Science Falsely So Called: When Human Wisdom Challenges Divine Revelation By James Morgan

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Introduction

The tension between faith and science is as old as the Enlightenment but rooted even deeper — in Scripture itself. The Apostle Paul warned Timothy to “avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20, KJV). The phrase “science falsely so called” (Greek: pseudōnymou gnōseōs) has long been interpreted as a caution not against knowledge itself, but against knowledge divorced from divine truth — that is, a human intellectual system set up in opposition to revelation.

In this view, science is not mathematics, not astronomy, not the careful observation of nature — it is human pride organized as knowledge. When science assumes the role of ultimate arbiter of truth, it crosses a line that the Bible and its commentators have consistently warned against.

1. The Biblical Warning: “Science Falsely So Called”

Paul’s instruction in 1 Timothy 6:20 was not a rejection of learning or reasoning but a warning against gnosis — the early form of intellectual arrogance that claimed to explain divine mysteries without submission to God.

“Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge (gnōsis).” — 1 Timothy 6:20, ESV.

In context, Paul is rebuking a mindset, not a discipline — those who “profess to know” yet “have erred concerning the faith.”
The great Reformation commentator John Calvin wrote:

“The science which Paul condemns is not the true knowledge of God’s works, but a profane curiosity that exalts man’s wisdom above the doctrine of faith.” (Commentary on 1 Timothy.)

Calvin’s words draw a distinction between natural philosophy (the observation of creation) and vain speculation (the worship of the intellect). The latter, he said, breeds pride — the same pride that caused the fall of man.

2. True Knowledge vs. Human Systems

The Bible affirms the pursuit of truth through observation and reflection.

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to search it out.” — Proverbs 25:2.

Throughout Scripture, wisdom is celebrated — but always as derivative of God’s own wisdom, not autonomous from it.
Theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) wrote that all truth is God’s truth, and thus scientia (knowledge) is good when it leads to understanding of creation’s order — but becomes corrupt when it “seeks to comprehend divine things apart from faith” (Summa Theologica, I.1.6).

This distinction matters: mathematics, astronomy, and physics, properly used, reveal the elegance of divine design. But when knowledge becomes a self-contained worldview — when “science” declares itself the final judge of existence — it ceases to be neutral observation and becomes, in theological terms, rebellion.

3. The Enlightenment Divide

During the Enlightenment, thinkers such as David Hume and Immanuel Kant began to define truth as what could be observed, tested, and repeated — effectively excluding revelation.
This marked the birth of what theologians later called scientific materialism: the belief that only the material universe exists, and that human reason can uncover all its secrets without recourse to God.

Christian scholars such as C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer argued that this shift turned “science” into a philosophy rather than a method.

“Science has become the religion of our age,” Schaeffer wrote in Escape from Reason (1968), “and yet it rests on faith — the faith that man’s reason, unaided, can comprehend reality.”

Lewis, in The Abolition of Man (1943), warned that when science detaches from moral truth, it doesn’t liberate humanity but enslaves it to technocratic control:

“Man’s conquest of nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be nature’s conquest of man.”

In this sense, “science falsely so called” represents human autonomy masquerading as objectivity.

4. The Modern Application

Modern biblical commentators often echo the same caution.
The King James Bible Commentary notes on 1 Timothy 6:20:

“Paul is not warning against science as the study of God’s creation, but against pseudo-science — speculative systems that oppose divine revelation.”

Likewise, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary explains that “science falsely so called” refers to knowledge that pretends to be superior to Scripture.

Even the great physicist Isaac Newton, whose laws of motion defined classical mechanics, declared:

“I frame no hypotheses... to myself I seem but a boy playing on the seashore, finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” (Memoirs of Newton, 1728.)

Newton recognized that mathematical exploration of the universe was not rebellion but reverence — provided it remained humbled before its Maker.

5. The Christian Balance: Science Within Worship

The balanced Christian position, both ancient and modern, holds that science is a method, not a master. It becomes dangerous only when its philosophical extensions claim total authority over meaning, morality, or metaphysics.

Thus, the early Church Fathers and Reformers alike taught that science — like art or law — belongs within the framework of theology as queen of the sciences (Aquinas).
When theology is dethroned, science becomes a tyrant; when theology guides, science becomes a servant of truth.

As theologian Abraham Kuyper summarized in 1898:

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

Conclusion

“Science falsely so called” is not an attack on reason, but a rebuke of rebellion. The Bible’s concern is not that man studies creation, but that he worships his own intellect in the process.
True science is humble inquiry — a tracing of the Creator’s fingerprints across the cosmos.
False science is self-deification — the belief that reason alone can rival revelation.

In the end, mathematics and physics may describe how the heavens go, but Scripture reveals why they exist. When the two meet in reverence, knowledge becomes worship; when they collide in pride, knowledge becomes idolatry.

References

1. The Holy Bible, King James Version – 1 Timothy 6:20; Proverbs 25:2; Deuteronomy 29:29; Isaiah 47:13–14.

2. John Calvin, Commentary on 1 Timothy, trans. Pringle (1847).

3. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I.1.6; II-II.167.

4. C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943).

5. Francis Schaeffer, Escape from Reason (1968).

6. Isaac Newton, Memoirs of Newton (1728).

7. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 11, Zondervan (1981).

8. Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (1898).

9. King James Bible Commentary, Thomas Nelson Publishers (1999).