Bridging Faith and Reason: A Harmonious Pursuit of Truth

Recently, I read a novel where there was a debate going on between a priest and a scientist, and at one point in the discussion the scientist said to the priest, “You state your faith, and I’ll give my reason.” And he set forth the debate between them in terms of a dispute between faith and reason—not altogether unlike some of the differences of opinion I’ve had with my wife where she sometimes complains, and she said, “I can’t debate with you. You always want to resort to logic when I just know that this position is false.” [00:00:08]

But this seems to be the perception that we have today—that theology involves a leap of faith, where science involves a cogent, relentless pursuit of rationality, as if faith and reason were completely divorced one from another. It also raises the question of method. We say, “There’s a method to his madness.” Well, every investigation of truth, whether it be in the realm of theology or philosophy or science, involves the application of some kind of method, and that method may or may not include a dependence upon reason. [00:01:07]

Now as I mentioned, there was this fierce reaction from the church. Galileo was placed under the papal ban. But it wasn’t just the Roman Catholic Church that reacted against Copernicus and his theories. The nascent Reformed movement that had arisen in the sixteenth century also positioned itself squarely in opposition against Copernicus. The two magisterial Reformers of the sixteenth century, for example, John Calvin and Martin Luther, thought that Copernicus’ theories were ridiculous. Now the question is this: Why all the fuss? [00:02:25]

People believed that the integrity of the Bible was at stake, and that human opinions were now going to supplant divine revelation. Now the question is this: Why did the theologians of that day think the integrity of the Bible was at stake? Well, if you look at the teachings of Scripture and what they say with respect to nature and natural phenomena, we read, for example in the Bible, descriptions of the sun moving across the heavens; and it very much seems from the literature of the Scripture that the Bible is endorsing a view of cosmology—a view of astronomy and physics—that suggests that the earth is stationary and the sun is moving in orbit around the earth. [00:03:10]

When the Bible describes the external world, when the Bible discusses the phenomena that we observe, it uses a kind of language that we simply call “phenomenological”—or in simple terms, the “language of phenomena.” That is, we describe things the way they appear to the naked eye. And of course biblical writers, when they’re describing the day as they perceived it, would talk about the sun crossing the heavens because when we’re standing here on earth and we look up into the sky, what do we see? What’s the phenomenological experience we have? [00:04:43]

Now, do you really expect the biblical writers, centuries ago, to expound technical abstract scientific theories? Their basic concern is the work of God in history—the work of God’s redemption, the work of His promises that take place in this sphere of the natural world. But the operations of the natural world are described in phenomenological language. Now, somebody might look at me and say, “Oh, this is special pleading. You know, you’re going through all these gymnastics to save the integrity of the Scriptures.” No, I’m trying to save the integrity of language—language as we use it in ordinary discourse. [00:06:50]

Now, when we come to science, one of the most important breakthroughs that occurred as a result of the Copernican Revolution was some fine-tuning in the method of approaching the data of scientific inquiry, and what we all learned when we were children in school was a simple summary of what’s called the “scientific method”—the scientific method. And when we look at the scientific method, we see that there are two critically important distinct elements that are married together in the quest for truth. And the two important elements that together comprise the scientific method are what we call “induction” and “deduction.” [00:09:50]

The analytical method defined itself in these simple terms: that it is the task of the scientist to discover the logic of the facts. Let me say it again: to discover the logic of the facts. I once had a consultant who said to me, “If you’re going to make decisions in your operations on how you’re going to allocate your resources, you need information to make intelligent, informed decisions. You need the right information, and you need a sufficient amount of the right information.” [00:11:39]

In simple terms it’s this: In the process of induction, what we do is that we move from the particular to the general. That is, induction is involved by experimenting, observing, gathering of materials, and so on. We look at one squirrel, and we notice the squirrel has a bushy tail. Then we find another squirrel, and that squirrel has a bushy tail. And then we look at a third squirrel, and it has a bushy tail, and we do this until we get thousands and thousands and thousands of examples of squirrels. [00:14:06]

The other part of the scientific method involves deduction, which involves the moving from the general, or the universal, to the particular. The most famous example of this is the syllogism, and the most famous example of the syllogism you also learned when you were in elementary school. “All men are mortal.” Now what kind of a statement is that—“All men are mortal”? It’s a universal judgment. Okay? You’re making a statement about everybody in a particular class. All men are mortal. Socrates is a man, therefore, what? Socrates is mortal. [00:15:17]

But true science is trying to save the phenomena, and the way we encounter the phenomena is through the senses. I don’t know that there’s a piece of chalk here on the basis of sheer deductive logic. I can’t crawl into Descartes’ Dutch oven and spin out the existence of this piece of chalk. I am compelled to believe that there’s a piece of chalk here because I’m seeing it, I’m feeling it—I’m in sense contact with it. It’s part of the material world—the world that can be perceived, the world of phenomena. [00:19:40]

I’m convinced that the crisis has to do with the relationship between faith and reason in theology because there’s a lot of irrational theology out there. I was teaching a course recently in philosophy, and I talked about the science of theology, and one of the people in my class had a doctor’s degree in one of the natural sciences, and he objected to my calling theology a science. He said, “Theology’s not science.” I said, “Is it ignorance?” He said, “No.” I said, “Well, what does the word ‘science’ mean? It means ‘knowledge,’ and it’s a field of knowledge.” [00:21:47]