Evaluating Immanuel Kant’s View on Natural Sciences

1. Introduction

               This paper is a discussion and an evaluation on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of natural sciences, and its comparison with orthodox Christian theism. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German (then Prussian) philosopher, educated under the school of rationalism in a time of rich progress of natural sciences. By natural sciences, it means physical science with mathematics as the tool. Kant underwent some huge revision of his philosophy after reading the work of David Hume, the British philosopher whose radical empiricist position sabotaged both philosophy and science. Kant adopted the empiricist epistemology that the knowledge begins with sense-experience, but an interpretation with an active human mind. He was also very good at mathematics and physics. He attempted to reconstruct the philosophical foundation of natural sciences with his newly invented epistemology. However, despite being called “Copernican Revolution” in philosophy as Kant coined the term, he essentially introduced a different “form” and “matter” from Plato’s: the concepts of a priori and a posteriori. The a priori proposed by Kant was totally detached from the biblical narratives, and his theory of a priori could not even pass the scientific tests.

2. Kant on Space and Time

               In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant introduced his epistemology by first distinguishing pure (a priori) and empirical (a posteriori) knowledge. He regarded knowledge that is independent of “experience and all sensuous impressions” to be a priori; on the other hand, knowledge that has a source in experience is a posteriori.^[1] Kant further distinguished pure and impure knowledge a priori; the former is the knowledge without any empirical element mixed up.^[2] So what is knowledge a priori? Kant argued that the human intellect possesses certain cognition of pure knowledge a priori.

               But which knowledge is pure a priori? Instead of the four elements in ancient Greek philosophy, there are two parts of this knowledge, which Kant called  collectively the “transcendental doctrine of elements.” The first is the “transcendental aesthetics,” regarding human sensibility, and the second the “transcendental logic,” regarding human thought.^[3] These two parts of knowledge concern how the human minds draw knowledge about the world.

               The transcendental aesthetics, how human minds sense about the world according to Kant, include that of space and time.^[4] For space, Kant asserted that this concept could by no means be derived from outward experience. The space representation serves as the foundation of all external intuition. He said that the principles of geometry are a priori, which it is called, nowadays, Euclidean geometry describable using, not uniquely, Cartesian coordinate system. Space is infinite.^[5] Space is not a property of any object, but the only thing external to man that can be objective a priori.^[6]

               For time, Kant asserted that it is not an empirical conception, but a necessary foundation of all our intuition. He stated some of the common sensual intuition about time: it has only one dimension, and different times are not coexistent but successive. He admitted that nobody can assert it with certainty but the rules are valid. He also asserted the infinity of time.^[7] Unlike space as the external knowledge, Kant said that time is “of the intuitions of self and of our internal state.”^[8]

               To Kant, space and time is the pure a priori, our fundamentals of sensuous intuition. It is worth noting that God is not part of this a priori, but space and time are the conditions for God’s existence. To him, God can never be an object of intuition, and space and time are the necessary conditions for the existence of God.^[9] In other words, God is in space and time.

               The second part of Kant’s transcendental doctrine is the “transcendental logic.” He described the general logic as an abstraction of “all content of cognition,” or regards “the form of thought in general.”^[10] And transcendental logic is the collection of the forms of thoughts that “concerns itself with these only in an a priori relation to objects.”^[11] This transcendental logic is also further divided into transcendental analytic and transcendental dialectic, which he described at length.^[12] This logical system is essentially different from the formal logic in the modern sense, but he regarded his system to be the “formal” one and a priori.^[13]

               The transcendental aesthetics and logic constitute the main part of Kantian epistemological system, in response to Hume’s empiricist-led skepticism. He regarded the concepts of space and time and his transcendental logic as something innate and a priori. From these concepts, he reconstructed the metaphysical foundations of natural science, which is Newtonian mechanics with the use of geometry and calculus known in his times. The difference is that Newtonian space and time is absolute, while Kantian space is defined in terms of the relative positions of the objects in it and time the relative motions of such objects. Pulling the concepts of space and time from the absolute dogma to how the human mind understands them is what he called the “Copernican’s revolution.”^[14]

3. Critical Evaluation

3.1 On Transcendental Logic

               Kant’s system of transcendental logic is notoriously difficult to understand. As it is apparently different from modern logic, his system is overly complicated. There has been work of rewriting Kant’s transcendental logic in terms of formal logic, and it is concluded that his system is a subset of first-order logic.^[15] Although Kant wanted to develop a system of pure reason, the incomprehensiveness of his logical system as pure knowledge means he did not succeed.

               However, Kant was right about the need for the recognition of a “transcendental” logic. Logic has been used over history; it is not known through Scriptures or any divine revelation, but humans are born with it. It can be confidently said that logical power is innate. Augustine of Hippo asserted the use of logic as appropriate,^[16] given his was the ancient Greek version. To some anti-intellectual readers, John Frame devoted a chapter on logic as a tool of theology in His The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God to demystify and encourage appropriate use of logic.^[17] However, we might not be very confident that certain science of logic is a complete and comprehensive one, as Kant thought himself his transcendental logic was the one. Cornelius Van Til systematically and logically laid out his system of apologetics, but he warned about the overstatement of logic in describing the world of reality and chance as if it were a timeless impersonal principle.^[18] It can be told if a statement makes sense with the tool of logic, as people are to be convinced. Kant was right to put human cognition as the center of logic, but it is hard to have an ultimate consensus of what a complete logical system is.

3.2 On Kant’s Choice of a priori

               Kant placed space and time as the foundation of all sense-experience and as the knowledge a priori. There were no rational reasons for this choice. It might make sense if it is simply about the metaphysical foundation of only Euclidean geometry and Newtonian mechanics, but clearly he was interested in the whole philosophical system, including ethics and morality.

Why he made the statement that God could not be understood with sensuous intuition^[19] is also unclear. The knowledge of God should be obvious to human beings through divine creation, (Rom. 1:19-20) although this knowledge through the means of general revelation is just part of the picture. In his Institutes of Christian Religion, John Calvin also wrote that within the human mind, by natural instinct, there is an awareness of divinity.^[20] Whether humans have religious instinct is a hotly debated topic among scientists nowadays.^[21] Hence, it is irrational to quickly assume the unintelligibility of God.

3.3 On the Geometry of Space and Time

               Kant’s assertion of the validity of known geometric principles about space and time might be intuitive in his times but not necessarily true. Later developments of natural sciences showed that such a priori can be disproved with scientific observations. While he did not state explicitly what the geometric principles are, it is evidently Euclidean geometry. It might be intuitive for humans to sense the world with a Euclidean configuration, the development of physics proved that a non-Euclidean space-time is possible. On what ground is such geometry a valid a priori for all possible experience?^[22] Such transcendental idealism failed in front of Einstein’s theory of relativity.^[23] Albert Einstein’s 1905 paper on special relativity^[24] was found to be best represented using Minkowski geometry,^[25] and general relativity was found to be best represented using Riemannian geometry.^[26] Despite the failure of Kant recognizing the possibility of a non-Euclidean geometry, his framework of pure knowledge influenced the scientists in the 20th century. The neo-Kantian framework was prevalent, and Einstein put Kant’s philosophy in his science from time to time.^[27] The philosophy presupposes a “deep absolute” in our recognition, although this “deep absolute” is not likely to be his Euclidean space-time. However, like Kant, Einstein believed something had to be absolute and he regarded it as a reality, even though it was not yet proven. In a 1935 paper co-written with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, (the famous “EPR” paper), they argued that the theory of quantum mechanics was “incomplete” in terms of the description of physical reality.^[28] In fact, the paper was written by Podolsky and Rosen. Although it leads to the development of the concept of entanglement and the adjustment from statistical mechanics to supplement the theory,^[29] Einstein did not like the paper as it was written in a very convoluted way, and the main argument was overshadowed by the excessive formulation.^[30] He wanted to argue from the “separation principle” that spatially separated systems have different realities but the quantum measurement inevitably linked the two systems together.^[31] It is an example of Einstein’s own pure knowledge when making an argument, which is very Kantian. Einstein’s mode of thinking also affected his quasi-mystical, religious disposition.^[32]

3.4 On the Infinity of Space and Time

               Kant asserted that space and time are infinite.^[33] Like the Euclidean space-time, their infinities were later considered wrong in the scientific community. According to the big bang theory and its later variants (such as the inflationary universe theory), there was a starting point of the Universe, meaning the time has a start and is not infinite. Likewise, the expansion of the Universe means that space is not infinite.

               When Einstein first wrote down his general theory of relativity, he included a cosmological term in the field equation in order to maintain an infinite and static Universe, influenced by Kant’s philosophy, which is an a priori or pure knowledge to him. However, Edward Hubble’s discovery of the expansion of the Universe led Einstein to abandon this term.^[34] It has been rumored that Einstein called this mathematical term his “biggest blunder” of his life.^[35] Any assumptions of space and time put as the center of the human’s philosophical universe are just efforts in vain. It simply put these mysterious assumptions to the dogmatic level and repeated the same mistake by the Roman Catholic Church of endorsing an Aristotellian view of cosmology. Interestingly, the knowledge of space and time is still being revised, as Einstein was proved not to be so wrong that his cosmological constant is needed to be put back with an opposite sign, in response to the discovery of accelerating expansion of the Universe through the study of supernovae.^[36] Universe having a beginning indicates it was created ex nihilo,^[37] just like the biblical creation, although it does not necessarily agree with the biblical narrative.

3.5 On Scientific Explanation

               Kant’s transcendental idealism essentially introduces pure knowledge how our human mind learns from sense-experience. As Frame has recognized, “since Kant, scientists have recognized that their discipline is not purely objective, but reaches results that are considerably influenced by what scientists want to see.”^[38] In a sense, Kant wanted to make the explanations in science in a pure logical form, but what ended up was the subjectivity of the scientists. Johann Georg Hamann, who was a Christian philosopher influenced by Hume and a friend of Kant, had criticized Kant’s work on pure knowledge. Hamann wrote Metacritique of the Purism of Reason to comment on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reasons, and they exchanged letters on various controversies.

               One of Hamann’s main criticisms on Kant’s scientific philosophy is Kant’s attempt to take philosophy out of history^[39] and faith.^[40] It is the same for natural sciences. Hamann criticized Kant’s science formed by pure logic; scientific explanations should actually be narratives, which cannot be taken out of historical context. Instead of Kant’s “synthetic a priori,” Hamann said one should pay attention  to “historical a priori.”^[41] The historical context should include God’s work in human history, including the creation narrative in Gen. 1-2.^[42] To Hamann, “a historical plan for a science is always better than a logical one.”^[43] However, both Hamann and Kant did not foresee the challenges of Darwinism.^[44]

While Kant took an idealist view of science, Hamann took a rather empiricist position. Oswald Bayer, a German theologian, who studies Hamann’s theology and philosophy, summarized his stance: “Science and technology are ‘empirical’; pragmatically ‘true’ and useful, but not to be construed theoretically as ‘absolute,’ necessary and universal. As ‘empirical’ they must be believed: I rely on them without being able to justify them theoretically to the ultimate, in an ultimate foundation.”^[45]

3.6 On God

               Kant made a remark about God in the chapter of transcendental aesthetics that God could not be a priori in our cognitive intuition because it required space and time.^[46] Such a remark presupposes that God is within the created world. Hamann criticized this particular point, calling Kant’s pure reason “mystic” and “superstitious.”^[47] Despite Kant’s claim that he saved both science and religion, his handling of God and space-time was utterly unbiblical. A biblical narrative of space and time is that they were created by God in the beginning. (Gen. 1:1) God does not subsist in space and time, but transcends them.

God is said to be eternal because He transcends time.^[48] “He is the first and the last, (Isa. 41:4; Rev. 1:8) who existed before the world was (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1) and who continues despite all changes. (Ps. 102:27-28) … He is the everlasting God, (Isa. 40:28; Rom. 16:26) who inhabits eternity, (Isa. 57:15) lives forever. (Deut. 32:40; Rev. 10:6; 15:7)”^[49] Even Boethius recognized way before the age of science that in order for God’s foreknowledge to be possible, God ought to be atemporal, beyond time.^[50] However, God also engages in human history by entering into the time, such as unfolding His will to the Israelites in the Old Testament, and accomplishing Christ’s work in atonement in a particular point of history.^[51]

God is said to be omnipresent because He transcends space.^[52] While He can come down to Earth, (Gen. 11:5-7) walk in the garden, (Gen. 3:8) and dwell among His people, (Exod. 19:6) it is said in the Scriptures that heaven and earth cannot contain Him. (1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chron. 2:6; Isa. 66:1)^[53]

It is known in his other work that he disputed the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for the existence of God.^[54] However, the Scriptures undoubtedly had no place in Kant’s epistemology and metaphysics. God has a place in Kant’s ethics as the idea of moral perfection that could be considered a priori.^[55] God is limited to ethics in his philosophy.

4. Biblical Approach to Natural Sciences

4.1 What Are the Options?

After Kant’s transcendental idealism was reviewed above, it should be asked: what is the biblical approach to natural sciences? The philosophy of science did not stop at Kant, but it has progressed and developed up to this time. Frame categorized the modern philosophy of science into conventionalism, operationalism, instrumentalism, Thomas Kuhn’s transcendental anti-realism etc.^[56] This categorization concerns the philosophy of how science progresses. For a better comparison with Kant’s epistemology, it is better to compare with how Vern Poythress categorized it in his Redeeming Science:^[57] realism (that science describes properties of the world “out there”), idealism (that science describes the appearance of things according to the way in which the human mind naturally organizes them), empiricism (that science studies the events and phenomena of immediate perception, and that the theoretical constructions of science do not directly describe real entities but are a convenient way of summarizing the patterns in empirical data), pragmatism (that science does not offer direct knowledge of the world as it is, but only a practical tool or means for achieving technical mastery of the world), and relativism (that science is a social product of groups with a certain social unity of purpose and knowledge-base). In this categorization, Kant was an idealist; Hamann was an empiricist; Einstein was a realist^[58] as he was concerned about physical reality, although he was heavily influenced by Kant. Poythress indicated he was a critical realist because he thought it was the most compatible with the Christian worldview, and all other views presented some difficulties.^[59] He has some valid points but I do not completely agree with him, and also other scientists and philosophers as well. My view is between that of the realists and pragmatists, and is summarized in the next subsection.

4.2 My View

4.2.1 Authority of Scripture

               Science should be subject to the authority of Scripture. By “science” here, it includes the scientific method, the narrative, and the knowledge derived from it. The scientific method itself is a whole epistemology, a framework of modifying a model, which is itself biblically neutral; but what happens during the whole process has to be of integrity^[60] and biblical. The scientists should handle the theoretical exploration, experiments, or simulation with utmost honesty, (Prov. 11:3) just like what they ought to in all other life situations. The scientists should use appropriate language for their claims without any overstatement. (Matt. 5:37) The scientific exploration should not break any God’s commandment, such as murder. (Exod. 20:13)

The knowledge derived from it should be in compliance with the teachings of the Scriptures and the metaphysics implied from it. This knowledge should not claim biblical authority if some claims are in fact biblically neutral, or the mistake of endorsing an Aristotellian cosmology would be repeated.

In contrast, the Scriptures had no place in Kant’s epistemology at all.

4.2.2 Scientific Narratives as an Accurate and General Description of Reality

               The scientific narratives should serve as an accurate and general description of reality. Accuracy includes the numerical and linguistic aspects. A good scientific theory that involves mathematical equations should be tested with quantitative precision. The choice of words have to be accurate as well; the meanings of the chosen words must be clearly defined, without ambiguity. Generality means it does not describe a particular observation, but has an extrapolative capability so that it can be useful. Kant’s epistemology does not contradict this.

               The narratives are descriptions of reality. This description itself does not have to be a reality, although it can often be a very good approximation. I do not completely agree with Poythress that critical realism is the best approach. He said that empiricism and pragmatism encountered a setback because the inner structure of the atoms can be investigated now, although initially the atomic model was merely a toy model.^[61] I agree to a certain extent that the atomic model, or later the standard model, is a good approximation to reality; the Feynman diagrams are pictures of particle interactions, although it practically serves as mathematical expression in perturbative calculation.^[62] However, the match of Feynman diagrams and the physical pictures in high energy physics is merely a coincidence. Feynman diagrams used in many-body physics have fewer physical interpretations.

It is a popular notion that particles are fundamental in physics that other knowledge can be simply constructed from these fundamentals, but in fact general description of physical reality is also found in collective behaviors. Philip Anderson, a prominent theoretical physicist and a Nobel laureate, disputed constructionism and brought attention to the importance of collective behaviors, particularly (broken) symmetry, in his famous “More Is Different” paper.^[63] Despite the funding-diverting effect, I think he brought attention to the “reality” of our scientific explanation of physical reality: the description of nature also depends on the strong correlations among particles, instead of reducing it to a narrow foundation. This is in contrast with Kant’s epistemology that scientific explanation is real instead of a good description. He believed that scientific explanations are transcendental.

               There exists scientific knowledge that contradicts biblical knowledge. A typical example is biological evolution. The theory has been strongly supported by scientific exploration. Making this as a transcendental reality means a direct blow to the biblical teaching. Some so-called “work-around” such as theistic evolution, however well-intentioned it was, is simply a rejection of biblical authority.^[64] It should be admitted that evolution might be a good general description of reality, but it is not the reality as the Scriptures teach otherwise. One has to have faith that God can create a mature Universe with archaeological signatures.

               The prevalence of data science with the use of machine learning is worth some attention and clarification. Data scientists do not deal with the data from nature; they develop models for their assigned business problems. Their models, except a few language models, have no generality at all. It is often impossible or very difficult to interpret their models. And there is no metaphysical description extracted from this kind of study. Despite the name “data science,” it is not the same kind of science that this paper is interested in.

4.2.3 Creatio Ex Nihilo

               The scientific narrative has to be submissive to biblical teachings, including creatio ex nihilo, that heaven and earth were created out of nothing. (Gen. 1:1-2) Kant’s space and time a priori contradicts this. Current consensus among physical cosmologists agree that the Universe, both space and time, has a beginning, despite disagreement with the details.

4.2.4 Honoring God

               The narrative about nature should honor God. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Ps. 19:1) The beauty of nature is well known to most people, but the beauty in the natural laws discovered by the scientists should be a priority too. Newton’s law of gravitation is simple and beautiful; Maxwell’s equations of electrodynamics are so neat that they can be condensed to one single equation.

               The process of scientific investigation should honor God. Christian scientists should conduct studies with integrity (Prov. 11:3) and diligence. (Col. 3:23) The chief end of Christian scientists, like all other men, is “to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”^[65] (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q1) Kant might think that his philosophical framework glorified God because he saved both science and religion, but what he defended was an impersonal deist god.

4. Conclusion

               This paper reviewed Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reasons on transcendental idealist thoughts on space and time. He regarded space and time as basic elements of how we understand the sense-experience in the world. All other disciplines are based on space and time, which are our synthetic a priori. Together with his transcendental logic, the whole philosophical framework of natural sciences in his time can be reconstructed. His philosophy has had profound influence with later scientists, especially Albert Einstein, who both excelled and made mistakes because of Kant’s philosophy.

               Kant’s thoughts were not unchallenged in his time. Johann Georg Hamann criticized Kant on regarding pure reasons and logic as the fundamental, while neglecting the biblical and historical narratives. He put his understanding of space and time as synthetic a priori, the basis of how human minds interpret sense-experience, but his understanding could not even pass the test of scientific investigation. His system of transcendental logic was far too complicated to be seen as fundamental, and it can be reduced to a much simpler system using modern logic. God is out of picture in Kant’s epistemology because he thought God could not be known by our sense-experience. He irrationally put space and time, instead of God, as the transcendental aesthetics.               

               My position on natural science as a Christian is also summarized. The metaphysics derived from scientific investigation and the method that approaches it have to be submissive to the biblical revelation. My approach is that between that of the realists and that of the pragmatists that scientific explanations are good and general descriptions of reality, acknowledging their usefulness but restraining from asserting them as real. Christian scientists ought to honor God while they conduct their studies and make academic claims.

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^[1] Immanuel Kant, “Critique of Pure Reasons.” in Kant, Vol. 42 of Great Books of the Western World, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins (Chicago, IL: Encylopaedia Britannica, 1952), 14.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Ibid., 23.

^[4] Ibid., 24-27.

^[5] Ibid.,  24.

^[6] Ibid., 25-26.

^[7] Ibid., 26.

^[8] Ibid., 27.

^[9] Ibid., 33.

^[10] Ibid., 35.

^[11] Ibid., 36.

^[12] Ibid., 38-59.

^[13] Ibid., 38-39.

^[14] Jacqueline Marina, review of Kant’s Construction of Nature: A Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science by Michael Friedman (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 559.

^[15] T. Achourioti, and M. Van Lambalgen, “A Formalization of Kant’s Transcendental Logic,” The Review of Symbolic Logic 4, no. 2 (June 2011): 254.

^[16] Saint Augustine, On Christian Teaching, trans. R. P. H. Green (Oxford, the United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2008), 58-64.

^[17] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987): 242-243.

^[18] Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, ed. William Edgar (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1976), 166.

^[19] Kant, 33.

^[20] John Calvin, vol. 1, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960), 43.

^[21] Brandon Ambrosino, “Do humans have a `religion instinct’?” BBC, May 29, 2019, accessed May 16, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190529-do-humans-have-a-religion-instinct.

^[22] José Ruiz FernÁndez, “A Vindication of Kantian Euclidean Space,” Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 23, no. 1-3 (2004): 109-110.

^[23] Vern S. Poythress, Redeeming Science: a God-Centered Approach (Wheaton, IL, Crossway, 2006), 199.

^[24] Albert Einstein, “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper,” Annalen der Physik 4, no. 17 (1905): 891-921; English translations titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” can be easily found online, such as: http://hermes.ffn.ub.es/luisnavarro/nuevo_maletin/Einstein_1905_relativity.pdf, accessed May 17, 2021.

^[25] Robert Resnick, The Theory of Special Relativity (New York, NY: Wiley, 1968), 188-199.

^[26] Albert Einstein, “Die Grundlage der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie,” Annalen der Physik 49, no. 7 (1916): 769–822; English translations titled “The Foundation of the Generalised Theory of Relativity” can be easily found online, such as: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Foundation_of_the_Generalised_Theory_of_Relativity, accessed May 17, 2021.

^[27] Don Howard, “Albert Einstein as a Philosopher of Science,” Physics Today 58, no. 12 (2005): 34, https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.2169442, accessed May 17, 2021.

^[28] Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?” Physical Review 47, no. 10 (May 1935): 777-780.

^[29] Kwan-Yuet Ho, “Quantum Entanglement in Continuous Systems,” Final Year Project diss., Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004, 8-28.

^[30] Howard, “Albert Einstein as a Philosopher of Science.”

^[31] Ibid.

^[32] Stephen Palmquist, “The Kantian Grounding of Einstein’s Worldview: (I) The Early Influence of Kant’s System of Perspectives,” Polish Journal of Philosophy 4, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 45.

^[33] Kant, 24, 26.

^[34] Cormac O’Raifeartaigh, and Simon Mitton, “Interrogating the Legend of Einstein’s ‘Biggest Blunder.’” Physics in Perspective 20 (2018): 318-321.

^[35] Ibid., 328.

^[36] P. J. E. Peebles, and Bharat Ratra, “The cosmological constant and dark energy,” Review of Modern Physics 75 (April 2003): 560-562.

^[37] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1: God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 416.

^[38] John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God: an Introduction (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1994), 200.

^[39] Matthew Cierzan, “The Idolatry of Philosophy: Johann Georg Hamann’s Critique of his Contemporaries as Driven by his Notion of Philosophical Superstition and Idolatry,” PhD diss., Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, 2019, 27.

^[40] Oswald Bayer, “Narration and Explanation: The Relationship between Theology and Natural Sciences,” trans. Roy A. Harrisville, Lutheran Quarterly 31 (2017): 174.

^[41] Ibid., 175.

^[42] Ibid.

^[43] Ibid., 177.

^[44] Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, which is 51 years after the death of Kant.

^[45] Bayer, 179.

^[46] Kant, 33.

^[47] Cierzan, 98.

^[48] Bavinck, 160.

^[49] Ibid., 161.

^[50] Boethius, “Divine Foreknowledge in Human Actions,” in Medieval Philosophy: From St. Augustine to Nicholas of Cusa, ed. John F. Wippel, and Allan B. Wolter (Toronto, ON: The Free Press, 1969), 93.

^[51] John Polkinghorne, Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 96-97.

^[52] Bavinck, 164.

^[53] Ibid.

^[54] John Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology (Philipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2015), 262.

^[55] Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2009), 76.

^[56] Ibid., 481-483.

^[57] Poythress, 197-198.

^[58] This claim is disputed, for example, by Don Howard who believes that Einstein is a conventionalist and a holist. See: Don Howard, “Was Einstein Really a Realist?” Perspectives on Science 1, no. 2 (1993): 204.

^[59] Poythress, 198-199.

^[60] Nicholas H. Steneck, ORI Introduction to the Responsible Conduct of Research (Washington, DC: the United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2004), 19-27.

^[61] Poythress, 199.

^[62] There are many good texts on this, for example, Richard P. Feynman, The Theory of Fundamental Processes (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1961).

^[63] P. W. Anderson, “More Is Different,” Science 177, no. 4047 (August 1972): 393.

^[64] John D. Currid, “Theistic Evolution Is Incompatible with the Teachings of the Old Testament,” in Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique, ed. J. P. Moreland, Stephen Meyer, Christopher Shaw, and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 870.

^[65] Westminster Assembly (1643-1652), The Shorter Catechism with Scripture Proofs (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2015), 5.

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P. S.: Feature image adapted from Britannica.