Glenn, I apologize that I will not be able to address your latest message on
the subject but I felt this response was more urgent.
JPM
At 01:30 PM 5/30/97 -0600, Garry wrote:
>
>
>On Tue, 27 May 1997, John P. McKiness wrote (and has elaborated since):
>
>> . . . I believe an attempt to
>> harmonize the Bible and science is doomed to failure. We either accept that
>> the flood of Genesis (the Trinity, the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, etc.)
>> occurred by faith or we don't, and neither science nor the Bible can be used
>> to prove to a skeptic either that it occurred or it didn't. That is the
>> nature of these two different forms of knowledge. We live in a dichotomy
>> when we live by faith.
>>
>
>John's position here is quite similar to that of the 12th century Islamic
>philosopher Averroes, who, when faced with apparent contradictions between
>the Koran and Aristotelian science, solved the conflict by relegating the
>former to "truths of faith" and the latter to "truths of reason." The two
>thus stand in logic-tight compartments similar to John's "two different
>forms of knowledge." Thomas Aquinas went to great pains to refute
>Averroes. He maintained the principle of the unity of truth. (He would
>have agreed with the slogan that "all truth is God's truth.")
Garry, I would agree with you if I have been equating "truths of faith" with
"truths of reason" as Averroes did. That to me is a heresy, however I can
not determine in my messages to Glenn where I said that. My communication
skills must be worse than I thought.
I must point out though that "quite similar" to does not equal Averroes,
whose position you continued to discuss.
I'll reiterate, there are two forms of knowledge (not "truth"): the
knowledge that comes from God by revelation and the knowledge that comes
from human observation and thought processes.
I have been trying in my past posts, to explain to Glenn that the two are
not equal. Revelational Knowledge (if that term is suitable) is beyond
question because God defines truth. God is both the standard by which
everything is judged and the judge. I partially agree with Thomas Aquinas
in that "all truth is God's truth" because all truth comes from Him.
"reason knowledge" (notice no capital letters) on the other is a human tool
which we use in our attempt to "understand" what is going on around us.
Because of the filter of our sin we can only come to the truth that comes
from God through the work of the Holy Spirit. "reason knowledge" can not
recognize nor produce truth.
I believe that when we require Scripture to agree with our geological and
paleoanthropological propositions we are guilty of equating the two
"truths" as in Averroes. To me that is what harmonization does, whether it
is "young earth creationists" playing their games with Scripture and
science or those like Glenn who say that if Scripture conflicts with geology
God is the liar.
The only contact I have had with Averroes' writings was about 20 years
ago, I didn't like his equality of truth then and I still don't -- he, like
many western philosophers, have equated reason (and the reasonings of their
favorite Greek philosopher) with the Ideals, and from my point of view Glenn
seems to be following them in his drive to harmonize scripture with science.
I hope this discourse has cleared up my previous miscommunication.
>Let me suggest that part of what lies behind John's position is an
>equivocation on the use of "true" or "truth." As George Murphy pointed
>out here some time ago, the OT Hebrew almost always, and the NT Greek
>generally, use "true" in the sense of "dependable, faithful, reliable,
>trustworthy." Thus truth in this sense may be predicated of a person, a
>disposition or attitude, or a situation (state of affairs). (This is my
>description, not George's.)
I believe I have addressed this issue (and those that followed) sufficiently
above, if not, I know you will let me know. : )
>The common contemporary understanding of truth is (*contra* pragmatists
>and relativists) is that truth is a property of propositions: a
>proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to reality. Now the
>biblical concept clearly entails that propositions can be true in the
>contemporary sense, but allows the ascription of "true" to things other
>than propositions.
>
>Perhaps John is overlooking the fact that when we say God is truth, we are
>not only claiming that he is dependable, trustworthy, etc., but also are
>claiming that propositions about him correspond to the reality of what he
>is (note: even though we can never know him exhaustively, we still can
>know true propositions about him), and propositions which he "uttters"
>correspond to the reality of the world. If that is so, then it follows
>that we too can utter true propositions about the world--propositions that
>correspond to the reality of what is.
Concerning the last paragraph above, I would say that only propositions
which He makes are true. Propositions we make approach reality, are an
approximation of reality, but fall far short of truth. Only God's
statements "correspond to reality of what is."
>Briefly, I have argued that (1) the Averroistic notion of two kinds of
>truth is false; truth is a unity. And (2) that some of the disagreements
>in recent posts on this thread may be due to equivocation on the concept
>of truth. But there is one more point: (3) We should not confuse truth
>and method.
>
>John is right in this: science does not *make* a proposition true, but
>this does not mean, as he says, that "Science knows nothing of truth; at
>best it can only verify or deny a hypothesis." For what does it mean to
>verify a hypothesis other than to show that it corresponds with reality?
>Science is the method by which we determine whether a proposition
>about the physical world actually corresponds to physical reality, just as
>historical investigation is the method by which we determine whether a
>statement about the past corresponds to what was the case. Methods do not
>determine truth in the sense of creating truth, but they do determine
>whether a certain proposition corresponds with the appropriate state of
>affairs in reality.
>
>
>
>Garry DeWeese
>
Garry, I stand by my statement above, science knows nothing of truth, but I
will modify the phrase that followed because I seen my error there, at best
it can only deny a hypothesis or fail to deny a hypothesis (I have been
corrected repeatedly about that error yet I still make it. If we were not
tainted by sin we would have no need for science since "Revelation
Knowledge" would be unfiltered and ours as needed.
In Him,
John
**********************************
John P. McKiness
P.O. Box 5666
Coralville, Iowa (U.S.A.) 52241
jmckines@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
**********************************