I’ve read a couple of times recently the claim that Christianity supported the development of modern science with its view that the world is contingent. That is, that the universe could have been otherwise. This opens the way for empiricism to be a key part of studies of nature.
I am not in a position to judge this claim, but I am aware that Christianity did act in this way for some. For a long time the philosophy of Aristotle held sway and theories of the natural world had to fit with his principles rather than a primarily empirical view. These principles were from pure reason and were the assumed to be the only way the universe could be. For some (at least) Christianity helped break the spell of this by allowing the argument ‘God can make the universe however He likes’ in the face of the prevailing assumptions.
All that is by way of introduction. It struck me that some areas of physics, in particular String Theory, are heading back in an Aristotle-like direction. An apparent attraction of ST is that ‘there is only one’ theory and, hence, the world can be no other way based on (almost) pure reasoning. (Point of information: the existence of a unique ST is debatable.)
Similarly, we can think of Stephen Hawking’s suggestion in ‘A Brief History of Time’ that God may not have had much/any choice in creating the universe. Apart from anything else, this seems to me to involve a spectacular lack of imagination. For example, who is to say that the rationality embedded in our universe is the only possibility? Perhaps it is one small corner of the rationality of God? But, leaving that aside, this too seems to be heading towards Aristotle — “our rational deductions dictate that the world must be like X”.
For both these examples, perhaps there is a new need for people to assert that ‘God can make the universe however He likes’ and use this to look at new options. (Of course, we are in a slightly different situation for many reasons: God is less of an authority for scholarship than He was when the ideas of Aristotle held sway; and people are perhaps more inclined to look at alternatives today. But you get my drift, I hope.)
We can say something analogous, but slightly different, for Grand Unified Theories. A strong motivation for these is that the universe must have a single underlying coherence, expressed in a single theory. But what if God is the underlying coherence? Perhaps then it is not unreasonable that we have multiple interlocking theories, brought together by a single mind? (Of course, we may still have problems with the interlocking.) Consequently, the pressure for unification is reduced.
I’m worried that this sounds like religious inputs to science shutting down areas of research, which can be a very negative approach. (But may be more appropriate when ethics become an issue…) And more than that I don’t want to say that there is no GUT or that ST is untrue, or to imply that research in these areas is invalid. But maybe it is a place where religious commitment can lead to an opening up, as in the historical example above. With no philosophical need for unification and with no problems over contingency, maybe (just maybe) physicists with theistic beliefs have the motivation to look at new options. Perhaps?
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