The integration of an evolutionary understanding of Earth and life history with theological understandings of God's creative and redemptive activity have yielded important insights. The fruits of these efforts need to be more widely known and discussed. There is a desperate need to diffuse the heated conflict which has grown up around the issue of evolution. Despite the long theological dialogue with evolutionary theory, many people continue to view evolution as inherently anti-theistic and inseparably wedded to a worldview that denies God and objective morality. Although this understanding of the meaning of evolutionary theory is strongly promoted by some, its conflation of metaphysical naturalism with evolution is widely rejected as philosophically, theologically, and historically false, and is recognized as damaging to the discipline of science.
Science is a methodology, a limited way of knowing about the natural world.
This self-limitation is sometimes referred to as methodological naturalism. Science restricts itself to proximate causes, and the confirmation or denial of ultimate causes is beyond its capacity. Methodological naturalism places boundaries around what science can and cannot say, or what explanations or descriptions can be accepted as part of the scientific enterprise. Another way to state this is that methodological naturalism describes what empirical inquiry is. It is certainly not a statement of the nature of cosmic reality.