Augustine on the Failure of Non-Christian Scientists

Recently, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. has written a blog article about Professor Stephen Hawking's argument against divine creation as well as a blog article about Professor Jerry Coyne's argument that science and religion are incompatible (Coyne argues that religion should be abandoned in favor of science). I encourage anyone reading this post to read Dr. Mohler's blog articles, and also to consider the following quote, from Confessions Book V chapter 3, in which Augustine discusses non-Christian scientists [in particular, Augustine uses the example of astronomers]:

For with their understanding and reason, which You gave them, they search out these things [of science]; and much have they found out; and foretold, many years before, eclipses of those luminaries, the sun and moon,—what day and hour, and how many digits,—nor did their calculation fail; and it came to pass as they foretold; and they wrote down the rules they had found out, and these are read at this day, and out of them do others foretell in what year and month of the year, and what day of the month, and what hour of the day, and what part of its light, moon or sun is to be eclipsed, and so it shall be, as it is foreshowed.

At these things men, that know not this art, marvel and are astonished, and they that know it, exult, and are puffed up; and by an ungodly pride departing from Thee, and failing of Your light, they foresee a failure of the sun's light, which shall be, so long before, but see not their own, which is. For they search not religiously whence they have the intelligence, wherewith they search out this. And finding that You made them, they give not themselves up to You, to preserve what You made, nor sacrifice to You what they have made themselves; nor slay their own soaring imaginations, as fowls of the air, nor their own diving curiosities (wherewith, like the fishes of the seal they wander over the unknown paths of the abyss), nor their own luxuriousness, as beasts of the field, that You, Lord, a consuming fire, may burn up those dead cares of theirs, and re-create themselves immortally.

But they do not know Christ, who is the Way and the Word of God, by Whom You made these things which they number, and themselves who number, and the sense whereby they perceive what they number, and the understanding, out of which they number; or that of Your wisdom there is no number. But the Only Begotten is Himself made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification. He was numbered among us, and paid tribute unto Caesar. Yet these men do not know that He is the Way by which they must come down from the heights where they have set themselves and rise again, with Him, to be with Him. They knew not this Way, and deemed themselves exalted amongst the stars and shining; and behold, they fell upon the earth, and their foolish heart was darkened. They discourse many things truly concerning the creature; but Truth, Artificer of the creature, they seek not piously, and therefore find Him not; or if they find Him, knowing Him to be God, they glorify Him not as God, neither are thankful, but become vain in their imaginations, and profess themselves to be wise, attributing to themselves what is Yours; and thereby with most perverse blindness, try to impute to You what is their own; they even attribute falsehood to You, who are the Truth, and changing the glory of uncorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, changing Your truth into a lie, and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator.