Is the scientific method the sole mans of arriving at what is real? Science has so often been promoted in our modern culture as the power of humanity to rise above all prior conditioning to know the truth objectively.

Science has created an elite community of ‘knowers’, knowers of how to manipulate, control and interpret nature. Scientific knowledge in our modern culture equals power.

The issue of interpretation in both the Bible and in science

The problem of Christians trying to make the Bible say things which is doesn’t say and scientist who say the facts say things that they do not say. If we limit ourselves to what the Bible actually says and to what the scientific facts actually are, we shrink the area of controversy enormously.

Are things which cannot be verified by the scientific method valid and real?

Because science is so incredibly succesful in unravelling many of nature’s secrets, and because its applied arm, technology, has brought such exciting advances, it is widely viewed as being able to pronounce absolutely on ultimate issues, issues where it has assumed the right to speak but has, in my view, spoken illegitimately.

The scientific method is valid only for those realities which are measurable in physical terms. God is a different kind of reality from the world of nature which science examines.

What are the limitations of the scientific method?

Somehow, here in the twentieth century we have so many who hold to the opinion that if you can’t prove it scientifically, it’s not true. Well, that is not true! There’s a problem of proving anything about a person or event in history. We need to understand the difference between scientific proof and what I call legal-historical proof

1.   scientific proof - based on showing that something is a fact by repeating the event in the presence of the person questioning the fact. There is a controlled environment where observations can be made, data drawn, and hypotheses empirically verified. It’s related to measurement of phenomena and experimentation of repeated observation

Testing the truth of a hypothesis by the use of controlled experiment is one of the key techniques of the modern scientific method.

If the scientific method was the only method of proving something, you couldn’t prove that you went to your first hour class this morning or that you had lunch today.

2.   legal-historical proof - based on showing that something is fact beyond a reasonable doubt. Hence, a verdict is reached on the basis of the weight of the evidence. That is, there is no reasonable basis for doubting the decision. It depends on three types of testimony:

i.     oral testimony

ii.    written testimony

iii.  exhibits

The scientific method can be used only to prove repeatable things; it isn’t adequate for proving or disproving many questions about a person or event in history. The scientific method isn’t appropriate for answering such questions as:

·       did Billy T. James live?

·       Was Martin Luther King a civil rights leader?

·       Who was Jesus of Nazareth?

The scientific method, which is based on observation, the gathering of data, hypothesising, deduction, and experimental verification to find and explain empirical regularities in nature, doesn’t have the final answers to such questions.

Science is incapable of making value judgments about the things it measures. There is nothing in science itself which will determine whether nuclear energy will be used to destroy cities or destroy cancer. This is a judgment outside the scientific method to determine.

Also purpose - Science can tell us how something works but not why it works that way. Whether there is any purpose in the universe can never be answered for us by science.

Don’t realise that the universe holds together because of Jesus: Some have believed that God was necessary to explain the gaps we have in our knowledge…. Unbelieving scientists seize on this concept to point out tht these gaps are narrowing … those who adopt this point of view forget that God is not only creator, but also sustainer (Col 1.17). the universe would fall apart without his sustaining power… knowing how the universe is sustained is not the same thing as sustaining it.

Fragmentative

‘Complete’  understanding of a system’s individual parts in no way guarantees that I understand the ‘whole’. Such ‘fragmentary analysis’, while achieving so much in science, can also create an over-confidence - a feeling that I now have the complete answer.

Science must therefore be seen as just one aspect of crative human knowing. This knowing must be supplementd by and dependent on other ways of knowing if it is to takeits rightful place in our quest for truth.

Objective

The ‘objective’ knowledge which science so often claims to provide really turns that particular part of nature into an object in order to study it scientifically.

For example, with breaking down music scientifically, all this ‘objective’ scientific knowledge still has not explained the music and the impression it make on our being.

Similarly, we cannot find scientific definitions of right or wrong, happiness, dignity, love, hate, aggression. Yet all are significant aspects of reality.

This important principle which states that lower level explanations may not adequately describe or account for higher levels of reality is illustrated with the newspaper analogy.

We could argue that each different picture is just ink on paper. This is the lowest level of explanation, and is comparable to what we might call the ‘scientific description’ - particularly if we were to investigate in detail the chemistry of how ink stains the cellulose fibres comprising the paper. But this type of description can tell us nothing about the real purpose of the ink-on-paper which was to convey a message embodied in the word ‘exit’.

What is the purpose of the Bible?

The Bible does not purport to tell us the how of many things, but it clearly gives us the why’s. this is not to say that when the Scriptures refer to matters of science and history they are inaccurate, but rather to point out the focus of their attention.

Non-believers often assert that science has demonstrated the Bible to be outdated … this assertion makes several erroneous assumptions and ignores the perspective of the Bible.

1.   the Bible is not a text book on science. It’s purpose is to explain God’s purpose and relation to humans, to deal with spiritual things.

2.   the descriptions which the Bible gives concerning nature are neither scientific nor unscientific, but phrased by words that are non-technical and often general, so that even the common reader can follow the thought. This does no means the statements are incorrect.

3.   although the Bible was written during a time when many fanciful ideas about the world were prevalent, it shows itself unique in its views of creation, nature and God (cf the Babylonian account).

4.   The Bible cannot be adequately explained simply as a product of its own environment …the prevailing belief of the nations of antiquity is polytheistic, a belief diametrically opposed to the monotheism of the Bible, the only monotheism in ancient times. … even the learned Greek philosophers had ridiculous notions about light, creation, and astronomy. The Vedas, which are the Hindu Scriptures, teach that ‘the moon is approximately 150000 miles higher than the sun and shines with its own light, that the earth is flat and triangular, and that earthquakes are caused by elephants shaking themselves under it. It was Ptolemy who suggested that the earth was flat.

In contrast, there are no absurd statements in the Bible similar to these. [even though the Bible dates to the same time or an earlier time to these predominant thoughts]

The issue of faith in both science and Christianity

Faith is no detriment to the apprehension of reality. In fact, science itself rests on presuppositions which must be accepted by faith before research is possible. One such assumption is that the universe is orderly, that it operates according to a pattern and that therefore one can predict its behaviour.

Seven basic assumptions that are often not mentioned during discussions of evolution:

1.   non-living things gave rise to living material, i.e., that spontaneous generation occurred.

2.   spontaneous generation occurred only once.

3.   viruses, bacteria, plants, and animals are all interrelated

4.   protozoa gave rise to metazoa

5.   the various invertebrate phyla are interrelated

6.   invertebrates gave rise to the vertebrates.

7.   vertebrates and fish gave rise to the amphibia, the amphibia to the reptiles, and the reptiles to the birds and mammals.

The seven assumptions by their nature are not capable of experimental verification. … though it may be possible to mimic some of these events under present-day conditions, this does not mean that these events must therefore have taken place in the past. All that it shows is that it is possible for such a  change to take place.

Problems:

1.   there yet remains the proof of the inorganic origin of life. It may be assumed but it is not yet verified.

2.   the problem of the rugged species which have endured without change for millions of years.

3.   the problem of the sudden appearance of new forms in the geologic record. It is erroneous ot speak of the missing link. In fact there are thousands of missing links.

apparent conflict of the evolutionary theory with the second law of thermodynamics. This is also called the law of entropy. It says, in essence,t hat ‘in any energy transfer or change, though the total amount of energy remains unchanged, the amount of usefulness and availability that the energy possesses is always decreased.

The Christian roots of Science

The scientific method as we know it today, began in the 16th century among men who were Christians. Breaking with the Greek polytheistic concepts which viewed the universe as capricious and irregular, and therefore not capable of systematic study, they reasoned that the universe must be orderly and worthy of investigation because it was the work of an intelligent Creator. In pursuing scientific research, they were convinced they were thinking God’s thoughts after him.

Another unprovable presupposition that must be accepted by faith is the reliability of our sense perceptions. One must believe that our senses are trustworthy enough to get a true picture of the universe and enable us to understand the orderliness we observe.

If man can think God’s thoughts after him, it should not be so inconceivable that man may be able to bring life out of a test tube - but he has not thereby become God.

The problem of trying to prove the Bible scientifically

Scientific theory is a matter of the highest degree of probability based on data available.

Science is a train that is constantly moving … this is why it it dangerous to try to ‘prove’ the Bible by science.