{"id":761,"date":"2021-06-02T10:06:34","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T14:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=761"},"modified":"2021-06-02T10:06:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T14:06:34","slug":"to-tell-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/02\/to-tell-the-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"To Tell the Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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William Provine, a Distinguished Professor at Cornell University who served three different departments \u2013 History, Science and Technology Studies, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology \u2013 was a brilliant scientist.

He also had supreme confidence when it came to discussing life\u2019s most important philosophical questions.  Two decades ago he declared:

\u201cLet me summarize my views on what evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear\u2026 There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind.  There is no life after death.  When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead.  That\u2019s the end for me.  There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.\u201d<\/em>

When smart people speak, other people listen. 

And for most of the past century, certain smart people \u2013 or \u201cBrights,\u201d as Cambridge professor Richard Dawkins prefers to call himself and his atheist peers \u2013 have been telling us that science is the antithesis of faith when it comes to certainty about Reality. 

To put it bluntly, science is about knowing.  Religion is about guessing.  Science is an edifice built on empirically tested facts.  Religion is a sand castle of unsubstantiated personal opinion.  Science is about reason and reasonableness.  Religion is about superstition and ignorance. 

This perspective has become so dominant on campuses and Western centers of learning that droves of Christians have meekly retreated from public discourse.  More than a few followers of Jesus are content to admit that while they know they can\u2019t prove anything, they still believe that God loves them because they \u201cfeel it in my heart.\u201d 

When scientists and thinkers who hold a strictly materialist view of the cosmos \u2013 there\u2019s nothing out there but particles<\/em> \u2013 hear such sentiments, they sigh deeply and feel a mixture of pity and scorn that Christians are wasting their lives wallowing in such delusions.

Author and philosopher Dallas Willard, for one, thought that was nonsense.    

Responding to the quote above, he wrote, \u201cLogically viewed, [Provine\u2019s] statement is simply laughable.  Nowhere within the published, peer-reviewed literature of biology \u2013 even evolutionary<\/em> biology \u2013 do any<\/em> of the statements of which the professor is \u2018absolutely certain\u2019 appear as valid conclusions of sound research.  One trembles to think that an expert in the field would not know this or else would feel free to disregard it.  Biology as a field of research and knowledge is not even about<\/em> such issues.\u201d  (from Knowing Christ Today<\/em>)

For materialists, the pursuit of truth is straightforward:  No proposition about reality can be accepted unless it is open to verification by thorough scientific testing.   

Since religious affirmations cannot be scientifically tested, they are automatically ruled out as \u201cknowledge.\u201d 

But there\u2019s a serious problem with this perspective.

The materialist criterion for truth cannot pass its own test.  Is the notion that \u201call propositions about reality must be verified by scientific testing\u201d an idea that can itself be scientifically verified?  The answer is No.  Provine confidently made extraordinary claims about the meaning (or non-meaning) of life that could not possibly be evaluated through scientific inquiry.

It\u2019s not unusual to encounter contemporary thinkers who openly declare that life is meaningless \u2013 not because they have discovered<\/em> this, but because they have decided<\/em> this.

What is<\/em> unusual is hearing an admission from a contemporary thinker who openly acknowledges they have made such a decision on non-scientific grounds.   

The late British philosopher Aldous Huxley confessed that he \u201ctook it for granted that the world had no meaning.\u201d  He admitted, \u201cI had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning, consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.\u201d  When pressed as to why he and others would do such a thing, he said, \u201cWe objected to morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.\u201d 

Christians have often wrongly written off any skeptic as someone who must be trying to invent his or her own moral universe. 

It\u2019s extraordinary when one of the Brights actually says, \u201cYes, that would be me.\u201d 

Then there\u2019s the eminent philosopher Thomas Nagel, who has no use for Christianity.  But his rejection of faith doesn\u2019t come from reason, scientific verification, or philosophical principles.  His deepest objections are rooted in fear:

\u201cI am talking about something much deeper, namely the fear of religion itself.  I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself.  I want atheism to be true, and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.  It isn\u2019t just that I don\u2019t believe in God, and naturally hope that I am right in my belief.  It\u2019s that I hope there is no God.  I don\u2019t want there to be a God.  I don\u2019t want the universe to be like that.\u201d<\/em>

Nagel gets top marks for candor.  Few Christians are as open about their own doubts and fears.

So where does that leave us in the search for truth? 

The world\u2019s most renowned materialist thinkers always point to something they insist is true.  Karl Marx touts the telltale history of class warfare.  Charles Darwin and his disciples spotlight the drama of undirected biological evolution.  Sigmund Freud calls our attention to the secrets of the subconscious.  Jean-Paul Sartre and his existentialist colleagues proclaim the urgent need to choose our own meaning.

Likewise, the founders of the world\u2019s most famous religions point to something they<\/em> insist is true.  Buddha proclaims the Eightfold Path.  Lao Tzu describes the Tao or Way.  Muhammed affirms the Five Pillars of Islam.  Moses comes down from Mt. Sinai bearing the Torah to the people of Israel.    

Jesus is different.  He does something outrageous. 

Jesus doesn\u2019t point to a set of truths, a way to follow, or a life to pursue.  He points to himself<\/em>:  \u201cI am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.\u201d (John 14:6)

He invites us not to give up the search for truth just because there are so many options on the market, or just because one of the Brights declares that the search for the truth always lead to the truth that there is no truth. 

In the opening chapter of the Gospel of John, as Jesus begins to gather his core group of disciples, Philip approaches Nathanael.  \u201cWe\u2019ve found the Messiah!\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s Jesus of Nazareth.\u201d

Nathanael is unimpressed.  \u201cNazareth!\u201d he snorts.  \u201cCan anything good from there?\u201d 

Philip memorably replies, \u201cCome and see.\u201d (John 1:46)

To the seeker, the doubter, the skeptic, the cynic, and the dreamer, that invitation still stands.   
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William Provine, a Distinguished Professor at Cornell University who served three different departments \u2013 History, Science and Technology Studies, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology \u2013 was a brilliant scientist. He also had supreme confidence when it came to discussing life\u2019s most important philosophical questions.  Two decades ago he declared: \u201cLet me summarize my views on what evolutionary biology tells us… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[232,249,250],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-meaning-of-life","tag-naturalism","tag-science-vs-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":763,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}