Quotes About Reductionism

If reductionism is like trying to stuff all of reality into a box, we could say the problem is that the box is always too small. Idols deify some part of the created order. But no matter which part they choose, a part is always too limited to explain the whole. The universe is too complex and multi-dimensional to fit into a box composed of just one part. Invariably something will stick out. Something will not fit into its restricted conceptual categories.

A biblically based worldview is capable of affirming the best insights of secular philosophies without ever falling into reductionism.

A reductionistic worldview leads to a lower view of humanity—and thus of the human mind. It reduces human reason to something less than reason. Yet the only way any worldview can argue its own case is by using reason. By discrediting reason, it undermines its own case. It is self-defeating.

Reductionism is the key to explaining why idols lead to immoral behavior—why Romans 1 ends with a list of destructive and self-destructive behavior. When we dehumanize people in our thinking, we will eventually mistreat, oppress, abuse, and exploit them in our actions.

When God gives people up to their idols, the result is always a reductionistic view of humanity—which ultimately unleashes harmful and destructive behavior. When we reduce people to anything less than fully human, we will treat them as less than fully human. When we define God as a something instead of a Someone, we will tend to treat humans as somethings too.

all theories are oversimplifications, or at least lead to oversimplification.