Preparing for the Miraculous

126 eleven talksvalue of any theory of physics has changed that outlookcompletely, and led to the realization that the science of tomorrowmay be quite different from the science of today.6. In science all guesses, hypotheses or theories have to betested as to their truth and validity.This was the principle of the unconditional necessityof the experiment which has remained and will remain forevervalid. The need of the experiment was the direct consequenceof the doubt of any affirmations by any authority,until the Renaissance so docilely accepted in all places oflearning and teaching. The “natural philosopher” (as IsaacNewton still called himself) became an experimenter whocommunicated the results of his findings to other experimenters;they, in their turn, could then examine and try torepeat them. The experiment is at the heart of the “scientificmethod.” It was the experiment, supported by novelscientific instruments, that opened a whole new world firstin cosmology and physics, then in biology.The intellectual adventure of the Renaissance evolvinginto the Enlightenment, also called “the Age of Reason,” isone of the great episodes in the history of a part of humanity,Western Europe, which would become of importanceto the whole of it. It was a struggle to bring life in phasewith reality, more particularly material reality, this againsta religious worldview which disdained life on Earth andsupported its dogmatic affirmations with a literature frombygone times, outmoded despite being declared the eternalWord of God. It seems rather paradoxical that the Biblethroughout the history of Christianity remained intertwinedwith the “heathen” literature and philosophy ofthe ancient Greeks and Romans. The Renaissance broughtthese classical treasures to the fore again, and the Enlightenmentwould rely on them as the basis for its humanisticoutlook on life.