Since the beginning of recorded history man has been fascinated by the exploration of his surroundings. From the simplest inquiries into his immediate surroundings to the complicated and fanciful speculations which have been produced to explain more complex phenomena, we are the heirs of a long history of attempts to understand. Eventually a continuous thread began to emerge, the embryonic stages of a new way of looking at the world. Beginning in Greece and growing in western Europe, these new dreamers began exploring the world using deduction and observation. The basis for scientific inquiry that they established has provided the launching board for a host of advances. The view that science alone provides access to truth has become increasingly prevalent. This view, however, is flawed. Science deals in probabilities, not certainties, and it has its limits. Beyond those limits other means of determining truth not only can but have achieved the certainty which escapes the grasp of the scientist.
To many the very idea that this might be the case is frightening and disturbing. In large part this is because of a misunderstanding, particularly in modern western culture, of the nature of knowledge. Because of its tremendous ability to reveal truth about the natural world, science, and mathematics, the language of science, has come to be considered to be the only means of finding truth. This is not entirely unwarranted - it would be difficult to imagine a better tool for understanding the natural world than science - but it is simplistic. Science is a construct created by humans in recognition both of the nature of the universe we inhabit and of our own failings. It derives its power from its ability to accommodate human inabilities, but those failings are also its Achilles heel. It exists in the present, physical world, like us, and it is limited to achieving near-certainty - absolute truth is entirely beyond the province of science. When science is confronted with areas outside its empire those who rely solely on science are left teetering on the edge of a chasm of unknowns. A certain amount of distress is to be expected. Mathematicians attempted to lead the way across the abyss and establish a rational system of absolute truth, but, without going into too much painful detail, the work of Kurt Gödel effectively demolished that precarious scaffold by establishing that true statements can exist which it is impossible to prove using axiomatic reasoning - in other words, mathematics proved that it cannot prove. The boundaries of the axiomatic-deductive system, which provides the basis for all of science, although still foggy, clearly exist and cannot be breached.
This, however, should come as no surprise, whether one is religious or not. After all, there is no particular reason why rational inquiry should be able to probe anything real. Why shouldn't the world be chaotic? Einstein described the fact that our senses correspond to reality as a "miracle." He attributed it, as any good positivist must, to some unknown force which transcends our perception of reality. His description is the simplest which is logically defensible. Some force, incomprehensible through our reason, must have designed and maintain the universe to be comprehensible to our minds. In fact, this is the greatest contribution science can make toward understanding the impenetrable fog before it. It cannot cross the boundaries of its empire, but it can probe them. It can only bring us to the end of the finite, but because of the very fact that it can do so it leaves no doubt that the infinite must exist, even if it is just out of sight beyond the corner.
This, however, should come as no surprise, whether one is religious or not. After all, there is no particular reason why rational inquiry should be able to probe anything real. Why shouldn't the world be chaotic? Einstein described the fact that our senses correspond to reality as a "miracle." He attributed it, as any good positivist must, to some unknown force which transcends our perception of reality. His description is the simplest which is logically defensible. Some force, incomprehensible through our reason, must have designed and maintain the universe to be comprehensible to our minds. In fact, this is the greatest contribution science can make toward understanding the impenetrable fog before it. It cannot cross the boundaries of its empire, but it can probe them. It can only bring us to the end of the finite, but because of the very fact that it can do so it leaves no doubt that the infinite must exist, even if it is just out of sight beyond the corner.
Once the existence of the infinite is established it remains only to determine its nature. Here we have taken leave entirely from the axiomatic-deductive method, and in ourselves would be completely lost. Finite creatures cannot hope to comprehend the actions of the infinite, let alone the smallest particle of the infinite itself. We are lost completely, completely unable to begin to understand what it is that we cannot know. We have as much chance of reaching our goal as a man sinking in quicksand has of saving himself by pulling on his shoestrings. Insofar as finding absolute truth is concerned, we are helpless.
And we would remain helpless, too, but for one fact: the Infinite is not a thing or a impersonal force, it is a Being with a desire to know us, and for us to know Him. He was not content to leave us flailing in the dark, instead reaching down into our finite existence to communicate His infinity to us. Through this revelation and through His direct communion with us we have the ability to begin to know the nature of the truly Infinite. Again, the axiomatic-deductive approach can be useful, but only in probing the edges. The true working of the infinite transcends our understanding. It would be pointless to attempt to grasp it all, just as it would be pointless for child who enjoyed the ocean to try to bring it home. We cannot grasp it all - it is not all ours - but we can grasp enough. We will never know all of the nature of the Infinite, since we are not infinite ourselves, but we can join the blind man of John 9:25 in saying "One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.”
Therein lies the wonder and beauty of it: through God's revelation to us we can achieve greater certainty than we can through all of science. Science is our way of adapting our means of finding knowledge to our fallen condition, but it cannot rival the direct revelation of the One is infinite and perfect. Through Him we are truly imbued with, in the words of Michael Faraday, "no doubtful hope." This is not a guess or an arbitrary statement about an area in which we have no knowledge, it is the only possible conclusion which can be reached once one has reached the end of reason's ability to comprehend and experienced the revelation of God to man. To again quote Faraday:
"Speculations, man, I have none. I have certainties. I thank God that I don't rest my dying head upon speculations for "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day."
When we have gone as far as reason can take us we are still lost, but God in His mercy did not leave us with reason alone. He revealed Himself to us, and finding that we had sullied His creation and were lost and fallen, He died for us so that He could have communion with those who come to Him in repentance and faith. For this reason it is possible to know beyond any shadow of a doubt - and I do - that there is a God and that He loves us.
Labels: Christianity, Philosophy, Theology
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