Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | Acts 17:28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.' |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Acts 17:28 "For in Him we live and move and exist [that is, in Him we actually have our being], as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.' |
Subject: A Christian View of Science |
Bible Note: A Christian View of Science: An Excerpt from a tract Science: In Him, Not Matter, We Live Those who put their trust in science as the key to understanding the universe are embarrassed by the fact that science never discovers truth. If the Bible is the source of all truth, science cannot discover truth. One of the insoluble problems of the scientific method is the fallacy of induction; induction, in fact, is a problem for all forms of empiricism (learning by experience). The problem is simply this: Induction, arguing from the particular to the general, is always a logical fallacy. No matter how many crows, for example, you observe to be black, the conclusion that all crows are black is never warranted. The reason is quite simple: Even assuming you have good eyesight, are not colorblind, and are actually looking at crows, you have not, and cannot, see all crows. Millions have already died. Millions more are on the opposite side of the planet. Millions more will hatch after you die. Induction is always a fallacy. There is another fatal fallacy in science as well: the fallacy of asserting the consequent. The atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell put the matter this way: All inductive arguments in the last resort reduce themselves to the following form: If this is true, that is true: now that is true, therefore this is true. This argument is, of course, formally fallacious. Suppose I were to say: "If bread is a stone and stones are nourishing, then this bread will nourish me; now this bread does nourish me; therefore it is a stone and stones are nourishing.’’ If I were to advance such an argument, I should certainly be thought foolish, yet it would not be fundamentally different from the argument upon which all scientific laws are based. Recognizing that induction is always fallacious, philosophers of science in the twentieth century, in an effort to defend science, developed the notion that science does not rely on induction at all. Instead, it consists of conjectures, experiments to test those conjectures, and refutations of conjectures. But in their attempts to save science from logical disgrace, the philosophers of science had to abandon any claim to knowledge: Science is only conjectures and refutations of conjectures. Karl Popper, one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers of science, wrote: First, although in science we do our best to find the truth, we are conscious of the fact that we can never be sure whether we have got it.... [W]e know that our scientific theories always remain hypotheses.... [I]n science there is no "knowledge’’ in the sense in which Plato and Aristotle understood the word, in the sense which implies finality; in science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have attained the truth.... Einstein declared that his theory was false: he said that it would be a better approximation to the truth than Newton’s, but he gave reasons why he would not, even if all predictions came out right, regard it as a true theory.... Our attempts to see and to find the truth are not final, but open to improvement:...our knowledge, our doctrine is conjectural;...it consist of guesses, of hypotheses rather than of final and certain truths. Observation and science cannot furnish us with truth about the universe, let alone truth about God. The secular worldview, which begins by denying God and divine revelation, cannot furnish us with knowledge at all. What Is Christian Philosophy? is a Trinity Foundation publication. For additional copies of this pamphlet, or for further information about the Bible and Jesus Christ, please write to The Trinity Foundation, Post Office Box 68, Unicoi, Tennessee 37692. What Is Christian Philosophy? copyright 1994, John W. Robbins. The Trinity Foundation hereby grants permission to all readers to download, print, and distribute on paper or electronically any of its Reviews, provided that each reprint bear our copyright notice, current addresses, and telephone numbers, and provided that all such reproductions are distributed to the public without charge. The Reviews may not be sold or issued in book form, CD-ROM form, or microfiche. Peace, |