The relationship between science and Christianity extends far beyond debates about the facts, theories, and methods of science and theology. Understanding this relationship also requires a recognition that science is deeply embedded in the social contexts that shape how communities, institutions, and individuals interpret and engage with scientific work. It exists within a web of cultural expectations, educational systems, funding structures, and moral narratives—all marked by underlying (a)religious and philosophical commitments. So, when science becomes disengaged or entirely detached from theology, it risks losing not only its metaphysical footing but also the investment of religious communities who may come to view the culture surrounding science as alien, or even antagonistic, to their deepest convictions.

One of the leading scholars to explore this sociological terrain is Elaine Howard Ecklund.4 Her book, Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think, coauthored with Christopher Scheitle, surveys over 10,000 Americans on this topic. Their research found that most religious respondents have no problem with science itself. Instead, they interpret science through cognitive frameworks shaped by their beliefs about God’s activity in the world and the world’s relationship to God. These frameworks represent a form of faith-based reasoning rooted in a desire to see scientific inquiry find genuine harmony with their religious worldview. So, any tension these religious believers experience with the scientific world stems not from science itself, as they understand it, but from what they perceive as a scientific culture that privileges secular materialism, dismisses divine purpose, and belittles belief in a personal God who acts in history—a God who sometimes acts in ways that go beyond naturalistic expectations. As one “very religious” biology major told Scheitle, pursuing graduate study in biology “would be like feeding myself to the sharks,” which captures just how hostile the culture of the scientific world can seem to devout believers (Ecklund and Scheitle 2018, 2).

Such perceptions of hostility are corroborated by Ecklund’s earlier research, which shows that religious scientists often anticipate (or experience) negative reactions to their beliefs. Therefore, as noted in the introduction, many “practice a closeted faith” (Ecklund 2010, 6; see also 47, 154; Ecklund and Scheitle 2018, 67; Ecklund et al. 2019, 71, 204).5 Her findings reveal that a majority of “scientists believe that religion has no legitimate place in the modern American academy; 54 per cent mentioned the dangers that religion could bring to universities (in particular, to science) when it goes wrong” (Ecklund 2010, 92, 128–29). The resulting pressure on religious scientists to conceal their faith for fear of professional stigma sends an implicit message that scientific credibility requires silence about God. This dynamic fuels antagonism towards religion and contributes, in particular, to an underrepresentation of “evangelicals among scientists at top research universities when compared to the proportion of evangelicals in the general population” (Ecklund and Scheitle 2018, 34). In turn, this imbalance reinforces the perception that science is inherently secular,6 deepening distrust between scientists and devout believers, who feel expected to keep their faith private in professional settings.7

A related concern among Christians centers on the moral trajectory of science when it becomes detached from theological reflection. When a theological moral framework is excluded from scientific discourse, science can appear to develop within a culture of technical brilliance that lacks adequate ethical constraints. Ecklund highlights this point by summarizing a historian of the modern university, Julie Reuben, who argues that:

Ecklund and Scheitle’s surveys show that while most religious believers recognize science’s capacity to improve human life, some worry that “unfettered scientific advancement” can lead to an “ethical slippery slope,” with people trying to play God (Ecklund and Scheitle 2018, 22–24; referencing Evans 2002). Many Christians believe scientists need to grapple with the moral questions raised by human embryonic stem cell research, which involves the destruction of fertilized embryos. This research, they note, “forces religious individuals to weigh the sanctity of human life against their responsibility to alleviate suffering” (Ecklund and Scheitle 2018, 9). Similar concerns arise in debates over reproductive genetics, cloning, transhumanism, and abortion (Ecklund 2010, 8). These reactions are not antiscientific; they are theological responses to a scientific culture that can treat moral boundaries as impediments to progress. Wherever Christians stand on these issues, there is, at least, a widespread recognition that morally ambiguous research requires theological reflection, and that such reflection should be integrated into scientific enquiry rather than cordoned off from it.

Another social area where science can benefit from theological engagement is vaccine hesitancy. Muhammad Haaris Tiwana and Julia Smith’s recent review shows how religious meaning and scientific culture intersect to shape public health attitudes. They note that “when religion is uniformly regarded as the sole determinant of vaccine hesitancy, it consistently emerges as a significant factor in contributing to vaccine hesitancy” (Tiwana and Smith 2024, 7). Among some conservative Christians, for example, vaccine resistance stems not from ignorance but from theological reasoning, especially the belief that health outcomes ultimately lie in God’s hands. One study’s participant put it this way: “I know for sure that God cares for me. And that the things He sends me, that may also be disease, that He will help me cope with it” (Tiwana and Smith 2024, 5, citing Ruijs et al. 2012, 1–11). This perspective reflects a theology of health care that can sit uneasily alongside the technocratic assumptions underlying many public health campaigns. Tiwana and Smith (2024, 7) stress that one’s religion “serves as a major unifying force in the lives of billions” and that “neglecting this connection or isolating science and religion as entirely distinct realms could hinder our ability to comprehend and influence people’s sentiments regarding scientific matters.”

Yet Tiwana and Smith also offer a more nuanced account. When religiosity is analyzed alongside other social factors—such as education, income, gender, race or ethnicity, and age—it appears to lose its independent statistical significance. Vaccine hesitancy, they observe, tends to emerge from intersecting forms of marginalization, including economic insecurity, racial inequality, political polarization, and distrust in institutions. Even so, faith remains a key interpretive lens through which many communities make sense of their skepticism toward health advice. Consequently, faith can lock believers into their hesitancy by giving them theological reasons for it. This is precisely why vaccine hesitancy cannot be addressed through sociological analysis or public health messaging alone. Since many believers understand their skepticism through theological categories, any attempt to persuade them must also engage those categories from within their own framework. One study, for example, found that some religious communities viewed the government’s messaging on vaccines to be disparaging, complaining that officials “put an ill connotation” on their decisions (Tiwana and Smith 2024, 5, referencing Capurro et al. 2022, 7280–87). Such perceptions of condescension can themselves become stumbling blocks for religious believers, deepening their estrangement from public health authorities. For Tiwana and Smith, these findings highlight the need for theologically sensitive engagement that treats religion not as an obstacle to scientific progress but as a persistent social force that shapes public interactions with medical science.

Another recurring area of tension concerns miracles and divine action. As Ecklund and Scheitle (2018, 6) observe, the way many religious believers “view science and the natural world is influenced by their desire to maintain an active role for God.” Ecklund and Scheitle (2018, 6) found that 60 per cent of evangelicals agreed that “scientists should be open to considering miracles in their theories and explanations.” As one respondent put it, “Once you posit an omniscient God, then I don’t have any trouble with miracles” (Ecklund and Scheitle 2018, 6). Such statements show how disorienting it can be when scientific culture treats miracles, which are at the core of the Christian faith, as intellectually suspect or irrelevant.

What these sociological studies illustrate overall is that the social circumstances in which science and faith relate are shaped by competing worldviews. Addressing this tension requires more than better scientific communication. It requires us to create genuine space for theology-engaged science—space that enables the scientific domain to become a safe(r) place in which religious believers can interpret scientific enquiry in ways that remain faithful to their core beliefs. Such engagement, when done well, can also show nonreligious believers that faith need not impede scientific research, even if we still need to recognize that confusion about science and faith can sometimes generate real conflict. Only then, as Ecklund and Scheitle (2018, 139) put it, can science and faith move beyond myths and stereotypes to a dialogical relationship grounded in a shared humility and purpose.

Although the “conflict thesis”—that science and religion are fundamentally at odds—has been widely dismissed by academic theologians and philosophers of science, it remains a felt reality for many Christians and other religious believers. The gap between academic consensus and popular perception reflects not simply intellectual misunderstanding but social and moral alienation. As Helen De Cruz (2024, 170) observes, drawing on the work of John Evans, many believers experience science not as a neutral search for truth but as a community with its own “moral agenda that runs counter to Christian conservative values.” For such Christians, the perceived conflict lies not with scientific findings themselves but in the cultural ethos that often accompanies them.

When scientific institutions become culturally inhospitable to religious believers, they foster distrust and weaken science’s standing in democratic societies where religion plays a prominent role. Addressing these fractures requires us to consider how epistemic norms, cultural expectations, and identity-shaping narratives contribute to the impression that science and Christianity conflict. It is to these epistemic divisions, and how they might be repaired, that I now turn.

Based on their analysis of these social circumstances, De Cruz views the alienation that some Christians, especially evangelical Christians, experience towards scientific culture as a matter of epistemic injustice. Building on Lani Watson’s (2021) account of epistemic rights, De Cruz (2024, 171) argues that evangelical Christians are not merely underrepresented in science but wronged in their capacity as knowers. When distrust of scientists and exclusion from mainstream scientific discourse prevent religious believers (as religious believers) from participating in or benefiting from collective inquiry, their epistemic rights (their rights to form true beliefs, avoid false ones, and understand the world) are compromised. De Cruz stresses that this tension between evangelical and scientific culture is not simply a matter of individual ignorance but of systemic failure: political polarization and media caricatures have created an epistemic environment in which many evangelicals no longer recognize scientists as benevolent or trustworthy interlocutors. The resulting suspicion becomes self-reinforcing, diminishing both the scientific literacy of evangelicals and their confidence in expert communities.

Such exclusion, De Cruz (2024, 171, citing Dewey 1927) insists, ultimately harms science itself. When large segments of society feel estranged from scientific culture, the pursuit of science loses some of its democratic character. Science cannot function as a genuinely collective enterprise if it systematically marginalizes certain religious communities. Instead, it risks becoming an intellectual tribe. At times, scientific culture becomes shaped by tendencies within elite Western institutions that are determined to keep religion out, even as a different kind of religiosity, scientism, can subtly creep into the culture surrounding science.8 Under these circumstances, tensions between science and Christianity arise less from clashes between their respective truth claims (although this still matters) and more from social questions of trust, identity, and belonging. Again, many Christians feel uneasy about science not because they reject its findings but because they are wary of the naturalistic worldview often associated with them—a worldview that, in their eyes, overlooks or dismisses their belief that God makes a fundamental difference to how we understand the empirical world.

A common way of responding to this tension is to claim that, while science operates with a methodological naturalism, scientists are not required to embrace a metaphysical naturalism. So, outside the scientific workplace, scientists are entirely free to hold a theistic worldview. I explore the problems with this approach in more detail elsewhere (Torrance 2017, 2018). Briefly, however, one of the major difficulties with this approach is the impression it can create that scientific practice requires believers to resist or bracket out a theistic worldview. For Christians who view science as a pursuit of truth, this can seem deeply troubling. If scientific culture demands that Christians suspend what they believe to be fundamentally true about the world, it is hardly surprising that it would contribute to the kind of social tension we have been considering. A further concern is that methodological naturalism can be interpreted as removing God’s meaningful engagement with the world from the empirical domain, thereby conflicting with Christian beliefs about God’s intervention, particularly in the case of miracles. While I can understand the motivation behind methodological naturalism—namely, to prevent theological claims from obstructing scientific progress—I maintain that a theology-engaged approach to science offers a more constructive way forward.

Later in this article, I provide an example of how this approach can be applied in practice, particularly when addressing the question of miracles. I will show that a theology-engaged approach can help Christians see how their theological convictions can shape the parameters of scientific enquiry. In so doing, it can address many of the concerns that motivate methodological naturalism, while also allowing Christians to reimagine science in ways that align with their fundamental commitments. The result could be a scientific culture that is more hospitable to believers and more genuinely inclusive in its pursuit of understanding.

There is fertile ground for this kind of approach. Ecklund and Scheitle’s (2018, 7) research shows that 48 per cent of evangelicals, and an even higher 73 per cent of evangelical scientists, view science and religion as potentially collaborative rather than competitive.9 They contend that the core challenge is less about reconciling different ways of understanding and more about cultivating spaces of mutual trust. Religious leaders, they suggest, can play a vital mediating role. Since many Christians turn first to pastors, rather than scientists, when faced with scientific questions, equipping clergy with an accurate scientific understanding, accompanied by a theological grasp of it, can reshape how congregations perceive and engage with science. When pastors affirm that studying the natural world can be a form of worship, they can help believers see scientific curiosity not as a threat to faith but an expression of it (Ecklund and Scheitle 2018, 10).

De Cruz also provides support for this kind of strategy. They argue that repairing tensions between scientists and Christians requires confronting not only misinformation but the deeper fractures of trust that underlie it. Through education, outreach, and the involvement of “benevolent testifiers (e.g., people who self-identify as Evangelical Christians, and who are supportive of science),” De Cruz (2024, 171) reframes the conflict not as an inevitable clash between faith and science, but as a remediable injustice within the social ecology of knowledge. For De Cruz, healing this divide requires a humanizing of the conversation; it involves restoring moral and intellectual trust between religious and scientific communities that have become estranged by mutual caricature.

I would add that a key element of the social approach proposed by Ecklund, Scheitle, and De Cruz is not only the training of faith leaders to develop a deeper scientific understanding but also the encouragement of scientists, and those interested in science, to become theologically engaged. Up to this point, I have focused on why scientific culture stands to benefit socially from such theological engagement. Shortly, I shall offer a more explicit theological reason why science, in rare cases, may even require theology for the sake of explanatory completeness. Before doing so, however, let me offer an initial caveat.

If we were to survey the highly specialized work undertaken in science today, we would be unlikely to find many instances where a particular scientific investigation is directly hindered by a lack of explicit theological engagement. Most scientific work proceeds successfully without it. If theology poses a practical problem for science, it is less likely to be through its absence than through its improper presence, that is, when implicit theological assumptions are smuggled into scientific reasoning. This can happen in subtle ways: shaping what counts as evidence, what counts as a legitimate research subject, or which scientific goals are worth pursuing. Careful theological reflection can help identify and critically examine such assumptions before they distort scientific inquiry.

Yet the broader question remains: Does science as a whole need theology? To make a case that it does, I must identify at least one instance in which theology is not merely relevant but necessary for explaining a phenomenon that finds itself within the domain of scientific research. By pointing to certain miracles that are essential to Christian orthodoxy, I contend that there is more than one.

By considering such cases, I aim to show that science—understood broadly as the pursuit of an accurate understanding of empirical reality—sometimes depends on theological insight to offer a complete explanation. At the same time, I acknowledge that such dependence arises only in relation to exceptional, miraculous events. Routine scientific practice is exceedingly unlikely to require theological input, and introducing it, in most cases, would be entirely inappropriate.

Nevertheless, reflecting on why science needs theology can help ease social tensions by giving Christians a constructive way to understand how science can operate without asking them to set aside their faith. It can also clarify how theology can support scientific progress by explaining why Christians should not treat the possibility of miracles as a reason to halt scientific investigation by invoking divine action prematurely—for example, by endorsing a “god-of-the-gaps” approach.

What I shall now argue is that one of theology’s primary contributions lies not in directing scientists how to conduct their research but in helping Christians understand why contemporary scientists should not employ theological explanations in the context of ordinary scientific work.

There are numerous references to miracles throughout Christian scripture. A Christian may reasonably adopt a critical stance toward some miracle accounts without departing from Nicene orthodoxy. For example, one could remain firmly in line with Christian orthodoxy, grounded in the beliefs of the Nicene Creed, while regarding the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14), Balaam’s talking donkey (Numbers 22:28–30), or the resurrection of the saints at Jesus’s death (Matthew 27:52–53) as mythical symbols that never actually happened without abandoning the faith. While it is certainly possible that these events occurred, and they would be a cakewalk for the creator of heaven and earth, doubting their literal historicity need not undermine one’s Christian faith.

Yet some miracles are not so easily set aside by Christians. Belief in God’s creation of all (non-divine) things, the incarnation (by the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary), the resurrection, and Jesus’s ascension are all miracles foundational to Christian orthodoxy, as affirmed in the Nicene Creed. These events are especially significant for our purposes because they are associated with observable phenomena that invite scientific as well as theological reflection. Any theory that either dismisses such phenomena as errors without serious investigation or assumes that a non-theological account must be exhaustive in principle risks overlooking important dimensions of what is being examined. This is not to suggest that non-theological inquiry into such phenomena is wholly inappropriate; such inquiry may prove illuminating in some respects. Rather, the point is that, in these particular cases, a fully adequate account cannot ignore the theological claims that are constitutive of the phenomena themselves. If science is genuinely committed to truth-seeking, it should remain open to engaging forms of explanation that may be necessary for a fuller understanding of the realities under investigation.

The Christian belief in miracles points to a wider horizon of phenomenological understanding, within which certain historical events are interpreted as exceeding purely naturalistic description. The occurrence of miracles that stand at the heart of Christian orthodoxy suggests that theology can, at least in certain cases, meaningfully contribute to explaining observable phenomena. When such events occur within the empirical world, scientific enquiry stands to benefit from theological input to make sense of them. A theological account can show that these phenomena are utterly unique and should therefore be treated differently from phenomena that conform to the regular patterns of the natural order. Nonetheless, reaching such a conclusion still requires theological insight.

But there is a real danger here. Recognizing that God sometimes acts in uniquely miraculous ways, which should shape how we interpret certain observable events, may tempt some Christians to attribute divine intervention too quickly to other phenomena that remain unexplained.

For instance, a Christian psychologist might feel drawn to employ natural theology to explore the concept of human consciousness as a divine miracle. Given their belief that God occasionally intervenes in surprising ways, it might seem plausible to theorize that consciousness could be the result of special divine action. They might theorize, for example, that at a formative stage in human development, God intervened to implant a “seed” of consciousness.

Were this to happen, the Christian would be engaging in a form of natural theology that, I contend, has no place in the scientific world—a form of reasoning akin to that found in intelligent design or god-of-the-gaps arguments. The approach is flawed because it treats consciousness, a continuing natural phenomenon, the same way it treats singular historical events like the incarnation or resurrection. While Christian orthodoxy affirms these specific historical miracles as unique acts of God, it allows for the possibility that consciousness arises through natural processes. By carelessly invoking special divine action, without solid theological justification, the Christian researcher risks impeding a proper scientific and theological understanding of consciousness.10

But let me be clear here. In highlighting the problems with such an approach, I am not denying that theology has an important role to play in helping Christian scientists make sense of consciousness. Secular scientific reasoning, by its very nature, cannot adequately explain why a Christian should refrain from invoking special divine action to account for consciousness. From a Christian perspective, dismissing theological insights simply because science is “secular” or “naturalistic” by definition would seem arbitrary—at least without offering a further rationale. Such a dismissal could simply be seen to reflect the secular world’s blindness to God, and, in particular, God’s living engagement with creation. Moreover, such secular constraints may seem especially unwarranted to Christians, since a purely secular approach is less capable than a theology-engaged one of accounting for all observable phenomena—including those associated with the incarnation, resurrection, and ascension.

Theological reasoning, therefore, is needed to clarify why the occurrence of uniquely miraculous events does not entitle scientists to appeal to special divine action whenever they encounter phenomena that remain, for the time being, unexplained. By thinking theologically, a Christian scientist can distinguish between occasional miraculous phenomena central to Christian orthodoxy, which rightly call for a special theological explanation, and other mysterious phenomena that do not. The latter, while puzzling, cannot be identified as uniquely miraculous solely on the basis of natural theology. Why? It is because natural theology lacks the criteria to discern particular instances of divine action with reliability.

In sum, science, as an endeavor undertaken by scientists, needs theology to help clarify for Christians why references to special divine action are generally inappropriate in the scientific realm, even though Christians know that certain observable phenomena do require such reference.

This article began with a simple but easily overlooked point: there is no science without scientists, and scientists can never operate as purely objective scientific instruments. Scientific enquiry is always carried out by humans who are shaped by broader commitments, and it can only flourish in communities that recognize its worth. In societies where many people interpret the world through a theological lens, it is shortsighted for scientific culture to become antagonistic toward religion in the way that it has done, either implicitly or explicitly. Such hostility risks discouraging believers from entering scientific fields, thereby weakening the competitiveness and diversity of the scientific workforce. It also risks alienating communities whose moral, financial, and intellectual support has been and continues to be vital for sustaining scientific institutions. A scientific culture that treats theological reflection with suspicion risks diminishing the very social ecosystem on which science depends.

This is why I have argued that science needs a thoughtful and well-defined form of theological engagement. My point is not that scientific research requires constant theological input in every experiment and research program; it does not. Most scientific work proceeds perfectly well without it. Nonetheless, as a human enterprise, science stands to benefit when the wider culture of science engages seriously and respectfully with the theological convictions that shape the lives of many people across the world.

On a sociological level, theological engagement helps address the epistemic tensions that some Christians experience when they perceive scientific culture as implicitly secular, morally indifferent, or dismissive of belief in God who acts in history. By creating intellectual space for Christians to interpret scientific research in harmony with their faith, theology can make the scientific world more hospitable, more inclusive, and ultimately more robust.

Theologically speaking, such engagement also helps Christians understand why their faith supports, rather than threatens, the integrity of scientific practice. Theology can clarify why certain theological appeals—especially appeals to special divine action—are inappropriate in ordinary scientific contexts, while still affirming that some utterly unique events (i.e., creation, incarnation, resurrection, and ascension) will require theological explanation. In doing so, it addresses, at least in outline, each of the five advantages identified at the outset: it challenges the conflict narrative by presenting theology and science as mutually hospitable; it clarifies the boundaries between theological and scientific explanation; it frames scientific work as a genuine expression of Christian vocation; it provides theological grounding for assumptions—such as the intelligibility and orderliness of the world—that science presupposes but cannot itself justify; and it brings moral seriousness to bear on a scientific culture that can otherwise lack the resources to evaluate its own ethical trajectory. Theology, therefore, protects science both from an overly restrictive naturalism that refuses to consider God at all and an overconfident natural theology that inserts God into empirical gaps without sufficient justification.

In short, science needs theology because science needs scientists—real people, embedded in communities, shaped by convictions about what the world ultimately is and why it is worth understanding. When scientific culture acknowledges this and enters into meaningful dialogue with theology, it can better flourish as a human pursuit: one that seeks truth with intellectual humility, moral seriousness, global reach, and a more democratic vision of the world in which many find that faith and scientific inquiry belong together.