Follow the Science!

Knowledge will fade into insignificance as we come face to face with our Lord Jesus

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Over recent years we, the public, have heard the mantra ‘Follow the science..’ uttered from the mouths of public leaders, especially politicians. The prime example was during the Covid pandemic, as the government enlisted the country’s top scientific advisers to help navigate through these unchartered waters. In our widespread interconnected, commuter society, the scientists and policy advisers had to grapple with complex issues while many of the public offered their diverse opinions and doctrines on social media and news outlets. It was evident that many experts did not agree, and that science for one group was pseudoscience for another group. Then of course the internet gives opportunity for many of us to gather together some of the facts and draw our own conclusions; conspiracy theories abound!

I was interested to read an account, by Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, about some of the early scientists of the 17th century; especially Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke who with colleagues, developed the experimental method. They recognised human fallibility and the resulting error that came from relying upon our natural senses. They fully accepted that in the original state of creation, Adam and Eve possessed perfect senses and a perfect knowledge of nature. Adam was able to give names to all the creatures through this perfect knowledge and authority over creation. However, after their rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), their perfect senses were damaged by sin and they lost dominion over the natural world. This is a quote from the historian, Peter Harrison: “the experimental method…arose out of a renewed awareness that the attainment of knowledge was not a natural, easy process, but rather one that called for the imposition of external constraints: rigorous testing of knowledge claims, repeated experiments, communal witnessing, the gradual accumulation of histories, the use of artificial instruments to amplify the dim powers of the senses and the corporate rather than the individual production of knowledge”. That quote is worth rereading. 

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Scientific knowledge has been gradually accumulating over the past 400 years, with those solid foundations still holding fast. However, there are individuals and organisations who have had an agenda to destroy the biblical foundations of science. They are well educated and have laboured in their fields of science. They have communicated their ideas in the name of science and through gradual popularisation, their theories and hypotheses have been declared as facts. It is a good discipline to test what is claimed to be science against the foundations laid hundreds of years ago. To simplify it: scientific facts should be observations that are measurable and repeatable. 

Solomon, who was renowned for his wisdom and accumulation of knowledge, shares some secrets at the beginning of the book of Proverbs: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline…. Let the wise listen and add to their learning.

The apostle Paul reminds us all, when instructing the Corinthian church about the pre-eminence of love, that knowledge will fade into insignificance as we come face to face with our Lord Jesus: 

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Author: Richard Windridge

May God bless and enrich your life

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