“In doubt and temptation, I rest, Lord, in Thee..”
Few things have influenced society in the last 400 years more than science. Today our world revolves around scientific achievements and the resulting technology. This edition of the Beacon Lights was written on a digital computer (invented around 1940), printed on a Xerox copier (1960), and delivered by airplanes (1903) and automobiles (1769). Our knowledge of medicine has increased rapidly, so that few people die from pneumonia (penicillin, 1928) or tuberculosis (vaccines, 1940’s and 50’s). Our medical procedures ensure that fewer mothers and babies die in childbirth, and many people who are alive today would not be alive if we did not have modern medicine. Truly we live in the scientific age.
What exactly is science? Often when we think of science we think of men wearing long, white lab coats running around in a laboratory, watching white mice, hacking up dead cats, or peering through a telescope. Undoubtedly these are some of the things which scientists do, but let me posit this definition of science: Science is the observing of the natural world through one or more of the five senses, making hypotheses based on these observations, and testing these hypotheses. Let’s clarify this definition with an example.
Dr. Krazer is an eminent astronomer who, observing the moon one night, decides to refute the common belief that the moon is made from green cheese. By looking at the moon through his telescope, Dr. Krazer becomes convinced that the moon is, indeed, not made of green cheese, but of silly putty. After forming this hypothesis, Dr. Krazer conducts some experiments to solidify his conclusion. He then publishes his finding in a scientific journal, and other scientists rush to see if this could possibly be true. This methodology did not always exist; we never read of people using this method in any ancient writings. How did the scientific method originate?
The scientific method as we know it today was strongly influenced by a French philosopher named Rene Descartes. One day in the fall of 1619, while on duty in the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau, he happened to be sitting in a small room in Germany, thinking about knowledge. It was here that he decided that all of his present knowledge was replete with error and superstition. To eradicate himself of this error, he decided to doubt everything, including his own existence, and start with only things he knew for certain. From this doubt came the famous expression, dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum (I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I am). With this basis he began to reconstruct his basis of knowledge, publishing his findings in Discourse on the Method for Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and for Seeking Truth in the Sciences, commonly called Discourse on Method. The vestiges of this doubt can be seen in today’s science. Dr. Krazer doubted the popular belief that the moon is made from green cheese. The scientific community doubted Dr. Krazer, and conducted experiments to see if he were correct. Science necessitates that people have inquisitive, but also doubting, minds.
At this point you may question the relevance of what we have talked about to Christianity, but I think that there is a connection. In fact, it is my personal belief that few things (if any) have affected a stronger impact on Christianity in the past few centuries than the scientific method. Rene Descartes published his Discourse de la methode in 1637. One hundred eleven years later, David Hume published a treatise entitled Concerning Human Understanding in which he stated that any reasonable man using the scientific method would doubt the veracity of miracles. One hundred eleven years later, in 1859, Charles Darwin published Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, in which he questioned particular creation (i.e., that God created every individual species), sowing the seminal seeds for the modern conception of evolution. About one hundred years later in Germany, critics examining the Bible with the scientific method doubted if the people who had traditionally been credited with authorship were actually the authentic authors. Today, I think that the entire movement can be epitomized by the bumper stickers and slogans which encourage us to “Question Authority.”
I am not saying that doubt originates with science; it certainly does not. The Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, contains many instances of doubt, the most conspicuous being that of the Jews doubting that Jesus was the Son of God. Nor am I saying that science is evil. We are the inheritors of many wonderful benefits of science, and I have a profound respect for science. If you recall our original definition of science, however, you will see that science deals with this physical world as perceived by our senses. Science cannot transcend the world as we know it, giving science limitations, weaknesses, and downfalls. We must never let science separate us from the knowledge of God, as He revealed Himself in His Work, or from the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ.