SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING AND CHRISTIAN FAITH by Lyman Kulathungam, Dept. Of General Studies Eastern Pentecostal Bible College Leo Tolstoy, in the peak of his literary career finds himself obsessed with the idea that life could after all be meaningless; that his preoccupation of portraying life and its beauty could well turn out to be pointless. He confesses: "Thus I lived, but five years ago, a strange state of mind began to grow upon me: I had moments of perplexity, of a stoppage, as it were, of life, as if I did not know how I was to live, what I was to do, and I began to wander, and was a victim to low spirits. But this passed, and I continued to live as before. Later, these periods of perplexity began to return more and more frequently, and invariably took the same form. These stoppages of life always presented themselves to me with the same Questions: "Why?" and "What after?" At first it seemed to me that these were aimless, unmeaning questions; it seemed to me that all they asked about was well known, and that if at any time when I wish to find answers to them I could do so without much trouble -- that just at that time I could not be bothered with this, but whenever I should stop to think them over I should find an answer. But these questions presented themselves to my mind with every increasing frequency, demanding an answer with still greater and greater persistence and like dots grouped themselves into one black spot."1 When such questions about life and destiny perturbed people, they usually turned to religion. But, there has been a gradual drift toward science, perhaps in the hope that science rather than religion could answer questions, even those that are so fundamental, as the ones asked by Tolstoy. Science and Christianity have not been good bed-fellows. Science has generally been viewed as casting doubts or sometimes threats on several church-authenticated beliefs. Some of church' s rather over-protective attempts to hold back the flood gates of scientific advance, as for instance the church's reaction to Galileo's defence of the heliocentric theory, have strengthened the suspicion that scientific claims and assertions of the Christian faith are inherently incompatible, so much so, scientists are taken to be "faith wreckers".2 But, can Science really wreck faith? In order to respond to such a question, one has to first explore the developments within and peripheral to the scientific enterprise that prompt one to consider it as a threat to faith, and then get at the distinctive nature of Christian faith, and determine whether or not it could be threatened by science. The scientific enterprise has been associated with a quest for and a deliverance of high quality knowledge of the universe. The credibility of scientific knowledge could perhaps be attributed to the quality of the methods employed, the attitude of the scientists handling such methods, the distinctive organization of the knowledge that is delivered, its potentiality for growth and relevance to human existence. Labels like scientific knowledge, scientific method, scientific attitude, scientific diagnosis and treatment ... have come to have positive connotations, so much so, to be a scientist is considered honorific; every one wants to be a scientist! The horizons of science are engulfing. Some of the findings of science particularly in the areas of the origin of the universe, the nature of the human being, and the phenomenon of life, have been viewed as contravening Christian dogma. But, more significantly there has been a recent tendency to consider science as being a challenge to the faith not only on a piecemeal but also on an overall manner; to view science not merely as a mode of knowledge about the universe, but as a legitimate and even better alternative to Christianity; as another edifice of faith. Mainly on the strength of developments in contemporary Physics, the claim is made that science has come of age. Paul Davies, a physicist and author, discerns that Physics is pointing the way to a new insight and appreciation of man and his place in the universe. Questions about existence are not new, but what is new, argues Davies, is that Physics is on the verge of answering them. In his book, God and the New Physics Davies states: The central theme of the book concerns what I call the Big Four questions of existence: Why are the laws of nature what they are? Why does the universe consist of the things it does? How did those things arise? How did the universe achieve its organization? Towards the end of the book, tentative answers to these questions begin to emerge - answers based on the physicist's conception of nature. The answers may be totally wrong, but I believe that physics is uniquely placed to provide them. It may be seen bizarre, but in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion.3 If science, as Davies claims, could offer a surer path to God than religion, then naturally those who resort to God should take note of it and respond to it. Despite its technocratic overtones, science is very much a human enterprise, and hence shares some characteristics with other activities in which humans engage. One such characteristic pertains to the activity of understanding. Humans have shown ingenuity in the art of understanding, and have constructed several modes of understanding things, events, conditions, persons, actions and even God. Amidst such a variety of methods, one could identify a common, but rather tacit, tendency that may be described thus: In attempting to understand something, say "X", one usually selects and/or constructs or even guesses a method or a set of methods that seems the most appropriate (in some cases, the only one available) way of understanding "X". When such a strategy turns out to be successful, in that the method, say "M", has delivered or could deliver, if adequately developed, a satisfactory understanding of "X", call it "U", then a further claim is made: that, on the strength of "M", "X" is NOTHING BUT "U"; that "X" is nothing but what one understands or could understand "X" to be through a method or set of methods. Such a tendency may be labelled as the REDUCTIONIST STRATEGY. Before associating this strategy with the scientific enterprise, some preliminary observations may be made. They are as follows: 1. The strategy pertains to two conceptual realms - the methodological and the ontological; the articulation and assessment of the method, "M", of understanding "X" belongs to the methodological, while the claim that "X" is nothing but what is understood, "U", is ontological in nature. 2. In the context of such a strategy, methodology seems to determine ontology; on the strength of a methodological discernment of the success of a method "M" in understanding "X", the ontological claim, that "X" is nothing but what it is understood to be, "U", is formulated. 3. The "nothing but" claim, is reductionist even if made on a tentative basis, i.e.: when one recognizes that a method needs improvement or when one acknowledges that it leaves out much that has to be yet understood; that there are still significant unknowns. In such a context, what the "nothing but" claim proposes is that "X" is not what is already understood but what could be understood with the improvement or more efficient handling or even replacement of a method. What the Reductionist Strategy here claims is that methodology is capable of determining ontological claims. 4. The success of the Reductionist Strategy depends to a great extent on the methodology of understanding "X". Such a methodology should not only be well constructed and executed but also be perceived as adequate in understanding "X", or at least capable in principle of understanding "X", when improved or more efficiently handled. 5. The problem of the strategy lies in its reductionist aftermath. One is entitled to claim that "X" has been or could be understood through a method. But, on the grounds of such a methodological accomplishment, to make the further claim that "X" is nothing but what is or could be understood through a method, amounts to reducing the ontological to the methodological by providing a methodological criterion for an ontological claim. Such a reductionist strategy could even encourage one to make the solipsist claim that reality is all that one understands or could understand to be. It should be noted that science per se is not reductionist, but the scientific enterprise could lend itself to reductionism, since understanding finds a significant place in science. The Reductionist Strategy may be discerned in different but closely inter-related domains of the scientific enterprise which may be categorized as methodological, linguistic and explanatory. Methodological Reductionism: Newtonian Physics contains a typical example of a methodology that lends itself to reductionism by claiming that the universe is NOTHING BUT a self-sufficient, mechanism of mathematically computable motions dependent on deterministic regularities. Such a claim interestingly arises out of methodological considerations and accomplishments. In Galileo, who prepares the grounds for Newtonian Physics, the endeavour to obtain knowledge by combining theory and practice receives a distinctive character. He engineers the combination, through the mechanics of expressing the theoretical framework of laws in terms of mathematical relations among measurable variables.4 But, such a strategy has reductionist implications. For instance, Galileo calls mass and velocity "primary qualities", and distinguishes them from colour and temperature, which he calls "secondary qualities". According to him, "primary qualities" are objective; they are ontologically legitimate for they characterize the world out there. But, "secondary qualities" are subjective reactions of the observer; they do not characterize the real world. How did Galileo make such a distinction? For him, "permanence" identifies primary qualities, but actually the determinative feature seems to be measurability and reduction to mathematical representation.5 The ontologicity associated with "primary qualities" is really based on the methodological feasibility of measurability. Newtonian Physics, perhaps on the strength of its methodological accomplishments, is tempted to consider the world in terms accessible its method; the world of quantity is taken as real mainly because the method could render only such a world. Newton's dream is to understand the whole of nature, in the same manner in which he was able to understand the solar system, ie. through laws that could be expressed in mathematical and quantitative terms. The preface to the first edition of his Principia [1686] contains Newton's aim in the following terms: I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of nature [that is, the phenomena which are not covered in the Principia] by the same kind of reasoning as for mechanical principles. For I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend on certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other, and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from each other.6 He wanted to go beyond the subject matter of the Principia, and explain the rest of nature in terms of the methodology proposed in his treatise. Here, one can detect the reductionist potentiality of his strategy, which showed itself in Laplace, who carried further the mathematical analysis of the mechanics of planetary motion, and thereby showed that the irregularities caused by the mutual attraction of planets, which Newton had thought would be cumulative unless God stepped in to correct them, would instead automatically cancel each other out over a long time-span. Laplace's "nebular Hypothesis", which claimed that the solar system was formed from the cooling and condensation of nebular gases, could account for the coplanar orbits of the planets without invoking God's intervention. Laplace's methodological reductionism expresses itself in the conviction that the whole universe will ultimately be explicable in terms of mechanical laws and measurements.7 Hence, he viewed the universe as nothing but what is explicable in terms of his method - a self-sufficient and impersonal mechanism. Naturally, there is no place for God in his ontology, since there is no need for Him in his methodology; his methodology dictates his ontology. Newtonian methodological reductionism has been evident in various domains of science, as for instance, Neuroscience, where Methodological Materialism has gained grounds. The conviction of such a methodology is that, "if we set about to understand the physical, chemical, electrical and developmental behaviour of neurons, and especially of systems of neurons, and the ways in which they exert control over one another and over behaviour, then we will be on our way toward understanding everything there is to know about natural intelligence."8 Here, methodology seems to dictate that the cognitive system is nothing but the nervous system exhibited through a methodology. Linguistic Reductionism: Science is very much a linguistic construct. Language in a technical garb is involved in the preparation, presentation, examination and verification of scientific laws and theories. Reductionist tendencies may be traced in some of the ways in which science and the world affected by it have handled language. Werner Heisenbčrg, pinpoints how reductionism could creep into scientific language, particularly in the realm of Physics. He observes that unlike natural language, scientific language is an idealization from only limited groups of phenomena. He states: On the other hand, scientific concepts are idealizations; they are derived from experience obtained from refined experimental tools, and are precisely defined through axioms and definitions. Only through these precise definitions is it possible to connect the concepts with a mathematical scheme and to derive mathematically the infinite variety of possible phenomena in this field.9 The idealization from limited phenomena, characteristic of scientific langauge carries with it a reductionist consequence. He points out: But, through this process of idealization and precise definition the immediate connection with reality is lost. The concepts still correspond very closely to reality in that part of nature which had been the object of the research. But the correspondence may be lost in other parts containing other groups of phenomena.10 When a specific scientific vocabulary pertaining to a particular domain of reality is made to describe with equal competence any other domain, or even more, the whole of reality, then linguistic reductionism could occur. One of the greatest contributions of modern Physics, according to Heisenbčrg, is its success in overthrowing the rigid conceptual framework of classical Physics, with key terms such as matter, space, time and causality providing its basic vocabulary. Such a dissolution, in his view, was effected through the strategy of showing that the semantics of such a vocabulary is neither final nor applicable to domains like the sub-atomic and outer space.11 Perhaps, on account of its competence to describe with technical finesse a particular domain, there is always the temptation to claim that scientific language is capable of being applied to another or every domain, and thereby to dismiss a language that does not amount to the calibre of scientific language, as inadequate. When this occurs, linguistic reductionism results. Logical Positivism provides a good example of linguistic reductionism. Logical Positivism attempts to reduce all scientific statements to a single protocol language, and then stipulates that NOTHING BUT statements of such a language are meaningful on the grounds that they meet a specific criterion, namely verifiability. Rudolph Carnap claims that: Science is a unity, that all empirical statements can be expressed in a single language, all states of affairs are of one kind and are known by the same method.12 Carnap distinguishes statements in Logic and Mathematics from those of the other empirical sciences. The former are analytic statements, certified on account of their form, while those of the latter have content, expressing some state of affairs. Such statements belong to physical language which, according to him, is the universal language and can therefore serve as the basic language of science.13 He finds that verifiability can be the ideal criterion of meaning for statements belonging to such a language. He presents his criterion thus: It means every scientific statement can be interpreted, in principle, as a physical statement, i.e., it can be brought into such a form that it correlates a certain numerical value (or interval, or probability distribution of values) of a co-efficient of state to a set of values of position co- ordinates (or into the form of a complex of such statements)...14 The negative implication of such a criterion is that statements which cannot be in principle interpreted as a physical statement, are taken as meaningless. A.J. Ayer, applying the verifiability criterion, dismisses religious statements as meaningless. He concludes: It follows that those philosophers who fill their books with assertions that they intuitively "know" this or that moral or religious "truth" are merely providing material for the psychoanalyst. For no act of intuition can be said to reveal a truth about any matter of fact unless it issues in verifiable propositions. And all such propositions are to be incorporated in the system of empirical propositions which constitutes science.15 Scientific language is no doubt a very effective mode of presenting knowledge. But, when such a language is idealized, given a determinative criterion of legitimacy, and then made to apply to other domains, then linguistic reductionism occurs. Explanatory Reductionism: Scientific explanation, whether it be analytic, synthetic or holistic, exhibits reductionist tendencies. The use of the word "analysis" illustrates the scientist's habit of taking a problem apart to solve it; classifying wholes into groups and groups into further sub-divisions helps in this analytic diagnosis. The atomic theory of matter, and in Biology, the successes in unravelling the molecular basis of life in terms of D.N.A., have, perhaps, contributed to the view that a whole could be best understood in terms of its constituent parts. Reductionism creeps in, when explanation of the whole is taken as NOTHING BUT the explanation of its parts. The British neurobiologist, Donald MacKay, challenges this "nothing buttery" attitude, prevalent among current biologists, in The Clockwork Image.16 He cites the example of an advertising display consisting of several electric lights that flash on and off in sequence to spell out a message. An electrical engineer may accurately present an explanation of when and how each electric light and element of the network works. Yet, to claim that the display is nothing but electrical pulses in a complex circuit amounts to reductionism. Reductionism may be identified in synthetic explanation too. Subsuming facts and events into laws, and laws into theories, has been characteristic of scientific explanations; such modes of explanations are synthetic. The Covering-Law model of explanation, that Carl Hempel takes to be the ideal type of explanation, is synthetic in strategy: it is explanation through subsumption under general laws; i.e.: the particular fact to be explained must be shown to be deductible from a 'covering law', together with statements about antecedent conditions.17 The doubts with regard to the applicability of this model in social sciences, where one is attempting to explain human actions and not mere things and conditions, brings to light the reductionist feature of this synthetic strategy. The question arises whether unique and unrepeatable historical events could be subsumed under 'covering laws'. Moreover, when explaining human actions, where reasons like intentions, motives, likes and dislikes are involved, could causal laws be adequate? In Natural Sciences, where one is attempting to find the causes of things, empirical generalization may be an adequate model. But, in Social Sciences where one is trying to understand the why and for what purpose of actions and events, are generalizations possible, and even if so, will they serve as an adequate basis for accurate and dependable predictions?18 To impose a model of explanation that may be appropriate in the domain of some areas of the physical world to explain every domain seems to be reductionist. Hence, both the analytic and synthetic strategies of scientific explanation could generate reductionist consequences. The holistic strategy, even though critical of the former strategies, also has reductionist overtones. Paul Davies is critical of reductionism that attempts to solve a problem by taking it apart or subsuming particulars under a covering law. His holistic strategy presupposes that the whole is greater that the sum of its parts; that there are certain "emergent qualities", such as the theme of a tune, or the plot of a novel, which pertain to the collective level of a structure.19 These cannot be captured in a mode of explanation which dissects the structure into parts or some of its parts which are subsumed under a law. Davies indicates that explaining a living organism as nothing but a collection of atoms or the mind as nothing but a network of brain activities is like understanding Beethoven's Symphony as nothing but a collection of notes.20 Life, for Davies, cannot be reduced to a property of an organism's constituent parts: the secret of life will not be found among the atoms themselves but in the pattern of their association.21 He explains life - its origin and function - holistically, through a survey of recent research in biology.22 His explanation, no doubt, highlights certain qualities of life, like self-organization, that cannot be located in the former modes of explanation. But, perhaps on the strength of the perceived success of holistic explanation, he is confident that Biology is heading towards providing an explanation of life that will not need God. He claims: None of this, of course, rules out a creative God, but it does suggest that divine action may be no more necessary for biology than it is for say producing the rings of Saturn or the surface features of Jupiter.23 Here, one detects the reductionist contention: that the phenomenon of life is nothing but what could eventually be explicable holistically through the anticipated methodological accomplishments in Biology. He adopts a similar strategy in his explanation of "mind", when he denies the necessity of soul to render matter conscious, on the grounds that consciousness is explicable as an emergent quality found at the collective but not at the component level of brain cells.24 Resorting to Theory of Relativity's stance concerning the mutability of time, and to the holistic features evident in Quantum Physics' treatment of matter and measurement of sub-atomic phenomena, Davies enlarges the scope of holistic explanation to cover the universe. His rendering of contemporary scientific advances is not controversial but his contention that science, particularly Physics, through its methodological accomplishments, could eventually be able to explain the universe including the religious factor, is typically reductionist. This is best seen in his treatment of God. On the strength of modern Physics with its discovery of the mutability of time, Davies contends that God cannot be both omnipotent and personal. For, if he is omnipotent he should be placed outside time, but a timeless God, in Davies' view, cannot be a personal God who thinks, converses, feels, plans, etc., for these are temporal activities. Thus, Davies finds it convenient to include God as a holistic concept of the universe, and not as supernatural.25 His holistic explanation of the universe, using Quantum Physics, does not exclude or deny God but attempts to include Him as part of the universe. The fact that reductionism is evident in the methodological, linguistic and explanatory domains of the scientific enterprise does not imply that science or its method or that every scientist is reductionist. Nor does it mean that science is dogmatic. On the other hand, science entertains scepticism and renders knowledge on a tentative basis. Paradoxically, the scientific enterprise, perhaps due to the human involvement, tends to be reductionist. Significantly, when reductionism is involved, science tends to cast doubts and threats on the Christian faith or even present an alternative to the religious enterprise. The Christian faith just cannot deny or ignore science, but could meaningfully respond to the NOTHING BUT of scientific reductionism with a BUT ALSO. But also: But also what? The response, in short, is faith. No doubt, methodological, linguistic and explanatory constructs are legitimate aids for understanding, but without the ingredient of faith, the whole enterprise of understanding, however scientific it may be, could well turn out to be reductionist. "Through faith we understand ... (Heb. 11:3). A faith-based understanding may not be perfect, and may even be inferior to scientific understanding on epistemological and pragmatic grounds. But, faith seems to enable understanding and its constructs, methodology, linguistic expression and mode of explanation, a distinctive perspective. In order to get at the role of faith in understanding, one has to first decide how faith is to be taken. Sometimes faith is identified with belief, and placed on a hierarchical epistemological order. The common characterization of knowledge as "justified true belief", stipulates three conditions for a knowledge claim to be made. For instance, the claim, "I know that X" to be made, the following requirements are stipulated: 1. "X has to be true. 2. I should believe "X" to be true. 3. I should have some justification/evidence for my belief that "X" is true. In such a characterization, belief, being not yet justified, belongs to a lower order than knowledge; the grounds for justifying a knowledge claim are stronger than those of a belief claim. Knowledge and belief, in this context, belong to an epistemological order that is truth oriented. When a hypothesis is accepted in science, such an acceptance is on the grounds that the hypothesis could eventually turn out to be true, if adequately justified. When such a justification occurs, the hypothesis is taken as law, and given knowledge status. The rationale for a knowledge claim is that there is justification for it to be true. Hence, in an epistemological endeavour, as exemplified in the sciences, a legitimate belief claim, such as a hypothesis, is anticipated to be true, while a knowledge claim, like a law, is accepted as true on evidential grounds. The assurance of belief is the hope that it would be true; the assurance of knowledge is that it is accepted as being true. Truth, in this context, is taken as that which is accepted on the grounds of one or more of the methods considered as legitimate in the attainment and/or establishment of truth. Such methods may be as varied as empirical, rational, intuitive, authoritative or phenomenological. What has to be noted here is that the acceptability of something as true is on methodological grounds. Faith, in the Christian context, has to be distinguished from belief and even knowledge taken as epistemological categories. As Paul Tillich points out: The most ordinary misinterpretation of faith is to consider it as an act of knowledge that has a lower degree of evidence. Something more or less probable or improbable is affirmed in spite of the insufficiency of its theoretical substantiation...If this is meant, one is speaking of belief rather than of faith...The acceptance of a probable hypothesis in these realms is not faith, but preliminary belief, to be tested by scholarly methods and to be charged by every new discovery.26 While it is acknowledged that there are several senses in which the word "faith" is used in the Biblical and Christian traditions, in this paper, faith is characterized in a specific sense, which is believed to be legitimate biblically. Moreover, faith understood in this sense seems to be relevant, through contrast, to the characterization of knowledge as a truth- oriented epistemological category, as well as indicative of a definitive distinction between a knowledge and a faith claim. The classical definition of faith found in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, followed by a series of narratives, (interspersed with amplifications on the opening definition) concerning the heroes of faith and the sufferings of the faithful, ends with the proclamation that Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 11:2). Here, faith is definitely not portrayed as a belief that is waiting to be justified through some methodology, so as to attain knowledge status. For, faith to be the hypostasis (substance that renders reality; assurance) for things hoped for; the elenchos (evidence; conviction) of things not seen; to be that which enables one to understand that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear but framed by God's word; that which motivates one to go, not knowing where to go; that which helps one to conceive, past age; even to choose to suffer rather than to enjoy, to be stoned and sawn asunder, to be afflicted, tormented and even die not having received what was promised ... such faith requires more than an intellectual assent or a truth-oriented methodological epistemological confidence; it necessitates utter dependence on something that is really real. Faith understood as believing God's revelations, promises, warnings, guidance etc. presupposes trusting God. For faith to render substantive reality or assurance for things hoped for there has to be a solid basis for faith itself. If faith is to be sustained during difficult and challenging times, the assurance of faith has to be something more than truth that is warranted merely on some methodological grounds. In the Christian context, such an assurance is none other than God in Christ, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2) and the truth that is salvific rather than merely epistemologically efficient (John 8:32,36). The assurance of belief and knowledge, understood as epistemological categories, is truth that is generated methodologically through empirical, rational, intuitive, authoritative or some other such mode. On the other hand, the assurance of faith, taken as a meta (not anti) epistemological category, is something other than truth, namely THE TRUTH - the ontic factor God in Christ. Such truth cannot be appropriated merely through methodological channels; it necessitates total commitment. Tillich describes the act of faith as one in which the whole personality is involved; one that occurs in the centre of the personal life, and includes all its elements.27 Faith in this sense, is not mere mental assent, emotive assurance, intuitive insight or even dogmatic stance, but rather trust effected through commitment. The Bible accommodates 'faith' understood in a general sense as belief encouraged through some evidence (Rom. 1:19,20), but this connotation of the term has to be distinguished from faith understood as trust effected through commitment to God in Christ; a faith that prompts people to believe in Christ (John 8:30). Faith taken in this sense, is meta-epistemological, for it is based on something other than truth generated methodologically - on God in Christ. Moreover, such faith is generated and sustained through a commitmental trust. One may have been aided by methods such as empirical or rational, in the process of commitment. But it has to be noted even the commitment that manifests trust in God, is not a mere human endeavour, but one that is greatly enabled by God's grace. Since there are several variables involved in the application of the faith perspective, one cannot conclude that such a perspective will always entail a non-reductionist understanding. Moreover, even those who do not exhibit such a faith may also be non-reductionist in their understanding of the universe.28 Such faith enables understanding in the domains of methodology, language and explanation, to steer clear of reductionism. Faith and Methodology When faith gets involved in the enterprise of understanding (whether it be biblical, theological, scientific, historical, literary or even common-sensical), faith provides a perspective that discourages methodology to dictate ontology. A mode of understanding through faith in God may allow methodology the freedom to generate whatever understanding a particular method could deliver on a subject. But, since understanding through faith is founded on the recognition of an awesome ontic factor - God, there is a hesitancy to allow a "nothing but" claim to be made purely on methodological grounds. The preventive role of faith in the enterprise of understanding may be stated thus: In attempting to understand something, say "X", when a method say "M" has delivered a satisfactory understanding of "X", call it "U", then "U" is asserted in the light of the faith factor, which is God, "G". Hence, the claim is made that "X" is "U" but not nothing but "U", since who knows what "G" has to say about "U"?! Such an understanding is not reductionist, since methodology is prevented from determining ontology, on the grounds of faith in God. Nevertheless understanding through faith is not attempting to provide an alternative method of understanding. What the faith-factor attempts to accomplish is to provide the scientist with a presuppositional perspective that attempts to understand some phenomena through a method. Such a perspective tends to prevent methodology from gathering reductionist overtones. The faith-factor which accommodates God and His purposive acts may not preoccupy itself with improving or displacing a quantitative analysis. On the other hand, the faith perspective tends to accommodate God and his purposes in its understanding of the universe, even though they may not be identifiable through the various quantitative methods. The phenomena of purposes are accepted on the grounds of trusting a God who acts purposively in nature. Faith and Language In the domain of scientific language, faith attempts to reveal the reductionism latent in a scientific language. Faith in a supernatural, spiritual God may neither add to the vocabulary nor syntax of the scientific language, but provides a spiritual overtone to the semantics of the language. To one who does not accommodate the ontologicity of the spiritual, a langauge with spiritual overtones will not be intelligible (1 Cor. 2:12-14), and hence may dismiss it as meaningless or non- scientific. The Verifiability Principle of Logical Positivism or Popper's Falsifiability Principle that stipulates a statement to be scientific should be in principle falsifiable,29 may be adequate in providing a criterion of meaning to a language with limited application. Through formulating a rigid criterion of meaning, both the Logical Positivists and Popper discipline the semantics of the language, and thereby render it technical. But making a language technical, as we have noted, makes it restrictive in its application.30 It has to be noted that the proponents of the said criteria of meaning also attempt to increase the scope of the language. But enlarging the scope of a restrictive language will naturally end up excluding much of linguistic discourse that falls outside the scope of the said language. A.J. Ayer's exclusion of religious discourse as meaningless31 and John Wisdom's dismissal of religious claims as unscientific32 indicate the problem of applying a restrictive criterion of meaning that works well in a restrictive language to understand the language of faith, which has spiritual overtones. The language of faith may be controversial, but it has shown the reductionism latent in a restrictive language attempting to overstep its area of application. Faith and Explanation Faith could play a significant role in the domain of scientific explanation. The scientific enterprise is well described as one of conjectures and proposals of falsifiable laws and tentative theories. Paradoxically, such an enterprise has also exhibited the reductionist strategy. On the one hand, scientists believe that they are after all human, their methods are limited, the subject matter vast, and the knowledge obtained, tentative. On the other hand, there seems to be a hope, which in itself is legitimate, that science has the potentiality to make the unknowns, known. A scientific unknown is here taken as a problem that is presently unanswerable within that scientific framework, but that there is reason to believe will someday be answerable within that framework.33 It is just that the scientific community does not yet have adequate data, the proper method, the right theory to handle the problem. But, there are religious unknowns too. Some of these are taken to be tentative in the sense that they could be answerable through proper religious endeavours such as God's revelations, guidance, and even through science. But, there are some unknowns that faith identifies as mysteries, such as questions regarding the existence and nature of God, the reason for the universe, certain facets of the problem of evil, eschatological factors etc. Kolak labels these unanswerable unknowns, ultimate mysteries;34 they are unanswerable in any epistemological framework, religious or scientific, since they pertain to an ontology which in principle is beyond the scope of human understanding. When science attempts to meddle with such mysteries, it presents itself as an alternative to religion. Davies claims that science offers a surer path to God, since Physics is now able to at least handle some of the questions which traditionally belonged to religion, and normally taken as mysteries to be accepted on faith. Davies does not claim that science has solved these mysteries, but that they are now within the framework of science as unknowns.35 As Kolak notes, science today is making some of the religious unknowns scientific unknowns.36 It should be noted that a religious unknown, taken as mystery, is taken as unanswerable in any epistemological framework since the mystery is due to the nature of the ontology rather than to the limitation of human capacity to understand; for such an unknown to be explainable, the whole ontological, and not merely the epistemological framework, has to change. For instance, when Paul claims that "Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (I Cor. 13:12) he anticipates a fundamental ontological change for such knowledge to occur, and not a mere improvement of human methods of knowledge. But, a scientific unknown is tentative and could be eventually knowable through epistemological betterment. When a religious unknown, understood as a mystery, is made into a scientific unknown, the 'unknown' becomes in principle knowable. This tendency is evident in Davies' anticipation concerning the answer to what he calls the ultimate question of existence: "Why that superlaw to explain all laws of the universe?" He accepts that Physics has not yet answered this question, but he entertains the possibility of science answering it, when he states, "But there is a further possibility. Perhaps the laws - or the ultimate superlaw - will merge to be the only logically possible physical principle.37 This would mean that the ultimate question of existence is unknowable only epistemologically. But, this is where faith steps in to pinpoint that however capable scientific epistemology is, yet there are some "mysteries" where answers cannot be given because these unknowns are due to ontological rather than epistemological factors; they have to accepted on faith rather than attempted to be explained. Who can render an answer to the question: "Why is there something rather than nothing? THUS: The final question remains. Can science be detrimental to the Christian faith? If faith is taken to be merely an epistemological category of the order of belief and knowledge, science may turn out to provide legitimate and even better alternatives to some religious claims. But, if faith is taken to be meta-epistemological, implying trust in the ontologicity of God in Christ, and when mysteries are located in God's ontology beyond the scope of methodological understanding, then there is a legitmacy for faith. Moreover, such a faith could contribute to science in a meaningful manner, particularly in preventing the scientific enterprise to develop a "nothing buttery" stance, which is really detrimental to the spirit of scientific enterprise. Faith in God in Christ provides a perspective that prevents methodology, however successful it may be, to determine ontology. For who can dare to claim that X is nothing but it is understood to be through human methodology, in the light of the acknowledgement of the Omniscient! We do know, but in part. Lyman C.D. Kulathungam _______________________________ 1 Leo N. Tolstoy. "My Confession" in The Complete Works of Leof N. Tolstoi. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., N.Y. 1899. p.12. 2 Paul Davies. God and the New Physics, First published by Dent & Sons 1983. Penguin ed. 1990. (All citations from Penguin ed) p.5. 3 Ibid - Preface p.p. viii-ix. 4 Ian G. Barbour. Issues in Science and Religion. S.C.M. Press Lond. 1966, p.25. 5 Ibid p. 28. 6 Isaac Newton. Preface to the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica 1686, as found in Charles Eliot (ed); Prefaces and Prologues of Famous Books. Vol. 39, Harvard Classics, N.Y.: P.F. Collier & Son, 1901. pp. 158-9. 7 Barbour op. cit. pp. 58-59. 8 Paul Churchland. Matter and Consciousness. Rev. ed. M.I.T. U.S.A., 1990. p.96. 9 Werner Heisenbčrg. Physics and Philosophy: Revolution in Modern Science. N.Y. Harper PB. p. 200. 10 Ibid p. 200. 11 Ibid p. 200. 12 Rudolf Carnap. The Unity of Science. As reprinted in Robert Beck: Perspectives in Philosophy. N.Y.: Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1961. P. 256. 13 Ibid p. 257. 14 Ibid p. 261-2. 15 A.J. Ayer. Logic, Language and Truth. Lond.: Dover Publications 1952. p. 115. 16 Paul Davis (op.cit) pp. 51, 62. 17 Carl Hempel. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in Philosophy of Science. N.Y.: The Free Press, Collier-MacMillan Land, 1965. 18 William Dray. Laws and Explanation in History. Oxford Univ. Press, 1964. [Dray questions the use of Covering Laws Model in historical explanation.] Karl R. Popper. The Poverty of Historicism. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1957. 19 Paul Davies. Op. cit. P. 62. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid pp. 59, 61. 22 Ibid pp. 63-70. 23 Ibid p. 70. 24 Ibid pp. 72-78. 25 Ibid pp. 133-4, 223. 26 Paul Tillich: Dynamics of Faith. Harper Brothers, N.Y. 1957. pp. 31, 33. 27 Ibid pp. 4,5. 28 John Marshall. "The Case Against Experimentation" in Experiments on Embryos. A. Dyson & J. Harris (eds). London: Routledge, 1990. 29 Karl Popper. Conjectures and Refutations. N.Y.: Basic Books, 1963. pp. 33-59. 30 Refer to section on Linguistic Reductionism. 31 A.J. Ayer. Op. cit. 32 John Wisdom. "Gods" in Anthony Flew (ed). Essays on Logic and Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell & Mott, 1951. pp. 187-206. 33 Ibid p. 215. 34 Kolak, Daniel: In Search of God: The Logic and Language of Belief. CA: Wadsworth, 1994. p. 214. 35 Davies. Op cit. pp. 214-217. 36 Kolak. Op cit. p. 213. 37 Davies. Op cit. p. 217.