Introduction
Like other religious worldviews, certain distinctive features may characterize the Christian worldview. First, a belief in the existence of God as a universal creator is its starting point. As a worldview offers the understanding of life processes consistent with reality, the Christian establishes the rule of God and His glory over all people, their lives, and activities. Worshiping the Lord and trusting His will is regarded as any Christian person’s primary objective. Moreover, the Christian worldview forms people’s attitudes toward knowledge and perception. Therefore, for religious individuals, God is in all-natural and universal processes, and achieving truth is possible only through strong and indisputable faith.
At the same time, the development of natural sciences and other disciplines, including philosophy, led to other worldviews that articulate different approaches to knowledge, the world, and reality. This essay aims to compare radical skepticism and scientism with the Christian worldview. It aims to demonstrate how these positions confront each other and that radical skepticism and scientism cannot coexist with the Christian worldview.
Radical Skepticism
Radical skepticism, also known as external-world skepticism, is a philosophical position characterized by a particular belief in the absence of any knowledge. In other words, according to this view, neither the truth nor falsehood of any statement or position may be certain. Radical skepticism traditionally generates the absence of objective reality or the inability to perceive it by human senses, mind, or language. The supporters of radical skepticism state that any belief is doubtful and certainty cannot be justified. Concerning the physical world, radical skeptics emphasize the absence of precise knowledge about all its aspects.
In other words, people can only be certain that something they perceive as absolute truth is achievable. Therefore, radical skeptics see themselves and others as individuals who cannot state whether any information misleads them as they cannot verify its validity. As a result, people are expected to question everything beyond their minds. In the present day, modern studies frequently connect radical skepticism with contextualism, as the perception of reality may differ due to various perspectives determined by the context (Pritchard, 2018). That is why every person’s reality and experience may be regarded as truth for him.
As radical skepticism denies the accessibility of any knowledge, including the religious knowledge of God, it substantially contradicts the Christian worldview based on undisputable beliefs in God as a universal truth. For Christians, God purposefully created light, the earth, the heavens, waters, the sky, and people (“Genesis 1,” n.d.). Moreover, the Bible is tangible proof of God’s existence. According to the Christian worldview, people may achieve universal truth when they believe in the Lord, trust Him, and are guided by His will. Therefore, this perspective denies the rationale of radical skepticism that emphasizes that knowledge is impossible and every person may have his truth based on his experience.
Scientism
In turn, scientism is a particular worldview that emphasizes scientific knowledge’s superiority over other information sources. According to Moreland (2018), it is a belief “that the hard sciences—like chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy—provide the only genuine knowledge of reality” (para. 6). The supporters of scientism claim that any statement or position should be scientifically proven to be regarded as truth. The reality may be determined only through empirical evidence. Moreover, scientism accepts the reliability of only natural sciences and refuses viewpoints based on other disciplines, including philosophy, history, politics, economics, religion, or culture.
At the same time, according to Tom Sorell, the philosopher of science, scientism does not deny the presence of non-scientific knowledge. However, scientific knowledge will always be superior to other types of information (Moreland, 2018). All in all, distinctive inductive procedures typical for natural sciences are defined as sources that people who want to receive factual information and a true understanding of the world should exclusively use.
Scientism conflicts with the Christian worldview, as the former does not regard religious knowledge as reliable and authentic. As Christians explain the creation of the world and people’s existence by God’s will, the supporters of scientism deny the Lord’s existence at all as it cannot be supported by empirical evidence typical for natural sciences. As a result, an opposition of views creates considerable tension between followers – in particular, from the position of scientism, religious people are frequently regarded as uneducated, arrogant, and misapprehensive. Scientism claims that all religious attributes, norms, and rules are unimportant and cannot be regarded as knowledge as their existence or the rationale of use cannot be proven empirically. In turn, for Christians, scientism negatively impacts morality as it denies the concept of righteousness and wrongdoing created by God as non-scientific and inefficient for the perception of reality.
Conclusion
The analysis of different positions demonstrates that radical skepticism and scientism are incompatible with the Christian worldview. According to the latter, the existence of God is a universal truth, and the Lord’s rules are knowledge that should guide followers’ lives. In turn, radical skepticism contradicts the Christian worldview as it denies any knowledge, including religious ones, and states that people cannot evaluate God’s existence as a universal truth. At the same time, scientism contrasts with the Christian worldview, as well as it denies God’s existence due to the inability of natural sciences to support it with empirical evidence.
References
Genesis 1. (n.d.). Bible Gateway. Web.
Moreland, J. P. (2018). What Is scientism? Crossway. Web.
Pritchard, D. (2018). Contextualism and radical scepticism. Synthese, 195, 4733-4750. Web.