Science in Christian Perspective

The Reasonableness 
of Metaphysical Evidence
ROBERT A. HERRMANN
Mathematics Department
U.S. Naval Academy
Annapolis, Maryland 21402

From: JASA 34 December 1982): 17-23.

This article explains how a recent discovery in the science of mathematical logic has been employed to construct a scientific model for many of the major concepts in Christian doctrine. These results give strong scientific evidence that the basic foundation for the religious philosophy of Marxists, secular humanists, atheists and millions of individuals who reject Christianity is logically incorrect. The logical incorrectness of this foundation is grounded on the fact that it has been scientically established that this foundation is based upon a mathematically refutable premise.

There exists a considerable amount of personal, experiential, behavioristic, historical, linguistic, statistical and purely scientific evidence which may empirically establish that the major concepts of Christianity are true. One of my major concerns is why the scientific, political and philosophical communities, as well as millions of ordinary everyday individuals, do not accept this evidence. Why is such evidence ridiculed or dismissed in secular arguments? What are the basic or underlying principles that have led many well known theological authorities to reject important portions of this evidence?

For an immediate answer to these perplexing questions, I present the official policies of the Soviet Union with respect to the religious beliefs which every Marxist must follow-at all costs. The Moscow Institute of Marxism and Leninism published in the 1960's the official Marxist view:

Christianity, . . ., cannot agree with reason because 'worldly' and 'religious' reason contradict each other.¹

Indeed, they even go so far as to define metaphysics as an "anti-dialectic method in thought. . . "² where "antidialectic" at least signifies "not classically logical." Marx couples this unverified pronouncement with the absolute  statement that "Reality is rational," and concludes that supernatural metaphysical concepts cannot exist in reality since they are contradictory. Thus throughout the Marxist view of religion such terms as "fantastic," "imaginary" or "unreal" are continually employed to reinforce this belief and coerce the individual into its acceptance.

Even though Marx and Engels apparently considered the above description of metaphysical concepts as irrefutable, they did skillfully employ Christian evidence in their secular arguments. Engels writes,

All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men's minds of those external forces which control their daily fife, a reflection in which terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces.³

Marx, Engels and many others use appropriate portions of Christian metaphysical evidence in an apparently logical argument, but interpret this vast amount of information completely in terms of secular possibilities-terrestrial forces-such as economic, social and humanistic forces. Any evidence that cannot be secularly interpreted is rejected as "fantasy ... .. observer error," or "insanity," or is simply completely ignored. By these methods a metaphysical alternative is logically rejected and thus totally avoided. Indeed, by rejecting the metaphysical alternative but using as much as possible of the available religious evidence interpreted in this secular manner, these philosophers are able to greatly enhance their secular view_ point since such a vast amount of evidence exists. Not only do Marxists adhere to these accepted but unfounded beliefs, but most if not all modern humanists accept that at least a portion of the supernatural Christian doctrine as well as other complex religious concepts are not logically possible.⁴ Hence part of the foundation for these secular philosophies is an unshakable belief that one cannot logically argue for various supernatural concepts since these concepts are logically contradictory.

In this article, I attempt to explain how a recent discovery in the science of mathematical logic has yielded a strong and clear result that the above foundation for the rejection of the supernatural alternative is logically incorrect. This article is the first announcement to the Christian and scientific communities of these interesting scientific discoveries.' I attempt this explanation in a straightforward, direct and simplified manner, without employing technical terms peculiar to the science of mathematical logic.

Throughout this article the terms "logic," "reasoning," "rational" and the like will be repeatedly used. What do these terms signify? Unless otherwise stated these terms always refer to the ordinary common everyday human procedure used by our brains to process information and infer or deduce other information, consequences or other similar results. Each of us applies this process thousands of times daily. Eminent scholars, scientists, authors, jurists, philosophers, theologians and educators use this process in their deepest deliberations-the same process you and I use to determine when to put on a pair of gloves. Let us intuitively refer to this process as classical deduction or reasoning. Now I don't mean to say that other forms of reasoning are not employed by humanity since they are in special circumstances. However, in this article only the classical thought processes of humanity are usually considered.

Prior to analyzing a logical procedure, the language used must be as nonambiguous as possible. In order to accomplish this the language should be constructed by following a rigorous set of rules for combining the various words taken from some fixed dictionary. The words are put together in a simple ordinary manner, in a non-picturesque way, indeed in a dull and boring manner that would never yield a passing grade in a creative writing class. This language intuitively is the same type of language the scientist uses to discuss concepts using his own special technical dictionary. It is the language that the mathematician uses to state theorems and prove their correctness. Now the actual construction of such a language need not concern us here; it is enough to say that this construction is easily accomplished.⁶

Consider a large computer that I term a logic computer and that is programmed to use classical deduction and yield a logical argument. Along with this logic computer consider four ordinary sentences from our simple language. These sentences are "Mary is short ... .. John is tall ... .. If John is tall, then it is not the case that Mary is short," and "John is tall if and only if Mary is short." Call these four sentences our assumptions or hypotheses. Insert these four statements into the slot marked "input" on the logic computer. Now turn on the power-the reasoning power-and process these assumptions. Slowly hundreds of sentences stream forth from the "output" slot of the logic computer. Let the computer operate for a while and then turn off the power and inspect the outputted statements. During this inspection you discover a peculiar occurrence. One of the statements reads, "Your cat is dead." Another statement reads, "It is not the case that your cat is dead." You continue to inspect other statements from the output slot and one of these statements reads, "It is not the case that John is tall." What has happened to your logic computer? How could you insert a sentence "John is tall" and the computer produce the sentence that "It is not the case that John is tall"?

Well, believe it or not the logic computer has not broken down, it is processing the information correctly. These strange deductive results are produced by logically combining the sentences you have inserted; they are not produced by some internal computer error. The computer is not illogical. If you leave the four sentences in the logic computer and kept the power on, then the computer is capable of producing every simple declarative sentence in the language and the negation of that sentence, among many other types, until it completely runs out of statements. In other words, the computer can deduce "everything" that you are allowed to write in sentences in your language if it runs long enough. Such deduction is said to be worthless since it does not differentiate between sentences. The computer simply reproduces your entire language of discourse and nothing special. Technically when a logic computer produces a sentence and its negation, we say that it has produced a contradition. All that a computer needs to do is to produce one such contradiction, for one such contradiction in its processing procedure will automatically force the computer to start producing your entire language. Now remember that the computer is not to blame. You should blame the inserted assumptions for the difficulties that the computer is experiencing.

When a logic computer produces a contradiction, one should not say that the computer is "stupid" or something of this nature. Let us be more benevolent in our use of terminology. When the set of assumptions used produces a contradiction, simply indicate this by saying that they are inconsistent. Thus the production of a contradiction and an inconsistent set of assumptions are equivalent concepts. From this viewpoint a set of assumptions is consistent if and only if the logic computer will never produce a contradiction, if and only if the logic computer will neverproduce your entire language of discourse.

Traditionally the descriptive sciences and such areas as philosophy and theology have been able to use only the logic computer as their major source of reasoning power, with one of two minor exceptions.⁷ Assume that you have a large amount of personal, experiential, behavioristic, historical, linguistic and other types of evidence and that historical, linguistic and other types of evidence and that you wish to argue for a certain philosophy or a special theology. The logical rules for your argument must come first or as Hartshorne writes,

Logic is a priori because it analyzes knowledge apart from the knowledge .... ⁸

The absolute and common requirement for rational which the evidence may apply, then you also need a great
thought by the philosopher and scientist is well deal of faith that the evidence is true in reality and truly fits
documented. Any statement concerning scientific deduction should hold true for a philosophical argument as well, since a vast amount of scientific evidence is often employed to empirically verify philosophical beliefs.

There is something (a basic rationality of the human mind and the universe) that we assume and operate with continually in ordinary experience and in science. . . . If the nature of things were not somehow inherently rational they would remain incomprehensible and opaque and indeed we would not be able to emerge into the light of rationality.⁹

W. Jim Neidhardt expresses these concepts in the following

Anyone who does science assumes that reality is intelligible, all experience possesses an intrinsic rational structure which can be grasped by a human mind governed by similar types of rationality.¹⁰

The quantum physicist Louis deBroglie writes,

... the structure of the material Universe has something in common with the laws that govern the working of the human mind.¹¹

C.S. Lewis makes the following observations,

... that events in the remotest parts of space appear to obey the laws of rational thought ... There is in our human minds something that bears a faint resemblance to it.¹²
According to it what is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is any thing else we know.¹³
What appears to be my thinking is only God's thinking through me. ¹⁴
He lends us a little of His reasoning powers.¹⁵

From this point on let us call the statement that "Reality is rational and consistent" the Axiom of Natural Consistency. Hence a philosophical explanation for any evidence  first requires that a consistent set of assumptions be inserted into the logic computer. After you have convinced yourself that the basic statements required to argue for your philosophical concepts are probably consistent, then and only then should the evidence be applied in order to  empirically determine whether or not your assumptions and  logical results are probably true in reality, where "true in  reality" may be interpreted by the phrase "an accurate
 description of reality" or some similar statement. In this case you have empirically "explained" the evidence
-logically-by application of the Axiom of Natural Consistency. If there are different sets of consistent statements to which the evidence may apply, then you also need a great deal of faith that the evidence is true in reality and truly fits into your statements in a manner that is better than the way  it fits into these other statements. Moreover, it is important  that the logical results you obtain give the best fit to the  past, present and future evidence. Consequently you need a great deal of faith-faith in your evidence, faith in the consistency of your argument and faith that your philosophy fits the evidence best. For these reasons it's very important to realize that your argument becomes more convincing if you are able to logically reject any other alternative explanation. Since we are always assuming that an argument

Robert A. Herrmann is Associate Professor of Mathematics in charge of all the mathematical logic courses at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics from the Johns Hopkins University, and an M.A. and Ph. D. in Abstract Mathematics from The American University. He is an elected member of honor societies Phi Beta Kappa (for undergraduate studies), Phi Kappa Phi (for graduate studies) and Sigma Xi (for research). Since 19 75 Professor Herrmann has published more than thirty-five research articles in national and international journals, presented more than twenty research papers before scholarly societies and has written more than forty-five reports and reviews in the areas of mathematical logic, nonstandard analysis, model theory, applied mathematics and general topology. He is a reviewer for Mathematical Reviews, a journal referee, an adviser to the U.S. Congress, director of The Institute for Mathematical Philosophy, a member of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America and the American Scientific Affiliation.

is obtained through the proper application of deductive reasoning, then the logical rejection of an alternative philosophy could be based upon the concept of an inconsistent hypothesis. As previously mentioned this is exactly the method which has been employed to reject a supernatural Christian alternative.

At this point, let us be more specific as to this rejected alternative. Consider the following hypothesis which I call the secular hypothesis or simply SH.

It is impossible to express in a non-contradictory (i.e. logically consistent) manner the concepts of humanity, human laws of behavior, natural laws, natural laws of behavior, the Supernaturals, the Deity, the Christian concept of the God-man, the New Nature, the Trinity, miracles, Divine reasoning, the perfect human being, unholy supernatural concepts, supernatural good, supernatural evil and other Christian supernatural concepts.

As previously mentioned, many eminent scholars accept portions-if not all-of the secular hypothesis whenever some supernatural concept is included. It also appears from their popular expositions that all the modern humanists accept the SH-or major portions thereof-since they all appear to ascribe to classical philosophical statements such as those written by Santayana:

... the grand contradiction is the idea that the same God who is the ideal of human aspiration is also the creator of the universe and the only primary substance.¹⁶

These influential individuals have led millions of human beings into an adherence to portions of the secular hypothesis. Indeed, in recent articles in Christianity Today¹⁷ the vast influence of these individual SH believers is stressed and analyzed.

There are specialized techniques that can explain some of the evidence with a very weak theism. Hartshorne¹⁸ indicates how this is accomplished when he argues for the acceptance of paripsychism. These procedures seem unable to explain any complex metaphysical concept. Also there are special dialectical methods that may be employed to give a mild supernatural explanation for some Christian evidence. These methods have been skillfully employed by such theologians as Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. These special dialectics do not entirely use the classical logic computer and for this reason Their arguments are essentially weaker.

Scientific Models

We now approach consistency from an equivalent but apparently considerably different procedure. This viewpoint is technically called the mathematical structure or model concept. It's interesting to note that the formal equivalence of these apparently two diverse concepts- formal logic computers and models-was not established until the 1930's.¹⁹

In place of the logic computer, consider a large collection of machines that are called mathematical structures. Consider once again a set of assumptions, but this time each assumption carries a tag on which is written a big T. An intuitive or technical definition for the T symbol need not concern us in this discussion. It is enough to say that the T's mathematically mirror the behavior associated with classically combining "true" statements. Now you begin a search through your structures. A search for what? Well, you search for a structure machine that will accept your assumptions. You ask, "What does a structure do in order to determine acceptance?" First, you insert your assumptions into the input slot of a particular structure machine. The machine immediately translates your assumptions, if possible, into its internal language. Following this, the machine compares your translated assumptions with its own internal set of statements. Each of your translated assumptions must match a corresponding statement inside the structure machine. Moreover, you can assume that each statement in the structure carries a tag with a T written on it. If any of your assumptions does not correspond to an internal machine statement, then and only then does the machine reject your entire set of assumptions and you are forced to search for another structure. Thus your assumptions must be translatable into the language of the structure and they must correspond to machine statements before the machine will accept them.

Assume that you have located a structure which has accepted your assumptions. Immediately a sign goes up on the structure which reads MODEL. The structure has become a model for your assumptions and the correspondence between your assumptions and the internal machine language is often called a satisfied interpretation. At this point you turn on the power to your model. Soon some statements that have been translated back into your language drop from the output slot of your model. After some time has passed you begin your inspection of these outputted sentences. You are delighted to see that all of the outputted statements carry a tag on which the one symbol T appears. Moreover, if you compare all of the outputted statements, you discover that there are no contradictions and that no contradictions ever occur. These highly significant results are implied by the fact that your assumptions have a model if and only if they are consistent. I should mention that these last three statements are based upon the hypotheses used by the mathematician in the construction of these mathematical structures. Furthermore, philosophically the most important property a set of assumptions can possess is consistency.

Are the structures effective predicters of consistency? In general, the answer is yes since there is no acceptable procedure nor any logic computer approach that will determine absolute consistency except for finite collections of relatively simple statements. This is the basic reason why philosophers must assume their assumptions are consistent when they apply the logic computer technique. On the other hand, I don't wish to mislead you at this critical point. For most collections of assumptions, acceptable models based only on these assumptions may be difficult to locate. For an excellent discussion on how the scientist locates the appropriate structure I suggest the paper by W. Jim Neidhardt.²²

Of course, the structures themselves must have come from some place and they need some rules for their construction by the mathematician. What is there that assures us that these rules of construction are consistent? This is a very deep question in the foundations of mathematics. Some of the greatest mental giants in recorded history have worked on this problem, and there is strong evidence both philosophical and mathematical that the rules used for these modern constructions are consistent. This is the reason why users of these structures do not concern themselves with the consistency problem. They assume that consistency is already built into the model they are using. Timothy Ferris writes,

Scientific theories must be logical. They must be expressible in terms of mathematics, the most rigorous logical system known.²¹

The faith that an investigator has in a mathematical model depends strongly upon the predictability of the model. After a set of statements has been accepted by a structure machine, the machine often produces or is forced to produce a number of new results relating the various terms and symbols which appear in these sentences. Many of these results may seem to have no immediate application to the real world problem being studied. However, some of the more pertinent results may lend themselves to experimental testing. Assume that an investigator devises such an experiment. If this experiment approximately agrees with one of these new statements, then the model has "predicted" something which was not previously known. A model need not predict anything; or if it predicts, it need not go on predicting. Indeed, a model may even predict totally incorrect real world events. Finally a model may predict interesting results that cannot be tested using present laboratory abilities.

One important and often hidden fact relative to mathematical models is that the explanation given by a scientist's model in no way explains the phenomenon from a real world viewpoint. It is only a large number of symbols and terms written on hundreds of pages of paper and one should make no other assumptions.

All were human inventions and none should be confused with the phenomena they sought to "plain . . . Our theories are not 'laws' that nature 'obeys.' They imitate ... ²²

When all is said and done the major contribution of the mathematical structure lies in its ability to yield what is evidently" non-contradictory results or predictions. Coupling this with the Axiom of Natural Consistency simply increases one's faith in the absolute consistency of a structure. All structures used by modern science have compiled a vast amount of empirical evidence that certainly implies that the structures are highly consistent. These structures yield apparent contradictions only when they are not carefully employed, or when the investigator has poor knowledge of the structure's mathematical content.

A mathematical structure has been constructed which gives strong evidence that the secular hypothesis is logically incorrect. This structure was created by use of a recent advance in mathematical logic-the nonstandard analysis of human deductive processes. The basic tool used for this

A recent discovery in the science of mathematical logic has yielded a strong and clear result that the foundation for the rejection of the supernatural alternative is logically incorrect.

construction was not even discovered until 1967 .¹⁴ Indeed, it has been shown using this scientifically acceptable structure that there is a model (the G-model) for many of the most important Christian concepts.²⁵ More specifically it logically models all of those terms which are expressed in the body of the secular hypothesis, among others, in an evidently consistent and non-contradictory manner. Moreover, the G-structure uses as a foundation the most empirically consistent mathematical structure which is available to science-the modern elementary theory of sets.

The philosophical basis for this mathematical model is the descriptions of these concepts as expressed in the writings of C.S. Lewis.²⁶  C.S. Lewis never doubted that he was giving a logically consistent argument for the acceptance of Christianity. His genius at simplifying vague theological concepts and presenting this metaphysical alternative to those philosophies expounded by the SH believers is the major reason why it is possible to construct an acceptable mathematical model for much Christian doctrine. The mathematical statements accepted by this structure are highly similar to the philosophical thoughts of Lewis. Moreover, this scientific model is highly predictive and has application to various diverse areas of descriptive science and even other metaphysical beliefs.

The entire body of The G-Model (Applied to C.S. Lewis)²⁷ is an attempt to show-simply and intuitively-how this model logically yields Lewis' theological descriptions by giving the reader the mathematically predicted statements but translated back into Lewis' theological language. Indeed, the mathematical constructions and propositions appear only in the appendix.

Consequently the philosophies based upon the acceptance of the supernatural portions of the secular hypothesis-those philosophies which reject as contradictory various important supernatural Christian doctrines-are based upon a mathematically refutable premise and are evidently inconsistent. This implies that the huge amount of evidence for a supernatural alternative-a Christian alternative-should not be rejected on this logical ground, as many individuals continue to do.

C.S. Lewis, after a great amount of contemplation, had great faith that Christianity is true in reality, where this "faith" concept is termed by Lewis as faith in the first or beginning level sense. However, his acceptance of this truth was not easy. He called this his "rational conversion." He means by this,

From a purely abstract and unemotional viewpoint, it can be minimally stated that Christianity is as "real" as all scientific theories based upon mathematical models.

... that though the spirit of man 'must become humble and trustful like a child and, like a child, simple in motive,' Christ did not mean that the 'processes of thought by which people become Christians must be a childish process. At any rate.' he went on to say, 'the intellectual side of my conversion was not simple ....²⁸.

Evidence for many of the major doctrines of Christianity can now be interpreted in a scientific model which "explains" this evidence in a logically acceptable manner. Furthermore, under the usual applied model-theory premises, the logical incorrectness of the secular hypothesis implies that any philosophical system based upon such a secular hypothesis cannot be consistent and, therefore, must be rejected.

Due to space limitations I am unable to give many specific examples of exactly how the G-structure is capable of modeling the theological thoughts of Lewis. The simple and intuitive modeling process requires approximately 160 manuscript pages in order to establish a correspondence between Lewis' concepts and the translated model statements. The rigorous mathematical appendix yields an additional 60 manuscript pages of abstract mathematical constructions and rigorously established propositions. Moreover, I am unable to present the detailed geometric interpretations in this article due to the number of definitions required. However, I have selected a representative collection of translated sentences which might give you some idea of how the modeling procedure functions.

(1) There exists a Divine reasoning process *P which has the following properties. When *P is applied to sentences that are understandable by humanity then *P is the same reasoning process as is used by the logic computer. The process *P can be applied to sentences that are not understandable by humanity and, in this case, the process can yield sentences and results which are understandable by humanity and sentences and results which are not understandable by humanity. The Divine reasoning process *P is more powerful than the logic computer process. The rules which "plain how the Divine process *P functions are not understandable by humanity. The Divine reasoning process *P is not the same as any human reasoning process.

(2) There is a Divine reasoning process *F which presses on us and urges us on to decent moral behavior.

(3) There are Supernatural objects which describe a moral behavior that is better than any list of moral traits taken from Lewis' Law of Decent Moral Behavior.

(4) If your personal law of moral beliefs is contained in Lewis' Law of Decent Moral Behavior, then your personal law of moral beliefs is contained in the law of perfect moral behavior and in the Divine law of perfect moral behavior.

(5) There is a Divine force *F' and a Divine object such that when this Divine force is applied to this Divine object the result is the New Nature (i.e., the New Creation).

(6) Many properties of the supernatural levels are subconsciously perceptible.

(7) The Divine force *F' applied to an angelic object yields a complete supernatural object.

(8) (T₁) From the Divine viewpoint, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinctly different Divine objects. (T₂) From the viewpoint of the Christian worshipper, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are terms which in the spiritual world describe the same objects. There are numerous other properties. (Of course, it is consistent to use T₂ only or T₁ only or T₁ and T₂ together.)

A Christian is required to have "faith" in his supernatural beliefs and this "faith" must at least be "faith in the first sense."²⁹ How does faith enter into these new and useful results? Nothing which has thus far been written in this article requires that the statements used in a logical argument for Christianity be true in reality. I have stressed the fact that evidence can be used to argue for many different and totally divergent philosophies or theological beliefs. Now that there is evidently a rational scientific model for Christianity, then in order to apply the evidence in a meaningful way to this model you must have great faith that the evidence is true in reality and not some fantastic imagination or dream. You must have faith that the Christian model is the correct model that logically explains this evidence. Now this faith is exactly the same type of faith that the secularist requires. Those accepting some secular model for the evidence must have faith that their model is a correct model which logically explains the evidence. In either case, each individual must still make a choice necessarily based upon faith. I am not discussing the methods that an individual might employ, other than rational thought processes, in order to obtain such a faith.

One of the important aspects of these new results is that they give to each individual a rational choice of a rational scientific model to explain the evidence. For many years we have been incorrectly told that there did not exist a rational supernatural choice. Such a supernatural Christian choice now exists. The amount of evidence that you believe is true in reality, if it fits into this Christian model more readily than any other known model, gives you a definite empirical measure that the entire body of predictions obtained from such a model will also be true in reality. But, you must have faith that the evidence is true in reality and that the Christian model is the one into which the evidence-the majority of the evidence-fits most easily.

Can you personally use the translated statements and geometric interpretations generated by this structure in any reasonable manner? Because of the mathematical methods employed you could use your everyday reasoning powers along with these results and obtain some new, interesting and often startling conclusions-conclusions which are highly consistent and not worthless. You could easily come to the conclusion that there is considerable abstract and unbiased evidence that Christianity is at least mathematically possible. The mathematically trained individual might even produce many results by purely abstract procedures.

More importantly, I have been asked to give various examples of how Christians could directly employ the Grundlegend model (the G-model) in apologetics. For Christians the most important aspect of this research is that it gives strong scientific evidence that Christian doctrine is not contradictory as has been so widely assumed. This is a major defense of Christianity and tends to destroy much competitive philosophy. These results also neutralize most of the secular scientism of the last century or so. Of course, these findings could be the final piece of evidence which would lead an individual to accept Christianity as a personal philosophy. The predicted results from this model tend to yield a much clearer, concrete and specific image of what has often been confusing and nebulous Christian doctrine. The use of this scientific model in Christian education is obvious. It is also clear that for a Christian of weakening faith these results could provide an important faith builder. Even though I have not been able to analyze the entire body of important Christian doctrine, I firmly believe that this approach will eventually establish the consistency of all major Christian concepts. With this in mind, from a purely abstract and unemotional viewpoint, it can be minimally stated that Christianity is as "real" as all scientific theories based upon mathematical models. This includes almost all of modern science. Thus there is no logical reason that Christian doctrine should not be taught and studied, at least on the same technical level as any mathematically based scientific theory, in every public and private school, college and university. Moreover, the apparent existence of a rational model for the supernatural tends to suggest that some new evidence for the truth of Christian doctrine could be obtained from the various experimental techniques employed by the behavioral scientists, in particular, experiments in subliminal perception as well as statistically significant results based upon experiential evidence. As to the relevance of the Scriptures for our modern society, it now follows that you can use your everyday human reasoning power, with little fear that it will be worthless, to logically obtain scripturally directed solutions to the complex problems of our modern society. Finally, these results bring new and profound meaning to what God said to Isaiah: