Renewing Hope in an Age of Hopelessness

By Dr. Angus Menuge

In the world of Harry Potter, fearsome creatures called Dementors drain people’s hope by consuming their souls. The parallels in our world are manmade ideologies that lead people to believe their life has no meaning. Two of these ideologies you and I face today are scientism and nihilism. But unlike Harry, we don’t have mere magic to counter these ideologies—we have a number of tools, particularly theology grounded in Scripture.

Our Culture’s Dementors: Scientism and Nihilism

Scientism is the view that natural science has final authority in what we can claim to know. Scientism comes in two forms. Strong scientism says that science is the only way to know. Weak scientism says that there may be other sources of insight, but science is by far the best (most certain) source of knowledge. Both strong and weak forms of scientism tell us we cannot have moral or theological knowledge. This is because no scientific observation can detect whether an action is right or wrong, or whether God is triune, as examples. Thus moral and theological beliefs are regarded as mere opinions, not as something that can be known. Centuries of moral reflection and even the Bible are rejected as sources of knowledge.

Scientism, then, leads to nihilism, another souldestroying point of view. Nihilism is the view that nothing has any objective value. After all, if science alone provides knowledge, and science cannot determine whether human life has value, then we cannot know that human life is worth anything. Where does this lead to? The unborn child and the terminally ill patient don’t have lives worth living. And if we depend on the filter of science, this may cause people to doubt that their personal lives have any meaning or purpose. After all, vocation and loving our neighbor are not scientific notions. Science cannot address these things.

The Perspective of Philosophy

Just as Harry Potter warded off the Dementors with the Patronus charm, philosophers have been able to dispel scientism. Philosophy can be a very helpful tool. For example, strong scientism is a selfdefeating claim. For “Science is the only way to know” is not a scientific claim, and therefore, by its own standard, cannot be known. This claim is not scientific because it cannot be tested by any observation or experiment. It is, rather, a philosophical claim about science, and even by those standards, it is clearly false. It’s a dilemma that can’t be solved.

Strong scientism is false because science itself makes assumptions that science cannot demonstrate. To do science, one must assume that scientists have minds, capable of observing natural events, proposing theories, and devising experiments to determine if those theories are true. But here’s the problem: the mind itself is not scientifically observable. In science, something is observable only if it is a public phenomenon, one that many people can witness. So it is not possible to scientifically observe one’s own mind, since no one else can see it. And we clearly cannot observe other people’s minds; all we can observe is their outward behavior or what their bodies are made of. This is just one angle to examine philosophically. There are many others that demonstrate that strong scientism is false.

But many people might think that weak scientism is true—that perhaps some non-scientific sources (like literature or philosophy) have some value, but science is still the most certain. This, too, is false because a claim cannot be any more certain than the assumptions it depends on. For example, suppose I look out of the window at Concordia Wisconsin and seem to see a tree in the courtyard. My claim that there is a tree in the courtyard cannot be any more certain than my assumptions that 1. my eyes are working, 2. I am not hallucinating, and 3. I am not looking at a prop for an outdoor theatre performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Likewise, all science depends on a number of non-scientific assumptions, and so no scientific claim can be more certain than those assumptions.

The Problem with Assumptions

It’s important to remember that all modern science rests on three major, non-scientific presuppositions.

First, it is assumed that the world is orderly, for if the world is mere chaos, the search for laws of nature is bound to fail.

Second, it is assumed that the human mind is rational, for if our minds are chaotic, we will not be able to discover natural order even if it is there.

Third, it is assumed that our reason is attuned to the order of nature, that the same reason that governs our thoughts also governs the laws of nature.

These are assumptions one must make before science is even worth doing. Yet they have been proven right by the scientific progress they have encouraged. If these assumptions did not derive from science, where did they come from? Surprisingly, historians of science generally agree that these assumptions came from…wait for it…theology!

The Natural Order of Things

The idea that the universe is orderly comes from the theological conviction that it is the creation and handiwork of a single, rational God. For atheism and polytheism, by contrast, there is no reason to expect a universe that functions logically, because there is either no lawgiver (atheism) or many conflicting ones (polytheism). The idea that the human mind is sufficiently rational to discover the laws of nature derives from the Christian teaching that human beings are made in the image of God so that they can rule over the creation entrusted into their care. Remember, this is exactly what God laid out for Adam. Without God, human beings would just be accidents of blind nature, and there is no reason to think their minds would be reliable enough to do science. Finally, the human mind is attuned to the order of nature because we see that same divine reason in human nature and in the laws of nature.

The theological conviction driving the scientific revolution was that the natural world was God’s “other book.” As God specially reveals Himself in the Bible, He also reveals Himself in the “book of nature.” Science gets its rationale from theological assumptions. Weak scientism is therefore false, since science cannot be any more certain than those assumptions. And since we obviously do have a lot of scientific knowledge, it follows that theological knowledge also exists.

The Redemptive Nature of Hope

Science cannot detect moral values. But we have seen that science is not the only or best way to know. Theology also provides knowledge, and it has a lot to say about the dignity and meaning of human life.

In the Bible, we learn that we humans are specially made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27) and that, because of this, even after the fall into sin, we all have special value (Genesis 9:6; James 3:8-10). And when God acted to save us from sin, He became a human being—not any other creature—and shared in human suffering (Hebrews 2:17, 4:15). And though all creation will one day be redeemed (Romans 8:22), God is especially concerned to save human beings (Romans 5:8). Beyond this life, God offers eternal life with Him, compared to whose blessings none of our current sufferings compare (Romans 8:16-18).

For now, we counter the hopelessness of scientism and nihilism through finding meaning and dignity by loving our neighbor through vocations God assigns (1 Corinthians 7:20; Ephesians 2:10). God has a plan for our lives (Jeremiah 29:11) and works all things together for good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28), even by using our sinful choices (Genesis 50:20).

Some may think this is all a matter of faith and isn’t something we can know. But that reflects the unbiblical view that faith is not a form of knowledge. Job declares in faith, “I know that my redeemer lives” (Job 19:25), and Paul writes “I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Timothy 1:12). Theology grounded in Scripture gives knowledge about the meaning and purpose of our lives.

And you are reminded of this every time you partake of the gifts God delivers to you through His Word and Sacraments. You know that you are made in His image, that Jesus Christ willingly took on flesh, and that the Cross is where hopelessness met its death. And you know that this is true for your neighbor, too! That is true knowledge that no Dementor or vile ideology can take away.

Angus Menuge, Ph.D. is Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin.

Author’s Note: The philosophy program at CUW is classical and has a strong emphasis on worldviews, bioethics, and apologetics. Our graduates have been very successful pursuing vocations in the pastoral ministry, law, and advanced studies at top graduate schools. We would welcome participants in Higher Things conferences to join our thriving program.