In this blog post, we will examine the possibilities that science and faith hold as two ways of exploring truth, and see if there are any perspectives we may be missing.
It was Saturday evening. As I was passing through the shopping arcade at the subway station on my way to a tutoring session, I was surprised by the unfamiliar environment. The shops in the arcade were open and bustling with business. Starbucks, Burger King, and numerous restaurants were open for business.
At first glance, these sentences may not make much sense. Why was I so surprised? There was no context that would make it reasonable for the shops in the shopping mall to be open for business. However, if we add two premises, the sentence takes on a completely different meaning.
Premise 1: Until then, I had only gone to the neighborhood on Sunday mornings to give private lessons.
Premise 2: On Sundays, all the shops in the shopping district are closed.
Based on my previous experience, I had only ever seen the shops closed. Therefore, I could predict that the shops would also be closed if I passed by the shopping district on Sunday morning the following week. And that prediction was correct. In this way, predicting future events through observation is a basic human desire for inquiry, and that desire has developed over a long history through the science. There are many examples in the history of science where theories have been revised and changed due to new observations. The most famous of these is the geocentric theory and the heliocentric theory. The proposition that the earth, which appears to be stationary, is moving was a concept that was beyond the existing observational abilities of humans.
Additionally, there was a time when people could not conceive of the Earth being round despite observing a flat-looking surface. Louis Pasteur overturned the prevailing theory of spontaneous generation with his germ theory, and Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity revolutionized Isaac Newton’s previously absolute theory.
In this sense, science has lost its status as absolute truth. Scientists are aware that there may be errors in the current paradigm and acknowledge that theories can be disproved at any time. Therefore, when new phenomena that do not align with existing theories are observed, they accept the need to transition to a new paradigm.
Returning to the example of the neighborhood shopping district, suppose I made the claim that “there is no commercial activity around the subway station.” Anyone who knows the significance of Saturday and that the situation in the shopping district is different at that time would recognize how invalid this claim is. However, the story changes if the following premise is assumed:
Premise 3: I am unaware of the existence of any other time slots besides Sunday morning.
In other words, if I were completely unaware of the existence of other time slots, including Saturday afternoon, and only observed the shopping district on Sunday morning, then from my perspective, my claim would be logically flawless. This is precisely the limitation of scientific inductive inquiry.
Some may argue that scientific predictions are more accurate. Of course, science is a meaningful tool for predicting the future in the world we live in. However, a theory that makes accurate predictions is not necessarily true. Just because the prediction that stores are closed on Sunday mornings is accurate does not mean that the claim that stores do not engage in commercial activities at all is true.
Nevertheless, we rely on science when exploring natural phenomena. We cannot abandon science as a tool for predicting the future because it is the most logical, rational, and objective means of judgment available to us. Sometimes, we even believe that the knowledge we have accumulated can reveal and explain all phenomena in the world. This leads me to question our attitude toward science as a discipline. How do we view science? Is our belief that science is the best tool for seeking truth really true? Can I really abandon this belief? Perhaps we blindly trust science as a tool. With this blind trust, we continue to explore the nature of the world, establish theories, verify them, and strive to explain them. In doing so, we gain a better understanding of nature. “
What about religion? As a Christian, I live my life constantly exploring the nature of God based on my belief in His existence. I want to know and understand God better. In high school, I thought of God as someone who only gave me good things, so I was deeply shocked when I failed the college entrance exam. While studying to retake the exam, I attended a worship service for students like me and met new people there. The relationships and strong bonds I built with them helped me finish my second year of high school stably and successfully.
The joy I felt while meditating on and gaining insights from good words during my study time remains as fond memories. I was able to fully enjoy that time and spend it happily. It was a time when I could do my best without being preoccupied with the results. When I started retaking the exam, I was only focused on the results, but a year later, I spent a year filled with things I could never have imagined. Thus, I realized that there are times when I can only be grateful when I look back.
Ultimately, I came to recognize that God is a being who bestows good things upon me, and I gained the insight that there are times when I can only be grateful when I look back. These personal experiences are not objective like scientific inquiry. They are not inferences based on phenomena that anyone can observe, nor are they processes that everyone agrees on. However, Christians share their personal experiences, reveal to others what God is like, and thereby provide indirect experiences to others. People explore what God is like through their own personal experiences and observations, and strive to objectify them as much as possible. I do not think that this process can be considered irrational or inferior to the process of exploring nature in science.
Therefore, I believe that it is not reasonable for people who blindly believe in science to dismiss those who believe in religion as illogical, irrational, or unreasonable. When someone claims, “I had a serious illness, but God cured me,” is it reasonable to dismiss this as a coincidence, a mere illusion, or irrational? If they believe that God cured their illness based on their personal experience and observation, can we call that irrational? I believe that this belief is not so different from our belief that gravity exists based on the observation that an apple falls to the ground when we drop it.
Some may argue that science is superior to religion because religion is a personal belief, while science is a belief held by the majority. They may also criticize religion by saying that science is superior because it is something everyone can agree on. Of course, science may be more objective because it is a theory derived from phenomena that anyone can observe. However, the expression “objective belief” sounds awkward. Furthermore, even if science is more objective, that does not mean it is the truth. If all humans were only able to observe shopping malls on Sunday mornings, then even if my claim were more objective than yours, it would still be far from the truth.
All of these problems arise because of the limitations of human observation. We cannot predict what we cannot see, and we have no choice but to accept that we cannot predict the future. If we think that facts that do not change under any conditions, such as time, space, events, and observers, are truth, then we have no ability to judge which propositions are true. Even if we happen to observe all situations and consider all necessary variables to claim the truth, we still cannot judge whether it is the truth or whether there is still a part of the iceberg that we cannot see. All we know is that the theories we believe in and the propositions we assert are very helpful in predicting the world we currently live in.
Perhaps we are too arrogant. We may be living our lives by acknowledging only observable facts, overly limiting our thinking to the limits of our observation, and ignoring countless possibilities. Furthermore, we try to understand all phenomena in the world through the framework of science and even believe that everything can be explained by it. This blind faith in science can be seen as a kind of religion from another perspective.
Because our thinking is limited by reason, we may find novels and science fiction movies interesting and enjoy them. However, I don’t think it is necessary to limit such worlds to novels and movies. From an ant’s perspective, our reality might feel like something far beyond science fiction movies. Science is an excellent discipline that enriches our lives, but we should not ignore the dimensions and possibilities that may exist beyond it. We should approach various claims with an open mind.
