Faith and Human Understanding
W. JIM NEIDHARDT
Physics Department
Newark College of Engineering Newark, New Jersey
From: JASA 21 (March 1969): 9-15.
This paper examines the nature of faith as an integral part of all
human understanding.
Rather than a block to rational thinking, faith is seen as a light by which one
can begin to build a rational structure. An analysis is given of major contributions
to this viewpoint by men who have grappled deeply with the problem of
the relationship
of faith to all varieties of knowledge. In particular, the thought of
Blaise Pascal
and Michael Polanyi is examined. Evidence is presented for recognition of the
compatibility of the validity of faith experience with a worldview of reality
that is hierarchical in structure.
INTRODUCTION
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of
things not seen.1
Thus, the biblical writer defines faith as an act of trusting, of
holding to convictions
when the evidence in a given situation is not immediately apparent. It should
be noted immediately that faith is not blind, it does not arise out
of a vacuum.
Faith stems from man's previous experience; salvation faith from
specific historical
events (seen through the eyes of faith as God revealing himself in
history), more
general faith from man's contact with reality through personal
relationships with
others and experience of order present in nature, etc. Faith, however, is much
more than a mere extrapolation of past experience for it interprets
such experience
and holds to convictions which cannot be reduced to mere inductions
from scientific
experience. The conviction that a scientific theory must possess a
rational beauty
and symmetry in an artistic sense is a good example of the latter. The purpose
of this paper is to present the viewpoint that faith is an inherent part of all
human endeavor and as such it is not destructive to sense experiences
and rational
thinking but a helpmate as seen so well by Blaise Pascal:
Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary
of what they
see. It is above them and not contrary to them.2
A secondary purpose is to remind readers of past and present works on
the nature
and purpose of faith
which elegantly testify to its universal quality. Accordingly, we
shall now examine
key aspects of faith as a guide to understanding reality.
BELIEVE IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND
Recent studies by philosophers of science have forcibly revealed that
scientific
theories are not merely summaries of data inductively gathered
together. Two recent
definitions of a theory and theory formulation will make this clear.
Karl Popper
defines theory by using the analogy of a net:
Theories are nets east to catch what we call 'the world: to
rationalize, to explain,
and to master it. We endeavor to make the mesh finer and finer.3
N. B. Hanson sees a theory and its formulation as follows:
Physical theories provide patterns within which data appears
intelligible-A theory
is not pieced together from existing phenomena; it is rather what
makes it possible
so observe phenomena as being of a certain sort, and as related to
other phenomena-A
theory is a cluster of conclusions in search of a premise. From the
observed properties
of phenomena the physicist reasons his way toward a keystone idea
from which the
properties are explicable as a matter of course.4
Thus, theories represent keystone ideas which fit a range of phenomena into a
pattern. They are formulated not by merely inductively collecting and
summarizing
data or making deductions from certain experimental facts, but by
actively seeking
to find a key pattern which provides a unified way of understanding the phenomena of interest. Such a process is not automatic;
its driving
force is the trust that such patterns do exist. Concepts of a given theory may
have to he modified or even abandoned as new data arrive, but the basic trust
or faith that an intelligent pattern exists is central to theory creation. In
summary, it is faith that a key idea will relate phenomena coherently
to one another
that motivates the selection of what is significant in existing data
and the search
for new data. It is by looking for key concepts that illumine broad
areas of physical
reality that science has made progress.
Alan Richardson in his book, Christian Apologetics,
has some very helpful thoughts on the relationship of faith to human
understanding.
He first points out that
the minds of the philosopher and the scientist are not different in kind or in
operation from the minds of the artist, the poet or the man of religion. We are
apt to overlook the fact that the scientist and the poet possess the human mind
in common, and that when we speak of the scientist or the philosopher
using methods
of reason and induction while the poet or religions man uses
intention and imagination,
we are making a distinction which exists in theory (and old-fashioned theory at
that) rather than in fact.6
Scientists seek to find patterns in Nature by coupling imagination and insight
with inductive methods.
The powers of induction in the mind of a great scientific genius are
not entirely
dissimilar to the faculty of a great poetic genius for perceiving all kinds of
analogies which ordinary people do not notice without his help.7
Secondly, Richardson, following St. Augustine, asserts that faith plays a vital
role in all realms of human experiences. St. Augustine, in his development of
the Old Latin Bible passage Is. 7:9.
Dost then wish to understand? Believe. For Cod has said by the prophet: 'Except
ye believe, ye shall not understand' ... Understanding is the reward of faith.
Therefore, do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou
mayest understand; since 'except ye believe, ye shall not understand.'5
saw a method of universal significance, faith as a guide by which reason works.
Faith does not provide the data of empirical knowledge; faith rather plays its
role in seeking to find a keystone idea, a pattern that will fit and
explain the
data. Such a task requires creative insight which couples an artistic intuition
with formal techniques of induction and deduction. Albert Einstein has stated
that
There is no logical path to these laws (laws of a scientific theory)
; only intuition,
resting on a sympathetic understanding of human experience can reach them ...
Concepts, considered logically, never originate in experience; i.e., they are
not to be derived from experience alone.9
Creative insight or intuition is a vague term, but one fact is clear:
such insight
is intimately related to having faith in the soundness of some key
idea or pattern.
Once faith in a key pattern is established, reason then
takes over and develops a more ordered picture, looking for possible faults and
finally conceiving of experiments to further test the theory. Faith
is not a trusting
in unprovable truths which can be disregarded as a rational picture develops;
it is, rather, illumination (which guides one in seeing a pattern) by which a
truly rational understanding can begin.
A UNIVERSAL FAITH STRUCTURE
The great Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper, argued that faith is a structural
part of universal human nature. Mankind is divided by the possession
or non-possession
of saving faith in Cod but not in having faith itself-saving faith is a part of
a more general faith-structure inherent in all human nature. The very fact that
this faith-structure is universal in character makes it elusive as it is taken
for granted and not looked for critically.10
Kuyper defines faith as
that function of the Soul by which it obtains certainty
directly and immediately, without the aid of discursive
demonstration.11
It is this capacity to "see" certainty, argues Kuyper, that enables
one to trust his senses (or extensions of his senses) in making observations.
It is by faith that we accept our sensory responses as being
consistent with what
is observed, i.e., a one-to-one correspondence exists between the
actions of the
observable and our sense responses. Even more basically, it is by faith that we
accept our senses as reacting with real observables and not merely
recording figments
of imagination existing only in our minds.12 Thus the process of observation,
a basic component of science, is grounded in a faith-structure.
Faith is not a trusting in unprovable truths which can he disregarded
as a rational
picture develops; it is, rather, illumination (which guides one in
seeing a pattern)
by which a truly rational understanding can begin.
Kuyper in linking a faith-structure to science goes much further. He
states with
respect to formulating the general from a finite number of tested
phenomena:
the idea itself that there are such laws, and that when certain
phenomena exhibit
themselves, you are certain of the existence of such laws, does not result from
your demonstration, but your demonstration rests, and in the end it appears the
means by which your certainty is obtained. Without faith in the
existence of the
general in the special, in laws which govern this special, and in your right to
build a general conclusion on a given number of observations, you would never
acknowledge such a law.13
It is an act of faith to generalize from a limited number of observations that
is the central motivation for doing scientific work; for scientists
must necessarily
work from only a finite number. It is my view that faith in this generalization
process is intimately related to faith that a rational order exists in all of
nature and that such order can be comprehended by rational beings.
FAITH-A SUBJECTIVE CATEGORY OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE
A more detailed analysis of the presence and validity of faith as a subjective
element of reality is appropriate at this time. Note that to recognize faith as
subjective experience is not to downgrade it to mere subjectivity,
for faith comes
about in an encounter with real objects (a faith statement!). In
theology, faith
arises and is necessary to interpret specific historical events of the past and
to understand the existence of a living church today with people who have had
religious experience, whose lives have been altered in a manner
clearly observed
by others. In science, faith stems from and is needed to understand
specific observable
phenomena. It is, I believe, of some significance that the nature and validity
of subjective faith experience has been most elegantly discussed by two men who
have made significant contributions in the natural sciences - Blaise Pascal and
Michael Polanyi. Accordingly, their contributions which bear some
striking parallels,
are now examined.
Blaise Pascal
Pascal viewed all of reality as possessing a hierarchical structure.
Reality was
structured in ascending orders and the distinction between orders was
not merely
quantitative, but qualitative.14
An excerpt from what has become known as 'Pascal's Doctrine of the
Three Orders"
will make this clear.
All bodies, the firmaments, the stars, the earth and its kingdom are not equal
to the smallest gleam of intelligence: for it knows them and itself
and they know
nothing. All bodies and all minds together, and all their products
are not equal
to the slightest stirring of charity. That is of an order infinitely
more exalted.
From all bodies together we cannot obtain one little thought; that is
impossible
and of another order. From all bodies together and from all minds together we
cannot derive one movement of true charity. This is impossible, of
another order, supernatural.15
In order to comprehend this order of charity, that part of reality
where God through
his Spirit is present in an open way, a human faculty qualitatively different
from analytic reason is needed. This faculty, which is essentially
faith through
which man experiences God's presence, Pascal calls the heart.
The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand
things. I say the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and also
itself naturally,
accordingly as it gives itself to them; and it hardens itself against
one or the
other at its will. You have rejected the one and kept the other. Is
it by reason
that you love yourself?16
Pascal further points out that
The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him17;
purely intellectual inquiry yields an incomplete picture of God, one
must comprehend
God with more than analytic detachment. The heart, trust or faith in
God's eternal
sovereignty, goodness, and love is required to begin to analyze His nature and
acts. Pascal dues not limit the heart, man's faith function, to perception of
the order of charity, however:
We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart, and it is in this
last way that we know first principles; and reason which has no part
in it, tries
in vain to impugn them . . . For the knowledge of first principles as
space, time,
motion, number is as sure as any we get from reasoning and reason
must trust these
intuitions of the heart, and must base them on every argument. (We
have intuitive
knowledge of the tridimensional nature of space, and of the infinity of number,
. . . Principles are intuited, propositions are inferred, all with certainty,
though in different ways.)18
Thus, Pascal observes, the heart, that faith-function which uniquely perceives
the structuring of God's spiritual realm also plays a significant
rule in perceiving
God's structuring of physical reality. Pascal is saying that there is
a component
of the innermost parts of reality that is intuitively recognized and cannot be
defined. Definition eludes us as we have not reached such a fundamental level
of reality that other terms do not exist to make a definition.
Nevertheless, understanding
is possible, as the great clarity of these key concepts is recognized by the intuitive part of our nature. Albert Einstein
and Blaisc Pascal are in complete accord in recognizing that
intuitive processes
anti not merely logic alone are required to understand physical reality.
Figure 1 summarizes Pascal's world-view. Man, through the "telescope"
of his faith-function, the heart, begins his comprehension of the
basic structure
of reality. Reality is arranged in a threefold hierarchical
framework, full awareness
of an upper level being required to understand the significance of a
lower order.
Our world of men and things is paradoxically filled with rational and beautiful
coherence in the midst of confusion and even chaos. Only by
possessing the ethical
and moral strength to work hard under difficult conditions, to ignore
frustrations
and report data accurately, and, finally, not to lose one's
conviction that rational
laws guide the universe, can scientific and human progress be made.
Pascal envisions
such strength coming to mail as he opens his heart, i.e., responds in faith to
that ultimate realm of God's selfgiving love; it is in this reality
that God, the
source of all rationality, reveals himself fully as creator, sustainer, moral
judge, redeemer, and loving father of all. A basic comprehension of the order
of charity does not depreciate the realms of mind and matter, rather it enables
one fully to see God's love in 1-us mental and material creations. Such insight
motivates man to use the God-given order present to care for and regulate these
realms for good. In an analogous but qualitatively different manner, the realm
of the mind understands and regulates the material universe. Also
note that Pascal
clearly states that one cannot go in reverse order: matter leading to
understanding
of mental processes, which in turn lead to self-giving loving
relationships between
people and things. Nor can a denial of reality above material and
mental existence
lead to a complete world-view. Pascal's legacy to its is not a
philosophical system
but a vision that a basic structure exists in a complex universe.
From a comprehension
of this structure, which sees reality as far more than a reduction to physics
and chemistry, we can order and regulate our understanding and our lives.
Michael Polanyi
Blaise Pascal was a man of wide interests: be made important contributions in
mathematics, science, philosophy, urban transportation (he introduced
the concept
of public bus-like transportation to Paris), and religion. A man of
equally wide
interests in our day, who has significantly contributed to physical chemistry',
social science, and philosophy, is Michael Polanyi.19 Polanyi, reacting to
the reductionism of extreme objectivism, has extended Pascal's insight in the
validity of intuitive or faith statements. In the words of a reviewer
of his classic
book, Personal Knowledge20:
By stressing the active components its scientific knowing-appraisal
and commitment-Polanvi
shows that knowledge is less 'objective' more complex, and more
widely distributed
in nature than is tacitly supposed by most epistemologies. Knowing
implies a
foundation in skills, a confidence in one's ability to judge beyond the range
of well-formulated rules, and a commitment to the existence of an
answer to one's
questions before the answer is in sight.21 (Such a commitment is part of the
basic structure of faith.)
Polanyi's central thesis is that knowledge dues not exist without knowers; the
extreme objectivist's impersonal theory of science is a myth. Extreme
objectivists
claim that:
a) All observable processes can be evaluated by impersonal,
scientific judgments-only
empirical verification by the five senses (or extensions thereof) is
conclusive;
b) science possesses a method which is essentially automatic and
infallible; and
c) all knowledge other than scientific is not valid.
Polanyi refutes these objectivist tenets in great detail in Personal Knowledge,
a key part of which is an analysis of the question: How does one make
a new discovery?
Polanyi argues that the history of science shows that discoveries
come about not
by just an ordering of empirical facts, but by a scientist committing himself to
a framework in order to learn. A motivating part of such commitment
is the faith
that rational beauty exists in nature.
Einstein's creation of the theory of special relativity is a good
example of Polanyi's analysis.22 The textbook story is that Einstein developed relativity to satisfy
the Michelson-Morley experiment's results that the vacuum speed of
light remains
constant independent of the motion of the earth. Polanyi, through an
examination
of Einstein's papers and by personal correspondence with him, shows
that a commitment
to the framework that nature's behavior is symmetric with respect to
uniform motions
led hint to abandon the concept of absolute space-time and postulate
the universal
constancy of the vacuum speed of light. Not empirical facts, but a strong faith
that rational beauty, exists in nature's laws (as expressed in this
ease by symmetry
or in variance principles) motivated Einstein to create relativity
theory. Polanyi's
case is enhanced by the historical evidence that the scientific
community generally
ignored the results of a lung series of Michaelson-Morley type
experiments (1902-1926),
performed by a distinguished physicist, D. C. Miller. These results indicated
a small change in the vacuum speed of light but scientists were so committed to
the new rationality of the Einstein worldview that little attention was paid to
these experiments, as it was hoped the behavior would turn out to be wrong or
explainable by a combination of small effects. Faith in the beauty
and rationality
of a theory, its ability to simply and coherently relate a wide range
of phenomena,
is seen to be a criterion of truth that scientists consider valid;
empirical results
are not the sole criteria of scientific truth.
Polanyi's insight is further born out by Einstein's statement that:
A conviction, akin to religious feeling of the rationality or intelligibility
of the world, lies behind all scientific work of a high order.23
The following quotes make abundantly clear that this conviction or
faith is common
experience to those who have made great discoveries in science. Max Born, one
of the early developers of the quantum theory, said of relativity:
the grandeur, the boldness, and the directness of the 'thought' of relativity,
which made the world-picture of science 'more beautiful and grander.'24
Paul Dirac, who united quantum theory and relativity, said about Schrodinger's
development of his wave equation:
I think that there is a moral to this story, namely that it is more important
to have beauty in one's equations than to have them lit existing experiment.25
And as a final example, James Watson, referring to his and Crick's discovery of
the double helix structure of DNA, said
too pretty not to be true.26
Terms like 'boldness and grandeur', 'beauty', and 'pretty' are clearly of the
language of faith and not of the language of probability distributions27 and strict
empiricism.
Life can thus be envisioned as a whole hierarchy of principles related to one
another by boundary conditions, each level utilizing the principles
of the levels
below it, while being irreducible to those principles.
It is not possible to provide here a full survey of the creative, coherent, and
exhaustive research present in Personal Knowledge. A small segment
has been given
of the approach; the book must be read in detail to be fully appreciated. Let
me now simply restate and examine possible consequences of the main
theme of the
book. That knowledge cannot exist without knowers leads to the recognition that
all knowledge depends upon personal, tacit components. These tacit skills are
built into the knowers. We know much more than we can tell to others
in a strictly
objective way. The presence of these personal, tacit skills are more
readily acknowledged
in some cases, i.e., the learning processes that result in a gifted
pianist stems
from intimate personal contact with a master musician. 28 And the
skills imparted
of "touch" and "feel" for great music are not defined but
appreciated by one who has acquired from others the tacit skills to appreciate
great music. But even in the so-called purely objective fields of the
pure sciences,
knowledge possesses a personal, tacit component, for the knower is
making a confirmation
of his framework-he is by faith trusting in the soundness of it, using it to break out into new
reality, in the last analysis knowledge is always accompanied by a
committed knower.
Although not pursued by Polanyi, the personal character of all knowledge is of
significance from a Christian perspective. Jesus Christ pointed to Himself as
truth and emphasized the primary importance of personal relationships between
God and man, man and man. He also stressed that a personal faith is essential
to a true relationship to God and He praised those who responded in
faith 'without
complete factual details.29 St. Paul continued Christ's message, pointing to
Him as the personal creator and sustainer of all reality, who calls
us to commitment
to Him as our Savior and Lord. Personal response by faith to God is central to
Christian teaching, and part of that teaching is St. Paul's
observation that God's
presence can be seen in what lie has created.30 Perhaps part of the meaning of
the last teaching of St. Paul is that God, the author of all order, who calls
us to a full and complete knowledge of Him by personal response and
relationship,
has structured all of reality in such a way that a personal response
and commitment
is necessary to acquire valid knowledge.
In analyzing Pascal's and Polanyi's insights into the validity of
faith-experience,
it is of some interest to note that both men's world-views are characterized by
some striking similarities for both see reality as structured in a hierarchical
manner. Polanyi's worldview is presented with great clarity in a recent paper,
Life's Irreducible Structure.35 Polanyi begins by examining how a
machine works:
So the machine as a whole works under the control of
two distinct principles. The higher one is the principle of the
machine's design,
and this harnesses the lower one, which consists in the
physical-chemical processes
on which the machine relies.22
The structure of the machine thus serves as a boundary condition harnessing the
physical-chemical processes on which the machine relies to carry out meaningful
functions. To Polanyi, a living organism can be looked in a similar
way for:
...the organism is shown to he like a machine, a system which works according to
two different principles; its structure serves as a boundary
condition harnessing
the physical-chemical processes by which its organs perform their
functions. Thus,
this system may he called a system under dual control.33 (The system is under
the control of both the harnessing boundary condition and
physical-chemical laws.)
Polanyi then points out that a very important consequence of the
boundary condition
concept is that:
their (the boundary condition's) structure cannot be defined in terms
of the laws
that they harness. Nor can a vocabulary determine the content of a
text (a boundary
condition on the vocabulary), and so on. Therefore, if the structure of living
things is a set of boundary conditions, this structure is extraneous
to the laws
of physics and chemistry which the organism is harnessing. Thus, the morphology
of living things transcends the laws of physics and chemistry.34
Fulfillment of these views is seen in what we have learned of the nature of the
basic building block of life-the DNA molecule. The DNA molecule carries in its
structure a code, a linear sequence of items which convey
information. The order
present in the DNA molecule is that of a boundary condition, it
conveys information
and acts as a blueprint for the development of the living organism. This order
is qualitatively different in character from the order present due to
physical-chemical
forces acting in a crystal structure; the latter is merely that of a repeating
structure, while the former carries distinct information content. Once having
established the conceptual validity of the boundary condition
framework with respect
to DNA and living organisms, Polanyi argues that:
The irreducibility of machines and printed communications teaches us,
also, that
the control of a system by irreducible boundary conditions does not interfere
with the laws of physics and chemistry. A system under dual control relies, in
fact, for the operation of its higher principle on the workings of principles
of a lower level, such as the laws of physics and chemistry. Irreducible higher
principles are additional to the laws of physics and chemistry.35
It is quite possible, therefore, to expect that there are additional
and transcending
principles above those that directly guide physical-chemical laws.
Life can thus
he envisioned as a whole hierarchy of principles related to one
another by boundary
conditions, each level utilizing the principles of the levels below it, while
being irreducible to those principles. To give a specific example,
Polanyi points
out that
once it is recognized, on other grounds, that life transcends physics
and chemistry,
there is no reason for suspending recognition of the obvious fact
that consciousness
is a principle that fundamentally transcends not only physics and chemistry but
also the mechanistic principles of living beings.38
a boundary condition which harnesses the principles of a lower level
in the service
of a new, higher level establishes a semantic relationship between
the two levels.
The higher comprehends the workings of the lower and thus forms the meaning of
the lower. And as we ascend a hierarchy of boundaries, we reach to even higher
levels of understanding. 37
The similarity to Pascal's "Doctrine of Orders" is
immediately evident;
the great difference occurs on their views of the possibility of
gaining insight
of a higher level from lower levels. Pascal denies this possibility completely,
whereas Polanyi feels the integration of principles of the lower
levels to yield
a higher principle may be beyond our powers. Both Pascal and Polanyi
clearly acknowledge
that faith is a valid component of all knowledge. They have clearly recognized
that all forms of reductionism, the reducing of all reality to
physical-chemical
laws for example, deny other points of view, partly by their own
misguided faith. (Reductionists usually fail to recognize that faith plays a role in their own
work.) Reductionism's great appeal is its simplicity and great rational order.
What Pascal and Polanyi have sought, therefore, is a world-view that testifies
both to the existence of great rational order inherent in all reality
and to the
openess and complexity of a reality in which the person through his faith is an
intimate part. In my opinion, a hierarchical structure, with its
ascending levels
of reality each governed by unique principles, provides a world-view
that serves
these twin purposes well. Such a framework could do much to overcome the great
cleavage between the extreme positivist and existentialist poles into which our
age has divided itself.
CONCLUSIONS
The scientisms of our age have presented to us the distortion of faith as the
height of irrationality. Some Christians have reacted by completely
compartmentalizing
their perspectives of the spiritual and the natural orders. Others,
perhaps repelled
by the very radical nature of the Christian solution to life's dilemma38, have
tried to build a 'Christianity' without the necessity of faith. Such attempts,
to my mind, are reactions to a very faulty picture of faith. Faith, correctly
viewed, is that illumination by which true
rationality begins, as has been seen through history by men the
caliber of Augustine,
Pascal, Kuyper, and Polanyi. Faith, the capacity to trust, is inherent in human
nature and is an integral part of all personal relationships. As we have seen,
this deeply personal element is a component of all knowledge. Faith as a guide
to a rational understanding can be viewed as a direct consequence of
the biblical
insistence that in Christ, who stressed the ultimate importance of
personal relationships,
"all things hold together."39 The willingness of a
scientist as distinguished
as Polanyi to present to the scientific community a viewpoint which
is unpopular,
should give Christians courage in developing a world-view in which faith plays
an integral role. Only such a world-view can do full justice to the
great richness,
complexity, and order present in all of reality which is far wider
and more comprehensive
than we can imagine. Truly the more we know, the more we come to
realize how little
we really do know.
REFERENCES
1Hebrews 11:1, Revised Standard Version of the New Testament.
2Blaise Pascal, Pensees and the Provincial Letters, The Modern
Library, New York
(1941), p. 93.
3Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 2nd ed., Hutehinson, London
(1959), p. 59.
4N. R. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery, Cambridge University Press,
London (1958),
p. 90.
5Alan Richardson, Christian Apologetics, Harper & Brothers, New
York (1947).
6Ihid., p. 46.
7Ibid., p. 47.
8Augustine, Troetote on the Gospel of John, XXIX, p. 6.
9J. T. Davies, The Scientific Approach, Academic Press, London and
New York (1965),
p. 1.
10Abraham Kuypcr, Principles of Sacred Theology, pp. 125126.
11Ilbid., p. 129.
12lbid., pp. 125-139.
13Ibid., p. 139.
14Walter Jim Neidhardt, "Pascal and the Dilemma of Modern
Man", Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, 16,
107-111 (1964).
I5Pascal, op. cit., p. 278.
l6Ibid., p. 95.
17Ibid p. 95.
18Ibid., pp. 95-96.
19The illuminating seminars of Dr. Walter Thorson, given at
1965-1967 metropolitan
N. Y. ASA meetings, awakened my interest in Polanyi. It should be understood,
however, that possible misinterpretations of Polanyi's thought are my
responsibility.
20Michael Palanyi, Personal Knowledge, Harper Torchbooks, New York (1964).
21From The Review of Metaphysics, reprinted on the rear
cover of the Harper paperback edition of Personal Knowledge.
22Polanyi, op. cit., pp. 9-15.
23Source unknown, but authenticity has been attested to by several
well-informed
colleagues.
24Max Born, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, translated by H. L. Brose, London
(1924) p. 289.
25P. A. M. Dirac, 'The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of
Matter," Scientific American, Volume 208, No. 5, May 1963, pp. 45-53.
26James D. Watson, The Double Helix, Atheneum (1968). Quoted in book review of
the New York Times, Monday, February 19, 1968.
27With respect to statistical analysis, incidentally, Polanyi points out that
personal value judgments arc present even there as one must decide
that something
is significant before statistics can be applied.
28Even in the so-called 'objective' sciences of physics and chemistry
one serves
an apprenticeship under an experienced researcher(s) and the skills
and attitudes
transmitted are often rather hard to define in an objective way.
29Thc risen Christ's dialogue with Thomas in John 21:24-29.
30Romaus 1:19-20.
31Michael Polanyi, "Life's Irreducible Structure," Science,
Vol. 160 (1968), pp. 1308-1312.
32Ibid., p. 1308.
34Ibid., p. 1308.
351bid., p. 1309. Ibid., p. 1310.
36Ibid., p. 1310.
37Ibid., 1). 1311.
38"For the word of the cross is tally to those who are perishing, but to
us who are being saved it is the power of God." I Corinthians 1:18.
39Colossians 1:17.