Christian beliefs fueled some big scientific breakthroughs
One more reason the myth of incompatibility is stupid and easily disproven
I’m feeling spicy about this one, friends. One of the most persistent—and stupid—myths of our age is the notion that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible. This idea, which I’ve addressed extensively over the years, remains a cultural assumption so pervasive that many accept it without questioning its origins. I’m not only going to show this myth is false, but highlight how specific Christian beliefs actually drove some of the most transformative scientific breakthroughs in the history of modern science.
The notion that science and Christianity are inherently at odds is a persistent myth, one that seems to linger in the cultural ether. Once loudly proclaimed by New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, this idea has lost much of its original fervor, as these figures have faded from prominence. Yet their influence endures. Hitchens famously claimed, “…the attitude of religion to science…is always necessarily problematic and very often necessarily hostile,” insisting that “religion poisons everything.” Harris reinforced this view, asserting, “The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum. The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma; the maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science.” These ideas have seeped into mainstream thought, shaping the perspectives of countless people, many of whom may not even be aware of the source.
This narrative has had far-reaching consequences, not only for non-believers but also for Christians. Some abandoned their faith, while others rejected modern science. Still others embraced science but confined it to a separate sphere from religion (“Science tells you how the heavens go; religion tells you how to go to heaven.”). This artificial divide obscures the profound, mutually supportive relationship between reason and Christian faith that has shaped the modern world.
In truth, modern science owes its origins to Christianity—a fact that dismantles the New Atheist narrative. This article will first explore the historical synergy between Christianity and science, showing how Christian principles provided the foundation for modern science. Then, we’ll delve into the lives of three remarkable scientists—Johannes Kepler, Michael Faraday, and James Prescott Joule—whose Christian beliefs directly fueled their groundbreaking discoveries in physics. These are not just stories of Christian faith fostering virtues like diligence or humility, though such qualities are important. They are stories of Christian convictions driving scientific breakthroughs. Why does this matter? As Sam Harris aptly put it, “…either a person has good reasons for what he believes, or he does not. When a person has good reasons, his beliefs contribute to our growing understanding of the world.” Challenge accepted, Sam.
Part 1: The Christian origins of modern science
The idea that science and religion are inherently opposed gained traction in the 19th century with figures like Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s “bulldog,” who claimed science triumphs over “extinguished theologians” like strangled snakes beside Hercules’ cradle. In the 21st century, New Atheists amplified this, portraying religion as a barrier to progress. Yet, as historian Edward Grant observes, “Modern science [indisputably] arose in seventeenth century Europe and nowhere else.” If Christianity is a “science-defeater,” how could this be, when 17th-century Europe was the heart of the Christian world?
When I point this out to critics, I often get weak rebuttals, like “Science arose in spite of Christianity,” or “Scientists were Christian in name only.” But these claims crumble under scrutiny. Sociologist Rodney Stark analyzed the beliefs of 52 key figures of the Scientific Revolution, and found that 50 were Christian—a staggering 96%—with 60% being devoutly so. Far from being nominal, these scientists saw their work as an extension of their faith, a point illustrated by the three exemplars we’ll discuss later.
To grasp why science emerged in Christian Europe, we must first define science. Is it just a collection of facts? French mathematician Henri Poincaré wrote, “Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones. But science is no more an accumulation of facts than a heap of stones is a house.” Science is not merely a collection of facts or explanations but a system of knowledge held together by a particular worldview—a philosophy of science. Its core elements include:
The search for truth about the natural world.
Adherence to the scientific method.
Following all available evidence.
Faith—yes, faith—in natural laws.
This last point is crucial. Never, ever, ever let anyone tell you faith has no place in science. Science requires trust that the universe operates according to consistent, discoverable laws, a trust rooted in a specific theological framework. To understand why only Christian Europe provided the conditions for modern science, let’s trace the historical context.
A brief history of science
Humans have been on an upward intellectual and technological trajectory since prehistoric humans built the first tools and traced celestial events on cave walls thousands of years ago. Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians calculated astronomical patterns and built marvels like the pyramids. In the 7th century B.C., Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus proposed naturalistic explanations, earning the title “father of science.” Pythagoras advanced mathematics, Plato and Aristotle established inductive and deductive logic, and Aristarchus proposed a heliocentric universe. Other cultures also excelled: Babylonians invented trigonometry and cartography; Romans engineered aqueducts and concrete; the Chinese developed paper, the compass, and gunpowder; and during the Islamic Golden Age, Arabs advanced algebra, medicine, and astronomy. History is cram-packed with advanced civilizations asking the great questions about life and building technological wonders. Yet none of these brilliant societies invented modern science. Why?
The answer lies in their philosophical worldviews. The Greeks viewed the material world as crude and they disdained manual labor. This precluded experimentation, a cornerstone of modern science. They also separated mathematics from physical reality, and held a cyclical view of time, hindering science as a predictive endeavor. Aristotle’s untested claim that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects persisted for centuries because to the Greeks, reason trumped experiment. Pantheistic or animistic cultures saw nature as an illusion or sacred, filled with capricious gods, all of which discouraged systematic study. Science requires a specific set of ideals and assumptions about nature, which these cultures lacked in totality. To paraphrase Pearcey and Thaxton in The Soul of Science, you have to believe in the possibility of science before you can have science.
Christianity provided the missing pieces. From the Middle Ages to the 17th century, Christian Europe laid the groundwork for the Scientific Revolution. Some of you might be wondering, “What about the Dark Ages?” The concept of a dark, repressive era in the Middle Ages of European history is mostly a fiction. It was invented by a 14th-century Italian scholar named Petrarch who, bitter about the fall of Rome, blamed Christianity. The myth was amplified by Enlightenment figures like Voltaire and Rousseau, who claimed that the defeat of Church oppression led to the Renaissance and Enlightenment. But in reality, the Middle Ages were far from a period of backwardness— they were a time of vibrant intellectual growth.
Atheist historian Tim O’Neill credits much of this revised understanding of the Middle Ages to French physicist Pierre Duhem, who uncovered references to medieval scholars in the works of giants like Newton, Bernoulli, and Galileo. Reading these texts, Duhem realized the “Dark Ages” as a scientific wasteland was pure fiction. These scholars were busy laying the groundwork for future discoveries.
The Middle Ages produced some remarkable advancements. Universities in Paris, Bologna, and Oxford emerged as hubs of learning, often under Church patronage. Proto-scientific ideas took shape, with scholars like Albertus Magnus exploring natural phenomena. The rule of law gained traction, Church reforms addressed corruption, and cultural life thrived with Gothic cathedrals, Chaucer’s tales, and the birth of polyphonic music. Monastic scribes preserved Greek texts, ensuring Aristotle and Euclid survived for future generations. This time period also saw the birth of tourism, as pilgrimages to holy sites, such as Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela, drew thousands of Christians seeking spiritual fulfillment
The printing press, invented in the 15th century, was pivotal for the rise of modern science. The first book it mass-produced was the Bible, which, when coupled with the Protestant Reformation, led to a seismic shift with widespread literacy. Luther’s emphasis on a direct relationship with God required individuals to read the Bible themselves, necessitating translations into vernacular languages. This transformed literacy from a privilege of the wealthy and priestly to a norm for ordinary people. By the mid-17th century, coffeehouses in London sprang up as “penny universities,” where everyday people, who now had access to the accumulated wisdom of mankind, could debate and even publish scientific works.
Why didn’t other advanced societies—Greeks, Babylonians, Romans, Chinese, Arabs—invent modern science? It certainly wasn’t for lack of intelligence or technology. But their worldviews lacked the complete set of ideals that Christianity provided:
Nature is real: Unlike pantheistic illusions, God created a distinct, studyable world.
Nature is good: Unlike Greek disdain for the material, Christians see creation as good, with dignity in labor, exemplified by Jesus the carpenter.
Nature is a creation: Not divine, open to investigation, unlike pagan sacredness.
Nature is ordered: God’s trustworthy laws ensure dependability, unlike capricious pagan gods.
Nature is precise: God’s exact craftsmanship encourages precise measurements.
Nature is knowable: Human minds, made in God’s image, can understand creation, as physicist Werner Heisenberg noted: “[The world] can be understood by Man, because Man was created as the spiritual image of God.”
Nature must be tested: Voluntarism, emphasizing God’s freedom, spurred experimentation, unlike Aristotle’s reliance on reason alone.
Nature glorifies God: Studying nature is worship, as Newton biographer Mitch Stokes observed, for the 17th-century scientist, “To be constantly engaged in studying and probing into God’s actions was true worship.”
Time is linear: Augustine’s biblical insight that time is linear and finite—marked by non-repeating events like God’s creation of the universe, Jesus’ life, and the end times—supports predictive science, unlike cyclical pagan views.
These ideals, unique in their totality to Christianity, combined with Greek logic and mathematics to ignite the Scientific Revolution. Plato’s mysticism, emphasizing ideal Forms and mathematics, and Aristotle’s realism, promoting empiricism and logic, were incorporated into Christianity through Neoplatonism (via Augustine) and Scholasticism (via Thomas Aquinas). Tensions, like Galileo’s conflict with the Church over Aristotle’s geocentric model, far from hindering science, actually drove progress, as crises often do. The interplay of Greek philosophy and Christian theology was the catalyst for modern science, emerging in 17th-century Europe and nowhere else.
Part 2: Faith in Science, Science in Faith
Some critics concede at this point that Christianity gave rise to modern science but insist that faith should remain separate. They envision science as a cold, passionless pursuit embodied by the stoic scientist in a lab coat, devoid of emotion or metaphysical belief.
Christopher Hitchens articulated this view, stating, “Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason.” Evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould, who seemed less outright hostile to religion than Hitchens, came up with the concessionary concept of NOMA—non-overlapping magisteria—to keep science and religion in their respective lanes.
But the domains of science and Christianity do overlap. Science assumes the world is real, our senses are reliable, our capacity to reason is reliable, and that the natural laws are constant. We can’t prove any of this is true, and there are different religions that reject or preclude some of these assumptions. They’re a form of faith that was originally rooted in Christian ideals and assumptions about a rational, law-giving God who created a real world fit to be studied by its inhabitants. But there’s more to science than that. As physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi noted, science relies on “hard, crude methods”—but it also needs metaphysical leaps, and these have sometimes been provided by Christian ideas about God.
Let’s take a look at three outstanding scientists whose specific Christian beliefs about God directly informed their revolutionary discoveries in physics. These men were motivated by faith to work diligently, honestly, and humbly, virtues that should inspire everyone, especially those in the sciences. But their significance goes beyond their work ethic. Their specific beliefs about God shaped their scientific breakthroughs. What follows is physics-o-centric, because that’s my field of interest, but it holds universal relevance for understanding the faith-science nexus.
These examples reflect my ministry’s motto: faith in science; science in faith. “Faith in science” means trusting that science is a way to honor and know God, but it also means faith informing science, at times driving its discoveries. These stories reveal how, contrary to New Atheist assertions, Christian theology has propelled scientific progress. Ironically, we can rely on Sam Harris’s own words to gauge whether these scientists held valid beliefs: “…either a person has good reasons for what he believes, or he does not. When a person has good reasons, his beliefs contribute to our growing understanding of the world.” These scientists had good reasons, rooted in their faith, and their work transformed our world.
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) – God’s precision and planetary motion
The first scientist is Johannes Kepler, a pious Christian whose faith in God’s precision revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos. Born on December 27, 1571, in Weil der Stadt, Germany, Kepler grew up in a turbulent world marked by religious and political strife. His dysfunctional family—his mercenary father abandoned them, and his mother was later accused of witchcraft—compounded his difficulties. Frail from childhood, with smallpox scars and poor eyesight, Kepler’s physical limitations contrasted with his intellectual power. A scholarship to the University of Tübingen introduced him to mathematics and astronomy, where he embraced Copernicus’s heliocentric model, a radical departure from the long-held Aristotelian Earth-centered view.
Kepler dreamed of becoming a Lutheran theologian, seeing theology as the ultimate path to know God. However, a theological disagreement over the Eucharist—specifically, his reluctance to fully endorse the Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity—barred him from the clergy. His fallback was astronomy, which he pursued as a divine calling to uncover God’s rational order in the heavens. His life was marked by hardship: his first wife, Barbara, and several of their children died, and he faced religious persecution during the Thirty Years’ War, forcing him to flee multiple times. Yet his faith remained unshaken, sustaining him through grief and exile.
Kepler’s Christian beliefs were central to his work. A devout Lutheran, he believed in God’s infinite wisdom and precision in creation. He wrote, “The wisdom of the Lord is infinite as are also His glory and His power. Ye heavens, sing His praises; sun, moon, and planets, glorify Him in your ineffable language! Praise Him, celestial harmonies, and all ye who can comprehend them! And thou, my soul, praise thy Creator! It is by Him and in Him that all exist.” He saw astronomy as a way to discover God’s mathematical harmony, declaring, “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.” His conviction that God’s creation was exact is what drove his scientific rigor.
In 1600, Kepler created an unlikely alliance with Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer renowned for precise observations of the positions of planets in the sky. These two men could not possibly have been more opposite. Where Kepler was reserved and introspective, Tycho was flamboyant and gregarious. The relationship was forged by mutual need—Kepler needed Tycho’s ultra-precise planetary data and Tycho needed Kepler’s mathematical prowess. Tycho’s data, accurate to within a tiny fraction of a degree, revealed minute discrepancies between the predicted and observed positions of Mars in Copernicus’s heliocentric model. The problem? Copernicus’ model assumed circular orbits, a relic from Greek idealism about circles as divine shapes. Most scientists would have dismissed these small discrepancies as negligible, but Kepler’s faith in God’s precision wouldn’t allow him to ignore them. He believed the heavens reflected God’s exact craftsmanship, not an approximation.
For nearly a decade, Kepler labored, testing thousands of calculations by hand. His faith-driven persistence led to a radical epiphany: planetary orbits were not circular, elliptical, with the Sun at one focus. God’s perfection was not reflected in the use of perfect circles for orbits, but the mathematical precision with which he crafted the universe. This insight produced Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion, published between 1609 and 1619:
First Law: Planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus, challenging the Greek obsession with circles.
Second Law: A line from a planet to the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times, meaning planets speed up when closer to the Sun.
Third Law: The square of a planet’s orbital period is proportional to the cube of its average distance from the Sun (P² = a³).
These laws turbo-boosted the overturning of Aristotelian cosmology and Greek dogma that was already underway. By grounding his theories in precise data and mathematical rigor, Kepler helped dismantle centuries-old assumptions about the cosmos. He saw this work as both a consolation and a form of worship: “If there is anything that can bind the heavenly mind of man to this dreary exile of our earthly home and can reconcile us with our fate so that one can enjoy living, then it is verily the enjoyment of the mathematical sciences and astronomy.”
Kepler’s laws directly inspired Isaac Newton, another devout Christian, to formulate the law of universal gravitation in 1687, closing out the Scientific Revolution. Without Kepler’s belief in God’s precision, this leap very likely would have been delayed.
Michael Faraday (1791–1867) – God’s unity and electromagnetism
The second scientist is Michael Faraday, a humble genius whose faith-driven discoveries electrified the world. Born in 1791 to a poor London family, Faraday had minimal formal education, attending only basic schooling before being apprenticed as a bookbinder at age 14. Self-educated, he devoured scientific texts, particularly on chemistry and electricity. His tenacity landed him a job as a lab assistant to chemist Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution, where his intuitive genius for visualizing phenomena made him an exceptional experimentalist. Despite lacking advanced mathematics, Faraday’s insights were so profound that Albert Einstein kept his picture on his study wall.
Faraday faced class prejudice in Britain’s elitist scientific circles, where his working-class roots and lack of credentials were mocked. He and his wife, Sarah Barnard, endured personal losses: they had no children, a source of sorrow in a family-oriented era, and Sarah suffered chronic health issues, requiring Faraday’s care. His faith, rooted in the Sandemanian Church—a small Protestant sect emphasizing simplicity, humility, community, and direct faith—sustained him. When asked, toward the end of his life, what he thought his occupation in heaven might be, Faraday replied, “I shall be with Christ, and that is enough.”
The Sandemanian Church shaped Faraday’s worldview. Unlike mainstream denominations, it rejected hierarchical clergy and worldly honors, seeing the universe as God’s unified, orderly creation. Faraday believed electricity, magnetism, and other forces were interconnected expressions of a single divine force, reflecting God’s harmonious design.
In 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted showed that an electric current could deflect a magnetic needle, hinting at a link between electricity and magnetism. Faraday’s Sandemanian belief in the unity of God’s creation led him to hypothesize that electricity and magnetism were two aspects of a divine system. His faith fueled relentless experimentation. In 1821, he discovered electromagnetic rotation, where a current-carrying wire rotated around a magnet, laying the groundwork for electric motors. In 1831, after months of trial and error, he induced an electric current by moving a magnet through a coil of wire, proving magnetism could generate electricity. This discovery of electromagnetic induction became the basis for electric generators and transformers.
Faraday’s vision extended further. In the 1830s, he proposed “lines of force”—electromagnetic fields—that transmitted effects through space, unifying electricity, magnetism, and later light, through James Clerk Maxwell’s equations in the 1860s. Maxwell’s laws, second only to Einstein’s general relativity field equations in their elegance and beauty, owe their origin to Faraday’s theological insight.
Faraday’s discoveries gave rise to the field of electromagnetism, enabling technologies like motors, generators, and telecommunications, and eventually influencing Einstein’s relativity. His Sandemanian humility led him to decline a knighthood, quite remarkable considering the class prejudice he once faced. Faraday was later honored by having the unit of capacitance, the farad, named after him.
James Prescott Joule (1818–1889) – God’s sovereignty and thermodynamics
The final scientist is James Prescott Joule, whose faith in God’s sovereignty transformed our understanding of energy. Born in 1818 in Salford, England, into a wealthy brewing family, Joule was frail, limiting his formal education. Homeschooled and tutored by chemist John Dalton, he developed a passion for precise measurements, conducting experiments in a home laboratory. When his father, Benjamin, because ill, Joule postponed a full-time scientific career to manage the family brewery, taking on significant responsibilities from 1833 until the brewery was sold in 1854. Shy but brilliant, Joule married Amelia Grimes in 1847, and they had three children. Tragically, Amelia died in 1854, leaving Joule a single parent. Financial struggles followed as the brewery declined, yet his faith sustained him.
A devout Anglican, Joule believed God alone had the power to create or destroy, implying that energy, as God’s creation, must be conserved and transformed, not annihilated. He wrote, “It is evident that an acquaintance with natural laws means no less an acquaintance with the mind of God therein expressed. To engage in science, far from being contrary, is compatible with our seeking after God.” This conviction drove his study of heat, work, and energy as interconnected manifestations of God’s immutable laws.
In the 1830s, scientists debated whether heat was a substance (caloric theory) or a form of motion. Joule’s belief that only God could destroy led him to hypothesize that energy—whether heat, work, or motion—could neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed. This challenged the caloric theory, which treated heat as a destructible fluid.
Joule’s experiments were meticulous. In the 1840s, he designed a paddle-wheel apparatus, where falling weights turned a paddle in water, generating heat. By measuring the temperature rise, he calculated the mechanical equivalent of heat by 1845, showing that a specific amount of work (1 joule = 4.184 calories) produced one calorie of heat. This proved energy conservation, articulated as the first law of thermodynamics: the total energy of an isolated system is constant (ΔU = Q - W).
His faith in God’s unchanging laws fueled years of refining experiments, despite initial rejection. As a brewer’s son without a university degree, Joule faced skepticism from scientific elites. The Royal Society dismissed his early papers, but his Anglican diligence, seeing science as revealing divine truth, kept him going. Collaboration with William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) in the 1850s secured recognition, cementing the first law’s place in physics.
The first law unified mechanics, heat, and other energy forms, revolutionizing physics. It underpinned thermodynamics, improved steam engines, and inspired concepts like entropy. Joule’s work enabled modern energy systems—power plants, engines—and advanced our understanding of the universe’s energy balance. The unit of energy, the joule, honors his legacy.
A call to action
The lives and legacies of Kepler, Faraday, and Joule illustrate how faith-driven discoveries reshaped our understanding of the universe. Kepler, guided by his Lutheran belief in God’s perfection, formulated the laws of planetary motion, inspiring Newton’s law of universal gravitation. Faraday, rooted in his Sandemanian faith in God’s unified order, inspired electromagnetism, enabling technologies that power our world. Joule, driven by his Anglican conviction that only God has the power to destroy, established the first law of thermodynamics, revolutionizing physics and engineering.
These were not minor contributions but major breakthroughs that stand in stark contrast to Hitchens’ claim that “religion poisons everything.” Far from poisoning science, these faith-driven discoveries enriched it, providing foundational principles that underpin our modern world. Kepler’s contemporaries ignored small discrepancies; Faraday’s peers accepted fragmented force models; Joule’s rivals clung to outdated caloric theories. Without their specific Christian beliefs, these breakthroughs would likely have been significantly delayed, given the historical trajectory of scientific thought.
Sam Harris’s assertion that “the maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science” is not only wrong, but breathtakingly stupid. Was he unaware that 96% of the Scientific Revolution’s architects were Christian, most of them devoutly so? Was he oblivious to how Kepler, Faraday, and Joule’s convictions led to paradigm-shifting advances? Modern science is clearly rooted in Christian ideals and assumptions—nature’s reality, goodness, order, precision, and knowability. These assumptions, combined with Greek logic, made science possible in 17th-century Christian Europe and nowhere else.
Hitchens was equally mistaken when he claimed, “Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith.” The principles of science rest on trust in natural laws, a form of faith rooted in Christian theology. To paraphrase Heisenberg, we can understand the natural world because its Creator intended it. This trust enabled Kepler to seek God’s precision, Faraday to uncover God’s unity, and Joule to reveal God’s indestructible energy.
This history is a call to reject the false dichotomy between faith and science. Christians should embrace science as a way to know God’s mind. Non-Christians should reconsider the narrative that religion stifles progress. The history of science, from the Bible’s role in promoting literacy to the Scientific Revolution’s devout pioneers, shows Christianity as a scientific catalyst, not a barrier.
So, here’s your call to action: the next time someone claims that Christianity opposes science or poisons everything, share the stories of Kepler, Faraday, and Joule. Explain how their beliefs—in God’s precision, unity, and sovereignty—led to breakthroughs that shaped our world. Challenge them with this question: “How can that be possible if Christianity is at odds with science?” Invite them to explore the history of science, where faith and reason traverse nature hand in hand, revealing God’s glory in His creation. For Christians, embrace science as a blessing of your faith, a way to worship and know God.
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Note to would-be critics in the comments: If you don’t agree with my points and you want to talk about it, let’s chat. If you have questions, ask away. But there’s a good chance I’ve already addressed your questions and criticisms here—please read it before you engage.
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Excellent, amazing, and faith inspiring...very uplifting, thank you
You had me at “feeling spicy…”