A Sacred Suspicion of Truth: Part 2
We cannot gather truth apart from Belief and Faith, which are the sails that propel our vessel of empirical Truth into the harbors of Knowledge.
There is sense of division in American society. Many people believe it results from a turbulent political climate. That is true to an extent. But most people I meet are apolitical. I must conclude, then, that our disagreements result more from personal and tribal indoctrination than mere political preference and unrest. Societal initiatives, once revered and praised, have taken on a contagion of scorn and disrespect: distortion of language, redefining words, the corruption of biological sex, distain for religion, and a detested dilution of the Christian message. All have become weaponized in overt efforts to bring down the traditional moral order and social structure.
Justification
And this brings us to the heart of the problem. The Principle of Uniformity of Nature rests upon the undying conviction that Nature’s laws are regular, orderly, uniform, and predictable. But the concern still remains: how are we to justify it and induction? How do we justify what to the heart appear so obviously right but to the mind a logical contortion without hope of straightening? We can suppose that justification, if it exists, must be derived from deduction, but the Principle of Uniformity of Nature is contingent, and deduction is concerned only with necessary truths. Neither can it be supported by induction; arguing that since it has always served us well in the past, it will do so now and into the future. That will only lead us to a dead-end circulus vitious by begging the question and merely to assume precisely what we wish to prove.
We are left with a predicament: a shadow is cast not only over the uncertainty of inductive conclusions but forces us to question the very principle from which those uncertainties are inferred. If science cannot be proven “inductively it cannot be proven scientifically,” for clearly that is but a mere attempt to judge the “scientific method by the scientific method.”
This is not some trivial concern for science cranked out by some logical, illusionist’s trickery. The epistemological problem is forever insolvable; no matter how complex we design our argument there can never be a guarantee that phenomena, though apparently regular, will remain so. All empirical claims voiced by the scientific method are called into question. According to Hume its implication upon human reason was so dire that in the end it compelled him to conclude that we can never really know anything at all! I hardly think the situation so drastic as that: if it were true, I can only ask the rather obvious question how he came to know it. But it does mean, however, that scientists like Mr. Dawkins ought to temper the care-free weight placed upon conclusions with at least a hint of humility.
A modified scientific method can fortunately, to a degree, legitimately work around the implications of induction. The problem is purely logical, that is, it places fundamental constraints on what can be proved. But to ignore it, as some Atheists quite happily do, is to carry on the questionable practice of esteeming empirical evidence as representing absolute truth while thwarting unobserved facts as superfluous. Their indelible impression upon the layman is that the reach of scientific knowledge extends to everything except, well, everything. Perhaps no other field of science will agree more completely with this assessment than the very knowledgeable Theoretical Physicists of quantum mechanics, who’s astounding insights into reality make them humbler by the day.
Hypotheses and Falsification
But if scientific claims and theories are to be distinguished from non-scientific or metaphysical claims it cannot be ignored. The following examples may be helpful for determining the validly of theoretical propositions. The first is the familiar and simple hypotheses, “All swans are white.” Proving this hypothesis will require us to do the impossible. That is, observe each and every instance of this sleek beauty. However, a sufficient number of consistent observations of the color white, can and ought to instill confidence that all swans truly are white and thus, while not proving, will at least verify our hypothesis. And we will rightly maintain this confidence until, of course, some contrary observation is made, such as a black swan.
Or, again, the course of diagnostic medicine (my backyard) unfolds in the form of a hypothesis; and finds support, or not, from presented symptoms and clinical testing. A patient presenting with lethargy, muscular and joint stiffness will direct the hypothesis of influenza. Of course, numerous symptoms are associated with influence; the patient may present some while failing to present others. A sufficient number gathered as evidence will, however, provide confidence in the diagnosis. But when added to this evidence is the revelation that diagnostic testing for influence A and B proves negative, this contrary observation will clearly undermine support for the hypothesis (the diagnosis).
Both examples will seem to plea for the notion that when establishing the truth or falsehood of a hypothesis, verification is not nearly so valuable as falsification. More precisely, it is neither convenient nor feasible to make any and every observation for verification, but it is feasible, and certainly possible, to make a contrary observation or a sufficient number of them which will falsify and, hence, undermine the hypotheses. Indeed, in the world of diagnostic medicine it is most often the case that a method which “rules out” a disease process is all the more lucrative than the many ways for verifying it. Saying it is “ruled out” is equivalent to saying it is false.
Back to our swans, at one time it was herald as indisputably true that all swans are white -until a black swan was in fact observed in Australian waters. A scientific claim, supported by the evidence, which has not been proven false is, thus, a claim considered scientific knowledge. Every law and theory, supported by the facts, will be assumed true until such time, if ever, it is falsified. And this brings us to a well-earned epistemic conclusion: falsification is the key to justification. A scientific claim that successfully defends against all attempts is, therefore, justifiably “true.”
The philosopher, Karl Popper, first suggested the above epistemology though not without criticism. To many scientists it is a radical methodology; and I freely grant merit to some of the arguments opposing it. They fairly deserve more space than I have here allotted. But may it suffice to only say, as a scientist, I see well enough there is about it a rather unappealing suggestion, particularly to the minds of many physicists: theories can enjoy confirmatory support through contingent verification but are never logically proved. And, yet, upon fair inspection, I find it overwhelmingly tempting to consider this may well be the unconscious algorithm upon which we have always, all along, measured success and failure.
A moment of reflection indicates that, in the long run, science is not ultimately about what can be proved, but about what can be known! We can, rightly, disagree with the extent of our known domain; but, by the occasion of falsification, no one will disagree about what is, therefore, already known to be false. So, everyone remains honest.
But if science is to proceed, the Principle of Uniformity of Nature must still find justification: it must not only be viewed as rational, but it is a necessary truth that it be so. Reason cannot get at it; the best Reason can do is use it to get at something else. Our conviction in the uniformity of Nature is so necessary we are left with no alternative but to concur it a self-evident truth; indeed, as the very axiom upon which all inductive reasoning must rest. If ever we refuse to assume this constancy to be always, and at all times, manifested in Nature – having, otherwise, no assurance that physical laws equally govern our nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, just assuredly as a star within the most distant galaxy- then the axiom must fall. And how great shall be that fall: for with it all knowledge through inductive reasoning, and, thus, science itself, will collapse like a tower of so many cards.
Principle of Uniformity of Nature
The point made is extreme. You cannot reason your way to the Principle of Uniformity of Nature, nor to any hypothesis, nor to any scientific Law. No mere combination of facts alone considered true of the universe we can see, can lead us to a universal law governing the parts we can’t. We cannot see the whole of this uniformity; we see the facts that suggest it and the mind anticipates the uniformity. As Brooks beautifully summarized, “We do not see the law; we see the facts and the mind thinks law.” Though we assert this uniformity as a truth, much disagreement surrounds our appraisal from where or from what it arises. Any attempt to resolve it as a mere convention of human experience always presupposes the very thing required as an explanation.
For Hume, it was conferred through custom and habit. But this is not thoroughly convincing. If the uniformity of Nature were congenial through a traditional habit of our mind, that is because we had always felt it something to which we ought to assent: if we did not feel that duty of assent, it could never become habit. To say a mental act is done by habit is only to state what the mind does always. It does not explain, nor even suggest, how we acquired the habit in the first place. We see something about this too remarkable to be ignored. The Principle of Uniformity of Nature is an inference drawn neither from induction or deduction; addressing things in their entirety we have neither observed nor experienced, as an interpretation or impression of the universe as it really must be. Clearly then, it is not a mere fact from our experience; and if we did not already bring it to our mind, we would not find it in either experience or habit. Neither can we rightly suppose it a principle arising from nature, for it is a premise about the whole of nature.
Either it is an illusion –an inexplicable kink in the way we think- or it is an insight by a mechanism we should only properly call Revelation. And if revealed not from Natural experiences, then one revealed from the Supernatural. We recognize it as so engrained in our nature that we have no recourse other than to accept it. And, yet it is never accepted on the basis of logical argument because it is not to be argued. It stands to us as a belief, reformulated into an intellectual assent; arising ab extra, beyond our natural experiences from what Plato pristinely characterized as a Scared Suspicion of Truth. It is not to be proved but believed. And so, we believe, though, try as we may, can never supply any convincing argument for it.
The heart quietly and willing adopts it as rational while the reason screams in protest. I am now going to assert that in the final, intellectual analysis, there never has been, and never can be, any controvertible difference between faith in common sense, science, and religion. And a stark irony follows: The Atheist scientist will discover that his campaign leads directly into the enemy camp. He must, as the Christian philosopher, William James, exhorts, somehow find the will to believe what cannot be proved.
But don’t expect a hasty, non-conditional surrender. Against this passional, plague of humanity he will attempt to find cure in the solace of objective evidence. Every scientific law and theory had origins in a hypothesis. Every worthy hypothesis is a working assumption, a supposition, or some principle believed to explain reality, but not certainly true. There is no such thing as a hypothesis having sufficient evidence. It is not evidence, but the blueprint for gathering it. As the evidence mounts, in concert with the facts, it may assume promotion to theory or law.
The Will to Believe
Every law, every theory, therefore, has origins in belief. And what will I say about objective truth? I propose that future predictions and experimentation may either further strengthen a theory or refute it. Absolute certitude is proportional to the number of conformational experiments; but there is always, however minimal, a chance it may be wrong. There is nowhere he can hide. For a Christian, belief is his redemption; for a confirmed Atheist, the end of it. The whole of science rests upon a belief which science itself is powerless to prove. In the early ages of the Enlightenment, belief may have well separated religion and applied science, while the reality of the matter at present rather points to it as the very thing uniting them.
Great hypotheses are colored through and through with Plato’s sacred suspicion. When Newton observed a falling apple, he must have anticipated, he must have believed, that the whole universe was full of bodies falling toward one another no differently than that apple fell to earth. His calculus, needed for verification, did not exist; and if he did not already believe that bodies do in fact similarly fall, he, perhaps, would never have created it. The sheer magnitude of insight whereby Einstein anticipated that time itself should be relative to speed of motion and gravitational strength within a fabric he called “space-time,” boggles comprehension. A notion that uniform motion, relative to inertial reference frames, will result in length contraction and time dilation, was for him a belief already settled through his “thought experiments.” A belief he eventually laid down in a formal theory. It is said that only a dozen people at the time understood his Relativity Theory; but practically everyone refused to believe it.
Both are sterling examples supporting a notion that at times our sentimental nature ought to take front stage. Our passion – our will to believe – is the unpaved road to Truth when Reason is uncertain of it. Belief not only can decide but must decide a proposition when reason alone is incapable. This doctrine has been chronicled with great eloquence by William James in The Will to Believe, by which my argument wonderfully benefits. You may view the following paraphrases as a compendium of his thesis that faith and belief are paramount for acquiring truth.
It ought to be quite clear that a hypothesis not believed is a hypothesis not pursued. Any determination of its worthiness quite often is made solely in relation to a thinker’s suspicion that it accurately represents reality. Some hypotheses succeed; others do not. But it is not the least bit obvious to our intellect alone which ones will fall to our feet and which will reach the stars. We can wrap our faith and hope round it and, perhaps, be considered a fool if it proves to be wrong. Or we can refuse it and hold out for “adequate evidence” being convinced it is always better to avoid error, even though we risk becoming a fool should it later be found correct.
Now, I think it little surprising that scientists will almost always prefer the latter. It is even admirable that they do so. But it is not an act without sacrifice. Those who rejected Relativity Theory may have done so entirely while persuaded that fear in committing error is preferable to any possible gain of truth. As I understand it, after Einstein published his work, some 19 years would pass before Relativity Theory would see its first meaningful verification. If a group of fools were to be found, they were found precisely within the circle of detractors rather than among the believers. There is, therefore, nothing inconceivable in the notion that apart from a pre-existing will to believe, a truth, if there, will elude us just assuredly as if we believed in no truth at all.
Evidence by Faith
Moreover, it frequently happens that the act of believing in a hypothesis will lead to the discovery of the facts needed to confirm it. And as the act of believing makes possible the facts, so the act is sometimes necessary to a proper treatment of their interpretations. The idea that scientific explanation ought in any way hinge on belief is rarely applauded. But I suspect this apathy mainly arises from seeing it as contrary to scientific orthodoxy while, oddly, its usefulness is taken for granted. Long ago scientists came to believe in an object that to this very day has never been seen or touched: the electron, and the subsequent mathematical abstracting of its nature, as both particle and wave, has made possible the present wealth of knowledge in physics, chemistry, biology, radiology, and befuddling quantum mechanics. Or again, gravitational lensing, the apparent shifting of a star’s position as a result of its light bending through warped space, finds a marvelous explanation from a belief in black holes.
There will be times, then, when waiting for concrete evidence is perhaps more illogical than adapting an active faith. Any opposing position, as a scientific doctrine, seems to me, therefore, quite fragile. So fragile, indeed, that when the doctrine of concrete evidence is applied to the experiences of human interactions it invariably vaporizes into an abysmal non-utility. You cannot even communicate with your neighbor apart from believing that your mind and his are both governed by the same Laws of Thought. As psychosocial creatures, James explains, nearly all our successful and lasting relationships are founded in mutually faithful interactions. Faith in the beloved is reciprocated and, hence, confirmed by faith in the lover. The smitten man whose courage fails; unable to believe his sentiment and passion is equally shared by her, cannot will the advance needed to break the silence. Unless he believes, in the moment, that in reaching out she will then reach toward; that his advance will be reciprocated evidencing that she too believes in the union, he will lose his prize just as assuredly as if time and fate had never destined the moment at all.
If the Christian hypothesis of God as Man is true- nay, if evidence of its truth is to be gathered at all - we ought to expect verification through means of an approach that, in some degree, mirrors our own personal interactions. If Christianity is true, it will be the sort of truth that comes only from willingly sticking out our necks, so to speak, in the form of a sympathetic faith. By faith we take the initiative; and belief makes the Living Truth evident. To stipulate that we error gravely in denying precedence to our pure intellect, preferring instead to act from insufficient evidence of faith is, therefore, absurd. To withhold faith is to withhold evidence. We begin to suspect, then, that Atheists, like Mr. Dawkins, simply has it wrong when telling us of our solemn duty to postpone, and to even refrain, form believing until objective certitude is secured.
But I don’t think evidence is here the real concern. For Mr. Dawkins, like any detractor, the Christian hypothesis is dead on arrival. From the outset it is held to be so irrational and detestable, that he can find no motive to inspect it. Passion and wishful thinking, he may exclaim, always serve to blind the eyes of rationality. All said beneath a demeanor which implies that he somehow is exempt from any exercise of passion. To the contrary, his passion is as strong and obvious as my own, though differently motivated: his from fear of believing what is false; mine from the hope of believing what is true. When he tells me it an intellectual advantage to eliminate passion, I refuse to subscribe. It seems all the more probable that his intellect, rather than collapsing all passion, has merely erected only one as precedence – the passion of fear. If I place my hope in Christianity as a viable hypothesis, I do so because, with James, I seriously doubt that becoming a fool through hope is really more inexcusable than becoming a fool through fear.
And, as I have said, to reject it is tantamount to rejecting the very rational truth to which it leads. As the law is behind the facts, so Christians say that The Word is the agency behind the law. If my belief in Christ as “existing before all things, and in Him all things consist,” is irrational; then so is my belief in the Principle of Uniformity of Nature and the Laws of Physics. If my belief that “in the beginning God created,” is irrational; then so is my belief in the Big Bang. If my belief that Christ and the Father are One, is irrational; then so is my belief that particle and wave are ultimately one and the same. Credo ut intelligam; I believe that I may understand.
Science is left with a disquieting and curious conclusion: empirical evidence is valueless apart from believing the scientific method as valid, which cannot itself be proven by science. I believe in objective certitude because I am prepared to acknowledge a sacred suspicion of truth. The very limitations of the human intellect would seem to suggest, however, that grasping it is a far rarer experience than we may wish to admit. And we often discover to our dismay that we should never had seen it all apart from the unclouded vision of the heart. “The heart has reasons that Reason knows not,” writes Pascal. To which I might add: absent the heart, absent the summit of Reason. And so, I am unprepared to assent to the popular, and ill-fated, notion that the glory of scientific methodology lies in irrefutable truth.
Indeed, I know of only one for which its single purpose lay solely in that solicitation. This is, of course, the science of pure mathematics with its unyielding, insistence on rigorous, formal proofs uniquely derived by way of mathematical induction. If you hope to establish irrefutable evidence, and, thus, justification, through any other mechanism, you will quickly discover your assurance in that direction thwarted. The very act of analyzing empirical data is unavoidably impeded and confined by what is called its limits of confidence.
But in closing, I will, however, take this opportunity to say the following with all confidence: it little burdens the mind in knowing that the Truth of Truths, as it fortunately comes, rarely needs exclusive conformation through prestigious journals or Nobel Prizes. Rather it frequently floats in as softly as the fine mist of an evening rain that will gently and unobtrusively fall all night long. It glides on the wings of a suspicion often hinted from the least of scholarly activities: during a solitary walk among a multi-colored autumn wood; during a brief moment of contrition in the low shadows of dawn’s light; or at reading the pages of a tattered, well used leather-bound Book. And it can hardly be otherwise for creatures such as we are. I find it not at all implausible that, if God should choose to restrict in some degree His means of communicating, He should prefer three language modes: Revelation, Holy Scripture, and Mathematics. And He will always speak the language you know best.
About me:
I am a retired Clinical Diagnostic Scientist, a Registered Nurse, and a life-long student of philosophy.
Heuristic Critiques is a collection of essays directed at restoring sanity to a number of leading, corrupted ideologies: politics, education and epistemology, religion and Faith, morality, language, reason and logic, transgenderism and gender identity, Wokeism, and Critical Race Theory. Topics examined are undergirded by my conviction that we exist within an objective, natural reality which is practically and logically independent of human minds, social interaction, and social constructs.