truth and science (was physics of a mesopotamian flood)
David Campbell (bivalve@isis.unc.edu)
Thu, 29 May 1997 14:19:51 -0400John McKiness wrote
>
>Truth is based on God. Science knows nothing of truth; at best it can only
>verify or deny a hypothesis. I believe the best that human thought (unaided
>by the Spirit) can do is summarized by Pilate when he asked "what is truth?"
>
Although it is very difficult for science to prove something to be true,
its methods assume that some objective truth exists. Hence, both
Christianity and science are in conflict with relativistic [no absolutes]
worldviews. A relativistic worldview does result from internally
consistent [no leaps] human thought without the Spirit. Relativistic
worldviews are inconsistent under scrutiny-the absolute claim that no
absolutes exist; the unwillingness of a relativist to accept other views as
equally valid if they oppose his (e.g., if a mugger believes that a
relativist's wallet would be better in the mugger's possession, the
relativist generally dissents), etc. In particular, a scientist espousing
relativistic standards can't be logically consistent and insist that
scientific experiments are better for answering questions than are
alternatives such as fortune cookies, except on statistical grounds (even
then, he has to make the assumption that one ought to do what is more
likely to achieve the goal). Careful examination of such basic assumptions
could be a powerful apologetic.
David Campbell
"Old Seashells"
Department of Geology
CB 3315 Mitchell Hall
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC 27599-3315
919-962-0685
FAX 919-966-4519
"He had discovered an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus"-E. A. Poe, The
Gold Bug