Question: What are the sources of human understanding? Response: Revelation in the Christian tradition is an important source of human understanding; Scientific

Question:What are the sources of human understanding?

Response:

Revelation in the Christian tradition is an important source of human understanding;

Scientific enquiry is an important source of

human understanding;

The Nature and Importance of the Scientific Method

• What do we mean by the scientific method and in what way does this challenge traditional Christian beliefs?

• • We mean by the ‘scientific method’ the objective

standard by which scientists claim to carry out research. This method challenges the traditional Christian beliefs through the assumptions it makes about how or what we can know with certainty and offers a scientific perspective of reality

The Nature and Importance of the ‘Religious’ Method

• Traditionally, Christians have relied on the ‘Religious Method’ to answer questions of truth and offers a different perspective of reality.

• This method includes: • a) Natural revelation – what nature tells us about

God’ existence • b) Special revelation – primarily what the Bible

tells us about God, but also how religious experience tells us about another reality


• The scientific method seeks to be able to describe ‘how’ things work.

• However, there is an assumption that is made by some scientists (scientism), that we can only truly or reliably ‘know’ about our universe by using this method of finding out.

• What Christians and others call into question, is this bold assumption made by some scientists, that the only ‘true’ or ‘reliable’ knowledge is that discovered by the scientific method. Christians would argue, that we can know reliably in other ways. Through God’s word, (the Bible), through personal experience of God and through Natural revelation – what God reveals about His existence as Creator.


• Over the centuries Christianity and science has had an uneasy relationship. In terms of method and assumptions they have been seen as poles apart – detached observation and demand for proof on the part of science, as against commitment and faith on the part of religion.

• There is no doubt that science is one of the great success stories of the twentieth century. Some would argue that this has been as a direct result of the methods it uses. But is there such a thing as a specifically scientific method? And if so what is it?

The Scientific Method

• The essence of the scientific approach is sometimes summed up in the phrase, ‘only hippos eat vultures’, that is, Observation, Hypothesis, Experiment, Verification.

• By contrast Christian faith is seen (perhaps wrongly) to rest mainly on ‘revelation’ and therefore is unable to be verified in scientific terms.

• Many of the criticisms levelled at Christianity by the scientific community are related to this difference in approach.


• This experimental method (scientific method), is generally thought to have been invented in the seventeenth century and explained in the writings of the Christian, Francis Bacon. Bacon was an enthusiastic scientist (but by profession was a politician and lawyer, and became the Lord Chancellor of England).

• He sought to justify new methods and assumptions so that science could progress on to greater discoveries. His passion for experiment is said to have resulted in his own death after he contracted a chill because he got out of his carriage in the depth of winter to carry out an experiment with snow as a means of preserving meat.


• Science is a systematic problem solving strategy. This strategy is known as the scientific method and works as follows:


• Observation• First of all information and data is collected

about something which is going on in the world. This may involve days, weeks, months or even years of collecting data.

• The scientist uses his or her senses to gain information. It may involve the use of special instruments to extend the scientists’ scope of observation (microscopes, telescopes, Gieger tubes, etc.)


• Hypothesis

• The scientist will then venture a hunch as to what might be going on.

• This provisional answer as to what might be going on is called a hypothesis.


• Experiment

• Here the scientist tests his or her hypothesis.

• This has to be done with great care and precision.

• All the conditions of the experiment have to be controlled and standardised as far as possible.


• Induction

• From the results workout a theory to account for the results of the experiment.

• For example, a scientist might carry out an experiment to test the regular temperature for when water is likely to boil.


• VerificationOther scientists will then try to repeat the experiments to see if they get similar results. If these experiments confirm your results then your hypothesis becomes a theory.

• For example, if the result of experiments carried out show that water being boiled by scientists in London, New York, Sydney and Calcutta all agree that it boils at 100 degrees centigrade, then they can safely suggest that water always boils at 100 degrees centigrade.

• No theory is accepted until it has been independently confirmed by other scientists.

Challenges of Scientific Method of enquiry to Revelation as a source of human

understanding

• Some philosophers (logical positivists), suggest that meaningful statements must be open either to verification or to falsification.

• This limits our knowledge to scientific statements and results in the dismissal of religious statements since they cannot be verified or falsified.


understanding

• The scientific method involves observation and experiment.

• Truth is arrived at through reflection on human experience.

• In a society which values scientific truth there is the temptation to dismiss religious truth as lacking solid foundation.


understanding

• Science claims to base its knowledge on evidence, where religious knowledge is based on faith.

• There is the persuasive belief therefore that we have more grounds for accepting scientific truth than we have for accepting religious truth.

• But this is neglecting the alternative argument that suggests it takes a greater faith or even credulity to believe ‘scientific truth’ of order, predictability and uniformity in a universe of chance.


understanding• It is sometimes claimed that science is objective

while religion is subjective. • This is the claim that scientific knowledge is about the

real world and does not depend upon the personal opinions and preferences of the people who make scientific statements, while religious knowledge tells us more about the people who make religious statements than about the way things actually are.

• But, Popper suggests that even scientists are subjective in the way they gather data and make observations. Scientists are no more neutral or objective than theologians. Equally, theologians are no more subjective than scientists.


understanding• Science assumes that nature is uniform and

conforms to patterns and fixed laws. • This challenges the Christian idea that miracles

can happen. Popper again challenges this scientific method of induction, as do many philosophers. Just because things happen this way in the present, it does not mean that the history of the universe was uniform in the past, or that it will continue in the same way.

• But why is there causality and predictability anyway? Aquinas and Paley suggests that it is because of God the creator, designer and sustainer.

The Problem of INDUCTION

• One of the problems with the scientific method has been the problem of induction as a way of verifying whether a scientific claim is true or not.

• Using only the inductive method to verify scientific claims can lead to error as frequently as it leads to truth. The water experiment is one such example of induction leading to wrong conclusions. Just because water boils at 100 degrees centigrade in London, New York, Sydney and Calcutta, does not mean that will always boil at 100 degrees centigrade.

• If the same experiment was carried out on the moon, or even on a high mountain, the result would be different. You would find that water no longer boils at 100 degrees centigrade, but a lower temperature.

The Problem of INDUCTION

• Bertrand Russell – an atheistic philosopher, (c1952) in his book Problems of Philosophy gave a light-hearted example of a problem that induction has. He makes the illustration about the chicken, having been fed every morning, expects the same thing to happen on Christmas Eve, only to have its head chopped off!

• We never know, in going through evidence, whether the next piece we examine will not prove to be the ruin of all our dearly held beliefs. (Philosophy of Religion: Mel Thomson; p207) In a world of cold, meaningless chance, Christmas Eve could happen to us.

OTHER METHODS WITHIN SCIENCE • Far from there being one scientific method it might

well be that scientists make progress in their field in a variety of ways, some of which involves methodical means, others which do not. For example, scientists rely on intuition, hunches, inspirational guesses and leaps in the dark.

• They also rely on teamwork and accident such as in the ‘discovery’ of penicillin by Fleming. One famous scientist who did not believe he did science using the Baconian (or inductive) method was Charles Darwin. As far as he was concerned facts had no meaning in themselves until they were pulled together and presented for or against some hypothesis.

OTHER METHODS WITHIN SCIENCE

• It was the philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994) in the twentieth century who first set out this alternative way of thinking about science. The problem of induction and the fact that many scientific developments and discoveries had been arrived at by different means interested Popper.

• He set out what he regarded as the means by which science actually progresses. His theory was that falsification is the way science and scientists actually progress on to better theories. His account of scientific method is sometimes known as the ‘falsification theory’. Science, he said, proceeds not by induction but by deduction.


• According to Popper scientists begin with a theory. He referred to these as conjectures, well-informed guesses that required to be experimentally tested, not to prove them true but rather to prove them false.

• When all the scientist’s theories have been shown to be false except one, then he or she can conclude, at least for the time being, that the remaining theory is the correct one. But no theory is safe for all time.


• Every theory is ultimately only a hypothesis and therefore it is always possible to refute them. Therefore science progresses by conjecture and refutation. Popper’s view seems to fit in with the actual history of science e.g., the Ptolemic view of the universe was falsified by Copernicus.

• Similarly, in the 20th century, Newtonian Physics was superseded by Einstein’s. Popper demonstrated that the hallmark of a good scientific theory was, not that it could be verified, but that it could be falsified. There are some objections to Popper’s account.


• First, it is not possible to test each and every theory that scientists might come up with. There would be simply too many of them.

• Second, Popper’s theory cannot really explain why exactly it is that some theories are rejected as obviously false and not worth testing at all. In fact, we probably rely on common sense to tell us which theories are too silly to bother with.

• Third, it is difficult to see how some theories, such as the theory of evolution, could be tested for falsifiability at all. Theories such as the Big-bang and evolution (in its macro sense) has never been observed, neither is there any testable experiment that can be applied to them to check the plausibility of the theory. So why do people believe them?

Relationships / responses to the Scientific Method as a source of Human Understanding

• (Scientism) Logical Positivism• The huge status afforded the scientific method

and the assumptions of science are partly a result of the influence of the philosopher A J Ayer and Logical Positivism.

• British philosopher A. J. Ayer presented many of the central doctrines of the positivist movement in his 1936 book, Language, Truth, and Logic.

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/a9.htm#ayer


(Scientism) Logical Positivism•The Logical Positivists were an influential group of philosophers who claimed that the only meaningful statements were scientific statements, (that is, those that could be empirically verified by the senses). •Thus, all theological and metaphysical statements such as ‘I believe in God’ or ‘Why are we here?’ were meaningless. •The credibility of this stance did not hold sway in philosophical circles for long, yet it has given rise to the popular view that scientific discourse is the only legitimate way to talk about reality.


(Scientism) Logical Positivism

•This view (logical positivism), is sometimes echoed by famous philosophers and scientists.

•The credibility of this view is well illustrated in the following quotations by a pre-eminent British philosopher and a pre-eminent British scientist.

•‘Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific means: and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.’ (Bertrand Russell)

•‘Truth means scientific truth.’ (Richard Dawkins)


(Theistic creationism) liberal Christianity• The scientific method and other methods of scientific enquiry

are both valid and helpful in understanding our universe. The founder of the scientific method (Sir Francis Bacon) was a Christian who believed in the God of creation, design and order. He believed that there were two books about God. The book of nature, that tells of His existence, power, and intelligence, and the book of the Bible which is a special revelation of Himself to us about ‘Who’ He is , ‘what’ He is like, and ‘how’ we can relate to God, others and His universe.

• Both the religious method (through natural and special revelation) and the scientific methods of understanding the universe are complimentary to one another. Together, they help understand both ‘how’ the universe works, and ‘why’ it is here, and helps explain our place within it, giving us meaning, value and purpose. Accept entirely modern theories.


(Special creationism) conservative Christianity• Special creationists agree entirely with the both statements

above by theistic creationists. However, we would add that the fact that belief in God as an intelligent designer by Sir Francis Bacon, led him (and other scientists) to assume that because of this there is order and predictability in the universe which in turn allows the scientific method to work.

• We would further add, that although both the scientific method and religious methods are compatible and complimentary, we must always interpret the ‘facts’ in the universe in the light of the truth of revelation in the Bible. Unlike theistic creationists, we reject theories that are incompatible with the revelation of the Bible, such as the Big bang theory, the very old age of the universe of billions of years, and an evolution theory that is entirely naturalistic. It is not the scientific method that is faulty, but scientists who are at fault, with their prejudice against God’s existence, before they even look at the evidence.


Special Creation scientist

Dr. Don Batten, B. Sc,Ph.D, adds: “the whole approach to modern science, depends on two major assumptions: causality and induction. The philosopher Hume made it clear that these are believed by ‘blind faith’ (Bertrand Russell’s words). Actually, these assumptions (causality and induction) arose from faith in the Creator-God of the Bible, as historians of science like Loren Eiseley have recognized.”

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/270.asp


(Special creationism) conservative Christianity• Causality has been argued by Thomas Aquinas.

We have causality, because we have a God who is the first cause of everything, and according to Paley, He has designed the universe with purpose. The inventor of the scientific method was the Christian Francis Bacon. Causality and predictability (the scientific method) makes sense to someone with a belief in a God of creation, design and purpose.


(Special creationism) conservative Christianity• Induction (that the sun will rise tomorrow, just as it did

today and yesterday), is part of natural revelation and the Bible. Both of which point to God who upholds the principle of cause, effect and predictability. Dr. Batten suggests strongly; “Scientists are so philosophically and theologically ignorant that they don’t even realize that they have these (and other) metaphysical assumptions. Being like a frog in the warming water, many do not even notice that there are philosophical assumptions at the root of much that passes as ‘science’. It’s part of their own worldview, so they don’t even notice.” See: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0228not_science.asp

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0228not_science.asp

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0228not_science.asp


• The question Christians ask is: ‘Why should we expect to see causality and induction (predictability) in a universe of cold meaningless chance?’

• The response must logically be ….?

Summary of Problems associated with the scientific method of enquiry

It does not address the metaphysical ‘why’ questions, but is limited to only addressing the ‘how’ things work:

The trouble with relying totally on science for knowledge and truth is that science leaves many questions unanswered, as is illustrated below:‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ (Leibniz)‘Why does the universe bother to exist? I don’t know the answer to this.’(Stephen Hawking)These statements seem to recognise that questions relating to meaning and purpose appear to be out-with the scientific realm. As we have seen earlier (Hay, Hardy and Ward), it is these ‘why’ questions that humans constantly reflect on, for example, why does the universe bother to exist? Some scientists have responded negatively to such questions ‘Don’t assume that ‘Why?’ deserves an answer when posed about the universe’. (Richard Dawkins in The Sunday Times 9/1/94). You can’t debate with that kind of closed response.


Scientific method of induction can lead to wrong conclusions

Atheist philosopher, Bertrand Russell points to the chicken, having been fed every morning, expects the same thing to happen on Christmas Eve, only to have its head chopped off! We never know, in going through evidence, whether the next piece we examine will not prove to be the ruin of all our dearly held beliefs.


Induction and Causality (predictability) in the scientific method of enquiry, are evidence of metaphysical assumptions about God:

The question Christians ask is ‘Why should we expect to see causality and induction (predictability) in a universe of cold meaningless chance?’Special Creationist scientist Dr. Don Batten, B. Sc, Ph.D, ‘the whole approach to modern science, depends on two major assumptions: causality and induction. The philosopher Hume made it clear that these are believed by ‘blind faith’ (Bertrand Russell’s words).


Scientific method might be objective but scientists are not:

Karl Popper asks how do scientists know what data to observe and collect prior to carrying out experiments unless of course, they already have an idea about the possible answers they might expect from their experiments.He also suggests that there are many occasions in the past, where scientists have made discoveries about the universe that have been based as much on guesses, hunches and instincts rather than hard evidence.Special Creationist scientists also make the same point, that all of us, (whether atheistic scientist or creationist scientist), have beliefs, and assumptions that affect the way we interpret evidence, or as the atheist Popper suggests make decisions about theories.


Some theories can’t be tested

Theories such as the Big-bang and evolution (in its macro sense), has never been observed, neither is there any testable experiment that can be applied to them to check the plausibility of the theory. All scientists share the same data, – but the data is interpreted according to our preconceived beliefs or assumptions.

SUMMARY of Three Responses to Revelation and the Scientific Method of Enquiry

Reject revelation as a reliable source of understanding;

Scientism – the belief by some scientists that the only claims to truth must be scientific claims; A J Ayer (logical positivism)


Accept the scientific method as a valid source of human understanding, but reject the naturalistic interpretations of scientific enquiry;

Special Creationism – the belief that open-minded scientific enquiry supports Biblical revelation; Dr. Don Batten


3. Accept both revelation and scientific enquiry as reliable sources of understanding;

Theistic Creationism – the belief by some scientists that both science and Bible revelation offer truth about origins;

Summary of Importance / Relevance of the Scientific Method

All scientists religious and non-religious, agree that the scientific method is an important source to human understanding of the universe;


•Scientism suggests that the scientific method is the only valid method for understanding the universe;


•Theistic creationism and special creationism say that the scientific method is complementary to the religious method of understanding the universe;


•Both (theistic creationist and special creationists) believe that the scientific method is useful for answering ‘how’ questions whilst the religious method helps answer the metaphysical ‘why’ questions;


•Theistic creationists re-interpret the Bible accounts of origins in light of modern scientific theories such as the big bang and evolution;


•Special creationists argue that the interpretations of the facts discovered by the scientific method should agree with the Bible account of creation;

Summary of Strengths of Scientific Method of enquiry

•Has benefited and advanced technology, medicine, etc;

•Given us greater understanding of how the universe works;

Summary of Strengths of Scientific Method of enquiry

•Is a model for enquiry that all scientists can use for credibility and objectivity;

•From a theistic and special creationist perspective, the elements of causality and induction (predictability) may point to there being a metaphysical assumption of God;

Summary of Limitations of Scientific Method of enquiry

•Has also brought much suffering through nuclear threat, biological warfare, or, to the health and environment through genetically modified food; (Not a limitation of the scientific method as such, but its misuse)•Is unable to address the meta-physical ‘why’ questions that seems to be part of being human;

Summary of Limitations of Scientific Method of enquiry

•Although the method might be a neutral model, humans by nature have pre-conceived assumptions or beliefs which affect their objectivity;

•Induction can lead to wrong conclusions;

Documents

Question: What are the sources of human understanding? Response: Revelation in the Christian tradition is an important source of human understanding; Scientific