After taking a very long, unplanned, break from my blog, I see that I have left a series of posts dangling for all to see. Hopefully this post will finish it and I can begin writing things that have been growing in my mind.
It would seem that, given its importance in the foundation of our worldview, that we can apply religion wherever we want it, in any field of thought. While this is true to a certain extent, it is not inherently valid.
Consider the field of science. Can we take the Bible and make scientific hypotheses that can be tested and experimented upon? No. Science must be built upon human experience. While the principles that we discover from human experience were laid down by the Creator, they do not come from the Bible.
This was the main problem with the religious establishment during the period mentioned in the previous post. The Church is not supposed to make any pretensions upon Science. We derive philosophy from religion, and science from experience. The Bible makes no claim to be a scientific textbook.
Likewise, Science should not make any pretensions upon the Church. That is the main problem with the scientific establishment today. We cannot possibly derive life's purpose from the General Theory of Relativity. We cannot allow scientific data to decide what we believe about God.
Of course, our faith should never collide with valid science. The Creator of the Universe did not use erroneous principles when writing to His people.
The bottom line: When in doubt about philosophy, go back the Bible. When in doubt about science, go back to human experience. Make no attempt to confuse the two.
