Beliefs about the nature of existence are mental models. How well do the rationalist and Christian mental models correspond to reality? How can we apply epistemology (our way of knowing things) to decide between these competing beliefs about the nature of existence?
Could we use the scientific way of knowing things? As we found in the epistemology section, science tries to solve problems by:
- making observations with the five human senses,
- classifying the observations,
- using imagination to formulate a theory that explains the observations and
- testing the theory.
But what can we do if we can’t even make observations? For example, a spirit can’t be seen, tasted, touched, heard or smelled. Ahah, says the rationalist, that’s why we exclude the study of spirit beings from science. The problem is that rationalists are very selective in their application of that rule.
No one has ever seen, tasted, touched, heard or smelled a species evolving into a more complex species, but rationalists study that obsessively. They look at old bones and imagine how they might be related to other old bones, which is speculation not science. When asked to justify that, they claim it happens far too slowly for humans to observe – more speculation.
It was and is not possible for any human to observe the origin of the universe. Yet rationalists don’t think that should be excluded from science.
In the Epistemology Chapter, Professor Jastrow was quoted as saying that the cause and effect chain followed by science ends at the Big Bang. So rationalistic science is in the same position as Christianity when it comes to beliefs about origins – the scientific method can’t be used to test those beliefs.
That pricks rationalism’s bubble. Its faith in the ability of human reason to solve every problem ends at the Big Bang. It is a fact so frustrating to the rationalistic scientist that even Einstein tried to cover it up (click here to review that page).
Science can’t observe spirits, but nor can it observe the origins of the universe. Nevertheless, we do have a very powerful test to apply to competing beliefs about such matters. We can test the outcomes of the different beliefs about them. As Jesus said: “by their fruits you shall know them.”[1]
What kind of fruit has been produced by rationalist beliefs about the nature of existence and what kind of fruit has been produced by biblical Christian beliefs?
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