Science as "Magic"
In 1967, Craig Press first published R. J. Rushdoony’s, The Mythology of Science, as part of its University Studies Hstorical Series. As was often the case, Rushdoony was prophetic. Here we are, 59 years later, and in the light of the recent revelations about Dr. Anthony Fauci, as well as statements from these tech leaders, we have reason to believe Rushdoony hit the nail on the head.
Geoffrey Hinton – Often called the “Godfather of AI,” Hinton has said AI is “really godlike” The Chief-Leader. He has also warned about its existential risks, using language that blends theological and technological imagery.
Sam Altman – OpenAI CEO has described working on frontier AI as “being on the side of the angels” and has referred to the technology as a “magic intelligence in the sky” arcmag.org+1.
Eric Schmidt – Former Google CEO told Harvard that Henry Kissinger once said, “In magic when people don’t understand things, they either decide that it’s a new religion, or they take up arms… I hope it’s a new religion, because of course I benefit from the new religion” The Sociable. Schmidt is the one who directly expressed the hope that AI becomes a religion.
Timnit Gebru – AI researcher and former Google ethical AI lead has compared Silicon Valley’s push toward superintelligence with “true believers of a secular religion” and described the goal of building “a machine god” Cybernews.
Arthur Mensch – CEO of Mistral AI has stated that AI is “about creating God” arcmag.org.
Other tech leaders – The ARC article notes that engineers and executives have characterized AGI as a “God-making project” and that a former Google engineer founded an AI-worshipping church in 2015 arcmag.org.
Here are a few quotes from Rushdoony’s, The Mythology of Science:
“The purpose of science gradually ceased to be an attempt to play god and became rather the exercise of dominion over the earth under God.”
Rushdoony distinguishes true science from scientism. Science itself is not the problem; science becomes corrupted when dominion under God becomes autonomous control.
“For science to overstep that role is to forsake science for magic.”
“The purpose of magic is the total control by man over man, nature, and the supernatural.”
The significance is that Rushdoony defines magic principally in terms of man’s quest for autonomous control, not merely occult ceremonies.
“The purposes of modern science are increasingly those of magic, the exercise of total control.”
“The essential goal of modern science is knowledge in order to have prediction, planning, and control.”
Notice Rushdoony’s progression: knowledge → prediction → planning → control. His objection is not to knowledge or planning per se, but to their employment in the autonomous project of making man sovereign.
“Science has become magic and is governed by myth.”
“It is not surprising that man, having succumbed to the lure of myth and believing himself to be his own god, should proceed on the premise that all things are possible with man, scientific man.”
Here Rushdoony deliberately contrasts the biblical affirmation that all things are possible with God with scientific man’s attempt to appropriate divine omnipotence.
“History must therefore either be arrested, or, having run its course, be recreated by the new god, the new great magician, scientific man.”
This captures the religious character of Rushdoony’s criticism especially well: autonomous man does not merely want to understand creation; he wants to recreate reality according to his own word.
“Man, scientific man, has become his own god.”
The surrounding discussion is explicitly about humanism, moral autonomy, and the rejection of transcendent law. Rushdoony continues by describing Renaissance humanism:
“Man was the measure of all things and thus his own law and god.”
“The mythology of science is the old myth offered to Eve, ‘Ye shall be as God, knowing [i.e., determining for yourself] good and evil’ (Gen. 3:5).”
This gets to the theological center of Rushdoony’s argument. The fundamental problem is autonomy: man wants not merely to know good and evil but to determine good and evil. In his discussion of scientistic social planning, Rushdoony writes:
“For the scientific planners, this means that man is the new god of being.”
“There is no humility, because it is unnecessary for a god to be humble.”
Rushdoony is criticizing the claim that scientific planning can progressively bring all areas of human existence under prediction and control. He regards that aspiration as fundamentally theological rather than merely technological. He immediately identifies this with Genesis 3:5 and Babel—the recurring human desire to create paradise independently of God.
“Scientists are clearly predestinarians today, but it is not predestination by God which they affirm, but predestination by the scientific social engineers.”
He sees the dispute not as predestination versus freedom, but as a contest between God’s sovereign decree and man’s attempted sovereign decree. Later he states the point even more explicitly:
“Thus, it is not predestination in itself which is an offense to man, but predestination by God.”
“Thus the rebellion is against the eternal decree of God in favor of the new and sovereign decree of scientific man.”
* R. J. Rushdoony, The Mythology of Science (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, [1967] 2001).