Another apt description is due to Donald MacKay, author of A Clock Work Image (InterVarsity, 1974), who calls such notions "nothing-buttery". We encounter, nearly every day, the idea that "X" is nothing but "Y":
- A person is nothing but a collection of protoplasm.
- A person is nothing but a pile of atoms.
- Beethoven's 5th is nothing but vibrations in the air.
- Love is nothing but chemistry.
- A photograph is nothing but pixels on a screen.
Sometimes the words "nothing but" are left out, but the problem remains: it is supposed that "X" doesn't really exist since sciences has shown that it's actually just "Y". Two of my main goals in teaching are to expose the problems with reductionism and to open students' minds to the much broader perspective offered by a Christian worldview.
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