Posted on 11/24/2007 5:45:11 AM PST by shrinkermd
SCIENCE, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term “doubting Thomas” well illustrates the difference. In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.
The problem with this neat separation into “non-overlapping magisteria,” as Stephen Jay Gould described science and religion, is that science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.
The most refined expression of the rational intelligibility of the cosmos is found in the laws of physics, the fundamental rules on which nature runs. The laws of gravitation and electromagnetism, the laws that regulate the world within the atom, the laws of motion — all are expressed as tidy mathematical relationships. But where do these laws come from? And why do they have the form that they do?
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I realize that it is not the point of the article, but apply the above to the current globull warming "debate."
That's a stretch. Faith requires evidence; it is a person's judgment about this evidence.
Faith also entails the response of the person to God... Belief that God exists is a basic judgment about the world; faith is what a person does if he/she believes this.
ping
Does God exist within the universe or the universe within God?
Is God subject to “Natural Law” or is Natural Law” just a manifestation of His nature?”
The Case For Miracles
Two of the great cornerstones of modern civilization are science and the Christian religion. The relationship between the two has often been rocky and recently they have engaged in virtual thermonuclear war over many disparate topics. One such incendiary subject is that of the miracle. From “ In the beginning God created” to Paul’s healing of the sick on the island of Melita, miracles are myriad in Scripture and fundamental to the Christian faith. If miracles cannot occur then there was no resurrection from the dead, no propitiation for our sin and no hope of reconciliation with God.
The Christian believes that miracles are not only possible but also necessary. The most fundamental tenant of Christianity is the miracle of the resurrection. Any declaration as to the impossibility of the occurrence of miracles and especially the resurrection is an ipso facto attack on the veracity of the faith itself. The secular-scientist believes that not only have there been no miracles but also that their occurrence would be impossible. Their existence would violate the principles, which govern the universe. Understanding how these two investigators can come to opposite conclusions lies not in the objective examination of the relevant facts but rather in the fundamental subjective evaluative processes with which each side begins.
The particular world-view to which an investigator subscribes will color the interpretation of any data accumulated. During the cold war, Radio Free Europe, Radio Moscow and Radio Beijing had available to them the same factual material, but due to their antecedent world-views the facts were interpreted differently by each. The Christian and secular-scientist do similarly have the same facts at hand but reach opposite conclusions. Why? Because although the Christian believes that science is a valid search for truth he also believes that all truth is from God and that all truth must ultimately integrate within the design and purpose of God. His world-view is theism. The secular-scientist, on the other hand, believes that the idea of god is mythological having no empirical basis. All truth stands by itself, apart from any god-concept and can only be discerned through scientific investigation. His world-view is naturalism.
The investigative methodology utilized by the investigator also influences the ultimate conclusion at which he arrives. The Christian is deductive, arguing from the general to the specific. He holds to an a priori belief in the supremacy of an Omnipotent-Creator-God to Whom the individual physical “laws of nature” are subject. The secular-scientist is inductive, arguing from the specific to the general. He holds to an a priori belief in the supremacy of the many “immutable” laws of nature to which all life and events are subject. In the one world-view, God is the guarantor of order within the universe, in the other, “natural law.” Although the secular-scientist would never admit it, each requires the identical starting point, faith.
Naturalism is rooted in empiricism, which postulates that all knowledge is based upon experience, that nothing can be known apart from experience. It denies the existence of the spiritual and de-emphasizes the metaphysical. The secular-scientist therefore subscribes to the argument against miracles articulated by the Scottish born empiricist David Hume, 1711-1776. Hume’s “proof” goes something like this:
1) There is immutable regularity in the time-space universe, which can be called natural law.
2) The historian must use historical evidence to judge the probability or possibility of any event including a purported miracle.
3) Miracles by definition fall outside the parameters of the regularity of the time-space universe and are therefore contrary to natural law in a way that historical evidence cannot mitigate.
The Christian challenges each proposition and denies the conclusion.
Full article at... http://ficotw.org/caseformiracles.html
Precisely. The author gets it wrong in the first sentence. Thomas doubted the risen Christ until he touched the actual wounds that killed Him. Belief in Christ must be tested. Christians believe that reason is the key to understanding.
This reminds me of something I’ve mentioned during discussions about atheism. I try not to take too much spiteful pleasure in pointing out the logical and intellectual flaws and contradictions of atheism but when it comes down to it, the atheist’s line of reasoning depends on faith—not logic or empiricism but faith—in his own conclusion that First Cause was either random or never took place.
Atheism is really its own contradiction.
CS Lewis wrote a great article on the Obstinacy of Faith. You know that your wife is faithful. Everyone in town tells you they saw her with another guy. In the teeth of that evidence, you trust her. And in the end, when it turns out they were mistaken, and she never cheated on you, you reply that you knew it all along. Such is our faith in God. Or at least that is one (imperfect) way of allegorizing it...
The author qualified his remarks with “we are repeatedly told” and thus did not “get it wrong.”
Simply put...consensus is not science.
Yes, I agree. The author quotes others on this issue, he does not assert it.
I think I understand English well enough to point out that "doubting" Thomas did not take his faith w/o evidence. Like many commentors on science/religion the author doesn't understand the very foundational elements of Christianity.
St Paul says test EVERYTHING w/ reason and logic.
The author got his point on St Thomas exactly wrong.
I think I understand English well enough to point out that "doubting" Thomas did not take his faith w/o evidence. Like many commentors on science/religion the author doesn't understand the very foundational elements of Christianity.
St Paul says test EVERYTHING w/ reason and logic.
The author got his point on St Thomas exactly wrong.
The first statement is neither an assumption, nor is it held on faith. In logic the statement is equivalent to the axiom A=A. Science holds it as a propsition that's based in evidence. IOWs it's theory.
Faith is belief based on what one is told, or what one tells himself w/o evidence, knowledge, or understanding. Most take things on faith, that includes topics of science. In faith based systems, credentials of one form, or another take the place of evidence and rational inquiry.
I had the same thoughts ... science begins with a series of observations and formulates a hypothesis to explain those observations. At some point, new observations are made, relegating the hypothesis to the scrap heap. The sun is the center of the universe, the earth is flat are but two such hypotheses. Anthropogenic global warming will join these some day.
Up to a point. See Jesus' response to Thomas--"Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet believed."
“The author gets it wrong in the first sentence.”
How could any author get it right in such a controversial atmosphere?
I don't find that the author has more than the shallowest understandings of faith. "Doubting Thomas" stands in the context of the whole gospel narrative and Thomas' part in it, not merely the oversimplification to which the author finds useful response. In writing that, however, I don't mean to discourage the author's thrust of argumentation.
To have faith is not merely "punting" from a plane of scientific pursuit. Faith is a gift from God, not a human endeavor. Faith should not be considered a virtue, as God gives such a gift to whom He pleases, not as a reward for scientific cleverness, or blithe, carefree willingness to "take a leap." It's not virtuous for Jews to exercise an arrogance that they are God's chosen people. As Old and New Testaments suggest, God is able to supplant the chosen vine, and make even rocks children of Abraham (Mt 3:9, Lk 3:8, etc.).
For those with a scientific, ungifted-by-God point of view, such may understand that faith is not at all without evidence, as such is readily seen in nature, viz. Romans 1. The point is that faith will never have the proof "from within the system" (viz. Goedel) as this author desires. If proof is required, we'll be inherently disappointed, as in such case, the rocks could believe and inanimate objects not in the image of God would be part of the set of faithful believers, pleasing to God. That's not God's creation.
However, I do find the author's reflections on science-as-taught do suggest a healthy direction for that endeavor.
When I was in high school some 30 years ago, our science and math teachers brought in some speaker who posed some interesting problems. One of those struck me deeply. The speaker posited we were to imagine we were viewing a car race from a crowded seat just beside the raceway. Each car had a race-assigned unique, sequential number. The cars, however, whizzed around the track quickly, and our view would allow us only to make out the numbers on some percentage of the cars. The speaker wanted to know how many cars were in the race, and expected us to answer with the highest number we'd recognized. I was aghast! In most cases, I thought that would be silly, as it would presume we'd seen the highest number car go by.
I thought we should better construct a model that assessed an approximation for the percentage of the cars that whizzed past verus whose numbers we were able to discern. Assuming randomness, we should consider the set of car numbers we actually saw. The average of those numbers, assuming we got a representative sample, would trend toward an average of the overall, mitigated by the percentage discerned. The highest numbered car we saw would probably not be as "trustworthy" as double the averaged car numbers seen. Again, assuming we'd seen a sufficiently representative sample, the higher of 2x the average or the highest car number plus some number to offset the likelihood that we had not actually seen the highest car number should be our guess of how many cars were in the race.
The speaker was surprised that such an explanation would come from a freshman.
Analogously, I do agree with the article's author that there is indeed faith involved in the science we have handed down. (Start with a faith as underlined above, if one must.) It needn't stay that way, if a critical mass of believers in science can learn to live in a system that incorporates extrapolation beyond what they know, given a healthier appreciate of how little they actually "know" combined with circumspection about the likelihood (that is, unlikelihood) that the rickety system yet constructed doesn't and can't account for a very large percentage of the "multiverse". It would be wonderful if we could see yet in our lifetimes a convergence that ameliorates the divisiveness many with political motives seem to plant and foster, based on science adopting approrpriate respect for how little falls within their system of explanation. It is reasonable that they all be wonderfully and energetically motivated to continue to make recede the span between God's knowledge and our own, all with a healthy and correct dose of humility (Psalms 139).
HF
” think I understand English well enough to point out that “doubting” Thomas did not take his faith w/o evidence. Like many commentors on science/religion the author doesn’t understand the very foundational elements of Christianity.
St Paul says test EVERYTHING w/ reason and logic.”
You are correct. Every miracle Jesus performed was verifiable by sight, hearing, touch - no one was required to accept the accomplished miracle on faith, though faith was an ingredient in effecting the miracle.
Ridiculous! Lack of knowledge and understanding does not equal faith and the theory that is in place is testable. There can be no reason for the existance of everything, because the physics were always there. Even God Himself requires an underlying physics to support His existance, because w/o the underlying physics, there is nothing to support the machinery of spirit. Spirit is the sentience, rational capacity and resultant holdings the physics provides for.
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