What Can Theology Say to Science About Climate Change

Description

Back in the Middle Ages, when the Christian worldview dominated the intellectual world of the West, theology was deemed the “queen of the sciences,” with philosophy its “handmaid,” and the various natural sciences (geology, biology, etc.) grew out of theology and philosophy. That launched the greatest strides in human understanding and use of the world in all history—strides that continue today.

But one branch of the 18^th-century “Enlightenment” led many scientists to reject that intellectual structure, and today most scientists—even many Christians—think theology and science operate in air-tight compartments. That view now dominates almost all Western education, and it is dangerously destructive of reason and faith alike.

In What Can Theology Say to Science about Climate Change? Dr. E. Calvin Beisner corrects that error.

He demonstrates that the natural sciences not only grew out of the Christian worldview historically but also depend on it and are sliding into irrationalism as they depart increasingly from it.

Having done that, he discusses four important contributions attention to the Christian theological roots of natural sciencecan make to scientific explorations of manmade global warming, aka climate change:

• The recognition that computer climate models are not evidence of anything, including the impact of “greenhouse gases” on global warming.
• The importance of restoring logic to public discussion of climate change, as opposed to the widespread fallacies employed by climate alarmists (and sometimes climate skeptics).
• The danger of “resacralizing nature,” which leads toward pantheism and away from the Biblical doctrine of godly dominion that has delivered humanity from nearly universal poverty, disease, and short lives.
• The undermining of science itself by the turn toward mysticism and “post-normal science” among many advocates of climate alarmism, including Al Gore. (“If real scientists don’t rise up and point out that this emperor—‘post-normal science’—has no clothes,” Beisner writes, “the whole scientific enterprise will die. And the world will be a much poorer place for its demise.”)

He concludes with the fascinating story of how meditating on Genesis 1:31 (“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”) led Cornwall Alliance Senior Fellow and world-renowned climate scientist to devise an experiment that helped explain why climate models grossly exaggerate the warming effect of human CO2 emissions—and hence the risks associated with it. This was a great example of the right way for theology and science to interface.

This booklet can help you to understand not only why the cases for climate alarmism and radical environmentalism are so weak but also why the Christian worldview and theology are the only sound basis for science.