Man Can Seek Truth in Only 4 Ways
(Cohen and Nagel: An Introduction to Logic and the Scientific Method)

  • The Authority Method
    requires a trusted source.
  • The Scientific Method
    tests only repeatable, measureable physical phenomena
  • The Legal Method
    Judge/jury weigh witnesses & evidence
  • The Intuitive Method
    achieved by mind, will, emotions, & bias.
    		•

    • No single method is always best.

    • Each has limited scope and is best in different circumstances.

    • Legal method works if witnesses saw unrepeatable past events.

    • Intuition is most used and least trustworthy. Fine when consequences are minor.

    What is Authority?

    Most of what we believe came second-hand from other people whom we trusted to seek the truth —experts, teachers, parents. We don't have enough skill or time to verify every fact ourselves.

    The Authority method requires faith. The question is always: Whom will we trust? We may have no more skill or time to prove our chosen authority than we had to prove facts we accept from them, but we trust them —often for some unrelated reason.

    The authority we trust is often the one who got to us first. Once we trust an authority their ideas will resist later-arriving opponents —even if true. Once inside, both right and wrong ideas build defenses for themselves. In conflict we tend to stand up for our pre-chosen authority—right or wrong.

    In the creation debate we will choose either Scripture or man-made Science as our FINAL authority. Dual authority ultimately brings confusion. Wavering between two authorities makes us "unstable in all our ways."

    People unskilled in science cannot choose science as their truth method. Instead they choose fallible scientists as their Authority. The unskilled in Scripture can also trust fallible interpreters. Second-hand faith is always dangerous.


    Only One Authority Can Rule
  • Wanting equal Authority is rebellion and the cause of conflict.
  • Each person will choose his authority for personal reasons
  • We resolve truth-conflicts when one source rules.
  • The ruling source becomes the interpreter of the other.

  • Wannabe Authorities bring Conflict.
    - Scientists want their private interpretations of evidence to rule.
    - Theologians want their private interpretations of Scripture to rule.
    - Some want speculations, and "possible meanings" honored as truth.
    • The Dual Revelation Issue
    Two divine revelations provide truth about creation:
    1. Scripture 2. Physical Evidence.

  • Both sources came from the Creator.
  • God cannot lie in word or in evidence.
  • Therefore the two sources will agree when correctly interpreted.
  • Conflicts warn of error in human interpretation:
    —either in the meaning of Scripture or the meaning of evidence.

    • Bible Believers Choose Scripture as their Final Authority

    - They have already trusted their destiny to the words of this Book.
    - If the Bible tells lies anywhere, then can it be trusted at all?
    - It is the one book that claims to be the Creator's own revelation.
    - Scripture is the inerrant revelation of a God who cannot lie
    - Physical evidence was marred at the fall and changed during the flood.
    - Origins are first spiritual issues that physical evidence cannot resolve.

    Naturalism choses Evidence as its Final Authority
    NATURALISM
  • Believes that the natural world is the whole of reality and that there is no supernatural or spiritual creation, value, control, or significance: it holds that scientific laws can explain all phenomena. (Webster's)
  • Ignores the self-defined limitations of science.
  • Denies the Supernatural realm out-of-hand because it cannot see supernatural evidence.

      • Creationists reject Naturalism but Uphold True Science