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There are many ways in which we can know the world, all based on the kinds of experiences we can have as human creatures. The sciences aim at abstract knowledge, which we largely gain from other people (the testimony and discourse of our teachers), filtered through our perception and tested against what we find self-evident. What we accept as true ultimately depends on our worldview, perhaps shaped by the Bible and personal revelation. Tacit knowledge is part of all kinds of behaviour, including how we do science.
People's vision of the ultimate good regulates how they do science. Christian scientists can seek to build models, theories and applications that will have a place in Christ's Kingdom (Rev. 21:24, etc.).
a summary of workshops at Church Scientific 2018
Norms are everywhere in science! A science education focuses on the constitutive norms: how to do science well. It's most effective if it extends to discussing the telos of science. But each scientist's view of ultimate good shapes what they actually do, feeding back into the norms.
Finally we're ready to recognise the presence of norms throughout scientific work, and see how a vision of God's Kingdom can make a difference...
But what kind of thing is a scientific theory? The word "theory" itself has a Greek etymology that's suggestively ambiguous:
Next we looked at ways of knowing...
...as the Holy Spirit leads us as faithful scientists to participate in the redemption of the cosmos for the glory of Christ.
The derivation on the left here suggests a search for divine nature within the cosmos. Christians should see this as a kind of intellectual idolatry. It sounds mystical, but academics who claim that everything is ultimately physical are doing just this!
The derivation on the right is more helpful: theories are perspectives on reality. A theory is posited within some aspect: physics theories take a physical perspective, biological theories a biotic perspective, etc.
We need a non-reductionist approach, such as a Christian philosophy can offer. Human thinkers can dimly perceive the lawful structure of creation as we learn to discern its abstract structures (arising from the word of God). By experiments and systematic observation we can improve our description of the cosmos, from its physical and biotic functioning to its social, economic and perhaps even aesthetic structures.
The diagram on the left is apt: sense-perception cannot ground scientific knowledge on its own, neither can logical analysis - nor yet the social dynamics of scientific communities.
The scheme in this table was proposed by the Christian philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977). It can provide a helpful starting point for scholars wanting to understand the potential of each discipline, yet to avoid reductionism.
...because wisdom means recognising the dependence of all things on God
Next we have a brief overview of key philosophies seeking to explain scientific progress. Classical empiricism (1) led, by its over-emphasis on sense perception, to positivism (2), which proved incoherent and was rescued by Popper's falsificationism (3). But this fails to account for how scientists actually behave, as shown by Kuhn (4). Kuhn's account tends, however, towards relativism, or even Feyerabend's anarchistic model (5). We're left thinking that there must be a kernel of truth in each of these views, but confounded by the radical humanism of each philosophy.
The 15 icons in the diagram represent a Christian philosophical framework for understanding the diversity of academic disciplines and the differences between them.
The aspects listed in the left column seem to be facets of God's wisdom. They provide the focus of analysis for corresponding scholarly disciplines ('special sciences') listed in the centre column. Consistent with the distinct natures of these aspects, there are corresponding typical research methods (right column). But an aspect loses its meaning if divorced from the others.
The bush of knowledge: how religious worldviews underlie scientific investigation
...and we experience and analyse it in a diverse range of ways (icons in the coloured disc here). Yet our heart should not be devoted to any one aspect of creation...
We start with a 3-fold notion of the Word of God:
We looked in more detail at how scientific understanding is built up. It's often proclaimed as autonomous knowledge based directly on observation, but the naivety of this view has been convincingly argued. Instead we should see scientific beliefs as the tips of the branches of a bush of knowledge that is founded on religious convictions and worldviews. Data are indispensable - but to grow the tree, not to ground it.
(c) Arthur Jones & Richard Russell
Our guiding vision is that the cosmos originates from the Word of God...
This is all work in progress! Suggestions are welcome at our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/churchscientific/
Different branches of knowledge are held together by philosophical "trunks", and in today's academic culture several of these compete (witness the division between the "sciences" and the "arts"). Within each discipline, paradigms may compete or give way to each other, and on these smaller branches, theories are built and laws emerge. Hypotheses in turn are generated from these, to be tested with data. Data are like leaves on the twigs: they serve an indispensable purpose but are not incorporated into the body of knowledge.
God's word of power is what upholds the created order, and undergirds what scientific research aims to discover. This is best understood as the law structure of creation; scientific laws and models are then human attempts to describe that law structure which is grounded in the word of God.