“For the scientists who were functioning on a Christian base, there was an incentive to continue searching for the objective truth which they had good reason to know was there. Then, too, with the biblical emphasis on the rightness of work and the dignity of all vocations, it was natural that the things that were learned should flow over into the practical side and not remain the matter of mere intellectual curiosity and that, in other words, technology, in the beneficial sense, should be born.
What was the view of these modern scientists on a Christian base? They held to the concept of the uniformity of natural causes in an open system, or, as it may also be expressed, the uniformity of natural causes in a limited time span. God has made a cause-and-effect universe; therefore we can find out something about the causes and the effects. But (and the but is very important) it is an open universe because God and man are outside of the uniformity of natural causes. In other words, all that exists is not one big cosmic machine which includes everything. Of course, if a person steps in front of a moving auto, the cause-and-effect universe functions upon him; but God and people are not a part of a total cosmic machine. Things go on in a cause-and-effect sequence, but at a point of time the direction may be changed by God or by people. Consequently, there is a place for God, but there is also a proper place for man.
This carries with it something profound–that the machine, whether the cosmic machine or the machines people make, is neither master nor a threat–because the machine does not include everything. There is something which is “outside” of the cosmic machine, and there is a place for man to be man.”
Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live, Chapter 7, “The Rise of Modern Science”
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