What Scripture says
Scripture invites investigation:
- Paul tells believers to “test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV), the verse this site is named after.
- “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out” (Proverbs 25:2).
- “Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them” (Psalm 111:2).
- Creation reveals God (Psalm 19:1, Romans 1:20), which gives a reason to study it.
Biblical faith is not belief without evidence. It is trust in someone who has shown himself trustworthy. Luke writes after investigating carefully (Luke 1:1–4). John writes “so that you may believe” (John 20:31), based on what was seen, heard and touched (1 John 1:1). Paul appeals to living witnesses of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:6).
What the evidence says
History
Where the “warfare” story came from
The idea that science and Christianity have always been at war became popular in the late 1800s, through two books: John William Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). Both were written with an agenda and contained serious historical errors, including the myth that medieval Christians thought the earth was flat (see 2.1).
Historians of science today, religious and not, largely reject the warfare thesis. John Hedley Brooke, the leading historian of the subject, argues the relationship has been complex: sometimes conflict, often cooperation, mostly mixed.
Believers who built science
Many founders of modern science were devout Christians, and their faith often motivated their work:
- Johannes Kepler (laws of planetary motion) described science as “thinking God’s thoughts after him”.
- Robert Boyle (founder of modern chemistry) left money in his will for lectures defending Christianity.
- Isaac Newton (gravity, motion, calculus) wrote more on theology than physics, though his theology was unorthodox.
- Blaise Pascal (probability, pressure) wrote one of the great works of Christian thought, the Pensées.
- Michael Faraday (electromagnetism) was a lay preacher.
- James Clerk Maxwell (electromagnetic theory) was a committed Christian.
- Gregor Mendel (genetics) was an Augustinian friar.
- Georges Lemaître (Big Bang theory) was a Catholic priest.
Why did modern science arise in Christian Europe? Historians debate it, but many point to the belief that the world was created by a rational God, so it would follow orderly laws, and that it was not itself divine, so it could be studied rather than worshipped.
The Galileo affair
The Galileo affair (1610s–1633) is the most famous case of conflict. It was real: the Roman Inquisition condemned Galileo and he spent his last years under house arrest. But historians stress the details: church politics after the Reformation, Galileo’s combative style (he mocked the Pope in a book), and a scientific case that wasn’t yet complete (he couldn’t yet prove the earth moved). Galileo himself remained a believer and argued that Scripture and nature can’t truly conflict (see 2.2).
Today
Many leading scientists are Christians. Francis Collins led the Human Genome Project and later directed the US National Institutes of Health. Physicist John Polkinghorne became an Anglican priest. Surveys show scientists are less religious than the general public, but a significant minority believe in God.
Philosophy
Science works by assuming three things it can’t prove:
- Nature is orderly and follows consistent laws.
- Our minds can understand it.
- Discovering the truth is worthwhile.
Christian belief explains all three: an orderly God made an ordered world, made us in his image with minds that can grasp it, and calls truth good.
Alvin Plantinga argues that the real conflict is not between science and religion, but between science and naturalism, the view that nature is all there is. If our minds were shaped only by unguided evolution for survival, he argues, we have little reason to trust them to find deep truths about the universe.
It also helps to separate science from scientism, the claim that science is the only way to know anything. That claim isn’t itself a scientific finding, and can’t be tested by science. Questions about meaning, morality and God are real questions that science alone can’t settle.
Where they meet
Faith and science answer different but related questions. Science asks how nature works. Faith asks why there is a nature at all, and what it is for. A Christian can follow the evidence wherever it leads, because all truth is God’s truth.
What’s still open
- Specific disputes are real, especially around evolution and the age of the earth (2.3, 2.4). Christians hold different views on these.
- Some scientists do see faith as opposed to science. That is a philosophical view they hold, not a result science has produced.
- Historians still debate exactly how much Christianity contributed to the rise of modern science.
Bottom line
No, faith and science are not enemies. Many founders of modern science were believers, Scripture calls us to test things, and historians reject the “warfare” story. This is rated Settled. Specific disagreements exist, but they are about particular claims, not about faith and science as such.