How the Naturalistic and Biblical Worldviews Affect How We Do Science

The naturalistic paradigm rules out all supernatural explanations and leads to a particular type of science now widely considered the only possible approach. However, this limitation imposed upon science is shown to be invalid by the fact that modern science was developed primarily by theists working within a Biblical worldview and that it functioned well in that context. This article compares the practice of science based on naturalistic (and atheistic) presuppositions with that of science developed from a Biblical worldview, a comparison that includes a consideration of the presuppositions, objectives, methodology, results and implications of these two approaches. Historical examples and current trends illustrate the differences between these ways of doing science, and allow us not only to distinguish between naturalistic and Biblically based science, but also to evaluate the past successes, current potential, and probable future performance of these approaches