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Thoughts of a Solitary Walker IV: Is the World a Machine?

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In the previous essay, I addressed the question “Do we live in a material world?” I argued that the existence of matter is a philosophical postulate rather than a scientific observation or theory. Moreover, I explained further that matter, understood as something completely impervious to mind, contradicts the Christian doctrine of creation. In that essay I warned that if we accept materialism, even in its pseudoscientific form…

Matter becomes the enduring substance of the world and effectively takes the place of the sustaining power of God. We can no longer see God doing anything or feel God’s presence. And the loss of a sense of divine presence and activity in the world lies at the origin and growth of modern agnosticism and atheism.

The Machine Metaphor

In this essay, we will explore the companion idea almost always associated with matter, that is, the machine. How shall we explain the movement, change and transformation that occurs within the physical world? For about 2,000 years before the modern scientific revolution Aristotle’s explanations of natural phenomena had been the norm. Aristotle understood all movement through the analogy of a living organism, which is moved by an internal principle, soul. Every living thing possesses a soul that moves it toward its natural end. The cosmos as a whole is moved by a world soul.

A defining mark of early modern science is rejection of Aristotle and the organic metaphor. But if the world does not move, change and transform in the way an organism moves, changes and transforms, how then does it move? The machine provides an alternative metaphor that seventeenth-century scientists appropriated to their ends. A machine possesses no soul or mind, no internal principle of unity; it does not strive toward an end. Its constituent parts relate to each other externally and transfer movement by physical contact. Having no internal consciousness or hidden purposes, machines are not mysterious and can readily be understood mathematically. And perhaps—I am speculating here—the desire for simplicity and clarity is the reason Galileo, Descartes, and Gassendi were attracted to the machine metaphor. As I argued in “Thoughts of a Solitary Walker II,” excluding from science everything that cannot be measured in mathematical terms—psychological, aesthetic, moral and causal qualities—makes it clear, simple, and comprehensible.

Machines All the Way Down?

A machine is made of components. Understanding a machine scientifically—a mechanical watch, for example—requires differentiating the components from each other and discovering how they relate to one another and in what order and measuring their movements in mathematical terms. But machines in the microworld are composed of components that are themselves composed of components. But how do we know that the mechanical/mathematical model of explanation explains the movement of all physical things? Perhaps in the hidden world, beyond the reach of empirical experience, there is a psychic/spiritual reality at work that manifests itself in our macro world as machine-like behavior? (Think of how our own minds manifest themselves in the movements of our bodies. Indeed, common sense finds it implausible to think of any animal as a machine.) If we cannot rule this out, we cannot know that our mathematical formulae impart real knowledge of nature.

The Buck Stops with Atoms and Corpuscles

Early modern scientists were aware that we cannot prove that the mechanical model applies to every dimension of the physical world. Hence along with the postulate of the existence of matter as the substance of the physical world, they postulated the existence of tiny parts they called atoms or corpuscles. The Greek word “atom” means uncuttable or indivisible. The existence of atoms was first postulated by presocratic philosophers in approximately 500 B.C. Pierre Gassendi and Robert Boyle used the word corpuscle, a word derived from Latin that means “little body.” Though functioning like atoms, they are not necessarily indivisible.*

The postulate of the existence of atoms or highly stable corpuscles allowed the new mechanical/mathematical science to assume as a working hypothesis that all movement and change of any kind in the physical world conforms to the model of mechanical interaction of material components.

To Summarize

The postulate of the existence of matter exorcised all inner psychic factors from the physical world, and the postulate of the existence of atoms or corpuscles justified applying the mechanical model to all movement in the physical world.*

A Working Hypothesis Becomes Metaphysical Truth

As I have emphasized throughout this essay and the previous one, these two postulates were unprovable working hypotheses made to guide research and scientific explanation. Even as working hypotheses I doubt that they are completely innocent of metaphysical hubris. However, it is very tempting to conclude that their success in giving satisfactory explanations of physical movement and change warrants treating them as true representations of metaphysical reality. Many people followed this path into practical or theoretical deism, agnosticism, or atheism, each of which is devoid of the sense of divine presence in the world.

Misplaced Realism Again

The methods used by empirical/mathematical science of the 17th or the 21st century cannot prove—or even provide evidence for—a metaphysical hypothesis, whether material/mechanical or psychic/organic. It cannot distinguish between appearances caused by material atoms interacting externally and mechanically or those caused by internal psychic powers striving to achieve ends. A decision between these two opposing views must be made on other bases. For my part, I believe modern culture has been unwarrantedly and thoughtlessly confident in the material/mechanical hypothesis. So many impressive phenomena of nature and human experience are discounted by this hypothesis. It’s time to rediscover and reconsider the undeniable mental and psychic dimensions of the world. And in doing so we may very well recover a sense of God’s presence and activity all around and within us.

*I have simplified a very complex topic conceptually and historically. Hopefully, I have not falsified it. See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for greater nuance. Search for “atomism” and other relevant terms.

Thoughts of a Solitary Walker II: Is Science Really Omnicompetent?

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In this second installment of this series, I will share some thoughts from my most recent walk.

As my frequent readers know, I have been thinking, writing and reading for many years in search of an answer to the question, “Why do modern people find it tempting to live as if God does not exist?” Another way to put it is: “Why does God seem absent from modern the world?” It wasn’t always true. Before 1500, God seemed very present and active in the world and in the human soul and mind. But something happened between 1600 and the present to change that. What was it? What was lost and what was gained by the changes? And can we recover that sense of “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28)?

In other places, I have argued that the modern scientific revolution lies at the root of this change in perception. It was not the empirical, observational, and mathematical aspects of modern science that cause the problem; it was a mistaken realism that refused to recognize the limits of empirical science. That is to say, the models that guided the new natural science—the machine and the material particle—were treated as if they described what is truly real, the basic building blocks of the world.

Modern science developed in conscious opposition to Aristotle’s theories. Aristotle proposed organic, teleological, and metaphysical explanations for natural phenomena. Galileo, Descartes, Gassendi, and other pioneers of modern science rejected Aristotle’s organic model and replaced it with a mechanical one in which material corpuscles (or atoms) interacted through contact in a way that could be described mathematically. Modern science has been spectacularly successful in disclosing and describing the empirical phenomena of nature in mathematical terms. And it has used these discoveries to create technologies that have revolutionized the way we live.

Modern natural science is so impressive that many people assume—or even proclaim—that it will eventually explain everything: If science can’t explain it, it doesn’t exist. Its methods can answer every legitimate question. Perhaps I will address at length these claims in a future post. Here I can make only a brief refutation of these extraordinary claims.

What does modern natural science do? Answer: it measures empirical phenomena—that is the appearances we receive through our five senses—using simple or sophisticated mathematics. It does not explain why things happen, that is, science cannot translate the concept of causality into mathematical terms. Causality is not a phenomenon that can be measured! Contrary to popular belief, natural science cannot rationalize causality; that is, it cannot explain why the transformations we find in nature are necessary. Consider for example Einstein’s famous formula:

E = MC2

It says in words: “the measure of Energy (in Joules) equals the measure of Mass (in kilograms) times the Velocity of Light (in meters per second) multiplied by itself.” Each of the letters in the formula stands for a number that measures a quantity of something we perceive through the senses, a phenomenon. The equal sign is also a mathematical symbol.

The same is also true of Newton’s second law, which says that force equals mass times acceleration:

F = Ma

One more. This time consider a chemical reaction between sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide, which yields sodium sulfate and water:

H2SO4 + 2NaOH → 2Na2SO4 + 2H2O

Again, every mark in this chemical equation stands for a mathematical quantity or a mathematical operation. The arrow (→) stands for a mathematical equality and a transformation reaction. It is true that the quantities relate to substances (sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide, sodium sulfide and water) but those substances are themselves known scientifically only in mathematical terms: atomic weights, number of electrons and protons. Of course, these different substances affect the senses differently…but modern natural science does not consider sense perception of qualities—color, taste, odor, sound, and texture—to be scientific knowledge.

In none of these formulae is causality quantified, that is brought into the sphere of scientific (ie mathematical) knowledge. As David Hume pointed out in the 18th century, causality cannot be perceived empirically and therefore cannot be understood in terms of empirical, mathematical science.

Don’t miss this: modern natural science can say nothing about causality in scientific terms! It cannot get beyond the common sense of the non-scientist. People do not believe anything happens without a cause. Why does everyone believe this? Because nothing makes sense without it! And we know that we act causally in some of our actions. We want to raise our arms and we make it happen. We are the proof that some things act causally.

Here then is my refutation of the omnicompetence of modern, empirical, mathematical science: it can’t explain why anything happens…it can only measure it. But causality (the why) is the glue that holds the universe together and makes sense of it all.

Next Time: Another walk and another thought

God, UFOs and the Standard Argument for Extraterrestrial Life

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Given all the interest, hype, and conspiracy about UAPs (formerly UFOs) and the speculations about life elsewhere in the universe, I thought I’d point out something I’ve not heard discussed. Cable news talking heads assert that given the mind-boggling number of galaxies and stars in the universe, there’s a good chance that there are many other planets in the universe capable of supporting life of some kind.

I have no problem with this assertion, because the physics of planet formation is easily understood and we have earth as one instance of this occurrence. But the further assertion that the existence of life on some of these planets is likely or even certain, has me raising my eyebrows in skepticism, at least of this line of reasoning:

The Argument for the High Probability of Extraterrestrial Life

1. The argument begins with the obvious fact that we are here on earth in the universe as observers. Hence life is possible in our universe. And, if the conditions of life are present in other parts of the universe, life is possible there also. Possible!

2. Given the trillions of galaxies and the trillions of stars and planets each galaxy contains, the probability is high that life has come to exist in some of those galaxies.

Analysis and Critique of the Probability Argument

3. However, there are two unstated assumptions in this argument, one negative and the other affirmative. They are:

  • (a) that life on our planet came to exist by a combination of chance and physical law (regularities) uninfluenced by intelligence, freedom, and purpose.
  • And (b) that if the right chemical components and the right conditions obtain, life’s evolution is inevitable.

Only if we accept these two assumptions can the notion of probability be applied to the evolution of life.

4. But if the coming to be of life on earth is the result of intelligence, freedom, and purpose, the notion of probability is meaningless. And if the idea of probability cannot be meaningfully applied to the origin of life on earth, then it does not apply anywhere else in the universe.

5. For free acts of divine creation can be assigned no probability because they do not arise solely from chance and physical law…but from divine intelligence, purpose and freedom, which escape both deterministic law and chaotic chance.

6. Is there life anywhere else in the universe? That depends on God’s choice, and for all we know God’s purpose was fulfilled by creating life only in one place in the universe.

Galileo, What Hast Thou Wrought?

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Today we continue our study of how the statement, “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” (Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, p. 19), came to be taken seriously by millions of intelligent people. The previous essay explained why no one before 1500 could have comprehended the modern dichotomy between the external appearances of such things as the male and female bodies and their internal reality. At the conclusion of that essay, I promised that in the next part “we will see how the architects of the scientific revolution—Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, et al.—destroyed confidence in the reality of forms and souls and replaced them with atoms, space, and machines. The appearances no longer reveal the reality of things. Creation is emptied of spiritual reality, meaning, purpose, moral law, and beauty, all of which are transferred to the inner subjective world of the human mind.” We begin that saga with Galileo Galilei.

Galileo Versus Aristotle

Students of nature before Galileo assumed that the way things appear to us reveals something about their inner reality and that the inner reality of things manifests itself truly in their external appearances. The meaning, purpose, beauty, moral law, and value we experience in our minds also exists in nature. The goal of Aristotelian science was understanding how all these qualities are embedded in the natures of the things themselves. However, by the time Galileo (1564-1642) came to maturity in the early seventeenth century, such thinkers as Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Rene Descartes (1596-1650), and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) were already complaining that the doctrine of forms contributed nothing to our empirical understanding of things. Mysterious forms, whether they are real or not, cannot be clearly thought and have no value for making predictions, discovering laws, and creating technology. And for reasons I do not understand, achieving these goals had become the driving force of the emerging scientific revolution.

Galileo and the Mathematization of Nature

Galileo believed that applying mathematics to nature was the only way to achieve his practical goals. Numbers and mathematical operations are clear and simple, and when we see the value of a mathematical expression or equation, we become certain of its truth. To understand nature, argued Galileo, we should set aside questions about its mysterious inner nature, the ways it appears to us, and the way it makes us feel; these are irrelevant to achieving the goals of the new science. We will then be free to work out the mathematical laws of nature’s movements and transformations. At last, we can understand nature as clearly as we understand mathematics!

Unforeseen and Unintended Consequences

To modern ears, Galileo’s philosophy of science and his revisions to the scientific method sound familiar and innocent. Whatever Galileo’s intentions, however, his innovations produced a profound moral and religious revolution. For by limiting science to knowledge that can be expressed in mathematics, Galileo, Descartes, et al, broke decisively (1) with the traditional belief that things reveal their inner reality in their outward appearances, and (2) with the corresponding belief that the inner worlds of things in nature are intelligible and mindlike in a way similar to the inner world of the human mind.

The Distinction Between Primary and Secondary Qualities

Perhaps Galileo and other pioneers of the scientific revolution could have narrowed science to what can be understood in mathematical terms without postulating an alternative to Aristotle’s intelligible forms as the cause of the way things appear to us. But they did not exercise such restraint. Instead, they replaced Aristotle’s inner forms and souls with imperceptible material atoms or corpuscles, which possess only mathematically measurable properties: shape, movement, mass, velocity, etc. In ways Galileo and Descartes cannot explain, these material particles cause us to experience the world in a human way. By distinguishing primary qualities (material, mechanical, and mathematical) from secondary qualities (psychological, organic, and qualitative), they drove a wedge between the way human beings experience the world and the world as it is apart from human perception. The only bridge between the two is mathematics. Listen to Galileo, Descartes, and Locke drive this point home:

“To excite in us tastes, odors, and sounds I believe that nothing is required in external bodies except shapes, numbers, and slow or rapid movements. I think that if ears, tongues, and noses were removed, shapes and numbers and motions would remain, but not odors or tastes or sounds. The latter, I believe, are nothing more than names when separated from living beings, just as tickling and titillation are nothing but names in the absence of such things as noses and armpits” (The Assayer, 1623).

“The properties in external objects to which we apply terms light, color, smell, taste, sound, heat and cold—as well as other tactile qualities…are so far as we can see, simply various dispositions in the shapes, sizes, positions, and movements of their parts which make them able to set up various kinds of motions in our nerves which are required to produce all the various sensations in the soul” (Descartes, The Principles of Philosophy, 1644; Quoted in Cottingham, A Descartes Dictionary, p. 149).

“These I call original or primary qualities of body, which I think we may observe to produce simple ideas in us, viz. solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number. Secondly, such qualities which in truth are nothing in objects themselves but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e. by bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colors, sounds, tastes, etc. These I call secondary qualities”(John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1698, II. 8)

Oh Galileo! What Hast Thou Wrought?

Galileo convinced the world that the variety and obscurity of the natural order could be reduced to the clarity and certainty of simple mathematical equations. Modern advances in understanding the mathematical laws of nature and the explosion of technological innovation rely on this supposition. But at what cost?  God’s glorious creation has fallen silent, emptied of spiritual reality, meaning, depth, mystery, purpose, moral law, and beauty, all of which have been transferred to the inner subjective world of the human mind. But how can we continue believing in the reality of meaning, depth, mystery, purpose, moral law, and beauty, if we think of them as existing only in the human psyche? They seem to be hanging in midair with no confirmation in common experience or foundation in an enduring reality.

Aristotle and all the ancients believed in the likeness and harmony between the human world and the natural world. This belief seemed reasonable, obvious even, because humans are part of the natural world. Galileo, Descartes and others split them apart, dividing the qualities we experience into the objective (real) and subjective (psychological) spheres. Human beings became islands of mind in a sea of mindless matter. It was inevitable that this division would become intolerable…that the human mind and soul would be reunited to nature by reducing them to something simpler. Sooner or later some thinker would do to the human soul what Galileo had done to the solar system.

And that “someone” was John Locke.

Unanswered Questions

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Two recent experiences provoked me to reflect on the disparity between what I want to know and how much I actually know. To live at peace with this disparity, I’ve had to develop strategies for dealing with my ignorance without falling into skepticism or dogmatism. I share three of those lessons below.

Two Humbling Experiences

First. My newspaper never arrives before I finish breakfast! For this reason, I keep my Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church on the dining table. This amazing resource contains 1798 double-column pages and many thousands of entries of relevance to church history. It begins with “Aaron” the brother of Moses and ends with “Zwingli” the Swiss reformer. I learn something new, interesting, and useful every morning. But I am also stung with something I’d rather not think about. Almost every time I read from that huge book I am reminded of my ignorance and my insignificance: the millions of lives lived, experiences had, institutions founded, and systems created.

Second. Recently, a long-time friend with whom I have not spoken in years called to catch up. During the course of our conversation, he asked what I thought of the state of the church in the United States. Perhaps he thought that because I’ve taught theology for 35 years to thousands of students from two generations I would have a grasp on what things had been, how they have changed, and where they stand. After a few lame attempts to say something intelligent, I think I said, “I really don’t know.”

You must understand that I’ve always had a passion to know, to understand my world, the flow of human history and my place in it. As a young person I had questions to which I needed answers. How can you act intelligently in a world you do not understand? So, I read and read. I read the Bible, theology, the history of nations, church history, and philosophy. Hundreds of books and tens of thousands of pages! I found satisfactory answers to some of my questions. But many more remain, and new ones arise almost every day.

The first lesson: know your ignorance. Perhaps I should say “feel” your ignorance, because you cannot know the extent of what you do not know. Speak and act with humility and caution.

Big Picture Theories

Of course, there is no shortage of big picture theories. Theories of society and politics, metaphysical theories, theories of human nature, climate futurology, economic theories, and theological visions. Comprehensive theories give us an illusory feeling of omniscience, of knowing the essential truth of all things. Perhaps that is why we like them. But there is no consensus about which theories are true. For abstract theories paint only the vaguest general outlines of their subject matter. They cannot be verified, for they do not create transparent understanding of why things in all their intricate interrelations are exactly as they are.

Our minds long for simplicity and clarity. Simplicity allows us to see the whole thing at one instant, and clarity gives us confidence that we see things as they truly are. Mathematical knowledge is the paradigm case of simplicity and clarity. Physics is the most mathematical of the natural sciences. But what you gain in certainty and clarity of knowledge you lose in descriptive power. For there is more to nature than quantity, much more! Knowing the basic physical/mathematical laws of matter does not give you the power to describe the actual state of the vast array of different kinds of things we experience in the universe. Such non-mathematical theories as we find in psychology, sociology, economics, and politics must be abstract, simple, and general for us to understand them. Like theories in physics, theories that deal with human behavior, insofar as they are abstract, simple, general, offer little help in understanding why things are the way they are in all their actuality.

The Second lesson: The wise person will avoid mistaking theory for actuality or the model for the thing. Theory never exhaustively explains actuality. Let the model direct your attention to the thing.

First-Hand Experience

We all know the limits of first-hand experience. No individual human being’s experience extends to every place and time. The very purpose of education is to make available to each individual the experiences and insights of countless other individuals from other places and times. It is the distinctive glory of humanity that we are not limited in knowledge and wisdom to our natural instincts or to what we can learn from our own experiences. Still, each individual must integrate information received from diverse sources into a unified whole centered in themselves. We are limited to the information we receive and to our powers of integration; we cannot leap outside of ourselves to get a God’s-eye point of view. Nor can we know how well our limited vision of things corresponds to a universal consciousness.

Though we must acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, few of us can believe that one individual’s vision of the world bears no resemblance to those of other individuals or to that of a universal consciousness. For this belief would render futile all attempts to learn from each other, to understand each other, or to achieve consensus. And why strive for a common vision apart from the conviction that this common vision bears some resemblance to reality? For then we would be limited to exploring the internal powers and possible objects of the human mind without reference to the way things truly are.

Now let’s revisit my two humbling experiences mentioned above. Admittedly, I cannot come to know and understand the experiences, thoughts and deeds of every human being who has ever lived. However, if I assume that all human beings possess the same powers, possibilities and weaknesses, I can learn more and more about my own humanity by studying the history of the human spirit in the lives of past individuals. (Reading entries from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church makes sense after all!) Making the same assumption—that all human beings possess the same powers, possibilities and weaknesses—and thinking in the reverse direction, I can learn better to understand the experiences of other people by examining carefully my own first-hand experiences.

As I stumbled to answer my friend’s question about the state of the church in the United States, I ended up saying something like this: “I can’t speak from extensive, detailed knowledge of the big picture, but I can tell you how it looks from where I stand.” This humble and cautious approach seemed to satisfy my friend. He could compare his limited perspective with my limited perspective in a process that promised to clarify and supplement his understanding. Combined together many limited perspectives may move us all closer to the goal of comprehensive understanding.

The Third Lesson: Avoid both arrogance and despair (or dogmatism and skepticism) in your quest for true understanding. Listen carefully and dialogue respectfully to all voices and allow them to clarify and purify your first-hand understanding of the matter at issue.

Is Faith an Inferior Way of Knowing? Seminarian Visits Theology Professor #4

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Introduction

This post is part four of a multipart conversation between a recent seminary graduate and one of his former professors. In part three, the seminarian outlined the view of the Bible and the Christian faith he learned in church. Today, he will attempt to recreate the steps by which he came to doubt the Bible and the traditional faith.

Setting: Since their last conversation, the seminarian and the professor discovered that they both frequent a little coffee roaster near the seminary. They plan to meet at 10:00am Wednesday.

Seminarian: Hi professor. Have you been here long?

Professor: Just got here.

(After receiving their coffee drinks, they resume their previous discussion.)

Professor: Now, where were we? Oh yes. I think we were about to examine the ways in which the academic approach to the Bible tends to weaken our commitment to biblical authority and render our faith doubtful. To get the conversation started, tell me the story of your first encounter with the modern academic method.

Seminarian: In our introductory class, we were asked to step outside our faith and look at the Bible and tradition as an outsider might. I was bewildered by this suggestion. Having always, along with the church, treated the Bible as Holy Scripture and its teaching as our precious faith, this request seemed to recommend sacrilege and betrayal. But my teachers assured me that this move was purely methodological. We did not have to become outsiders in fact. Taking a neutral stance to faith merely enabled us to ask questions that insiders don’t think to ask because they don’t need to, questions about history, literature, and ways of knowing. In this way, they explained, the academic approach enables us to understand the Bible and the traditional faith in a more comprehensive way. Besides, they continued, if the church’s view of the Bible is sound and the traditional faith is true, they will survive critical examination undamaged.

Professor: Did this justification for applying the academic method to the Bible seem reasonable to you at the time?

Seminarian: Yes and no. Something about it bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. On the one hand, it made sense that if what my parents and the church taught me was true, I had nothing to fear from submitting it to examination. On the other hand, it wasn’t clear to me how the Bible and the faith I receive could be tested in a way that could produce objective results. As historical, experiential and theological, the claims of the Bible are not testable in the way that proposed solutions to math or physics or logical problems are. Even more troubling, I did not see how one could maintain a neutral stance when dealing with such profound and personal issues. The meaning of the whole world, the nature and destiny of every human being, and the way we ought to live…all hopes, fears, and dreams turn on a series of questions to which the Bible proposes definite answers: Is there a God? What is God? Who is God? What does God want from us?

Professor: Let’s pause a bit before we move on to the next phase of your academic development and try to clarify your ambivalence at your first encounter with modern academia. If I have learned anything in my long career in higher education, it is that many gratuitous assumptions lie hidden in every method of study. Calling on you to lay aside your trust in the church and its tradition to examine your faith critically assumes uncritically that the academic method is superior to faith at producing knowledge. This assumption begs scrutiny. Galileo, Bacon, Descartes and other architects of modern science urged students of nature to treat it as a mathematically structured, material machine. To see the workings of the machine as they exist apart from our subjective involvement, the scientist must maintain a disengaged attitude and look for aspects that can be understood mathematically. Scientists must ignore every aspect of their experience of nature that cannot be thought mathematically. That is to say, our experiences of color, odor, touch, smell, taste, and feelings of fear, pleasure, anger, shame, and so on, do not conform to the scientific ideal of clear thought. To understand these experiences, they must be analyzed and reduced to physical or chemical exchanges, which can be understood only mathematically.

Seminarian: So, even the archetypical natural sciences of physics and chemistry make gratuitous assumptions?

Professor: Let me put it this way: these mathematical sciences seek to understand nature in so far as its activity can be stated in mathematical equations. The meaning of numbers and mathematical operators is perfectly clear. Numbers hide nothing about themselves. They possess no mysterious inner world. They are discrete, abstract, and depend on nothing outside of them. We feel confident that everyone who understands them sees them through and through and alike. We also feel confident that as long as we follow the rules, we can solve any solvable mathematical problem with the same clarity of understanding as we have of the numbers and operators it contains. The mathematical sciences set the bar for what counts as knowledge not only in the study of nature but in all modern endeavors to understand. To know means to understand a thing clearly, exhaustively, and absolutely.

Seminarian: Is this why every non-mathematical, academic discipline seems envious of mathematics?

Professor: Yes. From a methodological point of view, the history of biology could be written as the quest to reduce biological categories to chemical and physical ones, that is, to mathematical equations. And insofar as biology cannot state its conclusions in mathematical terms it seems incomplete and obscure. The same quest and obscurity characterize all other “sciences.” Perhaps you have noticed how the social sciences love statistics. Counting things gives them an excuse to call themselves “sciences” and label their value-laden stories “scientific knowledge.” Depending on the theory being applied, psychological explanations resemble mythology, common sense, or hermeneutics more than they resemble mathematics. However, many psychologists pursue chemical explanations for psychic phenomena. Even logic envies mathematics, as its use of symbols and operators bereft of existential content and its calculus-like operations demonstrate.

Seminarian: I may be getting ahead of myself here, but what does reviewing the history of the scientific method have to do with clarifying the difference between the way of faith and the way of academia?

Professor: Even in the academic study of the Bible the mathematical ideal exerts influence. No one as far as I know attempts to reduce the Bible to mathematical equations. But the ideal of knowledge as understanding a thing clearly, exhaustively, and absolutely lies behind the demand that bothered you so much in your early academic career, that is, that you must step outside of your faith to understand the Bible correctly. The ideal academic student of the Bible disengages from preconceived notions, feelings, commitments, personal relationships, and moral and esthetic values to discover those things about the Bible that can be understood clearly, exhaustively, and absolutely. Of course, no human being can disengage to this extent; nor can the ideal of clear, exhaustive, and absolute knowledge be attained. Still, this unattainable ideal powers academia’s incessant criticism of every knowledge claim it chooses to examine.

Seminarian: I remember feeling a sense of despair. The more I studied the less I knew.

Professor: If academia were consistent and honest with its ideal, it would have to preach universal skepticism. Or, it would at least admit to knowing only abstractions such as those we find in mathematics and logic. Let me tell you a secret not many people know: the “knowledge” gained by physics and chemistry is clear, exhaustive, and absolute only when it is abstracted from real existing nature and stated in mathematical terms. Physicists, chemists and biologists cannot comprehend nature as it exists in itself any more than the untrained person can. Their empirical/mathematical method cannot reveal a thing in its unity and wholeness. Get clear on this: the ideal of knowledge that animates academia mandates that we set aside as unknowable everything about a thing that cannot be translated into a number and be put into an equation. I will let you in on a second secret: Modern American academia is neither consistent nor honest with its supposed ideal. It is driven by leftist political ideology, institutional self-interest, and antipathy for anything traditional, conservative, and orthodox Christian.

Seminarian: It has become clear of late that you are correct. But I still hear the rhetoric of objective science and religious neutrality.

Professor: Of course. But if you pay close attention, you will notice how selectively the ideal of clear, exhaustive, and absolute knowledge is applied. If you come to academia as a political or economic conservative or a moral traditionalist or Bible-believing Christian, your beliefs will be subjected to the strictest application of the criterion of knowledge. They will be inevitably declared biased, if not simply false and evil. Why? It is not because the American university subjects every knowledge claim to examination by this same criterion. It is, rather, because these beliefs run afoul of the ideology and orthodoxy that define modern academia. In contrast, the claims of diversity, equity, and inclusion philosophy (DEI), Critical Race Theory, Critical Pedagogy, and many other Marxist-inspired ideologies are praised as morally self-evident perspectives. The dominant culture of American higher education dismisses any criticism of these ideologies as inspired by racism, white privilege, heteronormativity, and other supposed evil motives.

Seminarian: I think I see where you are headed. When modern academia asks us to leave our faith at the university gates, it demands that we live by a set of rules it does not apply to itself. And if, in a fit of careless consistency, it did apply this criterion of knowledge to itself, it would have to admit that the search for knowledge of the world is futile. We cannot know the world as it exists but only as empty abstractions. But then academia would no longer have a convincing rationale to reject faith as a way of knowing while accepting science as productive of knowledge. Paraphrasing Hegel’s assessment of Schelling’s philosophy in the Introduction to his Philosophy of Mind,  “in the dark all cats are black.”

Professor: You’ve got it. Next time we meet let’s explore exactly and in detail how academia applies (hypocritically and selectively) its rhetorical ideal of knowledge to the church’s view of the Bible to produce doubt and reduce the number of religious beliefs one can hold in a rational way.

Seminarian: Thank you for giving of your time.

Professor: You are welcome. Goodbye.

Seminarian: Goodbye.

Science Is Not On Anyone’s Side—Because It Has No Conscience, No Politics, No Religion, No Heart, and No Soul

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Some problems are difficult to solve. So many factors come into play, so many unknowns are…well…unknown. Private interests and preferences exert their influence. Entrenched social identities—class, race, gender, etc.—determine in advance which proposals get a hearing. Interminable arguments ensue with no obvious path to clarity and consensus in sight. Better to stay out of such quarrels.

However, some seemingly difficult problems have very simple solutions. And I want to deal today with one such a problem: Advocates of all sorts of causes claim that science is on their side. People on the other side are anti-scientific. They ignore the “facts,” and don’t follow the path charted by science. The solution to this problem is hiding in plain sight: in title of this essay. Science is not on anyone’s side! Because science has no conscience, no politics, no religion, no heart, and no soul. It supports no causes.

Allow me to use words I wrote a few years ago to explain why science doesn’t care about your causes—or mine:

Natural science seeks to make understandable the relationship of one set of empirical phenomena to another set of empirical phenomena by means of law-like generalization(s) or postulated causal relations or some other theoretical mediation. All of these mediating principles may be reduced to patterns of empirical phenomena. Or, if the theory refers to unobservable entities, these entities are still physical and manifest themselves in observable phenomena. This is the nature and the limit of natural science, whether physics, chemistry, biology, geology, or paleontology. Natural science studies the relationships within the created world among empirical phenomena, that is, the perceptions or sense data received through the five senses (The Faithful Creator, 2015).

Natural science does one thing. It describes and explains the empirical world in empirical terms. It speaks no other language and understands none. It adheres to no morality and supports none. It treasures no policy preferences and cares nothing for ours. It contemplates happiness or sadness, war or peace, and love or hate with equal indifference. Its methods and goals are the same whether studying the effects of poison or medicine. It can produce weapons of mass destruction or seek ways to feed the world’s hungry with equal efficiency. It doesn’t care. Science can count how many people die this year from infectious diseases and explain how, but it does not care in the least. It does matter to science how long you live, how happy you are, or how virtuous you become. Saint or devil, science makes no distinction. Why? Because it doesn’t care about anything! It can’t. Caring is not part of the scientific method. Its goal is to explain, not to heal or kill. comfort or torture.

So, get clear on this: whoever you are, whatever your cause, however passionate your devotion, science is not on your side. Because science doesn’t take sides! If you want to explain one set of empirical data with reference to another set of empirical date, science can help. But if you have a moral, political, religious, or esthetic question, don’t look to science for answers. It would be like asking a freeway sign whether you ought to vacation in Los Angeles or Miami. It won’t work, because…

Like freeway signs, science has no conscience, no politics, no religion, no heart, and no soul!