科学已经取代了上帝

核心论证 Core Argument

「科学取代了上帝」这一说法犯了根本性的范畴错误（category mistake）。科学研究的是自然世界如何运作（how），而神学回答的是为什么存在而非不存在（why）。正如约翰·列诺克斯（John Lennox）所指出的：说科学解释了上帝就像说理解了内燃机的原理就证明亨利·福特不存在一样荒谬。科学解释了机制，但机制的存在本身需要一个更深层的解释。 历史事实是：现代科学恰恰诞生于基督教世界观之中。哥白尼、伽利略、开普勒、牛顿、法拉第、麦克斯韦、巴斯德——这些现代科学的奠基人都是虔诚的基督徒。他们研究自然的动力恰恰来自于对造物主的信仰：既然宇宙是由一位理性的上帝创造的，那么宇宙就应该是可以被理性认识的。阿尔弗雷德·怀特海（Alfred North Whitehead）在《科学与现代世界》中论证，正是中世纪基督教关于理性上帝创造有序宇宙的信念，为现代科学提供了思想土壤。 当代许多顶尖科学家仍然是有信仰的人。人类基因组计划领导者弗朗西斯·柯林斯（Francis Collins）在《上帝的语言》中讲述了他从无神论转向基督教的心路历程。牛津大学数学家约翰·列诺克斯在多次公开辩论中论证，科学和信仰不仅不矛盾，而且科学的可能性恰恰预设了一个有序的、可理解的宇宙——这恰恰是有神论的预期，而非无神论的预期。

'Science has replaced God' commits a fundamental category mistake. Science studies how the natural world works; theology answers why there is something rather than nothing. As John Lennox points out: saying science explains away God is like saying understanding the internal combustion engine proves Henry Ford never existed. Science explains mechanisms, but the existence of mechanisms itself requires a deeper explanation. Historically, modern science was born precisely within a Christian worldview. Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Pasteur—these founders of modern science were devout Christians. Their motivation to study nature came from faith in the Creator: since the universe was created by a rational God, it should be rationally comprehensible. Alfred North Whitehead argued in Science and the Modern World that medieval Christian belief in a rational God creating an ordered universe provided the intellectual soil for modern science. Many leading contemporary scientists remain people of faith. Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project, describes in The Language of God his journey from atheism to Christianity. Oxford mathematician John Lennox has argued in numerous public debates that science and faith are not only compatible, but science's very possibility presupposes an ordered, intelligible universe—precisely what theism predicts, not atheism.