Cyclops, Open Your Other Eye

Below is a link to a nerd-riffic, truth-filled interview with philosopher and Notre Dame professor Alvin Plantinga about the purported conflict between science and religion.  LISTEN HERE; nerd out.

Plantinga gives a great response to the interviewers question: “Is there not a big part of your own personal, religious doctrine that depends on faith, taking a leap of faith, philosophically, and believing in certain things that can’t be scientifically proven?”

“… It’s not as if whatever is true, or sensible to believe has to be provable by virtue of science.  Science is absolutely wonderful, but it’s a limited endeavor.  It doesn’t cover the whole of the knowledge enterprise you might say.”

Cyber-fist-bump to Prof. Plantinga for not buying into the interviewer’s premise that having faith puts him in an untenable position.  Science’s job is to chase down mystery and hogtie it with a lasso of understanding…or whatever.  Science is useful when it’s applied to help understand and describe our world, but it becomes oppressive when it seeks to define our world.  There is a subtle, but critical difference there old chums…just like the difference between wisdom and knowledge, confidence and arrogance, chapstick and glue stick.  Confuse them at your peril.

Science, like art, or any subject, is just one lens on the world.  But science is a lens directly limited by our senses and technology (which could be considered an extension of our senses).  Should we allow technology to govern of our beliefs?  Art can easily be seen as useless, but I think it often serves a purpose of filling in where language, science, and even our senses fall short.  There’s plenty of debate about what is and is not art, and what is and is not good art.  I think good art makes a direct, jumper-cable-like connection between the author’s spirit, and the viewer’s spirit.  It’s an unintelligible grunt from the soul of the author that is heard and processed as an intelligible statement by the viewer.  It can bypass language and the need for language to communicate it’s message.  I think good art also has some mystery to it.  It is everything that science is not.  I think that’s why I like the view through the lenses of science and art.  It makes for good contrast.

To think that something should only be believed until it can be proven seems short- sighted, even arrogant. What about headaches and emotions?  If we can’t prove their existence does that mean others’ shouldn’t believe we have them? And U.V. light?  Would scientists scoff at the belief that there is U.V. light that we cannot directly observe if technology didn’t exist that could not yet confirm it?  That would be like claiming, “The universe ends at the horizon, because I cant see beyond it.”  The notion that something isn’t to be believed until it’s been vetted by science is bogus.  So keep your (other) eye open.   Also, while we’re on the subject, store your chapstick and glue sticks in different drawers.