In 2007, I was contacted by a journalist with Chemical and Engineering News. She was writing an article on homeschooling and asked me several questions about my chemistry course. At one point, she asked me why I include all that “religion stuff” in it. I told her that it is very difficult to teach any subject seriously without referring to its source. Imagine teaching a course on United States law without mentioning the Constitution. You might be able to do it, but it wouldn’t be a good course. Since God is the source of nature, He should be included in every science course. The journalist didn’t like that answer, but the interview moved on. Nevertheless, I have thought about her question over the years and have come up with three more reasons.
First, Christianity produced science in its current form. Robert Grossteste, the Bishop of Lincoln in the 13th century, wrote very convincingly that philosophy on its own is not reliable, because it requires human thought, which is clouded with sin. He suggested that in order to understand truth, a person needs something that turns his mind back to God. He suggested that examining nature would help, since we do that mainly with the sense of sight, which uses light. Light was the very first thing that God created, so according to Grossteste, it is the closest thing in nature to God.
Roger Bacon, a Franciscan friar who was strongly influenced by Grossteste, wrote a book (Opus Majus) in which he fleshed out how this should work. In a section entitled “Experimental Science,” he said that any attempt at explaining nature needs to be tested through experiment. If the explanation passes the experimental test, it is worth considering more. If not, it needs to be discarded. This, of course, is the modern scientific method, and we owe it to a Franciscan friar who was trying to turn philosophers’ minds away from sin so that they could learn the truth. Since the scientific method is a result of Christianity, it should be taught in that framework.
Second, science makes the most sense in the Christian worldview. In the secular scientific literature, for example, there is a lot of talk about the “mystery” of why mathematics is so useful in science. In that mindset, humans invented math. Why would a human invention work so well at describing nature? What secular scientists don’t understand is that humans didn’t invent math; we merely discovered it. It is the language in which God wrote His creation. Galileo said it best nearly 400 years ago: “[The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language…”
As another example, consider the particle/wave duality of light. According to our current scientific understanding, light is both a particle and a wave at the same time. Particles and waves are completely different, but light exists as both simultaneously. Most students (and many scientists) find this hard to believe, since it makes no sense. However, a colleague once patiently explained to me that Christians should easily understand it. After all, God made light, and God is three different things at the same time. Why wouldn’t His creation at least partially reflect His nature? Since I learned that illustration, I have taught particle/wave duality to my students that way, and they understand it better.
Finally, students learn science best in a Christian worldview. Students who have been taught science from a Christian worldview are my best chemistry and physics students at university. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s because science curriculum from a Christian worldview must necessarily argue with much of what is considered “mainstream” science. That kind of argumentation, which is absent from a secular science curriculum, forces students to learn science better.
This isn’t just my opinion. Studies show that when students are taught science in the context of arguments, they learn it better. The very act of critically examining any scientific view allows you to think more deeply about what it means. Dr. Jonathan Osborne, who analyzed many of those studies, puts it this way: “Critique is not, therefore, some peripheral feature of science, but rather it is core to its practice, and without argument and evaluation, the construction of reliable knowledge would be impossible…Science education, in contrast, is notable for the absence of argument.”
Because of my original answer to that journalist’s question, as well as the three subsequent reasons I just gave, Christianity is a necessary part of any serious science education.