This Book in PDF - Gary North

The Unnaturalness ofScientific Natural Law 15doctrine of a Creator God. They chronicle science's abandonment ofthe idea of natural law and the independent nature that natural lawwas once believed to govern. Yet Christians continue to appeal to along-dead version of Newtonian natural law, as if the physicists ofthe Copenhagen school sixty years ago had not blown away modernscience's faith in a universe totally governed by such law. That sucharguments impress untrained Christian laymen who maintain theirfaith in both God and popularized versions of Newton's worldview isnot surprising. That such apologetic arguments defending creationismhave not led modern scientists to embrace creationism or theChristian faith is even less surprising.Natural Law: A Dead Humanist FaithWhen Christians today speak of"natural law," they have in minda universe that can be observed by man, and that conforms to rigorousmathematical laws, from the far reaches ofthe galaxy to the boilingwater in the teakettle on the stove. Now, Christians do not reallybelieve in a universe totally governed by such laws. They believe inmiracles. These miracles are seen as miracles to the extent that theyviolate natural law. They also believe in human "free will" that is outsidethe mechanical cause-and-effect, clock-like predictability ofNewtonian natural law. Nevertheless, except where man is concerned,Christians believe that the universe is coherent, and thatGod's creation reflects His own orderly nature.Because most people have been influenced by this originally biblicalworldview, they also believe in a world that is coherent, yetwhich also allows freedom and responsibility for human beings. Thehigh school science textbooks of the public schools have not presentedthe case for twentieth-century quantum mechanics. The averageperson cannot grasp quantum mechanics. To this extent, theaverage person has been gracefully spared a personal confrontationwith the impersonal and irrational world ofmodern physical science.Textbooks, in order to find a market, present a Newtonian worldviewwhich physical scientists abandoned sometime between 1905and 1925. 7 Here is how PaulJohnson begins his history ofthe twentiethcentury, probably the finest one-volume history of our centurywritten so far:7. Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics (Garden City, New York:Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1985), ch. 2.