What Is Materialism?
Materialism is the view that reality is fundamentally material. The American Heritage Dictionary defines materialism as the view that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. Everything that exists—the universe, life, human beings, and consciousness—must therefore ultimately be explainable in terms of matter, energy, and physical processes.
Short Answer: Materialism holds that physical reality is fundamental and that there is no need for a spiritual reality or a Creator to explain the universe and life. However, this raises some fundamental questions: Why does the universe exist at all? How did life begin? Can consciousness and free will be fully explained by physical processes? And can materialism establish that there is no reality beyond the material world?
Materialism therefore stands in fundamental opposition to the Bible’s view of reality. The Bible teaches that the physical world is real, but that it is not the whole of reality. Behind the visible universe stands an invisible Creator:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
The question, then, is not simply whether physical processes can explain much of what we observe. They undoubtedly can. The question is whether everything that exists can be explained by the material world alone.
In this article, we will examine the basic claims of materialism and some of the questions it must be able to answer.
Materialism and Atheism—How Are They Related?
Materialism and atheism are often closely connected, but they do not mean the same thing.
Atheism is fundamentally about belief in God: an atheist does not believe that any God or gods exist. Materialism, by contrast, is a view about the nature of reality itself. It holds that the physical or material world is fundamental and that phenomena such as life and consciousness must ultimately be explained in terms of physical processes.
Consistent materialism therefore leaves no room for a non-material God, angels, or other spirit beings. It is thus directly opposed to the Bible’s teaching that an invisible spiritual reality exists.
But it is important to keep the two concepts separate. Atheism is not in itself a complete theory about the nature of the universe or consciousness, and not all atheists arrive at their views in the same way.
Likewise, materialism should not simply be equated with science. Science investigates the physical world using methods developed for that purpose. Materialism goes a step further by making a philosophical claim: that physical reality is all that exists.
It is this claim that we will examine.
Can Materialism Explain All of Reality?
One of the strengths of materialism is that physical explanations have proven remarkably effective in many areas. Science can describe everything from the properties of atoms and chemical reactions to the movements of planets and the processes within living organisms.
But there is an important difference.
Explaining how a physical process works is not necessarily the same as explaining why there is a physical reality at all in which that process can take place.
Materialism must therefore address some very fundamental questions:
Why does the universe exist? Why are there laws of nature? Why is the universe ordered in a way that human beings can investigate and describe mathematically? Where does life come from? And how are consciousness, thought, and human experience to be understood?
These questions do not in themselves prove that materialism is false. But they show that it is not enough simply to point out that the physical world exists.
If materialism claims to provide an explanation of all reality, it must also address the existence of physical reality itself.
Materialism and Faith
Materialism is sometimes presented as an alternative to faith: the materialist accepts only what can be investigated scientifically, while the believer accepts something that cannot be proven.
But this contrast is too simplistic.
Science can investigate the physical world, but the statement “only the physical world exists” is not itself a scientific experiment or observation. It is a philosophical conclusion about the nature of reality.
This does not mean that materialism is simply “faith” in the religious sense. But it does mean that materialism, too, rests on fundamental philosophical assumptions.
If someone says, “I accept only what can be investigated physically,” the question arises: Can the principle that only what can be physically measured is real itself be proven by a physical measurement?
It cannot.
Materialism, like other worldviews, must therefore be evaluated by how well its basic assumptions and explanations correspond to the reality we experience.
The Origin of the Universe
One of the greatest questions is why the universe exists at all.
Science can investigate the development of the universe and describe conditions in the very early universe. But the question of why there is a universe rather than nothing is a more fundamental philosophical question.
If physical reality is all that exists, materialism must ultimately explain reality in terms of physical reality itself.
But why does it exist?
Theism gives a different answer. It holds that the universe is not the ultimate reality but has its origin in a Creator who is not himself part of the physical universe.
The Bible expresses this idea very simply:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
This verse is not a scientific description of the physical development of the universe. It makes a more fundamental claim: physical reality is not the ultimate cause of its own existence.
Order and Natural Laws
The universe is not merely made up of matter and energy. It also displays regularity and order.
Planets move in regular patterns. Matter behaves in consistent ways. Mathematical descriptions can be used to predict physical events with remarkable precision.
We call these regularities laws of nature.
Science investigates and describes these laws, but the question of why the universe is ordered and intelligible in the first place is a different one.
Why does a universe exist with regularities that the human mind can discover and describe?
A materialist may regard these features as fundamental properties of reality. A theist, on the other hand, sees the order and intelligibility of the universe as consistent with its having originated from an intelligent Creator.
The Bible presents creation as something that can tell us about its Creator:
“For the unseen things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things made.” (Romans 1:20, Interlinear Bible)
The question, then, is not whether science can describe the laws of nature. The question is what their existence tells us about reality as a whole.
Materialism and the Origin of Life
Life consists of physical matter, and living organisms operate through physical and chemical processes. But the question of how the first life arose from nonliving matter is different from the question of how already existing living organisms function.
Research into the origin of life is often referred to as abiogenesis. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain how simple chemical systems on the early Earth may have developed toward the first forms of life.
But even a complete chemical description would not necessarily settle the larger philosophical question: Why does a universe exist with the properties and laws that make life possible?
The Bible gives its own answer. Life ultimately has its origin in God:
“For with You is the fountain of life.” (Psalm 36:9, Interlinear Bible)
Materialism and the Bible therefore give different answers to the fundamental question of the ultimate origin of life.
Evolution and Materialism Are Not the Same
Materialism and evolution are often treated as though they were the same thing. They are not.
The theory of evolution concerns how living organisms change and develop over many generations. Materialism, by contrast, is a philosophical view about what reality fundamentally consists of.
Materialism therefore cannot be proven simply by demonstrating biological processes of change and development.
Even if one accepts a particular evolutionary explanation for the development of life, the larger questions remain: Where did the universe come from? Where did the laws of nature come from? How did the first life arise? And how are consciousness and human reason to be understood?
Conversely, criticism of particular aspects of evolutionary theory does not in itself prove that materialism is false.
The question of materialism must be evaluated on the basis of its own philosophical claims.
Can Consciousness Be Explained as Matter?
One of the most difficult questions for a purely materialistic view of reality is human consciousness.
There is no doubt that our mental life is closely connected to the brain. Damage to the brain can affect memory, personality, and the ability to think. Chemical substances can alter our mental state, and brain activity can be measured while people think, feel, and perceive.
But showing a connection between brain processes and consciousness is not the same as explaining how these physical processes become our inner experiences, thoughts, and feelings.
How do electrical and chemical processes in the brain become the experience of pain and pleasure, our perception of colors, our thoughts, or our awareness of ourselves?
Why do we experience anything at all? Why are there not simply physical processes taking place in the brain, but also a conscious inner life in which we think, feel, and experience the world around us?
A materialist may argue that consciousness arises from the activity of the brain. But the question of how and why physical processes in the brain give rise to thoughts, feelings, and conscious experiences remains a profound philosophical problem.
This does not mean that consciousness in itself proves the existence of God. But it does show that describing the physical processes of the brain is not necessarily the same as providing a complete explanation of why human beings have a conscious inner life.
What Is a Human Being According to the Bible?
The Bible presents a different view of human beings from that of materialism.
In the account of Adam’s creation, we read:
“And Yahweh God formed the man out of dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7, Interlinear Bible)
Here, the human being is not described as an immortal soul placed inside a physical body. The man became a living soul when the body God had formed from the ground received the breath of life.
This is an important difference.
The Bible therefore does not teach that a human being has an immortal soul that continues to live independently of the body. But neither does it teach that life can simply be reduced to lifeless matter. Life comes from God.
When a person dies, conscious life ceases. The hope, therefore, does not lie in an immortal soul, but in God’s ability to restore a person to life through a resurrection.
The biblical view of human nature thus differs both from classical dualism—the idea of an immortal soul residing in the body—and from a purely materialistic explanation in which there is no place for God or the breath of life.
Materialism and Free Will
Materialism also raises the question of human free will.
If all our thoughts, desires, and decisions are solely the result of physical processes in the brain, which in turn follow the laws of nature and prior physical causes, what does it mean to say that a person chooses freely?
Materialist philosophers give different answers to this question. Some accept a form of determinism—the view that our choices and actions are determined by prior causes—while others believe that free will can be understood in a way that is compatible with a completely physical world.
The question, however, does not disappear.
We experience ourselves as people who consider different possibilities, weigh reasons, make decisions, and can be held responsible for our actions.
If every decision is ultimately just the necessary result of prior physical conditions, it must be explained how this experience of choice and moral responsibility is to be understood.
The Bible treats human beings as capable of making real choices and being held responsible for them:
“I call Heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, that you may live, you and your seed.” (Deuteronomy 30:19, Interlinear Bible)
Free will is therefore not an insignificant question. It is closely connected with our understanding of human nature and moral responsibility.
Can the Unseen Exist?
Materialism fundamentally limits reality to the physical. The Bible, by contrast, teaches that there is a reality that cannot be directly observed with our physical senses.
The Bible says of God:
“God is spirit.” (John 4:24)
It also speaks of angels as spirit beings and thus distinguishes between the material world and a spiritual reality.
The fact that such a reality cannot be directly detected by physical instruments is not in itself proof that it exists. But the reverse is also true: the fact that something cannot be detected by a physical instrument does not in itself prove that it does not exist.
A physical instrument is designed to measure specific physical phenomena. If a reality exists that is not physical, it does not follow that it must be detectable by methods designed solely to investigate the physical world.
Materialism therefore cannot simply assume that whatever science cannot physically measure does not exist. That is precisely the claim that must first be justified.
Materialism and Theism
Materialism and theism present two fundamentally different views of reality.
Materialism begins with physical reality and attempts to explain everything else in terms of it. Theism, by contrast, holds that the universe has its origin in a conscious and intelligent Creator who exists independently of the universe he created.
A materialist may say that the universe and its fundamental properties are simply the reality from which we must begin. A theist, on the other hand, asks whether physical reality itself requires an explanation.
If God himself were a material being—for example, a being of flesh and blood—that would merely push the question back one step: Where did God and the matter he consisted of come from? The same applies if God himself had been created. There would then have to be someone else who created him, and we could again ask who created that creator. This could continue indefinitely.
If God is the ultimate cause of the universe’s existence, he must therefore be without beginning and exist independently of the material world.
This agrees with the Bible’s description of God. Jesus said:
“God is spirit.” (John 4:24)
And the psalmist describes God as eternal:
“From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.” (Psalm 90:2)
The Bible therefore begins with God as the already existing Creator:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
The Greek Scriptures likewise describe the visible world as having its origin in something that is not itself visible:
“By faith we understand the ages to have been framed by the word of God, so that the things seen not to have come into being out of things appearing.” (Hebrews 11:3, Interlinear Bible)
This is the fundamental difference between the two worldviews. Materialism regards physical reality as fundamental. The Bible, by contrast, points to an eternal, non-material Creator as the ultimate cause of physical reality.
Does Materialism Explain All of Reality?
Materialism has an obvious strength: It takes the physical world seriously, and physical explanations have given us an enormous understanding of nature.
But it does not automatically follow from this that only the physical exists.
It is this step that must be examined.
A materialistic explanation must still address why a universe exists, why it is ordered according to intelligible laws of nature, how life ultimately arose, how our thoughts, feelings, and inner conscious experiences are to be explained, and how the human experience of free will and moral responsibility fits into a purely physical worldview.
None of these questions, by itself, proves that materialism is false. But taken together, they show that the claim that matter constitutes the whole of reality cannot simply be taken for granted.
Conclusion
Materialism holds that physical reality is fundamental and that the universe, life, and human beings can ultimately be understood without reference to a spiritual reality or a Creator.
Science has shown that much can be explained through physical processes. But that is not the same as proving that everything that exists is physical.
Questions about the existence of the universe, the order of the laws of nature, the origin of life, consciousness, and free will show that there are still fundamental questions that any comprehensive view of reality must address.
The Bible gives a different answer from materialism. It teaches that the physical world is real, but that it is not the whole of reality. The Bible says that “God is spirit” (John 4:24). He is therefore not himself part of the material world but exists independently of the universe he created. The universe has its origin in God, life comes from him, and human beings are conscious and morally responsible beings created by him.
The materialistic claim that physical reality is all that exists should therefore not simply be assumed. Like other worldviews, it must be tested and examined.
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