- Ways of Knowing - (A chapter from a book which is being written.) Arthur J. D'Adamo P.O.
1
- Ways of Knowing -
(A chapter from a book which is being written.)
Arthur J. D'Adamo
P.O. Box 12950
Philadelphia PA 19108-0950
A Tale
This chapter begins with a simple tale, an epistemological
restatement of the story of the tortoise and the hare. In this
story, Newton's theories and all the discoveries that flowed from
them are given to followers of what I'll call the "revelational"
method of knowing truth. The followers of the revealational
method of knowing truth are the "religious physicists." There is
another group, the "scientific alchemists," who use a different
method of knowing truth, the scientific way. To the scientific
alchemists are given Alchemy and all the nonsense and falsehood
that it implies.
Our tale opens in the thirteenth century. The religious
physicists are followers of a genius who has discovered and
recorded the calculus and the basic laws of physics. The
religious physicists worship this genius as a god; they venerate
his writings as divinely inspired and perfectly true. Following
the theories in these holy scriptures, the religious physicists
are beginning to understand the natural world. New discoveries
in mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, and navigation are being
made almost daily.
The beliefs of the religious physicists are substantially
correct and many centuries of progress await them.
The other group, the scientific alchemists, following
Aristotle's theory of the four basic elements of earth, water,
fire, and air, endeavor to turn lead into gold. Into their
crucibles, flasks, mortars, and pots, they put eggs, toads,
snakes, herbs, urine, entrails, lead, mercury, sulfur, and
saltpeter. These elements are ground, mixed, filtered, hammered,
and heated. Using bizarre symbols, such as toads, dragons,
birds, stars, crowns, keys and planets, the scientific alchemists
record their methods.
The beliefs of the scientific alchemists are wrong and their
quest to turn lead into gold is doomed to failure.
As time passes, however, the scientific alchemists slowly and
independently discover some of laws of nature which the religious
physicists believe to be divine truth.
"You have uncovered," say the religious physicists, "but a tiny
portion of our divine Truth; surely you'll never uncover all of
our complete and perfect truth with your mortal, imperfect minds.
Our revelation is true, of God, and far beyond what we can find
alone and unaided. Why then do you not give up your slow,
painful search for truth and embrace our Truth?"
"Never," reply the scientific alchemists. "Truth is to be
earned, to be understood. You are satisfied to follow blindly,
without understanding. We are not. Even though today some of
our truths match your beliefs, one day we may find other truths
of which you are ignorant.
As the centuries pass, the scientific alchemists independently
uncover, test, and accept more and more of the truths held by the
religious physicists.
"For hundreds of years now," say the religious physicists, "our
sacred writings have held the full and complete truth. Ignoring
these writings, you have been winning, bit by bit, through much
labor and suffering, what already was fully given to the fathers
of the fathers of our fathers. Our way to truth, the way of
divine revelation, is ancient and sure. Why then do you not
cease your needless searching and accept out divine revelation?"
"Never," reply the religious alchemists. "No book can hold the
full and perfect turth. Our way of knowing is a never-ending
process of observation, hypothesis, theory, and experiment. Even
as knowledge is limitless, the search for knowledge must be
unending too. This is our way of knowing. One day our knowledge
shall surpass yours."
By the end of the nineteenth century, the scientific alchemists
have independently found and verified all the beliefs of the
religious physicists.
"For six hundred years now," say the religious physicists, "you
have groped in the dark, while we, following the divine knowledge
given in our holy scriptures by our god, have lived in the light.
Now, after much error and effort, you have finally reached the
Truth. Will you not now admit the inspired nature of our
religion and join us in our worship?"
"Never," respond the scientific alchemists. "Your way of blind
acceptance is not our way. We are pledged to follow the truth;
you to follow your holy books and god. We are free to go where
the truth leads, you are bound to a limited knowledge now six
hundred years old. One day we shall go beyond your knowledge."
In the early twentieth century, the day comes. A thinker named
Einstein proposes that the theories accepted by religious
physicists and scientific alchemists alike are not actually true,
but only a near approximation of the truth. He proposes
radically different theories. The new theories are superior to
the old only in that the orbit of the planet Mercury is explained
slightly better. However, the new theories require a drastic,
new view of space and time.
"Blasphemy!" shout the religious physicists. "Heretical,
perverse, mind-twisting ideas of an iconoclastic rebel. Surely
our Holy Faith, the faith of our fathers, will prevail against
such diseased drivel!"
"It seems to be the truth!" reply the scientific alchemists.
"We shall test it and, if true, we shall accept it. We are long
accustomed to molding ourselves to the truth; not molding the
truth to ourselves."
Twenty years later, the theory of Quantum Mechanics is welcomed
in much the same manner by the two camps. The religious
physicists reject Quantum Mechanics as heretical nonsense. The
scientific alchemists test and then accept it. Using the Theory
of Relativity and, more significantly, Quantum Mechanics, the
scientific alchemists begin to surpass the religious physicists
in understanding and controlling the physical world. Using
Quantum Mechanics they discover atomic energy, semiconductors,
lasers, and computers. The religious physicists, bound as they
are to a way of knowing that limits what they can know, refuse to
accept or use the new discoveries. The world beyond their holy
scriptures, the world of computers, lasers, nuclear energy, and
of space-time, is a world that they, as believers, will never
enter.
The point of the tale is the importance of our epistemological
method, our method of acquiring and testing knowledge.
Epistemology is that branch of philosophy which deals with these
questions: "How can I acquire knowledge? By what method can I
come to know the truth? How can I be sure my knowledge is true?"
In the above tale the scientific alchemists followed the
scientific way of knowing; the religious physicists, on the other
hand, followed the way of knowing usually employed by religion,
the revealational method of knowing.
As the story shows, our method of knowing truth is important,
perhaps even more important than the ideas we initially accept as
true. For if our method of acquiring and testing knowledge is
sound then even if our initial beliefs are wrong, someday they'll
be correct. On the other hand, even if our initial beliefs are
correct, if our method of acquiring and testing knowledge is
faulty, then someday our beliefs will be obsolete, and may even
become an obstacle to finding the truth.
The story also compares the scientific way of knowing to the
revealational way of knowing, and shows the scientific way of
knowing to be the superior method - at least, for understanding
the natural world.
In this chapter the two ways of knowing are examined and
compared. The following questions are discussed: what is the
revealational way of knowing, what claims are made for it, and
how successful has it been in discovering and validating
religious truth? Later, the same questions are discussed for the
scientific way of knowing.
The Revealational Way of Knowing
The revealational way of knowing is often described in a
religion's beliefs about its own scriptures. The Roman Catholic
church, for example,
". . . holds that all the books of the Old and New
Testaments in all their parts have been written under
the active influence of the Holy Spirit. . . .
considers these as sacred and genuine, handed on . . .
by God who is their principal Author. ([28], 11-12)
Also the church teaches that
" . . . these books teach firmly, faithfully and
without error all and only those truths which God
wanted written down for man's salvation." ([28], 12).
In addition, revealed writings are not merely helpful for
salvation, they are necessary.
"Revelation is that saving act by which God furnishes
us with the truths which are necessary for our
salvation." ([58], 213).
Finally since not merely some, but all, truths which God wanted
written down for man's salvation are in the Bible,
"Christians . . . now await no new public revelation
from God." ([28], 4).
For Christians, God's public revelation is completed. However,
private revelations to individuals are still considered possible.
Thus the Roman Catholic Church's way of knowing religious truth
is based on scriptures for which it makes these four claims:
(1) an inspired or divine author ("God who is their
principle Author"),
(2) consistency and truthfulness ("without error"),
(3) completeness and finality ("all and only those
truths . . . no new public revelation"),
(4) necessity for salvation, enlightenment, or
liberation ("necessary for our salvation").
As I mentioned, these claims are generally found in religious
ways of knowing. The Seventh-day Adventist, for instance,
similarly believe that
"The Bible's authority for faith and practice rises
from it origin . . . The Bible writers claimed they did
not originate their messages but received them from
divine sources." ([88], 7)
and
"How far did God safeguard the transmission of the text
beyond assuring that its message is valid and true? It
is clear that while the ancient manuscripts vary, the
essential truths have been preserved." ([88], 11)
and finally
"Judging the Word of God by finite human standards is
like trying to measure the stars with a yardstick. The
Bible must not be subjected to human norms." ([88],
13).
I'll discuss the four claims of the revealational way of
knowing in order.
The Claim of Divine Authorship
Note that the claim of inspired or divine authorship is
intimately related to another belief, the belief that the human
mind is unable to discover divine truths. These two ideas, in
turn, imply that scripture is not subject to human validation,
correction, or revision.
The reasoning which implies the inability of the human mind to
discover divine truths may be stated in a question and answer
form.
Question: "Can I, a fallible, limited human being, ever attain
divine truth, salvation, or enlightenment without supernatural
aid? After all, I'm just a mortal, human being. At times I err
and am mistaken. My senses are limited and sometimes entirely
inaccurate, as in the case of an optical illusion. My powers of
reasoning and understanding are limited; there are many things I
cannot fully, or even partially, understand. These limitations,
which are an inherent part of being human, cause me to err in
merely mundane opinions and judgements; why then should I trust
my own powers in matters of highest religious, spiritual or
metaphysical truth?"
Answer: "I should not trust my own powers in matters of
religious, spiritual, or metaphysical truth, or in matters of
salvation, deliverance, or enlightenment. Human limitation
necessitates that the divine reach out to me and reveal Itself.
Even if that divine revelation exceeds my powers of
comprehension, even if it appears to my finite, limited mind as
foolishness, as it well might, I'll accept it and thus cooperate
with the divine in my deliverance."
Justin Martyr, a early Christian, seemed to embrace such a
belief, for when he
" . . . recognized the great difference between the
human mind and God, he abandoned Plato and became a
Christian philosolpher. . . . (since he had) realized
that the human mind could not find God within itself
and needed instead to be enlightened by divine
revelation - by means of the Scriptures and the faith
proclaimed in the church." ([111], 146)
Evidently, Justin considered religious truths to be so far above
the ability of the human mind to find and understand them that
God found it necessary to inspire special authors to write these
truths in scripture. Only thus could the human race come to know
these truths.
Thus the belief of the inadquacy of the human mind in relation
to divine truth establishes the need for divine revelation. This
need, coupled with belief in an all-Good God, motivates a
reaching out by God to the human race. Revelation is believed to
embody this outreach.
Thus some religious believers hold revelation to be a statement
from the divine. From this and the mind's inadquacy, it
naturally follows that God's statement may be beyond our
understanding. As such, it is not meant to be critically
examined, but to be accepted without reservation; it's a matter
of faith, not understanding. So revelation is not subject to
human validation, correction or revision, and needs no
independent proof of its truth. If independent proof is found,
all well and good. If not, or if facts are found which seem to
contradict scripture's authority, then the believer must believe
anyway.
Yet there exist in the world today many revelations,
revelations which are sometimes incompatible with each other, and
sometimes inconsistent with themselves. Can all of these
conflicting revelations be perfectly true? Is any one of the
perfectly true?
I can not answer such questions directly. However, I shall
show how belief in divine authorship has lead to an acceptance of
falsehood as truth, implying that a way of knowing which supposes
the divine authority of any set of writings is an unreliable way
of knowing.
Let's first consider an incident in early Christianity where an
entire group of writings was accepted not because of their
content, but because of their supposed authorship.
The senate of Athens was called the "Areopagus"; the biblical
book of Acts records that St. Paul spoke these words before the
Areopagus.
"For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as
certain also of your own poets have said, For we are
also his offspring." ([39], Acts 17:28).
Acts also records that Paul made believers of certain Athenians,
including a man whose name was Dionysius. This man was a member
of the Areopagus, and so is known to history as "Dionysius the
Areopagite." The conversion of an Areopagite of Greece may have
given a welcome prestige and exposure to the young Christian
religion, just as the conversion of a senator or congressman
today might do the same for a young religion.
Some four hundred years later, the Christian religion had all
the prestige and exposure it could desire; it was the state
religion. It used its power to destroy any competing religious
or philosophic system. In 527 C.E., for example, the Christian
church banned (refer [46], 78) Neoplatonism, a system derived, as
its name suggests, from the teachings of Plato. About the same
time, someone, probably a Syrian monk, wrote (refer [27]) The
Divine Names, The Mystical Theology, and other works under the
pseudonym "Dionysius the Areopagite," that is, under the name of
St. Paul's ancient Athenian convert. These works are filled with
Neoplatonic teachings. Yet because they were believed to be the
writings of St. Paul's convert they
". . . had an immense influence on subsequent Christian
thought. The medieval mystics are deeply indebted to
him, and St. Thomas Aquinas used him as authority."
([27], back cover).
A curious situation: teachings once banned by the Christian
church are later embraced; Neoplatonism is wrong, but Neoplatonic
teachings with a Christian veneer are not. A few churchmen may
have had their doubts, but
"So long as his traditional identification with the
disciple of St. Paul was maintained, and he was
credited with being, by apostolic appointment, first
Bishop of Athens, these distinctions made suspicion of
his orthodoxy seem irreverent and incredible. But when
the identification was questioned by the historical
critics of the seventeenth century, and the tradition
completely dispelled, then the term Pseudo-Dionysius
began to be heard and to prevail, and criticism upon
its orthodoxy arose . . ." ([27], 212-3).
For over a millennium teachings are accepted, not because they
pass any objective, verifiable test of truth, but because they
are believed to be the work of an authority. Yet when their
authorship is questioned, the teachings themselves also come
under question. Thus the foremost test of truth in revealed
religion - the principle that something must be true simply
because its supposed author is considered inspired or a deity -
forced a religion to accept as true essentially the same ideas it
had previously declared false.
Another incident concerns the gospel of Mark. In the New
American Bible ([64]) at the end of the gospel of Mark, we find a
"longer ending," a "shorter ending," and a "freer logion." In
the longer ending, the ending accepted in the King James version,
Jesus says
"And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my
name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with
new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they
drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they
shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
([39], MK 16:17,18).
Believing these verses to have been written by God, members of
some religious groups handle snakes and drink poisons as acts of
faith. Sometimes that faith has cost them their lives.
Yet the longer ending is not found in some early manuscripts of
Mark, manuscripts which a footnote describes as "less important."
I do not know how the importance of an ancient biblical
manuscript is estimated, however the fact remains that the longer
ending does not appear in some very old biblical manuscripts.
Is God the author of the longer ending? Does it represent the
actual words of Jesus or merely the beliefs of a latter-day
redactor to Mark's gospel? Should these verses be in the bible
at all? The answer to this question is not known.
So there is a danger in relying on the supposed inspiration or
divinity of an author to guarantee the truth of writings. For
there is no certain way, no independent test, to show that such
writings are actually inspired or divine. If beliefs are
accepted on the basis of their supposely inspired or divine
authorship, then false, or at least doubtful, beliefs may be
accepted. I've given an example where people risked, and
sometimes lost, their lives motivated by words accepted through
belief and not proof - words which Jesus may, or may not, have
spoken.
The Claim of Consistency and Truthfulness - I
Now let's examine the second claim of the revealational way of
knowing, consistency and truthfulness. Notice that the test for
consistency is the stronger of the two. For in a disagreement
between scripture and some exterior truth or fact, it may always
be claimed that the "truth" or "fact" is wrong. But if the
exterior fact is another scripture, then one of the two
scriptures clearly must be in error and therefore untruthful.
And if the fact is not external to the scripture, but in another
part of the same scripture, then the scripture disagrees with
itself, and is clearly inconsistent and therefore untruthful.
Let's first consider the disagreements of one scripture with
another. I'll consider the three major revelations of Western
religion: the earliest writings are contained in the Jewish Torah
which is also part of the Christian Old Testament; later the
Christian New Testament was written, and later still the Koran
(Quran) of Islam.
Are the Old and New Testaments true? According to the Koran,
the revelation of Islam,
"The Jews say the Christians are misguided, and the
Christians say it is the Jews who are misguided." (Sura
2:13, [49], 344).
Yet, according to the Koran, both are misguided for
"And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the
Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah . . .
How perverse are they!" (Sura 9:30, [57], 148).
So the Koran advises that one should
". . . admonish those who say that Allah has begotten a
son." (Sura 18:4, [49], 91).
Islam's believes that Jewish scripture deviates from the true
word of God and that Christians imperfectly understand the
message that God had tried to communicate to them.
"The doctrine of monotheism, established by Abraham,
never again quite lapsed. . . . The first step, thus,
was taken . . . but other steps remained. . . . (Moses'
followers) recognized God's oneness, and also God's
law. . . . (but) in course of time they allowed their
copies of the text . . . to become corrupted. . . . In
due course, to correct this desperate error, God sent
another messenger, Jesus. . . . (but his followers
erred in that they) focussed their attention on Christ
to the partial neglect . . . of God, whose
transcendence they thus compromise . . . (and erred
also in regards to) . . . the full moral order, since
they have cultivated personal piety but allowed social
justice to slide . . . (so God decided to make yet
another revelation, the Quran, and) . . . This time
there was to be no error, no distortion, no neglect."
([90], 12-14).
So Islamic scripture states both Jewish and Christian scripture
is in error. One thing is certain, at least one of these
scriptures is incorrect, untruthful. For when one revealed
writing faults another, then one thing is certain - either the
faulted revelation truly is imperfect, or the fault-finding
revelation is mistaken.
These external and internal disagreements among scriptures
force us to use our own flawed, human powers of reason to decide
"Which revelation is correct?" and "Which parts of that
revelation is correct?" Revelation, which was to relieve us of
our dependency on our own powers, has failed; for it is we who
must decide which revelation to believe. Even if there were only
one religion, this situation might still exist.
Suppose for a moment that all the world was Christian. I once
heard a preacher claim that a person not baptized by immersion
was going to hell. Many Christian groups do not practice baptism
by immersion. Was the preacher telling the truth? I have only
my own reasoning powers to answer.
So even if all the world recognized the Bible as the single,
authentic, perfect revelation of God, preachers would still give
varying interpretations of what the Bible teaches, and I would
still have to decide, using my own limited and imperfect powers
of reasoning, which interpretation was correct.
If, however, all the world was one religion and ruled by one
religious hierarchy, and if those who openly disagreed with the
religious hierarchy were in some way eliminated, then we would be
relieved of our responsibility to decide the truth for ourselves.
Such totalitarian societies, both past and present, engaging as
they have in persecutions, inquisitions, and the like, have
hardly been models of ideal societies. The responsibility to
decide the truth for ourselves, although burdensome at times,
seems infinitely more desirable than the alternatives.
Revealed writings not only disagree with each other, however,
they disagree with themselves as well.
The Claim of Consistency and Truthfulness - II
Belief in biblical inerrancy has been held throughout the ages by
many leading religious figures. In Inerrancy And The Church, for
example, we read that
"Clement of Rome claimed that the Scriptures were
errorless." ([110], 23)
and
"Tertullian was swift to argue . . . that the
Scriptures contained no contradictory material nor
error." ([110], 24)
and that Origen
" . . . perceived the Scriptures as perfect and
noncontradictory . . ." ([110], 25)
and, finally,
"For Augustine, it was an article of faith that there
is no real discrepancy or contradiction in all of
Scripture." ([110], 49).
Augustine's definition of error was strict.
"When Augustine declared the Bible to be free from
error, he explicitly rejected the presence of
inadvertent mistakes as well as conscious deception."
([110], 53).
Yet Augustine was aware that Matthew 27:9 attributes a quote to
Jeremiah which is actually Zechariah 11:13. If not a conscious
deception, was this not, at least, an inadvertent mistake? Could
Augustine avoid seeing it as one or the other?
He could. Augustine's solution (refer [110], 44) was as
follows. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the name
"Jeremiah" first came to Matthew's mind. Matthew then realized
that the quote was actually Zechariah's but decided that the Holy
Spirit had allowed "Jeremiah" to come to mind to indicate "the
essential unity of the words of the prophets." So Matthew bowed
"to the authority of the Holy Spirit" and wrote "Jeremiah"
instead of the correct reference, Zechariah.
Augustine's explaination illustrates the extreme ingenuity
religious believers sometimes employ to defend the innerrancy of
their scriptures, and to "harmonize" their inconsistencies.
Moreover, in the face of a plain discrepancy and contradiction,
Augustine maintains there is no discrepancy or contradiction, not
necessarily because he is dishonest, but because he is compelled
to do so by the axioms of his way of knowing. This incident
illustrates a failing of the revealational way of knowing itself,
as opposed to a failing of a single individual.
The distinction is an important one. To elaborate, suppose
some untruthful, even sadistic or murderous, people happen to
follow a certain idealogy or belong to a certain group. Their
actions do not necessarily reflect badly on their idealogy or
group. (If a few members of a knitting club decide to poison
their spouses, that doesn't necessarily reflect badly on
knitting.) On the other hand, suppose following an idealogy or
joining a group turns otherwise truthful, sane people into
untruthful, sadistic, or murderous people. Then this clearly
indicates that something is wrong with their idealogy or group.
(Racism, for example, can have an evil effect on those whom it
influences.)
Like Augustine, John Calvin also believed in the inerrancy of
the bible.
"To Calvin the theologian an error in Scripture is
unthinkable. Hence the endless harmonizing, the
explaining and the interpreting of passages that seem
to contradict or to be inaccurate." ([110], 178)
Yet, like Augustine, Calvin also knew of instances that might be
called "error" but refused to call them such. For example,
Calvin decided that
" . . . in Acts 7:14 (the seventy-five souls) and
Hebrews 11:21 (Jacob's staff) the writer may have
chosen to echo the Septuagint's mistranslation of the
Hebrew of Genesis 46:27 and 47:31 rather than correct
it, lest he disconcert his readers and so distract them
from the point he was making, which was not affected by
the mistranslation one way or the other." ([110], 182)
It might be maintained that the above errors crept in over the
many years the books of the bible were copied and recopied by
hand. Thus it might be supposed that the original biblical texts
were free from error, and that the bible would be free from error
if only the original text were known and accurately translated.
Yet here is an example where the original text is known, but is
intentionally mistranslated to this day.
About the Virgin Birth, Matthew writes
"Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring
forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,
which being interpreted is, God with us." ([39], Matt
1:22-23).
In another Bible, a curious footnote to this verse appears.
"1, 22f: this is a prophetic reinterpretation of Is 7,
14 in the light of the facts Matthew has outlined: the
virginal conception of Jesus, his Davidic messianic
role in a spiritual sense, Joseph's legal paternity,
and the unique presence of God in Jesus, which the
Church of the evangelist's time had to come to
understand in his divinity. All these things about
Jesus that were faintly traced in Is 7, 14 are now seen
by Matthew to be fully brought to light as God's plan."
([64], NT, 6).
What "prophetic reinterpretation" and "faintly traced" might mean
will soon become apparent.
Turning to Isaiah 7:14, we read
"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and
shall call his name Immanuel." ([39], Is 7:14).
Again in the other bible, we find a curious footnote.
"7,14: The sign proposed by Isaiah was concerned with
the preservation of Judah in the midst of distress (cf
Is 7, 15. 17), but more especially with the fulfillment
of God's earlier promise to David (2 Sm 7, 12-16) in
the coming of Immanuel (meaning 'With us is God') as
the ideal king (cf Is 9, 5-6; 11, 1-15). The church
has always followed St. Matthew in seeing the
transcendent fulfillment of this verse in Christ and
his Virgin Mother. The prophet need not have known the
full force latent in his own words; and some Catholic
writers have sought a preliminary and partial
fulfillment in the conception and birth of the future
King Hezekiah, whose mother, at the time Isaiah spoke,
would have been a young, unmarried woman (Hebrew,
almah). The Holy Spirit was preparing, however, for
another Nativity which alone could fulfill the divinely
given terms of Immanuel's mission, and in which the
perpetual virginity of the Mother of God was to fulfill
also the words of this prophecy in the integral sense
intended by the divine Wisdom." ([64], OT, 832).
What "transcendent fulfillment" might mean; why the church
would have to choose to follow St. Matthew (who never identified
the prophet he was quoting) or Isaiah; why some Catholic writers
sought a "preliminary and partial fulfillment" in King Hezekiah;
and how a prophet could fail to know the "full force latent in
his own words" - are all certainly not very clear from the above
footnote. It's easy to feel that the writers of both footnotes
are trying to tell us something but not doing a very good job.
A much clearer explanation is to be found in a book critical of
the bible in particular, and of religion in general.
". . . falsely translated by the false pen of the pious
translators, runs thus in the English: 'Behold, a
virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call
his name Immanuel.' (Isa. VII, 14.) The Hebrew words
ha-almah mean simply the young woman; and harah is the
Hebrew past or perfect tense, 'conceived,' which in
Hebrew, as in English, represents past and completed
action. Honestly translated, the verse reads: 'Behold,
the young woman has conceived - (is with child) - and
beareth a son and calleth his name Immanuel.'
Almah means simply a young woman, of marriageable age,
whether married or not, or a virgin or not; in a broad
general sense exactly like girl or maid in English,
when we say shop-girl, parlor-maid, bar-maid, without
reference to or vouching for her technical virginity,
which, in Hebrew, is always expressed by the word
bethulah." ([4], 68).
Thus the words of Isaiah are to this day falsely translated, and
Matthew quotes no known prophet.
For those interested in a contempory discussion of biblical
inerrancy there is 136 Biblical Contradictions ([72]) and 136
Bible "Contradictions"...Answered ([59]). I have found
contradictions in other scriptures, but do not know of any
similar references for non-biblical scriptures, although they may
well exist.
The Claim of Completeness and Finality - I
Now let's turn to the third claim of revealational way of
knowing, its completeness and finality. First, let's examine
how scripture attains to that state.
Obviously, for any scripture there was once a time when it had
not yet been written, and another time when it was in the process
of being written. At neither of these times was the scripture
complete or final. (Of course, some believers might insist that
"written" be replaced by "recorded," claiming their scriptures
were complete and final in God's mind from the beginning of time.
This is another claim that can neither be proven or disproven.)
The writing of scripture has taken varying amounts of time.
The Old Testament, for example, was written over a time span
close to a thousand years. The writing of the New Testament,
however, was accomplished in a few hundred years; the Koran was
written within the lifetime of Muhammad. While being written,
scripture was susceptible to influence by contemporary beliefs,
both foreign and local.
When Judaism was young, for example, its scriptures were
influenced by the older religion of Zoroastrianism, which
especially in its
". . . demonology, angelology, and eschatology,
influenced Judaism from the time of the exile onward.
This is particularly evident in the changed conception
of Satan. Before the exile - for example, in the
prologue to Job (1:6-12) and in the mouth of Zechariah
(3:1-2) - Satan was no more than the servant of God,
acting on his orders as prosecutor; after the exile he
is portrayed as God's adversary. This is clearly shown
in two versions of the same story, II Sam. 24:1 and I
Chron. 21:1. In the first, the preexilic version, the
Lord incites David to wickedness so that he may wreak
vengeance on the Israelites; in the second it is Satan,
not God, who is responsible for the calamity." ([65],
vol 23, 1013).
(This quote shows yet another example of scriptural
inconsistency.) Listed in The Ethical Religion of Zoroaster
([25], xxi-xxiv) are other similarities in Zoroastrian, Jewish,
and Christian scripture, doctrine and practice. The list is four
pages long.
In its youth, Christianity also felt the influence of other
religious beliefs. Mr. A. Powell Davies noted the
". . . extensive debt of Christianity to Pagan religion
during the first centuries of its development in the
Mediterranean area." ([24], 84),
Mr. Davies writes
"Mithras was a Redeemer of mankind; so were Tammuz,
Adonis and Osiris. The view eventually taken of Jesus
as a Redeemer was not a Judaic concept; nor was it held
by the first Christians in Palestine . . . It was when
Christianity spread out into the Pagan world that the
idea of Jesus as a Savior God emerged. This idea was
patterned on those already existing, especially upon
Mithras. It was the birthday of Mithras, the 25th of
December (the winter solstice), that was taken over by
the Pagan Christians to be the birthday of Jesus. Even
the Sabbath, the Jewish seventh day appointed by God in
the Mosaic Law and hallowed by his own resting on this
day after the work of Creation, had to be abandoned in
favor of the Mithraic first day, the Day of the
Conquering Sun.
In the Mediterranean area during the time of
Christian expansion, nowhere was there absent the image
of the Virgin Mother and her Dying Son. . . ." ([24],
90)
Even after they've been written but before reaching their final
state, scriptures may undergo editing and revision (the technical
term used is "redaction") by other than their original author.
"How much . . . in the Gospels was drawn from pre-
existing sources and likewise adapted to the aims,
first of the original composers, then of the editors
and compilers? The earliest manuscripts we have, it
must be remembered, are no earlier than the fourth
Christian century, and by then indeed, considerably
before - there had been time for the church fathers to
make many redactions in accordance with the outcome of
theological controversy." ([24], 88).
Or, to be precise, by other than their original, human author,
since the case could be made that God wrote it, and later God
changed or "redacted" it. Yet it certainly seems strange that
God would not get it right on the first try, and need to edit His
own work!
Similarly, of the Jewish scriptures, the Torah, we find
"The early rabbis were the direct heirs of the
literature incorporating the beliefs of ancient Hebrew
religion. During the several centuries which
intervened between the writing of the latest portions
of the Pentateuch and the rise of rabbinic Judaism,
however, profound changes in religious practice and
belief had occurred among the people in both Palestine
and Babylonia. While many differences at first existed
among the rabbis as to the actual meaning of the
various contradictory stories of the revelation, the
overriding belief of the spiritual legislators that all
of the five books of Moses were divinely inspired and
thus incapable of self-contradiction finally gave rise
to the consensus that every verse of those books had
been revealed by God to Moses on Sinai . . .
An attempt was made to explain the seeming
contradictions among the various versions of the
revelation - as also among individual laws - through
the utilization of certain hermeneutic principles."
([65], vol 22, 87).
Hermeneutic principles are principles by which a writing is
interpreted and its inconsistencies "harmonized."
The Claim of Completeness and Finality - II
Eventually scriptures are consider final and completed. Being
final and completed means the scripture is closed, frozen.
Certainly no new additions to the Torah, Bible, or Koran are
possible; these scriptures are closed. As we'll see, the state
of being closed has its advantageous and disadvantageous aspects.
An advantageous aspect of being closed is that the scripture
may serve as a constant beacon, an unchanging yardstick to
measure passing fads and temporary lunacies. A disadvantageous
aspect is that closed scripture is unadaptable. What first may
appear as a granite mountain of truth to its believers, is, like
all mountains, eventually eroded by time and the change time
brings. Sooner or later, in a hundred years or ten thousand
years, some scriptural wisdom is no longer wisdom but merely
tradition or, worse still, foolishness. Yet because it has been
frozen in scripture, believers still feel obligated to observe
it. In addition, scripture remains forever unable to respond to
completely new problems and situations, problems and situations
undreamt of when the scripture was original written.
Obsolete scriptural "wisdom" seems to fall into three classes:
the indecipherable, the unneeded but harmless, and the harmful.
I'll present examples of all three cases.
Here are two examples of indecipherable teachings.
Of the Jewish scriptures which are also a part of the Christian
canon, Mr. Nigosian Solomon wrote
"The biblical injunctions against eating certain birds,
or flying insects, are difficult to apply since the
species are not always identifiable from the biblical
name or description." ([71], 178).
Here we see scriptural injunctions that believers are technically
bound to observe, but how can a scriptural injunction be observed
if it can not be understood? What could be the meaning of such
useless prohibitions? Or of a useless groups of letters?
"Here a word should also be said about the cryptic
Arabic letters which head certain chapters of the
Koran. Various theories have been put forward by
Muslim and Western scholars to explain their meaning,
but none of them is satisfactory. The fact is that no
one knows what they stand for." ([49], 11).
The closed, frozen nature of scripture insures that these
indecipherable phrases and prohibitions will remain forever in
scripture even though no believer can possibly derive any meaning
from them or observe them.
Most scriptural injunctions, however, can be observed and are
observed by believers - even if there is no longer any reason for
observance except that the injunction has been frozen into
scripture. In short, the scriptural prohibitions have become
sacred cows, where the term "sacred cow" means
". . . a person or thing so well established in and
venerated by a society that it seems unreasonably
immune from ordinary criticism even of the honest or
justified kind." ([103], 1996)
The first example of a scriptural injunction which has become
unneeded but whose observance causes no harm to the believer
concerns the origin of the term "sacred cow."
In India, killing a cow is considered a great sin, a greater
sin than killing many other animals. Why is this so? In the
past (I once heard), cows were used to plow the fields. In time
of famine, hungry people would naturally be tempted to slaughter
and eat their cows. Yet if the cows were eaten, when the famine
was over there would be no way to plow the fields and plant a new
crop. A temporary famine would become a permanent famine.
Thus the survival of the cows was important to society. So (if
the explaination is true) what once was a prohibition important
for the welfare of society eventually became a religious
prohibition independent of society's welfare. Eventually the
Vedas, one of India's ancient scriptures, referred to the cow as
a goddess (refer [68], vol 3, 206), and identified the cow with
the mother of the gods. Thus an observant Hindu may not eat beef
even today due to a religious prohibition which is, and ever
shall remain, frozen in scripture.
Another example of a scriptural injunction which has become
unneeded but whose observance causes no harm to the believer
arose (I once heard) in the following way. At the time when
Judaic scripture was being written, the Israeli heat quickly
spoiled meat and dairy products mixed in the same dish, making
them a potentially unhealthy combination. So a prohibition
against eating meat and dairy products together once may have
made good sense.
"The regulations about forbidden, treyfah, and
permissible, kosher, foods may well have originated in
association with taboos of antiquity. Whether or not
health or hygiene determined the rules in the first
place is little more than speculation, and is
irrelevant to pious Jews who refuse to rationalize
kosher laws. They accept them as part of a total
system ordained by God." ([71], 178).
So to this day, observant Jews may not eat a cheeseburger due
to an ancient prohibition frozen in scripture. What may have
been merely a contemporary taboo has become forever binding, the
invention of refrigeration notwithstanding. Due to the closed
nature of scripture, it will never be lawful for some religious
believers to eat certain, perfectly healthy foods. Today if a
scripture were written, daily exercise and a high fiber, low
cholesterol diet might be enshrined.
Yet the above beliefs do not harm the believers. Even if
Jewish people can't eat cheeseburgers, their health need not
suffer. There are certainly many healthful diets that do not
include meat/dairy combinations, or even meat of any kind. In
fact, the avoidance of cheeseburgers may be healthy. Some
people, indeed, believe that there are very good health, ethical,
and moral reasons for avoiding cheeseburgers (avoidance of
cholesterol, for one), and avoiding meat in general. One obvious
reason to avoid meat is out of a reverence for life, a wish to
avoid unnecessary killing. Another reason (Refer [54], 9) is
that meat production is inefficient; it takes about 16 pounds of
grain and soy - grain and soy that could be feeding starving
humans - to produce 1 pound of meat.
So some people have dietary beliefs based on solid health and
humanitarian reasons that may closely match religious dietary
beliefs. Yet even though they have diets similar to religious
diets, how and why something is believed may be as important, or
more important, than the belief itself, as the tale in the
beginning of this chapter illustrated.
The third catagory of frozen scriptural beliefs is harmful
ones. One of these harmful beliefs, for example, is found in the
Koran's Sura 4:34 which states
"Men have authority over women because Allah has made
the one superior to the other . . ." ([49], 370).
Another, found in the Christian bible, is
"Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and
trembling . . ." ([35], 188, Eph 6:5)
In the United States in the 19th century, those in favor of
slavery used that biblical verse to show slavery was not against
the will of God. (As we saw above, scriptures do not always
agree. The King James version has "servants" rather than
"slaves", a crucial difference. A believing Christian might well
be puzzled; which word represents the true word of God?)
Like slavery, the caste system of India is rooted in scripture,
and is regarded as harmful to the society which tolerates it.
Yet the caste system has existed in India for millenia. In the
past, some caste rules were extremely brutal and oppressive; a
lower caste man might lose a hand or foot by striking, or
threatening to strike, a higher caste man. ([66], vol 16, 858).
Recognizing the evils of the caste system, social reformers have
worked to abolish the near slavery of the lower castes. They
were opposed by those who referred to scripture to show that God
himself supports the caste system. In the Indian scripture
Bhagavad-Gita, for example, God himself in the form of Krishna
declares
"I established the four castes . . ." ([91], 51).
The above examples show how indecipherable, unneeded but
harmless, or even harmful teachings are frozen in scripture.
Frozen scriptures have another shortcoming for, as I mentioned
above, closed scriptures are unable to address new problems.
Today, for example, genetic engineering, nuclear power, and the
powers and problems they bring, pose questions that the scripture
doesn't address. In the past, too, new and novel problems arose
which had no solution in scripture. The Spanish, for example,
once considered the construction of a Panama canal. What did the
Bible have to say about such a project?
"After consulting with his religious advisers (who
reminded him of the scriptural warning: 'What God has
joined together let no man put asunder'), King Philip
declared that 'to seek or make known any better route
than the one from Porto Bello to Panama (is) forbidden
under penalty of death.'" ([16], 220).
This example may be amusing to us today but remember that the
best minds of the Spanish empire, with God's eternal revelation
to guide them, came to the above conclusion.
Over the past few centuries, the bible, once thought to be
completely and perfectly true, has been shown to contain less and
less truth. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, now teaches
that
". . . the Bible is free from error in what pertains to
religious truth revealed for our salvation. It is not
necessarily free from error in other matters (e.g.
natural science)." ([28], 12).
During the Inquisition, however, when it thought the bible
reliable and true even in matters of natural science, the church
condemned to execution many who dared to disagree with the bible
in matters of natural science. Galileo, the famous scientist who
believed that the earth revolved around the sun, narrowly avoided
such a fate. Only through the martyrdom of many men and women
was belief in total biblical accruacy shaken.
Another who was misled by scripture was Martin Luther who
claimed that
"We know, on the authority of Moses, that longer ago
than six thousand years the world did not exist" ([16],
3).
There are people today, "Creationists," who still believe this.
They and Seventh-day Adventists as well also believe that
"Evolution in whatever form or shape contradicts the
basic foundations of Christianity . . . Christianity
and evolution are diametrically opposed." ([88], 92).
A final point to consider regarding the completeness and
finality of scripture is this: the existence of any subsequent
scripture implicitly denies the completeness and finality of any
earlier scripture. For certainly if the Old Testament had been
complete and final, there would have been no need for the New
Testament. Consequently basic Christian belief almost of
necessity should hold that the Old Testament is "temporary and
incomplete." It does. According to Roman Catholicism, for
example,
"The plan of the Old Testament was to prepare men for
Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven. Prophecies were made
and certain persons and events typified greater persons
and events yet to come. (1 Cor 10:11). The knowledge
of God, as being just and merciful in His dealings with
men was, therefore taught to them little by little, in
keeping with their developing religious understanding.
There is in evidence a divine teaching method namely,
God revealing His truth slowly and piecemeal and
patiently through the ages. As a result, the doctrine
in some parts of the Old Testament is more developed
than in other parts dating from an earlier period. At
times, temporary and incomplete things are found which
give way later to fulfillment and completion." ([28],
15).
Similarly if the New Testament had been complete and final,
there would have been no need for the Koran. We saw above,
however, how Islamic scripture teaches that the Jewish and
Christian revelations are not complete and final, but incomplete
and incorrect as well. Thus, belief in the completeness and
finality of any one of these revelations implicitly denies the
completeness and finality of the others.
Yet if God had indeed revealed His truth "slowly and piecemeal
and patiently through the ages" in keeping with "developing
religious understanding," it might be expected that revelation
should still be going on. For had religious understanding
developed to such a level 2,000 years ago or 1,500 years ago
(indeed, is it now developed to such a level?) that the truth
could be revealed once, totally, and for all time? It might seem
logical to expect periodic revelations, more and more divine
truth revealed slowly and patiently through the ages, until the
entire human race had been raised to intimate union with God.
The Claim of Necessity for Salvation, Enlightenment
The last claim of scripture I'll consider is its necessity for
salvation, enlightenment, liberation. Logically, if divine
truths are necessary, and not merely helpful, for salvation then
salvation can not be achieved without them - a sad situation for
those who either have never heard of them or do not believe them.
But if divine revelation was so essential and necessary to the
achievement of life's greatest good, would not God have made it
universally available? Certainly millions of human beings have
lived and died with no opportunity to read the Torah, the Bible,
the Quran, the Vedas, or the Buddhist scriptures. A person
living four thousand years ago in what is now Peru, for example,
had no possibility of reading any of those writings.
Note further that if only one of the above scriptures is
actually the full and complete Word of God, then many more
millions (the past and present followers of the other religions)
are added to the group of those who had no access to the perfect,
complete Word of God. But could God, the Father and Mother of
all, have neglected to provide the vast majority of His and Her
past and present children with a complete, perfect revelation if
it was so necessary for their attaining life's purpose?
The Scientific Way of Knowing
In our discussion of the revealational way of knowing, we saw
four claims commonly made for it, and saw how it is hindered in
its pursuit of truth by:
1. a reliance on authority rather than verifiable fact
that has lead to the acceptance of falsehood,
2. inability to recognize inconsistency and
untruthfulness,
3. a finality that makes it unable to directly address
new issues and problems.
Now let's discuss the scientific way of knowing: how it
originated, what it is today, what claims are made for it, and
its success or failure in discovering and validating scientific
truth.
The roots of the scientific way of knowing lie in the ancient
Greek arrangement of geometry as a logical system consisting of
axioms, theorems, and, most importantly, proof. Previously,
geometric truths had been known, to the Egyptians, for example,
but the truths rested on no logical foundation. Something was
true simply because someone had declared it to be so. The Greeks
replaced blind acceptance with reasoned proof. Geometric
reasoning was, and still is, a model of scientific reasoning.
However, the Greeks distained experiment and exact observation.
It remained for medieval Europeans, Harvey and Galileo, for
example, to wed scientific reasoning with scientific
experimentation and thereby create the scientific way of knowing
as we know it today.
The scientific way of knowing involves the interplay of the
following three elements: observation or experiment, hypothesis
or law, and theory. Observation and experiment establish the
facts, pure and simple, with no "prophetic reinterpretation"
allowed. Sometimes, freshly uncovered facts force a revision of
existing laws and theories. Hypothesis and law describe the
facts, and often suggest new experiments. Theories explain the
facts and laws, often suggesting new experiments and hypothesis
as well.
For example, we observe that a vibrating guitar, violin, or
piano string gives off a sound. Through further experimentation
and observation we realize that the faster the vibration, the
higher the tone. We form the hypothesis that sound is vibration,
and that faster vibration yields higher tone. The hypothesis
suggests the question: does all vibration create sound? The
question suggests an experiment: swift shake a stick back and
forth. No sound is heard. This new fact leads to an amended
hypothesis: only vibration above a certain minimum rate emits
sound. (True. The minimun rate is nominally 20 cycles a
second - 20 Hertz.) The amended hypothesis suggest a new
question: is there a maximum rate above which no apparent sound
is given off? (There is. For humans, the rate is nominally
20,000 Hertz.) But why is vibration percieved as sound? A good
theory would answer this question, and might also suggest fresh
experiments and hypothesis. Thus a continuous round of
experiment, hypothesis, and theory bring us ever closer to the
truth.
Its Problems
Today, scientific knowledge is pursued by full-time, career
scientist often supported by government grants. Limited grant
monies foster intense competition, a "Publish or Perish"
envionment where published papers establish the recognition so
necessary for winning government support. An intense desire for
recognition and success have sometimes resulted in dishonest
practices ranging from non-disclousure of raw data (refer [108],
76,78), to slight 'improvement' of raw data (refer [108], 30-31),
to unfair denial of credit to associates (refer [108], ch. 8), to
outright theft of other scientist's work (refer [108], ch. 3), to
even wholesale fraud (refer [108], Ch. 4,5,&11), the invention of
data and description of expermients never performed. Nor is this
strictly a recent problem; Betrayers of the Truth gives instances
of falsification and misrepresentations (refer [108], 22-3) by
such scientific notables as Ptolemy, Galileo, Newton, Dalton,
Mendel and Millikan.
Scientific abuses are a cause for concern. Eventually, will
money and prestige seriously injure the scientific enterprise
even as they have injured Christianity and other religions in the
past? When monastism flowered in Europe during 11th & 12th
centuries in Europe, religion was the leading and most
influential ideology of the day. Yet religion's full-time
practioners, the religious and monastics, often succumbed to the
allurements of money and prestige. As a result, religion
eventually ceased to be Europe's predominate ideology. If not
corrected, scientific abuses may eventually so erode public
confidence and support that science ceases to be the leading and
most influential ideology of the day. Sadly, the erosion may be
unstoppable. For if medieval men and women sworn before God to
poverty, chasity, and obiedance could not resist, what chance of
resistance have modern scientist, men and women whose personal
morality is often no higher than average?
However, when we turn from the failings of individuals to the
flaws inherent in the scientific way of knowing, the picture is
much brighter. I know of no instance where the scientific way of
knowing itself forces, or even promotes, untruth, the non-
recognition of contradiction and falsehood, that is comparable to
the instance where the revealational way of knowing forced
Augustine to ignore a clear contradiction. True, scientist have
their share of human failings, but human failings do not
invalidate the scientific way of knowing or science in general,
even as the failings of religious men and women over the ages did
not invalidate the revealational way of knowing or religion in
general.
I do not believe that the scientific way of knowing is
flawless. It seems to have some inherient limitations that I'll
discuss in a later chapter. However, I do believe that the
scientific way of knowing is a better way than the revelational
way of knowing, for in its reliance on objective, verifiable
tests of truth, it has proven to be a better way of finding and
testing truth than the revealational way. While religious truth
has remained stagnant for centuries, science has provided an
ever-increasing insight into and control of the natural world.
Application to Other Fields
Today, many fields, including physics, mathematics, chemistry,
sociology, psychology, anthropology, and many others, accept the
scientific method of knowing as their epistomological method.
Previously some of these fields had followed a way of knowing
much like the revealational way of knowing used by religion
today; that is, they relied on authority to decide truth. In
physics, for example, the teachings of Aristotle were believed
simply because they were the teachings of Aristotle.
"Aristotle greatly hampered physics and astronomy by
building a system on two assumptions which he omitted
to check by experiment. . . . the speed of fall of a
body was (1) proportional to its weight, (2) inversely
proportional to the resistance of the medium. . . .
Consequently mechanics had to wait nearly two thousand
years to make a start." ([112], 31-2)
Finally, physics abandoned this way of knowing and adopted the
scientific way of knowing. I can only speculate how much more
advanced the human race would be today if physics had changed its
way of knowing earlier. It is suggestive, for example, that
"Aristarchus of Samos, about 270 B.C., proposed a
system identical with the Copernican . . . it attracted
few, if any, followers, however, and there was talk of
a charge of impiety being brought against him." ([112],
30)
Nor can we say with certainty how many people suffered needless
pain and premature death when medicine adopted the revealational
way of knowing. The bubonic plague, what was to become the
horror of the 14th century, erupted in the ancient Roman world
during the reign of Justinian. It raged from 540 to 590 C.E. At
its height the plague claim over 10,000 victims a day; its total
toll is estimated at one hundred million. Since contempory
physicians were powerless, many people turned to Christianity.
"The effect of the plague of Justinian on the field of
medicine is unarguable, and was unfortunate. The
Christian Church rushed in to fill the medical void,
becoming doctor to the soul and the body. Progressive
Greek and Roman physicians had taught that disease was
caused by pathogenic agents; they were slowly, but
correctly, creating the discipline of medical science.
The church, however, in its new role as healer, equated
disease with vice and sin, the punishment for leading
an errant life . . . The brilliant ideas of Galen and
Hippocrates became heresies. This repressive attitude
lasted until the fourteenth century and vastly altered
what would have been a very different course of
medicine had it not fallen under the domination of
dogma and miracles." ([113], 225)
Thus medicine was turned to a revealational way of
understanding and treating disease. No more did humanity have to
grop in the dark for the cause of disease. For divine and
unerring scripture provided the answer. For over 1,000 years,
this change in medicine's way of knowing directly affected the
lives of untold millions. Eventually - and fortunately -
medicine returned to the "heresies" of Galen and Hippocrates,
replacing its revealational way of knowing and understaning
disease with a more scientific way of knowing. An increase in
general health and life expectancy have followed.
(Unfortunately, fraud is a problem in the fields of food, drug,
and pesticide testing too. Refer [108], 81)
Today only a few fields still use the revealational way on
knowing. For example, the basis of Astrology's claims that a
Cancer is sensitive and reserved, a Gemini communicative and
witty, etc. is merely that some person or group of persons
declared it so. Thus Astrology does not accept the scientific
way of knowing, and therefore is not a science. If Astrology
were to adopt the scientific way of knowing, then its claims
would have to be experimentally shown before they were accepted.
If the claims withstood this test (I do not believe they would)
then Astrology would deserve to be called a science.
In contrast, geometry, as we've already seen, had abandoned the
revealational way of knowing millenia ago, and accepted a method
of knowing which eventually evolved into scientific way of
knowing. Euclid may have declared something to be true, but its
truth was accepted because of the proof he furnished, not simply
because he had declared it. Moreover, Euclid's geometric truths
were not beyond question, criticism, and refinement. Even though
Euclidian geometry was the only geometry for over a thousand
years, the nineteenth century discovers of the Non-Euclidian
geometries were not declared heretics and burned at the stake.
(Granted some may have questioned the usefulness of the new
geometries - that is, until Einstein based his theory of
Relativity on one of them.)
Relation to the Four Claims
Now that we've seen what the scientific way of knowing is, and a
few of its faults, let's evaluate it in relation to the four
claims of the revealational way of knowing.
First, science claims no divine authorship for it's beliefs.
Truth is acquired and tested through natural, human processes,
processes which are usually, but not necessarily, rational
processes; flashes of intuition and insight are included too.
The existence of the prodigy and genius is not denied, but the
supernatural origin of prodigy and genius is denied.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for example, was a musical genius, but
still a man fathered by another man - not an incarnation of
Music. As another example, when Carl Friedrich Gauss was about
six years old, he devised a clever method to quickly calculate
1+2+3+...+99+100 (the answer is 5050) - yet Gauss' body suffered
the usual fate and did not ascend into higher numerical realms
upon his death.
Scientific truths have been found and refined by human beings
through an endless cycle of experiment, hypothesis, and theory.
These truths can be proved; anyone with sufficient time,
equipment, and education may verify them. Thus the scientific
way of knowing's reliance on verifiable fact is superior to the
reliance on authority of the revealational way of knowing. Note,
too, that the scientific way of knowing is the more mature way of
knowing, since it demands judgement and discernment. In
contrast, the revealational way of knowing allows one to remain
childlike; "It's true because Daddy said so" and "It's true
because Mommy said so" are simply replaced by "It's true because
God said so."
Second, science's theories are self-consistent, truthful to the
known facts, and open to revision in the light of new facts. In
contrast to the "sacred cows" of religion, science is open to
challenge and criticism, an openness which greatly contributes to
its consistency and truthfulness. Moreover, the science
acknowledges the false to be false, no matter how long or by whom
it had previously been thought true. Einstein's Theory of
Special Relativity presents an excellent example of this.
By 1900, the theories of Newton and his successors had provided
the Western world with an unparalleled understanding and mastery
of the natural world. Yet the observed orbit of the planet
Mercury disagreed with Newton's theories. Slightly. Yet the
orbit disagreed.
Had Newton been considered a saint or divine Incarnation, had
his theories been considered eternal law, then Einstein might
have been ignored, banned, perhaps even tortured and put to
death. Instead, Einstein's theories were eventually acknowledged
to be true.
A small disagreement with the orbit of mercury and Newton's
Truth, led, not to "prophetic reinterpretation" of Mercury's
orbit, but to a revision of scientific theory. A simple regard
for the truth led to a superior truth. And the superior Truth
led to undreamt of power, the power of atomic energy. For
Einstein's theories provided the key to the atom and its power.
The story of Quantum Mechanics, although not as familiar as
Relativity, also shows science at its best. Scientists, groping
to see a truth they could not fully understand (and do not fully
understand to this day), refused to bend the truth to their
belief, but bent their belief to conform to the truth.
Bending the truth to belief is a common human trait. The
devotion of science to the truth, although flawed as are all
human endeavors, is, in some cases, higher than the devotion of
religion to the truth. It seems that religion in its expression
of the "Truth," sometimes does violence to the simple and humble
truth.
Third, scientific theories lay no claim to completeness and
finality. They are the best approximation to truth so far, but
are always open to improvement and revision. Science sees itself
as an ongoing, imperfect, human approach to truth. In this way,
science avoids the closed, frozen nature of revelation. In
contrast to the finality of religious revelation, science is open
to, and indeed eager for, new discoveries and truths. In this,
the scientific way of knowing is superior to the revealational
way of knowing.
Fourth and last, science does not see itself as necessary to
salvation, enlightenment, or liberation. In fact, science
ignores these questions entirely. In this it is infinitely
inferior to the revealational way of knowing. For surely
questions such as "Who are we?", "Why are we here?", "Is there a
proper way to live my life?", "Where am I going?", "What is my
place in the universe?", "Does God exist?", and many others are
too important to leave uninvestigated.
Application to Religion's Domain
For physics and other fields which once accepted the
revealational way of knowing, the adoption of the scientific way
of knowing was a step forward. In field after field the
revealational way of knowing has been abandoned for a superior
way of knowing, the scientific way. And in field after field,
this change has lead to great progress. So even though the
revealational way of knowing has been used by religions for
millenia, the question might still be asked: could any religion
adopt the scientific way of knowing as its way of knowing
religious truth?
A crucial element of the scientific way of knowing is the
importance of understanding and its rejection of blind faith. So
a religion believing its truth or revelation to be beyond the
power of the human mind to discover, understand, and test could
never adopt the scientific way of knowing. So far as I know,
this includes most world religions; only some Buddhism sects make
no claims to revealed truths. To these sects, the Buddha was a
man who discovered certain important truths in a natural, human
way, just as Euclid, Einstein, or Gauss made their discoveries.
Yet if a religion did adopt the scientific way of knowing then
its teachings would constitute both science and religion -
science, since they would have been found and tested using the
scientific way of knowing; religion, since they would deal with
questions traditionally in the domain of religion. Such a
religion would satisfy the opening quote of this book.
And such a religion might be arrived at in another way. For if
science extended its domain to include religious questions then
the resultant answers would also constitute both science and
religion, for the same reasons as above. To understand how
science might so extend its domain, we must first investigate the
domain of science and the domain of religion, how the two domains
differ, and, more importantly, what the two domains have in
common.
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E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank