Anthony J. DeBlasi has an interesting article at the American Thinker today entitled Do Math and Science Add Up to Reality?. At heart, DeBlasi's point is that math and science can point to physical reality, but there is more to reality than the physical. In DeBlasi's own words:
What I have been saying in effect is that it is vital for humans as humans to understand that the scientific solution to everything is not, as Carl Sagan claimed, “a matter of time.” At best such boundless faith in science sustains the spirit to outdo what reality allows. At worst it spawns a blinding and devastating arrogance, as demonstrated by people like Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab.
Reality is beyond the mind’s ability to know it in the way we know we’re alive or grasp it in the way we can manipulate the elements of nature. Reality isn’t discovered, the way we find what’s hidden under a rock. It’s not invented, something leftists have not learned. It is acknowledged, as the smartest in all ages have been doing, to their credit, to their successes, and to the benefit of everyone.
DeBlasi leads us on a journey toward the conclusion above. Science is about discovering the way the physical world works. Sometimes, as with quantum physics, the discoveries seem more like magic than physics, but these are still the physical world. And DeBlasi hints at our problem in discerning Truth: It is that we cannot use the mind alone to answer questions about the mind.
I pause to wonder, how can there be an answer to a question about the mind, using the mind? Is that not the ultimate conundrum? It would seem that ultimate questions of mind-reality lock themselves out of any attempt to answer them inside the cranium, where they are constantly restricted. In math, for instance, the fence is intra-consistent symbol structures and rules — in science, intra-consistent assumptions and methods — whose consistency with structured thought outside of the designated frameworks is imperfect and whose connection to reality terminates in at least one X outside of its operational field?
Because these mental structures enjoy a life of their own within their respective realms and disciplines, the answers they may provide for ultimate questions are of necessity “empty boxes,” however well-constructed. To think that the mind can transcend itself and see the world “as it really is” requires one to believe that the mind itself is not part of that world, a belief inconsistent with scientific doctrine, compounding the difficulty with “ultimate questions.”
What is missing here is faith. Whether we want to admit it or not, everyone gets through life by faith. We all believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, in the East and set in the West. We all have faith that gravity will continue to operate and things will not suddenly start falling upward. So, if that is true, then why not have faith also in the revealed Truth found in the Bible. We would not know if there is even a God if He had not revealed himself to Abraham, and Abraham had not believed Him. But He did, and he did. And becase He did this, we know that God makes and keeps promises. Moreover, we can even know why he revealed himself: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten (read unique) Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. - John 3:16
One hears constantly that science and faith in God are somehow at odds, that one must pick one or the other. But I am an engineer. I use science and math to design solutions to make people's lives better. Yet I can clearly see the limits of science. Science cannot answer the ultimate questions of why we are here, or why we are so different from the other animals created. There is no evolutionary reason for music, for example, and yet nearly everyone can make and appreciate music. Indeed, faith and science are entirely compatible. After all, the God who revealed Himself to Abraham also created the world we live in and everything in it. And since He cannot lie, everything we learn about the world turns out to be compatible with His revealed Truth.
Please read the whole article highlighted above, and consider, if you haven't already, that the Bible may be the most important piece of literature ever written.
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