Epistemology: The Question of Knowledge

Epistemology: The Question of Knowledge

Introduction

Science and religion are commonly considered antithetical. The scientific enterprise leads to rational knowledge that is the acme of human knowing, whereas religious knowledge is viewed as dogma and faith without a rational basis. This assessment has of course been quite strong in intellectual circles over the last few centuries, but it seems to be breaking down somewhat as we move into the "post-modern era". For example it has become widely appreciated that science has some strongly intuitive elements that might be characterized as a kind of faith. Nevertheless, scientific knowledge is still generally held to be the epitome of rationally based knowledge (Bakker, 2009, 332-36).

Statement of Thesis

There are some significant parallels between Christian and scientific knowing that lie at the very core of contingent epistemology.

Analysis of Thesis

Specifically, observation and interaction are fundamental to both Christian and scientific knowledge. The growth of scientific knowledge clearly feeds on observation. The history of science since the Second World War illustrates how fundamentally science is data driven. The massive investments in new technology--new data gathering--have opened up new worlds to observation (Bakker, 2009, 332-36). For example, our understanding of the geology of Venus was about as fuzzy as a tennis ball when we first started to observe it with the Goldstone radar antenna a few decades ago. Recently the Magellan spacecraft, which arrived at Venus in August 1990, has supplied nearly a hundred Gigabytes of imagery--covering nearly the whole surface of this geologically active planet at a resolution of 75 meter pixels. The information transmitted by Magellan lies at the core of our knowledge of Venus.

Clearly it would have been impossible to deduce the contingent geologic realities of Venus by rational deduction from first principles of physics and chemistry plus the pre-Goldstone data. Of course we could have substituted assumptions for any lacking data, but to deduce a world of the complexity and intricacy that is revealed by Magellan would require a great intellectual effort and would lead us to a fascinating Tolkien-like world, but not the Venus of our Solar System (Bakker, 2009, 332-36). To actually learn about Venus, for example to study the fault-bend folds of the Artemis Chasma fold-and-thrust belt, radar from the Magellan spacecraft had to interact with the surface of Venus and then the information had to be transmitted back to Earth (Wallner, 1994).

Our inability to use raw deduction to ...