In many colleges and universities today, students often hear strong statements like “God is dead” or “Science has buried God”.
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In many colleges and universities today, students often hear strong statements like “God is dead” or “Science has buried God”. These slogans are repeated in classrooms, social media, and popular discussions as if they are proven facts. Such statements can make Christian students feel confused or even afraid, as though faith has been defeated by modern discovery. But much of this confusion happens because people do not clearly distinguish between science and scientism. The real question is not whether science has progressed—it clearly has—but whether scientific progress has made God unnecessary. That is a philosophical claim, not a scientific discovery.
Science, properly understood, is a method for studying the natural world. It depends on observation, experiments, measurement, and repeated testing. Science explains how things happen. It studies matter, energy, biology, chemistry, and the laws of nature. For example, when water boils in a kettle, science explains what is happening. Heat energy increases the movement of water molecules until they reach the boiling point and change into vapour. This explanation is accurate and important. It tells us the physical process. But now ask a different question: “Why is the kettle boiling?” Another answer might be, “Because Mr. John Lennox wants to make tea”. This answer does not talk about molecules or heat. It talks about intention and purpose. Both answers are true. The scientific explanation tells us how the water boils. The personal explanation tells us why it boils. They do not compete with each other—they answer different kinds of questions.
The same distinction appears in moral questions. If someone cuts his hand with a knife, science can explain what happens. It can describe how nerves send signals to the brain. It can explain why the person feels pain. But science cannot answer a deeper question: Why is it wrong to cut someone’s hand? Science can describe pain, but it cannot tell us whether causing pain is morally evil. The question of right and wrong is not a chemical question; it is a moral question. Science can scan the brain of a person who feels guilt and measure brain activity, but it cannot tell us whether stealing is wrong or whether justice is good. Moral obligation is not something you can weigh or measure like temperature. If humans are only matter in motion, it becomes difficult to explain why we are morally responsible. Matter itself has no moral values.
When people say “science has buried God,” they often assume that once science explains how something works, God is no longer needed. But that idea goes beyond science. It is not science speaking; it is philosophy speaking. This belief that science is the only true way to know anything is called scientism. Scientism says that only scientifically testable statements are meaningful or true. At first, this sounds impressive. But it has a serious problem. The statement “Only science gives us truth” is not itself a scientific statement. It cannot be tested in a laboratory. It cannot be measured or proven by experiment. Therefore, by its own rule, scientism would have to reject itself.
As philosopher J. P. Moreland points out, scientism collapses under its own claim because the central statement, “only scientifically testable statements are true,” cannot itself be tested scientifically. Moreland explains that scientism is not a discovery of science but a philosophical addition placed on top of science. It quietly shifts science from being a powerful investigative method into an all-encompassing worldview. In doing so, it dismisses areas such as ethics, logic, mathematics, and metaphysics as meaningless, even though science itself depends on them. Logical laws, mathematical truths, and the reliability of human reasoning are not scientific objects that can be placed under a microscope. They are assumed before science even begins. Therefore, if scientism were applied consistently, it would not strengthen science but erode the very intellectual foundations that make scientific inquiry possible.
Similarly, mathematician John Lennox explains that science studies the mechanisms inside the universe, but God, in Christian understanding, would not be a mechanism inside the universe. God would be the reason the universe exists at all. Discovering how a car engine works does not disprove the existence of the engineer. In the same way, discovering natural laws does not disprove the possibility of a Lawgiver. In fact, from a scientific point of view, we do not even know why the laws of physics exist in the first place. Science can describe these laws and use them in equations, but it cannot explain their ultimate origin or why they are orderly and consistent. The existence of stable and rational laws is something science presupposes; it does not create them.
The origin of life raises another deep question. Despite scientific research, the jump from non-living chemicals to the first living cell remains extremely complex. The information stored in DNA is not just chemistry; it functions like coded language. Chemist James Tour has emphasized how difficult it is to explain how such complex systems could arise without guidance. Recognising this difficulty is not rejecting science. It is simply admitting that some questions remain open. Consciousness and rational thinking create another challenge. Human beings reason, think logically, and search for truth. But chemical reactions themselves are neither true nor false—they just happen. If our thoughts are only the result of blind physical forces, why should we trust our reasoning? Science itself depends on reliable human thinking, yet scientism struggles to explain why human reasoning should be trustworthy if it is only accidental chemistry.
When people repeat slogans like “God is dead,” they are usually expressing philosophical naturalism, not scientific proof. Science as a method is neutral about God. It studies the natural world. It does not have the tools to test realities beyond nature. To say that science has disproved God is to step outside science and make a philosophical claim. For Christian students who feel pressure, this distinction is very important. You do not have to choose between loving science and believing in God. Modern science developed in cultures that believed in a rational Creator. Scientists expected the universe to be orderly and understandable because they believed it was created by a rational Mind.
The real conflict, then, is not between Christianity and science. It is between Christianity and scientism. Science can tell us how the kettle boils and how nerves transmit pain, but it cannot tell us why we should not harm others, why love is meaningful, why justice matters, or why there is something rather than nothing. To accept the limits of science is not to reject science; it is to respect it. Science is powerful and valuable, but it is not the only way to know truth. Reality is larger than what can be tested in a laboratory.
And this brings us back to our main question: Is scientism the same as science? The answer is clearly no. Science is a method for studying the natural world. Scientism is a philosophical belief that wrongly expands that method into a total explanation of reality. Science investigates how the universe works. Scientism claims that nothing beyond the universe is real. These are not the same thing.
When we understand this distinction clearly, confident slogans lose their power. Science has not buried God; scientism merely claims that it has. But that claim is not a scientific conclusion — it is a philosophical assumption. Rather than eliminating God, science continues to explore a universe that may itself point beyond matter to meaning, purpose, and possibly to God.
Liba Hopeson