The nineteenth-century doctrine that matter and force are the whole of nature, carried into the lecture hall and the laboratory as a public creed.
Scientific materialism was the fighting faith of German science in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Ludwig Büchner's Force and Matter and its fellows argued that thought is a function of the brain as bile is of the liver, and that no soul or purpose stands behind nature. It prepared the ground for later naturalism and scientism, and its popular books reached audiences philosophy rarely touches.
Sources
Primary
- Ludwig Büchner, Force and Matter (1855).
Secondary
- Frederick Gregory, Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany (1977).
How this compares to Christianity
How does this branch relate to the historic Christian faith?
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- Is it recognized as Christian by the historic bodies?
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- This site's assessment
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- Reviewer
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What this assessment cannot settle
This assessment determines what this entity teaches and how that teaching relates to the historic Christian creeds. It does not determine whether any person is saved, whether God accepts their worship, whether they are sincere, or whether the criteria applied here are correct.
This assessment is made from the standpoint described in our editorial statement and our criteria page. It reports classifications; it does not rank sincerity, spiritual standing, or the eternal state of any person.