Tuesday, February 10, 2015

The Indubitable Problem of Truth

The caption below is one of those ubiquitous posters that inhabit facebook pages everywhere. This particular one however was found on a page that one might be forgiven for thinking should have no place for spurious thinking. It was on a page dedicated to "The Science of Everyday Thinking" a mooc course of the same name. Because I was an attendee, and because I really got the message about how we were supposed to think- logically, clearly, without prejudice, without bias and with a knowledge of heuristics that would enable us (supposedly) to make better decisions, and generally live to our fullest potential- I was bemused. Apparently at least 63 people thought this was a poster worth giving the thumbs up. So much for critical thinking...


Perhaps that is particularly smug sounding and you may be still looking at the poster thinking "What the...what's wrong with it? It looks legit..." As my 19 year old son would say. 

Ok game over, the problem with it is that Andre Gide wants us to know that he has found it to be true, that truth cannot be found, or at the least that we should doubt those who make truth claims. So if what he wrote above is true, then we should not trust Andre Gide- but be skeptical of his truth claim- because he is proposing he has found something true. It is in fact an invitation to be a complete skeptic or at least agnostic towards truth claims.

 Well I am a firm believer in healthy skepticism- and we should be firmly skeptical towards the above truth claim. There are attendant problems with the sort of all pervading skepticism that permeates our culture. If we are to treat all truth claims with equal skepticism- then why should we treat his any differently? There is a fundamental problem with approaching life that way. We are creatures that thrive on trust, and don't do nearly so well when doubt and mistrust are all pervasive. Just ask the author of "The Gulag Archipelago"

Christian philosopher Dallas Willard had this to say about unthinking skepticism:
“The test of character posed by the gentleness of God's approach to us is especially dangerous for those formed by the ideas that dominate our modern world. We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can be almost as stupid as a cabbage, as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. Only a very hardy individualist or social rebel -- or one desperate for another life -- therefore stands any chance of discovering the substantiality of the spiritual life today. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright.”
As someone who owns a small business, I am still considering how much the whole business of life is based on trust. At present I have one source of income that provides the bread and butter for our table. (Of course I know that this provision is secondary to the primary provider Jehovah Jireh!) My point is that for several months now the sole source of usable income has not paid their account for services rendered, and the interest bill on the overdraft is getting weightier and weightier. I trusted they would pay the account. 

The world operates on trust and woe betide any culture where this basic trust breaks down. When the idea of truth has lost its cultural traction, society itself will begin to break down. At the moment the breaking down of truth is restricted largely to the idea of objective religious truth. This area in particular is where the absolute skepticism of people like Gide have had unprecedented success in persuading people of the futility of religion. But as I hope I have shown above, people who undermine the idea of truth- in the very process of doing so- have to smuggle  in truth claims. It is just nonsense. But so long as that sort of idea remains unchallenged, the whole idea of truth gets reduced to "mere opinion". "There is no such thing as absolute truth" is the tacit assumption in the sentiment expressed above.  Just imagine, someone has the hubris to claim an absolute truth while categorically denying absolute truth. The whole idea of truth is in disrepute. The implications are far reaching. Because, (in the minds of many) there is no such thing as objective religious truth, all religious ideas are treated equally (with the same thinly veiled scorn), because they are all reduced to mere opinion. Hence no-one can claim their religion is exclusively true. 

But look how silly that is. One person's religion has the truth, no sorry- the opinion- that female genital mutilation is not only permissable, but desirable. Another believes, on the basis of their religious claims, (no- sorry read- opinion) that all human-kind are made in the image of God and therefore equal and sacred, and therefore we should not mutilate women any more than we should a male. We find ourselves in a situation today in that we have unwittingly, as Christians, allowed ourselves to be browbeaten into submission to one of the most destructive ideas of our time. We have allowed the postmodernist to impose their dictums, their morality on us. We have all but believed the lie that there is no such thing as absolute truth and therefore we should not impose our morality on anyone else. We need to stand up and steadfastly resist the morality that postmodernity is in fact imposing on us. When all ideas are reduced to the idea that my truth is really only my preference, and only an opinion,  there is no recourse to appeal to a higher authority. In effect personal autonomy is the only absolute. What is true for me is the only truth but it is completely subjective, it can only be true for me. Conversely what is true for you is the only truth- but is only true to you, it is all relative we are told. But what happens when these claims are diametrically opposed? One can see this in many areas and this attitude to truth is responsible for much of the madness and irrationality we see around us, even in our court systems. A man falls through the roof of a building and successfully sues the owner over safety issues when the reason he was on the roof in the first place was in order to burgle the place? McDonalds are sued for causing obesity! Whatever happened to personal responsibility? A Magistrate is sent for "re-educating" because he allowed his religious views to affect his decision. But the tacit assumption is that the purely secular view of his superiors is not affecting theirs? 

So what prompted me to return to this poster that lodged in my memory some months ago? 


I was in one of those conversations that takes place as people pause in their busy lives for a few minutes after the conclusion of a Church service where we have a rushed cup of tea with fellow devotees before settling back to the frenetic pace of our own private lives.

The chap I was in conversation with complained that scientists are always changing their minds about what is true. For instance they tell you that butter is no good for you because it is high in cholesterol, and cholesterol is bad for you, and so we should use Margarine, then they tell you that Margarine is just one protein away from eating plastic and is carcinogenic, then they say that butter is great because it is a completely natural product and contains good cholesterol... and so it goes on. You know the sort of thing. He had a valid point.

Full of enthusiasm over our recent excursion to the big city to hear scientist, author and apologist Dr. Stephen C. Meyer wax lyrical about scientific evidence for the existence of God it got me thinking about how secular scientists are always criticizing people of faith because they are so entrenched in their views. To use a common  vernacular "faithheads" never budge in their stubborn grip on whatever they perceive as the truth- no matter how much the evidence points to the contrary position. We hear the old cliche in reference to religious people- "I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts"   And at least to some degree we have the stigma of history to support the idea, remember Galileo?

So by way of summary, those whose loyalty lies in the direction of science as the greatest or only source of authoritative knowledge claim the virtue of being able to revise and constantly update knowledge, criticizing- by contrast- the ineradicably fixed nature of religious truth. Conversely, in the Christian worldview- loyalty to the authoritative knowledge accorded to a true understanding of scripture provides the only stable basis upon which to build a life that honours truly what it means to be human.  

Is the supposed antagonism between science and faith based on truth or misunderstanding? Can they be reconciled?


The counter-claim of the religious is basically- if it ain't broke, why fix it? If something is true, then it is true for all people everywhere and for all time. If, for example, the Universe came to be- out of nothing, the shifting opinions of science will not alter the eternal fact. Or as some wit exclaimed "One can be forgiven for having one's own private fantasies, but one cannot have one's own private facts" . The truth is that truth is objective, it is what it is despite what postmodernists love to portray. The claim by Christians is for the fixed and thereby trustworthy, objective nature of truth, and the criticism of science is its transitory, unpermanent, constantly shifting goalpost attitude.  Here is an extract regarding "truth" from the satirical peom on postmodernism by Steve Turner (tongue firmly in cheek):
We believe that each man must find the truth
that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust. History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.
 Is the absolutist truly an archaic relic of the past? Truth is independent of our beliefs, If our beliefs line up with truth- well and good. If they don't line up with reality- then we are simply deceived. Christians are fighting for the exclusive and timeless nature of truth, and rightly so.

Clearly the above poster leans positively in the direction of scientific materialism while attempting to give a backhander to religion. And truly there is ample evidence of an upward trend in our successes in our search for knowledge. In broad strokes the world has progressed from Aristotelian elements of earth, wind, air and fire with the addition of the mysterious "quintessence" to Newtonian physics. And from there to Einsteinian relativity and now into the realm of quantum physics. Science has indeed rightly advanced into ever-increasing accuracy with regard to the physical world and the criticism is that religion has sat in the shadows of obscurantism, and became a fossilized dinosaur in its fixation with the absolute.

But is that completely true?


Well no it isn't, certainly not in the realm of Christian theology. If science is to be applauded on the basis of constant change in the direction of greater accuracy then we can also apply this criteria to theology. To this day we still have those same basic elements, Earth, Air, Wind and Fire but of course there have been an almost endless succession of improvements to how we understand these basic elements, and this is no less true of Christian Theology.  Creedal statements are the legitimate attempts to express an ongoing commitment- like the progressive reputation of science- to a process of affirmation and an ever increasing distillation of timeless truths into more concise, unmistakeable formulations. One can trace perhaps one of the earliest, simple creedal statements to Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians:
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 1 Corinthians 15
In order to safeguard the core truths against those repeated attempts to subvert orthodoxy one can trace the various councils convened over the centuries to ward off or clarify challenges to the faith, both from within the ranks of the broader Church and from without. The council of Nicea, the synod of Dordt and many, many others testify to this persistent theological development.. So we see then that Christian history is replete with the continued efforts to understand, clarify and further the cause of theological truth. It continues to this day. What was true yesterday, is as true today and will be in the future, but what will and must continue to change are the expressions and formulations that must consistently thwart the challenges of contemporary atitudes, like for example the current war on truth by the philosophy of relativism. What the late great Albert Einstein said of science is equally applicable to theology-
"…new frameworks are like climbing a mountain-the larger view encompasses, rather than rejects the earlier more restricted view."
Einstein didn’t show Newton was wrong, he showed Newton was incomplete. The wonderful thing is that when the Apollo 13 astronauts experienced a devastating explosion on their craft they were forced to shut down their onboard computer to conserve power. At that point they confessed:

“We just put Sir Isaac Newton in the driver’s seat.”
He was referring to the fact that in order to survive, they were depending on Newton’s law of gravity. If it was right, they might get home alive. It sure seems right, in fact it did enable them to get home alive. These days, we can launch a spacecraft toward Mars (millions of miles away) and, using Newton’s law of gravity, hit our target with stunning precision. We’re so confident in it, and it’s so useful, we still call it “Newton’s law.” (Quote from "Open Mind")

So there is maturity, development and innovation in the expressions of both disciplines, and yet also there is a constancy, a timelessness in the fundamentals. The incredible thing is that despite entering into the quantum age of physics- such is the accuracy of Newtonian physics that it is (if I'm not mistaken) still the model used in the incredible achievement of the landing of "Philae" on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko 6.4 billion kilometres away. Isaac Newton, by the way, was a Christian along with many who were the progenitors of the scientific method.

Scientists, like Christians are believers in absolutes, as opposed to the philosophical relativists, but like scientists the'yre also realists. The absolute is the goal, with the humble recognition that it is yet to be achieved. The continued refinement of our knowledge of the Universe is to get to the point of the best possible description of physical reality- so it is a search for truth.

Why not let sleeping dogs lie? Why not let scientists continue with their worldview in peace and Christians persist in their faith without interference?


Well an obvious objection would be where does that leave the Christian who is a scientist? Must there be a forever divided loyalty? But it also omits another obvious difficulty. A scientist who is a Christian, indeed any Christian in seeking to be more loyal to Christ must take seriously his or her own authority- The Bible. The scriptures proclaim:
 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." Psalm 19:1
Clearly it is within the scriptural mandate to look to the heavens for evidence of God's glory and in order to appreciate Him who fashioned nature according to his own character and will. The unbiased study of nature then is indeed intended to help us know God just as surely as the books of scripture do. Even the most ardent atheist scientists are unwittingly complimenting God's handiwork in their devotion to its mysteries. Should Christians be ignorant of a continuing source of knowledge that furthers the glory of God? So there is a direct scriptural link that points to the reality that nature is another "book" that can teach us to honour God.

May we just ignore the argument between faith and reason, science and religion? Isn't there a danger that the study of nature, ie. science will lead us away from God?

The point at which a legitimate love for science becomes the authoritative and only source of knowledge is in contemporary language called "scientism" - in more theologically oriented language we would call it a form of idolatry.

The difference between an idol and an icon is that the idol becomes the ultimate focus- blinding us to the reality beyond. An icon is that which grasps our attention long enough to enable us to see the reality it points to beyond itself. So long as nature remains an icon it will continue to glorify God.

If the study of nature is to reveal the glory of God as surely as the books of the Bible do, as testified by the Word of God itself- it is as C.S. Lewis said- no more possible that the study of nature can do away with the idea of God than a stream can rise above its source. If God is as good as his Word- to which every loyal Christian would agree- then Scientists whose sole aim is to observe nature in all its various aspects are doing something drastically wrong if they can then turn around and argue belligerently that nature proves the non-existence of God. Which is what many atheists tend to believe, especially in terms of Darwinian Evolution or in the case of the Big Bang, where everything is supposed to come into being spontaneously from nothing. And so it is encumbent upon Christians everywhere to give voice to the truth that Christianity was the cradle in which a love of science was nurtured, in as far as it is in their capacity to do so. And so the whole enterprise of scientists whose worldview encompassess philosophical materialism has been geared to enlist science from Darwin's day forward to perpetuate the myth that science has buried God. And (as Richard Dawkins so elegantly wrote) that "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist".  

In this current atmosphere, the continued refusal to engage with the science community by Christemdom actually has put Christianity on the backfoot, even ducking for cover, rendering anything we say as irrelevant. The reverse should be true- that science whether in the form of intelligent design, or big bang cosmology- will if engaged with systematically and rigorously will indeed make it possible once again to be an intellectually fulfilled theist as it once was- and not just in our own cloistered halls.  



In the current state of affairs the relationship between science and theology is awkward if not downright hostile.  The uncomfortable popular misconception is that science and theology are competing worldviews. And this tragic error is compounded by unthinking adherents of both sides. They are not. It is essential that one distinguishes between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, because that is where the real worldview clash materializes.  The latest offering by Analytical Philosopher and Christian, Alvin Plantinga addresses the very real need to comprehend just where the real battlelines are drawn between atheism and theism. His latest book Where the Conflict Really Lies is sure to bring illuminating thoughts to the debate. If anyone wishes to buy me a copy please leave a comment to that effect below!  Here is a soundbite that gives the promise of a really good understanding as to the nature of the real conflict:
'there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism.'Alvin Plantinga
Here is what Thomas Nagel, a philosopher in his own right- and an atheist says of Plantinga in a review of Plantinga's latest book in the New York Review of Books:
'Plantinga’s religion is the real thing, not just an intellectual deism that gives God nothing to do in the world. He himself is an evangelical Protestant, but he conducts his argument with respect to a version of Christianity that is the “rough intersection of the great Christian creeds”—ranging from the Apostle’s Creed to the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles—according to which God is a person who not only created and maintains the universe and its laws, but also intervenes specially in the world, with the miracles related in the Bible and in other ways. It is of great interest to be presented with a lucid and sophisticated account of how someone who holds these beliefs understands them to harmonize with and indeed to provide crucial support for the methods and results of the natural sciences.'
Remember, this is an atheist philosopher speaking:
' I say this as someone who cannot imagine believing what he [Plantinga] believes. But even those who cannot accept the theist alternative should admit that Plantinga’s criticisms of naturalism are directed at the deepest problem with that view—how it can account for the appearance, through the operation of the laws of physics and chemistry, of conscious beings like ourselves, capable of discovering those laws and understanding the universe that they govern. Defenders of naturalism have not ignored this problem, but I believe that so far, even with the aid of evolutionary theory, they have not proposed a credible solution.' (Emphasis mine)
Clearly that is a powerful push for Plantinga's faith and thought when duly considered who it is that is giving that statement.

To give a real time instance of this misunderstanding of where the conflict really lies take this interview between Dan Abrams (MSNBC) , Eugenie Scott (National Center for Science Education)  and Stephen C. Meyer advocate for Intelligent Design. It is sometimes difficult to follow the arguments because of numerous interjections- but it is possible!


Do I really need to understand the difference between a scientist committed to methodological naturalism and someone committed to philosophical naturalism?


The accusation by Abrams is along the lines of an attempt at evasion by Meyer to directly come out in the open and stop hiding behind the supposed "facade" of Intelligent Design. He sees it as a failure to be honest on Meyer's part to come clean and confess that it is a movement to bring back religion into the mainstream. It is in fact the opposite of  a "sleight of hand" type of avoidance. With credentials in the philosophy of science, Meyer knows only too well what is the correct stance to take according to the dictates of the scientific method. It is in fact a mark of integrity and scrupulous honesty that unfortunately is completely lost on the uninitiated, that Meyer is abiding by science on its own terms. What Abrams either fails to appreciate or deliberately conflates is the issue of methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. While freely and openly confessing a belief in the Christian God, and is therefore a theist, Meyer is careful as a matter of honesty and integrity as a philosopher of science with a Christian worldview to apply methodological naturalism to his claims for Intelligent Design. That is- as a matter of evidence and applying the well accepted scientific principle of "inference to the best explanation" (as Darwin also did)- Meyer points to the uncontested reality of digital code containing information within the double helix of the DNA molecule and the failure of the standard, accepted scientific theory to account for it. There is no way- based on the scientific evidence and methodology at this time- to attribute that directly and scientifically to the providence of God, but neither is it scientifically honest to simply attribute complex digital information to a natural process- when that flies in the face of all that we know of information science. The refusal of the wider scientific community to acknowlege the reality that the commonly held conclusion is not the result of science but the inevitable answer of the majority worldview of philosophical naturalism through which the evidence is being appraised is tantamount to the sort of dishonesty that Meyer is being unjustly accused of. It remains to be seen how those committed to the idea that nature is all there is will eventually form a consensus and attempt to reconcile this anomoly. Perhaps they will, as evidence seems to be mounting, simply shift the goalposts and continue to call it a natural unguided process when every other instance of information is preceded by intelligence.

And so Meyer correctly- in doing science according to convention- conforms to methodological naturalism- even as he contests against the assumptions of philosophical naturalism. He is playing the game according to the rules of scientific endeavour. If there is any dishonesty to be appropriated perhaps it is in the repeated obfuscation of those philosophical naturalists like Eugenie Scott whose commitment to the idea of nature being all there is is in fact a worldview commitment not strictly supported by science. Or perhaps it is time to bring science out of the closet, and begin to apply skepticism to the idea that in every case science must be bound by the application of methodological naturalism to every question.

"If you look more closely at the history of science, you will find that methodological naturalism wasn’t born out of a metaphysically naturalistic ideology. Quite to the contrary, methodological naturalism arose in an explicitly theistic context, as an outworking of the doctrine of creation. According to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic doctrine of creation, our universe is an artifact — both designed and brought into being by God — and therefore it was built according to a blueprint that can be discerned by rational creatures like ourselves. Moreover, since God’s choice of a universe was free and unconstrained by any natural law,  the only way to discover the blueprint of creation is by means of empirical investigation. Therefore, the early modern scientists — all of whom were theists — believed that the following would be a worthy pursuit: to use one’s intellect to put forward a possible blueprint of the natural (i.e. created) world; and then to use one’s senses to test if the proposed blueprint matches our universe." (Why methodological naturalism? by Hans Halvorson September 2, 2014)
This reality lays bare the fact that the agency of God was substantially an a priori condition of these founders' understanding of reality. Clearly not the idea that nature precluded the existence of God, as in metaphysical or philosophical naturalism which is the erroneous assumption of many of the new atheists.

Epistemology- being the study of how we gain knowledge, how we know what we know- has an important stake in the history of science. Stephen Meyer in a recorded conversation with R.C. Sproull commented that:

 "The ultimate question of epistemology is: On what basis can we trust in the reliability of the human mind? And that's where I think that intelligent design has something else really profound to contribute. Because if the mind is designed by a benevolent Creator to know the world that that Creator has also designed- there's a principle of correspondence between the way the mind works and the way that the world has been designed such that it can be known...and that's the ultimate guarantee in epistemology...of our ability to know, and so there's a kind of theistic design argument that underwrites the epistemological enterprise of science itself. Which in some ways is the most fundamental argument for design, and the one that makes science possible. It was something that was presupposed by those early founders of modern science. They were not afflicted by Humean skepticism, because they believed that the world had been designed by the same person who designed their minds to know the world."
I have no doubt that many of the worlds great thinkers have at least some inkling of what Meyer points to here, though not so many are as bold as Einstein. Despite his greatest contributions being involved in explanations dealing only with material reality,  he showed a clear appreciation for the phenomenon that Meyer alludes to. 

"One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility." 

Attributing the information in DNA to natural processes is an extrapolation from the scientific evidence in the light of a naturalistic worldview. It is the evidence being interpreted through the lens of naturalism, and absolurely predictably- the conclusion will therefore of course necessarily exclude even the possibility of the supernatural. It has to be so- but that can hardly be called fair- let alone scientific. It is then, imperative that we be quite clear in our minds  what is the distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. The question then becomes a moral one of conscience and integrity. In the case of the digital nature of information in the genetic code, this worldview commitment is a science stopper not a science enhancer. According to the presupposition of philosophical naturalism- there is only nature- nothing outside of nature exists-  so it is hardly surprising then that accordingly there cannot exist anything to point to realities outside of the natural system- whether or not such evidence actually exists. That can hardly be called good thinking let alone good science when it comes to questions that demand an explanation beyond the horizon of naturalism. It is in protest to this foregone conclusion that theists steadfastly resist a naturalistic assumption encompassing the entire Universe in a closed system. That is science with blinkers. As it happens, Meyer points to several rich fields of investigation which are leading the charge against this presupposition.

Many will be familiar with the name Richard Feynman, who is widely quoted for this gem:

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."

The Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard P. Feynman gave a talk called "Cargo Cult Science" in which he wanted to distinguish science proper- from pseudoscience. That quote is taken from that talk he gave at the commencement of studies at Caltech. In that talk there were repeated references to what he termed the necessity for "utter integrity". For the necessity of a scientist to be open about any evidence whatever that was open to a different interpretation, or that might go against the particular research results that were being anticipated by the research they were involved in. In another place he speaks of being careful not to read into the research what we want to find, in a similar way a Scriptural scholar ought to guard against eisegesis, reading into the text certain things according to ones own presuppositions or agenda, instead of letting the text speak for itself. 
"But whatever way it comes out, it's nature, it's there and she's gonna come out the way she is. And therefore when we go to investigate it we shouldn't pre-decide what it is we're trying to do except to find out more about it."
In the spirit of this persuit of knowledge, we can relate to his exhortation to budding scientists and applaud it. For this reason the presuppositions that we come to the study of nature with are all important and need to be openly acknowledged. The point being that those who are philosophical naturalists come to nature with the preconception that nature is exhaustive, that nature is all there is, whereas those that were instrumental in the formation of the scientific method adopted methodological naturalism with the presupposition that nature was not a closed system, not all that exists. 
So we see then that philosophical naturalism is the prior commitment to a worldview that excludes even the very possibility of a supernatural realm before even coming to approach any scientific query. Whereas methodological naturalism is merely the concession that in doing science we agree to the man made convention that we are looking primarily for explanations at a mechanistic level, and the level of natural laws- but this does not in any way preclude the validity of the explanation of an intellegint agency. It is not, an either- or situation. as the philosophical naturalist automatically assumes, and want to see imposed on every student. And the reason they seek to see this imposed is because of their faith based commitment to naturalism. I hesitate to use this word in their case because it is in a decidedly pejorative sense that I use it here. In fact I use it in the same way that atheists like Richard Dawkins use it when speaking of "faith-heads" who have rendered themselves immune to reasoned argument.

It is both- and.

As Professor of Mathematics, Oxford University John Lennox says- to confuse this issue is to regress so far back in terms of the history of science and natural philosophy it is astounding that otherwise brilliant people like the physicist Stephen Hawking would make such a basic error in thinking. It is so fundamentally wrong-headed to arbitrarily force upon science at an ultimate level- to make a choice between mechanism and natural laws on the one side, and agency on the other side, which is what philosophical naturalism or materialism does.

'Asking people to choose between God and Science as an explanation is like this- Here we have a Ford motor car engine, and I say choose between the following two explanations:
  1. The laws of internal combustion and mechanical engineering.
  2. Henry Ford
Choose! 
Why is it that some of the brightest people on the planet cannot see the difference? Henry Ford is an agent explanation, the law of internal combustion, mechanical engineering is a mechanism explanation and a law explanation- they don't conflict. Of course they don't. They are complementary. Both are needed for a full explanation, and I'm staggered- utterly staggered to find people like Richard Dawkins constantly say that it's either or.'  Professor John Lennox.









Science or God, or Science and God?


To further appreciate the artificial wall that philosophical naturalism has created by which the question of anything that transcends nature is prematurely and pre-emptively struck out of court I would point the reader to Ben Stein'ls "Expelled- No Intelligence Allowed" documentary. He analogously uses the Berlin Wall as an example of how certain factions within the educational and  scientific community have closed ranks  and are attempting to stymie any discussion with regard to intelligent design. However increasingly that wall is looking decidedly shaky, for some 30 years or so now there have been respected scientists willing to go AWOL because that is where the evidence is leading. The wall is definitely showing signs of a bulge that will lead to its collapse.


Science- Do we Deify it, or Demonize It?


What should the Christian stance be? How do we have a healthy interface between science and Christianity? Listen to Jim Bradford, PhD as he addresses the 2014 Faith and Science Conference. He holds a PhD. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Minnesota and is one of the top four officials in the Assemblies of God. One of his key points is that Science has such a huge authority in the minds of modern humanity that we ought to take the whole issue of science and intellectual pursuits seriously and have a nuanced and balanced attitude towards the claims of science.




How do we evaluate the claims of the skeptic and atheist and the absolutist claims of the religious? 


Follow Tim Keller's vision for checks and balance in our worldview: