Participants: Clifford Goldstein
Series Code: CFTF
Program Code: CFTF000004
|
00:21 Hi, Clifford Goldstein here.
00:23 Welcome to "Contending for the faith." 00:26 This is part of a series 00:27 I'm doing called "Faith in Science" 00:30 and we look at issues in well faith and science. 00:35 How do we as people of faith relate to some of the issues 00:40 that science has raised? 00:42 Now as I said in earlier shows 00:45 that, from most cases there is no problem. 00:47 In fact, I could say for myself 00:50 that science has in many, many ways affirmed my faith. 00:56 Now there are cases, important cases 01:00 in which the latest teachings of science do seem 01:03 to completely contradict even the simplest 01:07 and most broadest reading of the Bible. 01:10 Thus, the question is, how should we even 01:14 as people of faith intelligently respond 01:17 when things like this happen? 01:19 Now I can stuck and I stand up here 01:21 and say that I got the definitive answer, 01:24 I certainly don't. 01:25 But at the same time too, 01:27 I've read in this and study this a lot 01:30 and I like to present some background information 01:34 and just some ideas are looking at this that could help people 01:37 who at times face this conflict make intelligent choices 01:42 when presented with some of these challenges. 01:45 I like to help them do what Apostle Peter said. 01:49 When he said, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, 01:53 and be ready always to give an answer to every man 01:57 that asks you a reason of the hope 02:01 that is in you with meekness and fear." 02:05 Now again, as I said, in most cases 02:09 there's really not a problem when with science in faith 02:13 but sometimes there is and science 02:16 and the challenges of science can be very daunting. 02:20 I mean, science is a very powerful form of knowledge. 02:26 It has opened to us vast new vistas of knowledge in reality 02:31 that we never could have known 02:34 without the advent of science, okay. 02:38 But now notice what I just said to you. 02:41 I said science is a powerful form of knowledge. 02:47 But what is knowledge? 02:49 You know, I'm gonna lightly touch on this point 02:52 and perhaps comeback to it in another program. 02:56 But when you use the word knowledge, 02:59 what are you implying? 03:01 What must exist for knowledge to exist? 03:05 Imagine, imagine for a moment, 03:09 imagine that our universe was once the way-- 03:13 well, lot of science tell us, 03:16 imagine that we lived in a godless, 03:19 lifeless universe, okay. 03:22 Not only no God, not only no intelligent form at all, 03:27 nothing, no consciousness, just dead walks 03:30 and a lifeless cosmos with no Creator at all. 03:35 This is basically what science tells us 03:38 how our universe started out. 03:40 Now, imagine this kind of a universe. 03:44 In this universe could knowledge exists? 03:50 Think about this for a moment. 03:52 In a godless consciousless universe with nothing existing 03:57 that can think how can there be knowledge? 04:01 Can there be? Of course not. 04:03 Okay, how could, there might be dead rocks, 04:06 there might be space, there might be photons 04:09 and stars and there might be all the stuff but no knowledge. 04:14 Knowledge, the very concept of knowledge 04:18 itself demands consciousness, 04:21 it demands a mind to have that knowledge. 04:24 I mean, knowledge without a mind 04:27 is as impossible as is thought without a mind. 04:31 For knowledge is a form of thought 04:34 and you can't have a thought without a mind. 04:39 Right? Think about it. 04:42 Okay, anyway for knowledge to exist minds need to exist. 04:47 Thus for human knowledge well, we as humans 04:50 when we talk about knowledge 04:51 we're talking about human knowledge. 04:53 For human knowledge to exist human minds, 04:56 our minds have to exist because our knowledge-- 05:00 anything we know, anything that we call knowledge 05:03 this exists in our minds. 05:06 And that could include 05:07 well, even our knowledge of science, right. 05:09 Science is a form of knowledge, knowledge needs minds, 05:12 human minds means human science. 05:15 I mean-- means, human science means human minds. 05:20 But I think there is one thing probably everybody, 05:23 I don't think anybody is gonna debate me on this, 05:25 but I think there is one thing we could all agree on 05:29 when it comes to human knowledge, 05:31 knowledge that we have in our brains 05:35 and that is one thing. 05:37 It is only subjective right. 05:40 I mean, it's not subjectivity wired in to us. 05:44 We are exceedingly subjective beings, 05:47 greatly limited and what we can know by 05:49 and almost innumerable number of factors, 05:53 thus anything we know or anything that we think 05:56 we know, anything that fact that may be 05:58 the we are even absolutely positive about, 06:02 I mean, we still know it only through 06:07 the subjective portals and filters of our minds. 06:12 We could be a 100% right 06:15 such as often in the case of formal logic, 06:18 our conclusions must absolutely follow from our premises, 06:22 but still the whole foundation of all human knowledge, 06:27 no matter how correct it might be 06:29 still remains hopelessly encased, expressed 06:34 and understood through a subjective perspective 06:38 that is simply impossible for us, 06:42 any human beings to escape. 06:46 What this means then, is that all our knowledge 06:50 including, including don't forget this 06:53 because we often giving the different idea, 06:55 all our knowledge including our scientific knowledge 07:00 comes with a certain amount of subjectivity 07:04 built right in it and we cannot, 07:07 it's impossible for us to escape it. 07:12 Okay, of course, science and I said science as well, 07:18 which is why sometimes-- you ever wonder 07:20 why science sometimes could be some contradictory. 07:24 I mean, how many times have you heard 07:27 that such and such an idea is backed up the latest science? 07:30 We think well, its science I said before someone says, 07:34 its science that's it. 07:35 Who dare challenge it? 07:37 And that's fine something is backed up 07:39 by the latest science except there is one problem, 07:43 20 years later somebody comes out with science 07:47 something backed up by science that completely can't predict 07:50 what science taught 20 years ago. 07:53 Only problem is-- and then you can come on 07:55 somebody comes along 20 years later 07:58 and says that science is wrong. 08:01 I mean, if this is science 08:04 which has this kind of leach status 08:06 as a superior form of knowledge, 08:09 how come we find such conflicting claims. 08:12 I mean, you know, if when science says 08:15 something to back up isn't that kind of it 08:18 when somebody has well, science backs this up, 08:21 who can argue against science? 08:24 Well, you know the answer is easy. 08:26 You know, who argues against science? 08:29 Science argues against science and a lot of times too. 08:35 Let me give you a recent example, 08:38 the Atlantic Weekly, January 5, 2014 had an article 08:44 about a best selling new book telling us, 08:48 listen to this now, telling us that according to science 08:52 we need as humans, we need to stop 08:56 eating all grains, all grains. 08:59 We are not talking just the refined stuff, 09:02 all grains, whole grains, grains period, 09:05 all the bread, all the grains 09:07 it's because we are told by science of all sorts of-- 09:12 of all sorts of aliments and problems and so on. 09:16 You know just gluten intolerance thing. 09:18 Don't eat grains science says, okay. 09:22 Okay, but instead science tells us 09:26 eat high fat diet, lots of meat, 09:30 we need to eat meat, according to science 09:33 you know, because this is hilarious, 09:34 according to science we need to eat the way 09:37 our ancestors ate 100,000 years ago. 09:41 And I thought it was pretty funny 09:43 when I told this to my wife she clipped. 09:45 How did the science know what people 09:47 who didn't even exist eat, okay? 09:50 But that's another matter. 09:51 That's another matter entirely in regards to science. 09:55 But science here tells us that we should eat meat, 09:58 but science also tells us the opposite 10:01 that we shouldn't eat meat. 10:02 There is a whole host of evidence, scientific evidence 10:06 which teaching something radically different than 10:10 what a whole host of scientific evidence teaches as well. 10:14 Okay, a whole host of scientific evidence 10:17 backed up by other science argues 10:21 backed up by science tells us that, 10:26 plant based diet is the best diet. 10:29 Other science says no, no just eat a lot of meat. 10:33 So how could that-- what's going on here? 10:36 We are talking science now. 10:38 So science tells us one thing 10:40 and science tells us the opposite 10:42 and we are not necessarily talking different generations, 10:45 science says one thing and then 50 years later 10:48 science comes along and says something else. 10:50 We are talking about simultaneously, 10:54 we are talking about science and labs using 10:57 what has been called the scientific method 11:00 being supposedly objective, rational, methodical 11:04 and all these things and they come up with opposite 11:08 or in contradictory conclusions. 11:13 How does this happen? 11:15 I mean, this is science, objective rational, 11:19 that's what I want to look at. 11:22 You know, on the last program I did, 11:24 we did call science of knowledge 11:26 and we looked at this fancy term Epistemology. 11:30 It was I said it's the study of not what we know 11:33 but what do we mean when we say we know something. 11:37 We have different ways of coming to knowledge. 11:39 I know that 2 + 2 = 4 differently that I know 11:44 that I have a toothache, okay. 11:48 And we look to at the fact that science is also a-- 11:56 science is indeed an epistemology, 11:58 but it's an empiricist of epistemology. 12:03 And what do I mean when I say empiricist of epistemology? 12:08 What does that mean? This is important. 12:12 Let's say I say to you, hey, there is a room over there 12:16 and I say to you there are 10 people in the room. 12:21 You could say all right, 12:22 I'm gonna go over and check, okay. 12:25 And let me go see. 12:26 So that's a perfectly reasonable way 12:29 of checking the fact of getting the truth. 12:32 This is what we mean by empiricism. 12:34 You go to the room, you open the door, 12:36 you look in and you see 12:38 well, there are all 10 people in the room. 12:41 That is what is known as empiricism. 12:45 And when you learn things 12:47 that way you are using an empiricist epistemology. 12:51 Now suppose though I said to you 12:56 if there are 10 people in the room 12:59 then there are three more people in the room 13:02 then there would be 13:03 if there were only seven people in the room, 13:06 okay, and suppose in response to that you said, 13:09 okay, let go in the room and check and see for myself. 13:15 Huh? Why would you say that? 13:18 That would be that would be rather unnecessary 13:21 because here rationality tells you 13:24 that ten is three more than seven, 13:27 so you don't have to go in to the room and check, okay. 13:31 In the first instance when I said 13:33 there are 10 people in the room, 13:35 you go in, you have to go in the room. 13:38 You go in the room and you use your senses 13:40 and you find the answer, you find the truth. 13:44 In the second, you don't need to do that. 13:47 You have your rational thought gives you the answer. 13:50 The first instance is empiricism, okay. 13:55 It's employing your senses to understand the world. 14:00 Now the bottom line is this as I said before, 14:03 science is empiricist epistemology. 14:09 It's when we use our senses to come 14:14 to a knowledge about something. 14:16 And yes, science is at its core 14:19 a very empirical way of coming to knowledge's, knowledge. 14:24 Science use their senses often aided by very sophisticated 14:29 interest instruments to look at nature. 14:32 You know, I don't care from our startle 14:34 used to just look around at that bugs, 14:37 and plants, and creatures and the sea to astronomers 14:41 who use the hobble spacecraft science is empirical. 14:45 It uses sense data to get information from the world 14:50 and then and this is crucial 14:52 and we'll have to come back to this at some point, 14:54 they then have to interpret that data. 14:57 What does it mean and then from that try 15:00 and device technologies or whatever they do from it. 15:04 Now on one level you know this seems 15:08 all pretty clear cut and dry, 15:11 but on another level this is something 15:14 which is flout with all-- 15:17 all sorts of problems and questions 15:20 that people have been dealing with for centuries. 15:23 And quite frankly, amazingly enough 15:27 they still haven't come up with any clear cut answers. 15:32 In fact, just as a real quick interesting aside 15:36 for something so fruitful as science, 15:39 for something that work so well as science does 15:42 there is it's amazing how much disparity 15:45 and disagreement exist in regards to science, 15:49 what it is, how it works or what does it even teach us? 15:53 You know, scientists actually 15:55 even disagree or what science is. 15:57 Yes, debate doesn't just exist 15:59 over the nature of scientific conclusions 16:02 or why we conclude what we do or what science does? 16:06 You know, people question even what is science itself. 16:11 It's often called the demarcation problem. 16:15 How do you decide what counts for real science 16:18 as opposed to what they call pseudoscience? 16:21 Now my point in all this is 16:22 I don't want it to digress too far on this, 16:25 is that everything is not as clear cut and dry as we think. 16:29 When we hear the statement 16:31 well, its science we don't have to kowtow 16:35 and bend and bend our knee before 16:38 and subject all our views to it 16:40 because it comes with the name science. 16:43 This is a big myth, this is a very big myth 16:48 and it's precisely these kind of questions 16:50 that I happen wanting to look at in this series 16:54 because I don't think we should allow ourselves 16:56 to be intellectually bullied by anything, 17:00 just because it comes under the imprimatur of science. 17:06 Now any way, the scientific endeavour 17:09 as I said is essentially empirical one. 17:13 We use our senses to try to understand the world. 17:17 Now it's not just that tough, there is more to it as well. 17:24 Have you ever thought for a minute about 17:27 how much math is used in science? 17:32 Well, there is in awful lot of math. 17:34 I remember when I was young, 17:35 I once thought I wanted to be astronomer. 17:38 You know, I just sit there 17:39 and look up at the sky with the telescope 17:41 and philosophies and news about 17:44 what's going on Pluto or Mars or something. 17:47 But have you ever looked in astronomy book today? 17:50 It's almost all math. 17:52 Have you ever looked at a physics book? 17:54 It's almost all math. 17:57 So now this is quite interesting 17:59 because our ever empirical science is at the core. 18:04 You know, it does employ math 18:07 and you can argue that whatever math is 18:10 it's really not empirical. 18:12 I mean, have you ever, I mean what does it do look like? 18:17 Have you ever seen it two, 18:18 just the plain old disembodied two floating out there? 18:23 I mean you know, that two fish not two fingers 18:27 I mean, just a disembodied number two. 18:30 What does it look like? What form? 18:32 What shape does it have? 18:34 And two is easy, what is a negative six? 18:37 I mean does a negative six have 18:39 any kind of existence out there? 18:41 And you know, what are these things even look like? 18:44 Whatever they are they certainly not empirical 18:48 and yet math is kind of 18:50 is a kind of language used to explain 18:53 what supposedly is going on in the real world, 18:57 the empirical world, the world of science. 19:02 Things are just out there 19:03 and we really try to try to understand them 19:06 and we use things like math to describe them 19:09 because that's really all math can do is describe. 19:12 Mathematical equations never explain anything, 19:17 they just describe. 19:19 But anyway even using math science is empirical. 19:23 We use our senses to try to figure out 19:25 what's going on to describe it, to explain it anyway. 19:30 Now how accurate is all these things that we do? 19:34 How well do they work? 19:35 And then you run into another problem too. 19:38 Think of all the social influences 19:42 and forces that impact science. 19:44 Think of all the science that was done funded 19:47 by the tobacco companies on the question about 19:49 whether tobacco was really bad for you. 19:52 No question. 19:54 Science is an empiricist epistemology 19:57 and such it comes with all sorts of problems 20:01 and loop holes and things 20:03 that today have still not been resolved. 20:08 You know, think about it on one level, 20:11 think about it on one level how, 20:16 how deceitful our senses can be. 20:19 You know, we've all ready talked 20:21 about this in other programs 20:23 but let me give you an example for a minute. 20:27 Let's go back to the room with 10 people, okay. 20:32 I said some one says there's 10 people in the room 20:35 you walked in, and you see, and you use your senses, 20:38 and you count whatever, and you count 10 people. 20:42 How could there be any question? 20:44 Can't you be assure of that as you were of the statement 20:48 well, if there 10 people in the room then there is, 20:51 then there is three more people in the room 20:54 then they were of there were just seven people in the room 20:58 can't you be just too certain. 21:00 Isn't in this case an empiricist epistemology 21:04 working just as well as rationalism? 21:08 Well, suppose you are in the room 21:12 and you count 10 people, 21:14 but suppose some one was hiding underneath a table 21:17 and you didn't see him 21:19 or suppose they were in the rafters over your head 21:22 or suppose your definition of the room 21:25 or somebody else's definition of the room 21:28 didn't include the concept of the closet 21:31 and there were two people in the closet 21:34 or suppose you are an American 21:36 who lived in the time of the confederacy 21:38 when slaves were considered only two thirds a person, 21:42 and there were four slaves in the room, 21:45 how many people would be in the room? 21:49 Suddenly it's not so clear cut and dry. 21:53 But then you say but doesn't science 21:55 create all these fancy instruments 21:58 to help us understand the world around us? 22:01 Of course it does, and these instruments 22:03 can be very, very helpful. 22:06 But I don't think that's a move somebody 22:09 who want's to defend an empiricist epistemology 22:13 would want to make a move on defending 22:16 empiricist epistemology about giving us 22:19 an accurate view of the world. 22:20 I'm not so sure that's some move you want to make, okay. 22:24 Someone once expressed it like this, 22:26 doctor so and so has a theory 22:29 that the world is made of vectors. 22:32 So doctor so and so builds a device looking for vectors 22:37 and what do you know, 22:38 doctor so and so with the device finds vectors, 22:42 thus doctor so and so has got rational empirical, 22:46 I mean he is got empirical proof 22:48 that the world is made of vectors, okay. 22:51 Now to be fair science doesn't always work this way 22:56 and there have been examples 22:57 where they have found things that they really didn't expect. 23:00 Anyway the point of all this, the point is simply this, 23:04 you can't build, 23:06 even scientific instruments can't be built 23:10 without the scientist already building 23:13 his or her presuppositions into it already. 23:17 Now the scientist might have some brilliant 23:19 and well funded, 23:21 well founded reasons for those presuppositions 23:24 and they might even be right and so on 23:26 and the machines are accurate, 23:29 but they might be dead wrong too 23:31 and they might give us 23:32 a totally incorrect view of the world as well. 23:37 And then when you have your devise 23:38 how do you know it's working well 23:40 or there some unknown factors going on. 23:43 I once read where a book where they said 23:45 may be the color of the scientist lab coat. 23:49 Good influence the out come of the experiment. 23:54 You know, I think for a minute 23:55 of that giant particle accelerator 23:58 they have got in Switzerland, soon this mass of thing 24:02 and they don't like you calling them atom smashers 24:04 but they shoot these sub atomic particles 24:07 around this thing at super high speeds 24:09 and they smash into each other and they crack and they blow up 24:13 and, and then they study whatever comes out 24:17 and they say they were looking 24:18 for the Higgs boson or something for it. 24:21 Now when they say they smash atoms 24:23 and look for particles that come out 24:25 what are they mean? 24:26 I mean, they don't need to smash them 24:28 and then somebody takes a tweezers 24:30 and picks up a Higgs boson and says, 24:32 hello, hello here is the Higgs boson, okay. 24:35 No, they go-- I don't know exactly 24:37 what they mean but they have detectors 24:41 that they spend $650 million on the detector alone, okay. 24:48 Now, I don't know all that goes in-- went into all this, 24:52 but when you spend $650 million on a detector 24:57 you're building in a lot of assumptions, 24:59 a lot presuppositions into this. 25:02 I can't even begin to imagine 25:05 how fantastically complicated all this would be, 25:10 okay, and you were working with a lot of data 25:12 being interpreted by a lot of people 25:15 being study and analyzed and so forth, and that's fine. 25:18 I imagine they know what they are doing. 25:22 But let's not forget what they are doing? 25:25 Let's not forget 25:27 that there is a whole lot more presuppositions, 25:31 a whole lot more subjectivity built in to this 25:35 then I think we looking at it on the surface 25:39 we tend to think. 25:41 In fact, there is a whole lot more subjectivity 25:44 in all our scientific endeavors, 25:48 than, than most people would think. 25:51 That's just a peculiar nature of human knowledge in general 25:56 an empirical knowledge in particular 25:59 and this subjectivity also includes in a great way, 26:06 human science. 26:09 As I said, science is-- 26:13 as we said in empirical attempt to understand the world 26:17 and precisely because it's that, 26:20 it's filled with all sorts of subjectivity 26:24 that no doubt, no doubt gets in the way 26:29 to some degree or another. 26:32 Now does this mean that science is always wrong? 26:35 Of course not okay, 26:37 but it should help us be very, very, very of the idea 26:42 that science is always right. 26:44 And if science says something 26:47 and then we as Christians just have to flat out accepted 26:51 even if it contradicts our believes sorry folks, 26:55 but that doesn't work that way. 26:57 It shouldn't work that way, okay, 27:00 because unfortunately for many Christians it does. 27:03 We have as believers very good reasons for belief 27:08 and we need to remember that science is a human project 27:13 and thus a priori we can argue that it's always flawed. 27:19 And I think about the knowledge of science 27:21 in contrast to a different kind of knowledge, 27:26 this comes in Job 28, 27:29 "Where does wisdom come from? 27:31 Where does understanding dwell? 27:34 God understands the way 27:35 He do it for He alone knows where it dwells. 27:38 For He views the ends of the earth 27:40 and sees everything under the heavens. 27:43 When He established the force of the wind 27:46 and measured out the waters, 27:47 when He made a decree for the rain 27:50 and path for the thunder storm, 27:52 then He looked at wisdom and appraised it. 27:56 He confirmed it and He tested it 28:01 and He said to man the fear of the Lord 28:05 that is wisdom and to shun evil is understanding." 28:12 What, how in the world could science ever give us 28:16 that kind of knowledge? |
Revised 2015-01-22