Knowing by Faith

KNOWING BY FAITH

Virgil Warren, PhD

Limitations of Science

            Science has three major limitations. First, (1) science cannot deal with universals, or absolutes. It is subject to “the plague of particularity” because it is limited to the inductive approach. Science can, of course, form and test hypotheses, which are perhaps mental deductions from previous particulars; but these hypotheses are approximate since they are based on limited previous experience. Since science cannot deal with the absolutes of universal space or eternal time, science cannot lead to an adequate understanding of “the big picture.” Another way to say this is that science cannot produce a worldview. It deals more with particulars than with systematic investigation.

            The second limitation is that (2) science cannot deal with history strictly speaking because it can deal only with recurring processes. At best, science can extrapolate backwards into the past (including cosmogony) and forward into the future (eschatology) on the assumption of uniformitarianism. The uniformitarian assumption is that the same set of factors has always and everywhere been operative (at least potentially so) although it is not certain that the rate of these processes has always been the same.

            Thirdly, (3) science cannot deal with what lies beyond the space-time “material” universe. It can deal only with natural processes. Obviously, then, science is in no place to pronounce denials on the existence of arenas outside the realm it can investigate.

Christian Epistemology

            Christianity does not deal with the metaphysical realm or even the real, spiritual realm in and of itself directly. On the basis of physical senses—perhaps even extended and intensified by scientific instrumentation, people can come to know what lies beyond the natural realm by intervention of the supernatural into the natural. Intervention makes the supernatural able to be experienced indirectly and approximately in the natural. Intervention can occur in such a way as to be visible; visible intervention into the natural realm is called miracle, a form of “manifestation.” Miracle is recognized as an occurrence that produces a result in a way that natural processes do not produce it. The issue here is how the effect is produced, not what effect is produced. Obviously the same effect could come about by either natural or supernatural means.

            In 2 Corinthians 5:8 Paul parenthetically makes an important observation about living that has enormous implications for how we come to know: “We walk by faith, not by sight.” “Walking” means conducting life. Since conducting life depends on knowing how to conduct it, Paul is implying something about how we come to know how to conduct life. Ultimately we come to know that by faith more than by sight. Faith/trust/belief always involves a second person who stands in the gap between the ignorant first person and the thing to be known (epistemology), even as a second person stands in the gap between the dependent first person in need and the result bestowed (salvation). “Sight” is Paul’s word for direct experience, so “faith” is his word for the alternatives to direct experience, alternatives that pass through other persons. In the faith category we can include indirect experience of the naturally experienceable and revelation about the unexperienceable supernatural. In general, we know through other persons (faith) what we cannot know by direct personal experience (sight)—including sensory perception enhanced by scientific instrumentation.

            Some things can be known by faith in other persons or by direct sight oneself, but the practical limitations of time and space mean that in fact we know even most natural things by trust in testimony rather than direct experience of events. We know them interpersonally rather than scientifically. Some things cannot even in principle be known by direct sight—the supernatural as well as the universals of time and space within the natural.

            The pertinent observations from these points is that faith does not contrast with knowledge, but with sight. Faith and sight are two ways to obtain knowledge. Sight is direct experience that leads to knowledge, and faith is indirect experience—through testimony of another person—that leads to knowledge. The popular approach equates knowledge with science and religion with faith. That arrangement creates the notion of certainty through science and uncertainty through religion. Science is objective and religion subjective; science is rational and religion is affective. That popular approach, however, does not match the real nature of the situation either for science or religion, because most of what scientists know they have not directly experienced or personally verified, and much of what religion deals with applies to objective existence.

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