Scientific pursuits reveal answers to many questions mankind asks. While fresh facts are amassed by seconds, it is arguable whether science has brought us closer to the truth.
What is truth? Back to the ancient philosophical question.
A Christian scientist once remarked that scientists are climbing their way to the top of a mountain. They overcome the obstacles one by one - but when they are about to remove the last obstacles near the summit, they find theologians have been sitting there for centuries awaiting them.
Assuming that science is bringing us closer to the truth, the peak of the mountain, they may never reach it since at the summit it is God - and God is not supposed to be comprehensible since He is God; Christian philosophers would say.
While this speaks about the greatness of God and such, scientists then may counter it with the accusation that Faith is simply filling out the gaps that science has not yet been unable to fill. This may be true to both believers and scientists but the problem lies in whether Science is eventually able to fill those gaps?
If it is able to, then Faith turns out to be a deception and is merely a temporary filling of the gaps, waiting for Science to push it out of the gaps and replace it.
If it is not, then Faith is valid; it explains the unexplainable - it is supposed to be.
Yet another problem arises: How would we know whether Science is able to fill those gaps?
Exactly. We wouldn't know. We don't even know whether we are at the right track to approach the truth in the first place.
On this issue pure scientists and believers are still divided. Yet many people simply embrace Science and Faith. Indeed, if seen another way, the two can be thought as complements. One explains the explainable and the other explains the unexplainable. I personally think that Science can only done up to a limit and the rest it is up to faith. Science is human tool after all. Humans are limited. It follows that so is Science.
On another note, the concept of 'god of the gaps' is sometimes misused. At times things unexplainable are quick to be dismissed as part of divine knowledge. It is true that we are limited but where that limit is we are still uncertain.
So we have to be aware that it is a spectrum. You just have to choose where to stand. The wise will of course choose "everything in moderation".
What is truth? Back to the ancient philosophical question.
A Christian scientist once remarked that scientists are climbing their way to the top of a mountain. They overcome the obstacles one by one - but when they are about to remove the last obstacles near the summit, they find theologians have been sitting there for centuries awaiting them.
Assuming that science is bringing us closer to the truth, the peak of the mountain, they may never reach it since at the summit it is God - and God is not supposed to be comprehensible since He is God; Christian philosophers would say.
While this speaks about the greatness of God and such, scientists then may counter it with the accusation that Faith is simply filling out the gaps that science has not yet been unable to fill. This may be true to both believers and scientists but the problem lies in whether Science is eventually able to fill those gaps?
If it is able to, then Faith turns out to be a deception and is merely a temporary filling of the gaps, waiting for Science to push it out of the gaps and replace it.
If it is not, then Faith is valid; it explains the unexplainable - it is supposed to be.
Yet another problem arises: How would we know whether Science is able to fill those gaps?
Exactly. We wouldn't know. We don't even know whether we are at the right track to approach the truth in the first place.
On this issue pure scientists and believers are still divided. Yet many people simply embrace Science and Faith. Indeed, if seen another way, the two can be thought as complements. One explains the explainable and the other explains the unexplainable. I personally think that Science can only done up to a limit and the rest it is up to faith. Science is human tool after all. Humans are limited. It follows that so is Science.
On another note, the concept of 'god of the gaps' is sometimes misused. At times things unexplainable are quick to be dismissed as part of divine knowledge. It is true that we are limited but where that limit is we are still uncertain.
So we have to be aware that it is a spectrum. You just have to choose where to stand. The wise will of course choose "everything in moderation".
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