, not divided into natural and supernatural realms. When God acted, whether visibly or invisibly, it was considered “natural” because he was acting according to his nature. Likewise, Thomas Aquinas considered belief to be a propensity of human nature, yet it was given by God’s grace. The term “supernatural” arose around the thirteenth century, to describe the agency of God in bestowing that grace. Thus, in the premodern world, “natural” and “supernatural” described agents working in concert rather than realms that are mutually exclusive. Modern naturalists also see the world as a unitary whole, in which the supernatural has no real part. Harrison explains that the division of natural from supernatural, which naturalists portray as an essential underpinning of science, actually derived from discussions among professing Christians when the historicity of Scripture was questioned as part of German higher criticism, and was appropriated by T.H. Huxley as part of naturalism’s mythology.
Having thoroughly demolished the idea that the development of Western science was hindered by Christian faith, Harrison mentions John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, the infamous purveyors of the ahistorical “war” between science and religion known as the “conflict thesis” (335). They are at least partly responsible for the false story that Columbus overthrew the alleged belief of the church in a flat earth, as well as distortions of the Galileo incident, among other libelous claims. Their books, laden though they are with anti-Catholic rhetoric and racist anthropology, are still referenced today by some proponents of naturalism. When the naturalist metanarrative crumbles under close examination, it turns out that the option of disbelief in the supernatural is not the universal ground state of rational humans throughout time but a posture specific to modern Western culture.
In his last chapter, Harrison proffers some hypotheses concerning what testimonies of supernatural events might imply about how perceptions of the world have changed. He briefly considers what the costs of our inculcated naturalism might be, as well as why the myths persist despite their rejection by serious historians of science. He also suggests that a posture of humility toward our forebears is more appropriate than one of arrogance.
Protestant readers should prepare themselves for the author’s placement of blame for naturalism in part on the Reformation, which is a significant theme in the book. Harrison explicitly acknowledges his sympathy with Brad Gregory’s Unintended Reformation[1], which propounds similar ideas. In my opinion, we should be open to the possibility that in our fallen world even salutary change may contribute to evil consequences, with or without the intention or consent of the original agents of that change. There are other occasions when Harrison seems to overstate his case based on one piece of evidence or another, but in general, those issues resolve when his larger context is considered.
Why It Matters
Some believers may find it disturbing that a Christian scientist would espouse any form of naturalism. But I do not see methodological naturalism as a violation of faith. Rather, it is an expression of the limitations of science, a form of epistemology that is restricted to explicating natural, physical properties of the world. This restriction cuts both ways: only physical explanations can be considered “scientific,” by definition; and science is incapable of drawing any conclusions about the supernatural (including its existence). Thus, metaphysical naturalism does not automatically follow methodological naturalism. Materialistic claims that it does are irrational. It also implies that believers who try to use science to directly demonstrate God’s agency are on a Quixotic errand; the only fruit that can possibly result is an absence of physical explanation, a God-of the-gaps argument that will always be answered by naturalists with further extension of the assumption that an as-yet-undiscovered material explanation exists (indeed that is all a scientist can say, and still be practicing science). This is not to say that no gaps exist; but it does say that science will never prove or disprove the existence of God. Faith, after all, is a gift, as God has said (Ephesians 2:8).
As previously stated, however, living in the naturalistic milieu does come with temptations to doubt the veracity of Christian belief. For me, therefore, a book like this immediately provokes the question of how it will help counter those doubts.
Harrison has undoubtedly succeeded in what he set out to do, namely, to expose the myths of scientific naturalism and secular culture. As he points out, however, this is fundamentally a linguistic approach to the question at hand, not a disproof of naturalism’s substantive claims (8). He denies that his argument is a form of “the genetic fallacy—assuming that revealing the origins of a form of thought will necessarily invalidate it” (346)—because he is asking whether naturalism can cohere when some of its elements are theological, albeit covertly. I take his point; for example, if laws of nature do not derive from a non-material source, they must be inherent in matter. Is there any evidence that they are? While quantum physics may someday explain how gravity works, can it also explain entropy? If the universe began at an identifiable time, from where did the original singularity come? Is matter eternal, and if so, how is it different in that way from God? Evolution can probably explain complexity, but where did order originate? Can sociobiology explain every form of abstract thought, from religious belief to consciousness? I think I’m safe in saying that the sometimes-desperate hypotheses advanced in attempting to answer questions of prior cause (multiverse theory, self-organizing matter, the RNA world) are either unsupported hand-waving or insufficient. If science cannot, in fact, provide first, or at least prior, causes, it becomes a matter of faith—in the material world, in human rationality, in the thoroughness and completeness of our knowledge, and in uniformity of nature—to believe that there is no reality external to the natural world.
If naturalism’s myths are false, and its advocates cannot account for first principles or causes, then why is naturalism still a temptation? Where does its power come from?
It is an easy matter for believers to use hypothesis or formal logic to assert what is possible, or even necessary, in the abstract. But in the lab, scientists are confronted with the everyday consistency of natural processes and the steady productivity of the experimental method, unperturbed by any who disparage its validity. I can think of at least three sources of emotional support for belief in naturalism: first, we see physical cause and effect play out before us constantly. Doesn’t consistency testify to reality? Second, science works (its present-day doubters notwithstanding). If it works, it must reflect reality (or truth). And third, with respect to historical claims, although the idea that science was always impeded by religion is false, it is still true that science would never have blossomed had it not rejected dependence on Scholastic and Aristotelian authorities, and replaced them with experiment, as Francis Bacon articulated so cogently.[2] As Harrison points out, the first two of these do not disprove the existence of the supernatural; nor does the third. But the first two are visible, day in and day out, and the third is consistent with the naturalist narrative. A fourth factor is the insistence by naturalists that religion only arose to explain and manage the mysteries of nature, and since science has successfully co-opted those roles, there remains no ‘need’ for God. The first assertion entails several unexamined premises, and is, I believe, falsifiable; and the implication that natural mechanisms can explain all phenomena is a leap of faith. In the end then, the temptations reflect emotional pressure rather than logical necessity. One choice indicates faith in what is reliable and visible, the other, faith in what is unseen, yet not without evidence.
Harrison explains that early modern thinkers propounded philosophical proofs for God’s existence not to defend Christian faith from atheism, but to show the necessary connection between rational philosophy (and the nascent scientific enterprise) and theology. Even though science cannot within its own framework prove the truth of Christian faith, evidence is still important for my own faith and for the broader Christian apologetic, as both Christ (John 14:11) and Paul (1 Corinthians 15:14) indicate. Most such evidence is either testimonial or posterior to faith, in keeping with Anselm’s dictum (“faith seeking understanding,” 47). This evidence includes the resurrection, the perfections of Christ and of Scripture, the coherence of goodness and the self-destructiveness of evil, the explanatory power of the narrative of the Fall, answers to prayer, and the moral transformation of the converted. There are similar evidences against naturalism, although none is a logical proof against it. These include the profession by many atheists of adherence to moral standards, without any basis for them in materialism; the self-deception and lying inherent in propagating a false history; and the selfishness and character formation of some public representatives, who seem every bit as arrogant and vicious as some professing Christians, and arguably more condescending.
I am grateful to Peter Harrison, then, for helping me think through some of the issues I face as a believing scientist, even when his points feel oblique to daily experience. With an improved understanding of the history and historical changes he describes, I plan to examine my own reasoning and convictions with respect to their origins and to the thinking of believers in the past. The result, I hope, will be more biblically faithful convictions and an increased ability to glorify God in my vocation.
Persistent Myth and Ongoing Controversy
Harrison briefly considers reasons for the acceptance and propagation of the myths he describes, in textbooks, the academy, and public venues today, given that historians have long since shown them to be distortions or falsehoods (and that, within science, conclusions are supposed to be based on objective consideration of unvarnished data). He suggests (373) that they are good David-and-Goliath stories (although today Goliath carries the sling) that make us feel superior to our forebears. They were concocted as reactions to or prophylactics against perceived threats to the acceptance of science and, as he notes, threats still exist today, in the form of climate change and vaccine deniers, young earth creationists, and conspiracy theorists. I will add that most of these agents are on the political right, in contrast to most scientists and professors, and many also are evangelicals. I can attest that the Galileo affair and the Inquisition are live issues in the minds of many scientists, and are duly cited, in their caricatured forms, when the subject of religion arises (for an excellent, and brief, commentary on the Galileo affair, see Tom Holland’s Dominion, 352-360, and for Huxley’s leveraging of it, 446)[3].
I learned of Some New World through another review, by Philip Ball, a scientist, writer, and former editor at Nature, the world’s premier journal of science.[4] Ball is refreshingly thoughtful and humble. He agrees with Harrison that the boilerplate story is a myth and focuses his commentary on why it persists. Nevertheless, he blindly falls back on the trope that “explaining the [physical] world” is the criterion by which a system of thought ought to be validated, and that religion is not ‘necessary’ for that. In my opinion he and others who see explanation of natural phenomena as the primary purpose of religious belief betray a profound ignorance, not only of the God of the Bible but, also, of the roles and functions of religious belief of any kind (notwithstanding the fact that such belief has been used at times to provide such an explanation). He also infers that belief in the supernatural is “in conflict with science” simply because science cannot access the supernatural, if it exists. I would not counter him if his concern was that believers would opt for a supernatural explanation rather than a known physical one or refused to search for physical explanations because of their faith. But the contention that belief in the supernatural necessarily generates conflict with science, or invalidates science, assumes that science proves metaphysical naturalism, and that metaphysical naturalism is correct.
Nevertheless, Ball goes on to point out errors made by naturalists in their zeal to avoid a non-physical telos and admits that science cannot discern an origin for laws of nature as well as pointing out that explanations like multiverse theory are unhelpful. His many good insights make his review well worth reading.
As a scientist who is also an evangelical believer, I find the ongoing friction between the evangelical and scientific communities deeply distressing, and partly avoidable. In private conversation, I often focus my frustration on my fellow believers, because I think we can and should do better in relating to science and its practitioners. I believe Christians should be honest—about science as well as Scripture. Many are instead willing to believe and say anything with respect to science if it seems to conflict with their hermeneutic or their politics. There is so much pride, anger, willful ignorance and foolish credulity among us, and I have experienced firsthand the damage it does to the kingdom and to our witness in the scientific community. There are ways we can reduce the conflict if we adopt Christlike humility, jettison our martyr complexes, and learn to love God with our minds, even if unbelieving scientists never change in their opposition to faith.
But in the context of this book, it is the sins of scientists I am contemplating. Their faults, as well as honest errors, are not imaginary on the part of Christians. Spokespersons for science often seem to be content to be arrogant actors who poke the fundamentalist bear, provoking the outrage of believers. Believers often respond by closing the circle of conflict or bearing out the prejudices of anti-religious scientists. Too often the scientific community chooses or tolerates spokesmen like Richard Dawkins or Jerry Coyne, militant atheists and metaphysical naturalists who loudly disparage any form of faith in the supernatural, perpetuate Huxley’s myths, and snidely disparage anyone who dares disagree with them—all despite the centuries-long history of accomplished scientists who were also believers. Such people, who are not always representative of the average scientist, would rather mock their opponents than win them over or acknowledge their dignity; much less will they listen to any challenges about evidence, interpretation, or philosophical validity for or of scientific claims. And then every few years the science community will ask “why doesn’t the public trust us?” Although Christians bear some blame for the conflict, the leadership of the scientific community should begin to answer its own question by looking in the mirror.
I will end this reflection where I began, by noting that Some New World is part of an encouraging trend among historians, some believers and some not, who are doing their best to dispel the conflict thesis, as it has affected our view of science and of Western culture generally. Some that have been helpful to me are, in order of publication: God and Nature (1986), edited by David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers[5]; The Soul of Science (1994), by Nancy Pearcy and Charles Thaxton[6]; Dominion (2019), by Tom Hollandiv, which I learned about from a recommendation by the late Tim Keller; and Bullies and Saints (2021) by John Dickson[7]. I found the first episode of the podcast series on Martin Luther by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook especially helpful in grasping the implicit faith of pre-Reformation Christians as well as key transitions discussed by Harrison[8]. In addition, the well-known book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994) by Mark Noll[9] has been very helpful to me in understanding the origins of American evangelical attitudes toward science and the value of the intellect. No doubt there are many others, but I commend these as worthy of your attention, along with Some New World and other works by Peter Harrison.
[1]Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2015).
[2] Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, in Francis Bacon: the Major Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 120-299.
[3] Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Basic Books, 2019).
[4] Philip Ball, Conversations on the Plurality of World-views: A Response to Peter Harrison’s Some New World, Marginalia Review of Books February 9, 2025), https://www.marginaliareviewofbooks.com/post/conversations-on-the-plurality-of-world-views-a-response-to-peter-harrison-s-some-new-world.
[5] David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds., God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1986).
[6] Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994).
[7] John Dickson, Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Reflective, 2021).
[8] Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, Luther: The Man Who Changed the World, The Rest is History, episode 433 (March 25, 2024), https://therestishistory.com/episodes/
[9] Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1994).
WILLIAM THIERFELDER
Associate Professor of Biology | Director, Edward P. Hammons Center for Scientific Studies
Union University