Famous Scientists Who Believed in God — And It Wasn't Despite Their Science
The claim that science and faith are at war is a myth rejected by historians. Many of history's greatest scientists were devout believers — and their faith often fueled their discoveries.
And It Wasn’t Despite Their Science
There’s a popular narrative that goes something like this: Science and religion are fundamentally at war. As science advances, religion retreats. Truly rational, scientifically literate people don’t believe in God. Those who do are either compartmentalizing or not very good scientists.
It’s a compelling story. It’s also historically false.
Not false in the sense of “there are a few exceptions.” False in the sense that the entire framework — the “warfare thesis” between science and religion — has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of modern historians of science. And the roster of brilliant scientists who held deep religious convictions isn’t a short list of anomalies. It’s a hall of fame.
Let’s look at the evidence.
The Warfare Thesis: A Myth That Won’t Die
The idea that science and religion are locked in an eternal battle was popularized by two books: John William Draper’s History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896).
These books were enormously influential. They’re also considered deeply flawed by modern historians.
Historian David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers wrote in their landmark work God and Nature (1986):
“The greatest myth in the history of science and religion holds that they have been in a state of constant conflict.”
Historian of science John Hedley Brooke, in Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (1991), demonstrated that the relationship between science and religion has been far more complex than the warfare model suggests — involving collaboration, mutual inspiration, and occasionally tension, but nothing like a coherent war.
Even the most famous “conflicts” turn out to be more myth than history. The Galileo affair, for instance, was as much about politics, personality, and Galileo insulting the Pope (literally — he put the Pope’s arguments in the mouth of a character named “Simplicio”) as it was about science versus faith. Galileo himself remained a Catholic throughout his life.
The historical record shows something the warfare thesis can’t explain: many of the greatest scientists in history were motivated by their faith, not in spite of it.
The Scientists
Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
Newton is widely regarded as one of the most important scientists in history. He developed the laws of motion, the law of universal gravitation, and co-invented calculus. What’s less commonly known is that Newton wrote more on theology than on physics and mathematics combined.
His unpublished theological manuscripts — now held at the National Library of Israel — run to over 4 million words. Newton saw his scientific work as an investigation of God’s creation:
“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” — Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica, General Scholium
Newton didn’t practice science in a separate mental compartment from his faith. He practiced science as an act of faith — studying the natural world to understand the mind of its Creator.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
Faraday’s contributions to science are staggering: electromagnetic induction, the laws of electrolysis, the invention of the electric motor, and foundational work that made modern electrical technology possible. Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his wall.
Faraday was a devout member of the Sandemanian church — a small, intensely devout Christian sect that took the Bible with utmost seriousness. He served as a deacon and elder. His biographer, L. Pearce Williams, noted that Faraday’s faith was not peripheral but central to his life and identity.
Faraday saw no conflict between his scientific work and his faith:
“The book of nature which we have to read is written by the finger of God.” — Michael Faraday, as quoted in The Life and Letters of Faraday by Bence Jones (1870)
His conviction that the universe was created by a rational God gave him confidence that nature would be orderly and discoverable — a conviction that proved spectacularly correct.
Georges Lemaître (1894-1966)
Here’s a story that should be more widely known.
In 1927, a Belgian Catholic priest named Georges Lemaître proposed that the universe began from a “primeval atom” — an initial point of immense density that expanded to create everything we observe. He derived this mathematically from Einstein’s own field equations.
Einstein’s reaction? He rejected it. “Your calculations are correct, but your physics is atrocious,” Einstein reportedly told Lemaître.
Why did Einstein resist? Because the theory sounded too much like creation. It implied the universe had a beginning — and a beginning implied a Beginner. Einstein preferred a static, eternal universe precisely because it avoided that theological implication.
It took years for Lemaître’s theory to gain acceptance. When it did — when Edwin Hubble confirmed the expansion of the universe observationally — it became known as the Big Bang theory. The name was coined by Fred Hoyle, an atheist, as a term of mockery. The mockery didn’t age well.
Here’s the irony: the most theologically suggestive scientific discovery of the 20th century — that the universe had a beginning — was proposed by a Catholic priest and initially resisted by a scientist who didn’t like its theological implications.
Lemaître himself was careful to separate his science from his theology. He didn’t claim the Big Bang “proved” creation. But he was also clear that his faith and his science were both part of his pursuit of truth:
“There is no conflict between religion and science.” — Georges Lemaître, as quoted in The Primeval Atom (1950)
Max Planck (1858-1947)
Planck is the father of quantum theory — the revolution in physics that transformed our understanding of reality at the subatomic level. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck was a lifelong Lutheran who saw no tension between his physics and his faith:
“Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.” — Max Planck, Religion and Natural Science (1937)
Planck argued that science and religion are not competitors but complementary paths toward the same truth. Science investigates the material world; religion addresses meaning, purpose, and values. Both, in his view, require faith — science requires faith in the rationality and orderliness of nature, and religion requires faith in a God who grounds that rationality.
Francis Collins (b. 1950)
Collins led the Human Genome Project — one of the most ambitious scientific undertakings in history — mapping the entire human genetic code. He went on to direct the National Institutes of Health, the largest biomedical research agency in the world. His scientific credentials are beyond question.
Collins is also an evangelical Christian. And he wasn’t raised that way — he was an atheist who converted to Christianity at age 27 after reading C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity.
In his book The Language of God (2006), Collins describes his journey from atheism to faith:
“I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as ‘What is the meaning of life?’ ‘Why am I here?’ ‘Why does mathematics work, anyway?’ ‘If the universe had a beginning, who created it?’ ‘Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?’ ‘Why do humans have a moral sense?’ ‘What happens after we die?’”
Collins didn’t abandon reason when he became a Christian. He followed reason to Christianity. And he has consistently argued that genetics and evolution are fully compatible with faith — that the “how” of creation doesn’t eliminate the “who.”
John Lennox (b. 1943)
Lennox is an Oxford mathematician, philosopher of science, and author who has debated Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Peter Singer. He holds three doctorates and has published extensively in pure mathematics.
Lennox argues that the very foundations of science depend on assumptions that science itself cannot prove — assumptions that are best explained by theism:
“The very practice of science requires faith in the intelligibility and rational structure of the universe — a faith that makes far more sense in a theistic worldview than in an atheistic one.” — John Lennox, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (2009)
Lennox points out that the pioneers of modern science — Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Faraday — did science because they believed in a rational Creator. The very idea that the universe would obey elegant mathematical laws is a theological idea. It came from faith, not from atheism.
The Broader Pattern
These six scientists aren’t anomalies. They represent a much larger pattern.
The Royal Society, founded in 1660 and one of the oldest scientific institutions in the world, included among its early members a remarkable number of clergy and devout believers. Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry, was deeply religious and funded theological lectures. The Royal Society’s motto — Nullius in verba (“Take nobody’s word for it”) — was not a rejection of faith but an embrace of empirical investigation as a way of understanding God’s creation.
Modern surveys of scientists’ beliefs reveal a more nuanced picture than the “scientists are all atheists” stereotype suggests. A 2009 Pew Research Center survey found that 51% of scientists believe in God or a higher power (33% believing in God, 18% in a universal spirit or higher power). The number is lower than the general population, but it’s far from zero — and it’s far from the “virtually none” that the popular narrative implies.
A study by sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund (Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think, 2010) found that many scientists who describe themselves as “not religious” are not atheists either. They’re agnostic, spiritual, or simply don’t fit neatly into categories. The picture is far more complex than the warfare thesis allows.
Among elite scientists, the numbers are admittedly lower. A 1998 Nature survey found that only about 7% of National Academy of Sciences members reported a “personal belief in God.” But even this statistic has been questioned on methodological grounds — the question was narrowly framed, and many scientists who believe in God don’t describe their belief in the specific terms the survey used.
The Deeper Question
The individual examples and statistics are interesting, but the moral argument cuts deeper.
The real question isn’t “Can you be a scientist and believe in God?” — obviously you can, because many great scientists have. The real question is: “Can science explain its own foundations?”
Science assumes several things it cannot prove:
- The universe is orderly — it follows consistent laws. Why?
- The universe is intelligible — human minds can comprehend those laws. Why should evolved brains be capable of understanding quantum mechanics?
- Mathematics maps onto physical reality — Eugene Wigner called this “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences.” Why should abstract mathematical structures describe the physical world?
- The future will resemble the past — the laws of nature won’t change tomorrow. This is the problem of induction, and David Hume demonstrated in 1739 that it cannot be proven scientifically.
These aren’t trivial assumptions. They’re the preconditions of science. Without them, science can’t even get started.
And here’s the thing: theism provides a coherent explanation for all four. If the universe was created by a rational mind, then it makes sense that the universe would be orderly, intelligible, mathematically structured, and consistent. If the universe is a brute, purposeless fact — particles bumping into each other for no reason — then the orderliness of nature is a colossal coincidence that itself demands an explanation.
As physicist Paul Davies (not a traditional theist) put it:
“Science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview… even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith the existence of a law-like order in nature.” — Paul Davies, The Mind of God (1992)
The Bible captures this idea beautifully:
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.
Yahweh’s works are great, pondered by all those who delight in them.
For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse.
Science, on this view, isn’t a rival to faith. It’s an expression of faith — faith that the universe is worth investigating because it was made by a mind worth knowing.
The Takeaway
The claim that science and faith are incompatible is not a conclusion drawn from history. It’s a myth — and modern historians of science have thoroughly debunked it.
The scientists who built the foundations of physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics included devout Christians, and their faith wasn’t a handicap they overcame. For many, it was the motivation that drove their work.
This doesn’t prove that God exists. But it demolishes the claim that belief in God is intellectually disqualifying — that science and faith occupy separate, incompatible universes. The evidence from the history of science tells the opposite story: that the deepest scientific minds have often been drawn toward God, not away from Him.
The universe is rational, orderly, beautiful, and mathematically elegant. Science can describe these features. But it takes something more than science to explain them.
Further reading: John Lennox, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (2009); Francis Collins, The Language of God (2006); David Lindberg & Ronald Numbers, God and Nature (1986); Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God (2003), ch. 2