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Lecture 5 analysis
1.) Proving the existence of God—is it entirely an issue of faith? (see point 3 also).
What is ‘faith’? Belief or a counting of some information as true. Many associate ‘faith’ with ‘ignorance
and blind trust’…but this is not necessarily true.
Truly, God is not being seen or experienced in the physical world directly via sense (i.e., right this
moment, he’s not being seen, audibly heard, touched, smelled, observed). But we can’t say that there
are no indirect means whereby his presence is known, or else we risk dismissing any means of knowing
of his existence (in the most preliminary, ‘theist’ sense of it). Does that mean then that we can’t use
certain tools to demonstrate his existence? (to be continued).
2.) Is science man-made?
According to www.oxforddictionaries.com, “science” is defined as:
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of
the physical and natural world through observation and experiment:
And again, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary states:
knowledge about the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world, based on facts
that you can prove, for example by experiments.
Before saying that all of science is man-made, consider the following:
If God exists, then he would be attributed with the creation of all things matter, and
immaterial. Now if we consider that the creation he made contains various qualities that he
infused it with (e.g., distances between stars, trajectories and speeds of orbits, kinds of gases,
& temperatures of stars etc.), and if we can assume that a primary reason for the splendor
and measurability of the things made was to point to this awesome creator, then we might not
want to be so quick to say that the system of arriving at truths concerning the creation (via
observation and experimentation) are purely human inventions or efforts.
Rather, how would we ever come to realize the precision and minutia of creative design were
it not for a divinely granted aptitude to discover, experiment, and prove the hand of a
designer in the natural and conceptual world?
Sure, we must admit that “science” is ever changing—meaning, it is possible for inaccurate
conclusions to be made from faulty experiments and bad inductive reasoning. Such inaccurate
conclusions will then be accepted as truth (rather than probable) for who knows how long,
until some “more accurate” comes along. But we must beware of this “pseudoscience”, and we
need to understand what true science is.
True science (i.e., proper experimentation and inductive reasoning) can only lead to correct
realizations about the physical world. It’s not to say that true science will never change—but if it
does change, it will only do so with regard to the specificity of the thing being studied, due to
innovations in technology. Original conclusions will never be totally discarded, but only more
specifically explained. So if, let’s say, conclusion “X” was made about thing “Y” at time in history
“Z”, then conclusion “X” could change into “X, more specific” with regard to thing “Y” at time
“Z +50 years” in history, due to, say, better/more powerful equipment.
Another mistake that is made in pseudoscience is the misapplication of the scope of a theory to
more than what it should be applied to. So finally, when scientists discover that theory “X”
doesn’t account for entities ‘a’, ‘b’, and ‘c’, many are quick to dismiss the theory, rather than
tailor the scope of the theory.
Ultimately, I’m convinced that science of exploration & experimentation that lead to true
realizations about the universe is a valid science, and not a human invention. This is because it is a tool
used to unveil hidden truths that the Designer infused into the universe to reveal Himself. These
conclusion may change in terms of the specificity of their detail—but not in terms of the general
content. this is generally due to greater advancement in tools used to ‘dig deeper’ into the thing
studied.
On the other hand, I’m convinced that science that changes from one extreme to the other is bad
science, and is full of human error, leading people to believe untruths..many of which are detrimental to
one’s belief.
3.) Why do we believe in God?
It should be noted that the Bible doesn’t make great efforts to try and make a formal case for
the existence of God. From the very first verse, (Gen 1:1), it simply assumes His existence. Other
places explain how it is that we know that the invisible attributes of God exist (namely, His
eternal power and Godhead)—Rom 1:20—that being by the things that are made. The Scripture
merely points to those things which are made (things outside of the bible, in the external world),
or the Scripture, as the authoritative word of God, recounts instances where God attests to His
own creatorship, or others attest to it)—
Ultimately, I think it we should beware that we don’t get trapped into circularity here. If we say
that we believe in God because the Bible says that God exists, then the question becomes: Why
do we believe the Bible? Two possible answers are:
1. Because it is true.
2. Because it is the Word of God.
Now, if we say that we believe in the existence of God because the Bible says so, and we then believe
the Bible because it is true---then we are having the burden of proof to demonstrate that the Bible is in
fact true. At best, (via scientific methods), we can demonstrate the high degree of credibility of the
Scriptures, its consistency, integrity of writers’ motivations, and demonstrate extrabiblical sources that
support claims held in the Scripture—but it’s not as though I can take the skeptic back thorugh time in a
time machine to then press “play” on the remote to watch every instance of the Scripture. Scientific
investigation (I believe) can lead one to accept the truth of Scripture to a very high degree of persuasion,
yet faith (a faith based on reason) is what fills the gap between reason and absolute certainty.
Now, if we say that “we believe in the existence of God because the Bible says so, and we then believe
the Bible because it is the Word of God”….well, we’ve attempted to show or prove God’s existence, but
we’ve assumed what we tried to prove (which logically speaking, qualifies as a circular argument). We’ve
basically said, “Well, I believe God exists because it says so in the bible, and the Bible is His Word, and he
wouldn’t lie”…we’ve assumed that He (the one who’s existence we’re trying to prove), already exists to
have written the Bible, which then says that He exists, thereby causing us to believe in Him?
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly think the Scripture is alive and powerful, and is the divine reinforcement
for continued belief in a Singular supreme deity, yet even unbelievers who have never believed the bible
to be true can believe that God exists---And guess where I get this information? The external world, in
addition to it being mentioned in the Bible (but not solely).
Do we believe the bible to be true because it is the Word of God, or do we believe the bible to be the
Word of God because it’s true?
4.) Concise definitions & difference between microevolution and macroevolution:
Microevolution: “evolution” due to a series of changes in the genetic frequencies /variations
within a population, which creates a new subspecies. This kind of ‘evolution’, so called, can
occur over a relatively short period of time, and is actually visible and measurable (for our
purposes, this would not entail that one ‘kind’ of created organism can ever become another
‘kind’, over any period of time).
Macroevolution: evolution, speaking in terms of large scale change in organisms over long
periods of time (i.e., billions of years). This is the negatively connoted aspect of evolution, since
it attempts to account for the development of all ‘kinds’ of organism, tracing a common
ancestry, beginning from primordial organic matter to the highly complex and diverse organisms
we see today.
5.) Concise definitions and differences between a priori & a posteriori knowledge:(coming shortly)
a. Why ‘I exist’ is an example of a priori knowledge
b. Why mathematical knowledge is an examples of a priori knowledge
c. How a priori knowledge and approaches can perhaps help us prove God.