Are naturalistic assumptions necessary for doing science? In the video below (or see the transcript here), Stephen Meyer argues that not only is naturalism not necessary, but in fact, it was a Christian worldview that gave rise to modern science.
One of those key ideas was the idea of intelligibility: that nature is intelligible. There’s an order and design that can be understood and discerned by the scientist because nature is the product of a rational mind, namely the mind of God, and that that same mind or creator who made nature with that rational order built into it made us and our reason, so that we could perceive and understand the reason that he built into nature. That was what gave people confidence to do the hard work of investigation to figure out the hidden order, the design that is beneath the appearances of natural phenomenon. [From the transcript.]
For more on this topic, I recommend Nancy Pearcey’s The Soul of Science.