TSAWTB Section 6 - Interlude - A Miscellany of Items

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Section 6 - Interlude 285 (3) The Christian is conscious that he must take full responsibility for his actions and that ultimately he will be held accountable to God. This involves the concept that man has been created as a special being who can relate to God, unlike animals. Only then does he have true significance and an active and responsible part to play in the running of the world. For adherents of other faiths, their future is already predetermined, and whilst they may be urged to perform good works, such admonitions are swamped by the pervasive attitude of fatalism when they contemplate their ultimate, unchangeable end. Such an attitude is a powerful barrier to a zealous investigation of the world in which they find themselves. (4) The Christian is free to investigate the universe for the real underlying causes of its workings. By discovering these basic rules, he is able to predict the outcome of certain situations and conditions. Thus, experiments can be conducted the results of which can be used for the benefit of man. Other faiths may make a priori explanations of natural events; i.e. the imposition of fables (or the activities of the gods) to “explain” events. For example, in astrology the heavens are considered as alive or divine - they are the habitation of the gods who control man’s destiny. This leads to passivity again as there is little point in trying to change what has been determined by “the gods”. Scientific astronomy could not arise from such a preconception. This prescribing of an event to some previous “fabulous” activity gives the impression that the “cause” of an event is known, and it therefore prevents the proper investigation of the event to ascertain the real cause. (5) Nature is separate from God and it is to be investigated as part of God’s command to man to subdue and have dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:28). The pantheistic view of the world (i.e. even inanimate material has “life” within it) gives nature a false, human-like identity with the implication that man should disturb it as little as possible. Another false view is that the world is unreal. The aim is to achieve spiritual passivity (“Nirvana”) and the world is only an illusion. No one who holds such views will bother to investigate what he does not believe exists. (6) Christianity has the right balance between reason and faith. The religious leaders should not reject the findings of true science. Equally, scientists need to be aware of the limitations of their sphere of enquiry. They must heed the superior claims of Christianity which alone has the broadest understanding of God’s purpose and will, of which science is but one part. .......... The basic concepts of life held by members of other religions have been laid down by their religious leaders - with all the faults and errors outlined above. Any questioning of principles is likely to result in rejection, persecution and even death. In contrast, the True Christian is free to make what enquiries he will. Differences of opinion will not result in persecution, but should provoke open and honest discussion in order to determine the truth of the subject. Where such truth is earnestly sought, God will always be found at the end of it - for “All truth is God’s truth.” Snow reviews the major religions - Chinese Buddhism, Hindu and Muslim - and shows that while they had varying degrees of most of the failings listed above, some had one or more that particularly obstructed the development of a true scientific discipline. The Chinese had the concept of Yin and Yang that overruled all life and they held to the unreality of the world. The Hindus were pantheists, devotees of astrology and considered the world an illusion.
286 Section 6 - Interlude The Muslim religion is free from several of the listed weaknesses and initially produced important books on mathematics, medicine and astronomy, but there was little development after 1200 AD. Snow ascribes this to their theologians emphasising the Koran’s teaching on the absolute (and arbitrary) will of God as distinct from his reason (see 6 above). Some Islamic philosophers also held to Aristotle’s misleading teachings which similarly plagued Christian thinking for centuries. It was only when these were eventually overthrown that real progress could be made. Snow says that Islam had no equivalent to Thomas Aquinas who made a philosophical separation between nature and God. However, as Shaeffer has shown, this unfortunately resulted in the eventual dominance of humanistic nature (i.e. Science) over theology as we have today. We will show that it was the Puritan faith that had the right balance between doctrine and reason that was to be the real source of the scientific revolution. Thus, no other religion could have possibly given rise to modern day science. This should be a sobering thought to any scientist who is not a Christian, for, whether they realise it or not, when they conduct their experiments, they must temporarily abandon the basic tenets of their faith and adopt a Christian viewpoint of nature. The importance of our concept of God We would emphasise this dependence of science upon a nation’s concept of God. That great preacher, A.W. Tozer, in the opening words of his book “The Knowledge of the Holy”, made one of the most penetrating and thoughtprovoking observations this author has ever read when he said: What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than it’s concept of God. Worship is pure or base as its worshipper entertains high or low thoughts of God. In parallel with this high view of God, the Westminster Shorter Catechism states: God is a Spirit who is infinite, eternal and unchanging in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. No other religion can match such a sublime description of the attributes of the supreme Triune God of the Universe. Today, there are attempts to return science to an Eastern way of thinking by adopting the teachings of Zen Buddhism, etc. If successful, it will be interesting to see how long scientific progress can survive such a change of its foundations. In addition, the New Age movement is promoting a pantheistic view of the earth. By a strange, but characteristic, twisting of logic, they now blame Christianity as the cause of the misuse of science that has resulted in ecological damage. That it gave rise to the modern benefits that all New Age followers enjoy is ignored - as is only to be expected in any irrational concept of God’s world. After the giving of the Gospel of Christ and the liberating freedom it provided, Europe was plunged into the appropriately named “Dark Ages” for many centuries when superstition was rampant. It was only when the Bible was made available in their mother tongue that people realised that God was benevolent and unchanging and gave every man
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TSAWTB Section 6 - Interlude - A Miscellany of Items

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