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Science & Truth

Pilate cynically asked the question 'what is truth? For the Christian the irony is that truth was staring him in the face and he couldn't see it. For most people in Christian Europe up until the C17 truth was to be found in the bible and perhaps the literature of the classics. Around the C17/18 a seismic shift in the source of truth and authority took place. The power of human reason to discover truth came to the fore. In philosophy Rene Descartes tried to build a philosophy of truth from the first principles of human reason. 'I think, therefore I am'. Nothing was taken for granted. No tradition or religion or idea was to be believed unless it could be proved by human reason. Around the same time Francis Bacon laid the building blocks of modern science. Truth was to be discovered in the physical world through experiment. It was the product of scientific investigation and inquiry. Human reason was again the foundation of truth. Alexander Pope summed up the spirit of optimism and confidence that the world began to have in science in his Epitaph for Sir Isaac Newton

Nature and Nature’s law lay hid in night:
God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light.

By the C20 it was almost taken for granted that philosophy and science were the two high priests of truth, especially science. In the modern mind science is not merely a tool to discover truth it is truth itself. If science says it, it must be right. If the experts say it, it is reliable.

For Christians this creates a dilemma. When society sees the bible and science in conflict then inevitably science is assumed right and the bible wrong. As Christians we protest yet secretly we wonder if society is perhaps right.

There are important issues here. Both Christians and society tend to make assumptions that are not warranted. Firstly, Christians in particular are guilty of saying 'the bible says...' when what they really mean is 'I understand the bible to be saying...’ In other words what the bible actually says and what we think it says may be two different things. Christians can confidently say that proper science and the bible never contradict each other. But that is different from saying that proper science and our misguided interpretations of the bible never contradict each other.

If it is true that Christians make assumptions about the bible that are unwarranted then it is no less true that society makes assumptions about science that are equally unwarranted for a number of reasons.

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About John

Hi there - I am a member of Greenview and have been for over 20 years. For a number of these years I functioned as an elder, however, indifferent health forced me to take more of a back seat. I see this as an opportunity to do a little writing, often focussing on issues that are a matter of evangelical debate today. Naturally the views expressed are my own and may not reflect the views of the elders or church at large, though differences are likely to be in the detail and not the substance.

These articles and sermons were written partly to clarify my own thoughts and partly with the intention of provoking thought in others who may read them. If you read one I hope you find it stimulating. Please feel free to give me feedback or discuss my articles in the forums.

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