Current Events Monday: What Does “Trust the Science” Mean?
From a political perspective, the term “Trust the Science” seems to invoke tremendous division. Pundits and professionals may use the phrase often either for rhetorical flourish or for garnering a larger following. Suffice it to say, we will definitely steer clear of politics in this article! It is our aim however to go beyond minced words and cultural rhetoric to examine the popular phrase under a theological microscope.
“Trust the Science,” as a turn-of-phrase, is not particularly new to the Covid-19 pandemic. The kind of science that we are urged to trust today has roots planted firmly in Greco-Roman soil in which the ability to reason and become more rational beings is said to enhance our quality of life. A certain philosopher of the Enlightenment era, Rene Descartes, catapulted this line of thinking to the top of the Western cultural mountain when he said, “I think, therefore I am,” meaning essentially that we must doubt everything that is not self-evident, reasonable, or provable. Descartes’ philosophy provides the mechanism then for our setting out on a methodical journey to know about life with more absolute certainty. It also however creates a chasm between “faith” and “knowing.” In other words, conventional cultural wisdom says that science incorporates something provable and not requiring faith, while Christianity deals only in what is called the metaphysical, or that which is not subject to the modern scientific method and therefore irrelevant.
Fortunately for Christians, some deep thinkers have poked sufficient holes in Descartes philosophy and those who came before him. For instance, a brilliant scientist named Michael Polanyi argues convincingly that faith cannot be separated from knowledge. He asserted that human beings can never achieve full, infallible knowledge of any given subject. So, even trusted, highly accurate statements of enlightened scientific research are, at the end of the day, statements of faith in something. We cannot know something with absolute certainty! A protégé of Polanyi named Trevor Hart, puts it this way: “Truth cannot be fully grasped but it can be tested.”
From the standpoint of Polanyi and Hart, Christianity and science can converse on a much more congenial level. But how? Some humility among people of both the Christian and scientific community would be helpful. For instance, both groups find commonality in believing in the existence of absolute truth. We must become humble enough however to admit that we cannot find certainty in the truth through our highly attuned reasoning skills alone. We all see through a glass dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12) because we are fallen, fallible human beings. We need Someone bigger than us! Be it our fight against a pandemic or cancer, we must therefore test hypotheses, see what works and what doesn’t, and do so from a perspective that holds something called “imperialism” at bay. Imperialism is the attitude that my way is right, and I will force you to believe like me.
Think of what could happen when and if both imperialistic Christians and scientists lay down their arms and ratchet down the rhetoric against one another. Strong arming people into our way of thinking is not only coercive but usually leads to nothing of relational value. As a Christian, therefore, I choose to trust the science…but with a caveat. I trust that which allows room for inviting God into the conversation. May He give to us all the faith to explore, to test, to debate, to succeed, to fail, and ultimately to see things as they really are.