No one, at least no one that I know, likes to be lied to. This seems to be a universally held belief. Everyone thinks their worldviews are correct, but if these worldviews conflict, especially on moral issues like aborttion and sexuality, does this mean that it's all just a matter of opinion? Can we truly know anything with absolute certainty? It can be scary if we start thinking about it for too long.
As René Descartes observed in the 17th century, knowledge can deceive us, especially our senses. Mirages, deja vu, phantom limb syndrome, all of these things can play tricks on the mind. Ok, so the quest for certainty can seem quite bleak in that regard, but we can still trust science, right? Well, yes and no. Let me be clear here, science is a wonderful thing, and Christianity has championed the sciences through figures like Gregor Mendel (father of genetics), Louis Pasteur (pasteurization), and Fr. George Lemaitre (inventor of the originally Big Bang theory), but it cannot be the ultimate source of knowledge, because as I will elaborate in my next post, science can't tell us everything. Science can't tell us about love, only that it's apparently a neurological response in the brain from experiencing something we enjoy; and while it's possible that following Darwinian evolutionary theory could lead to humanity flourishing in harmony, it could just as easily advocate for the survival of the fittest, that the strong should dominate the weak. Science can't answer moral dilemmas, because morality answers questions of what the world should be like, and science answers questions of how the world simply is. That's not a flaw of the scientific method. Asking science to answer a moral dilemma is asking science to do something it simply isn't designed to do.
After discussing the pros and cons of reason for a bit, I will always state that Christians should show Christianity to be reasonable. Why? God gave us brains, that's why. It's one of the few things that sets us apart from the animals. A monkey can't develop a scientific hypothesis after all. Jesus himself said "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). We aren't supposed to be casting aside our brains when we enter the church or start thinking about spiritual matters. Any good theologian will tell you that good theology is founded on good philosophy. So ask the big questions. How am I supposed to live my life? What does it mean to be a human being? How do I know my beliefs are true?
Who knows, you just might find yourself drawing closer to Jesus in the process.
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