Every so often an Unbeliever comes along who shows he is aware of his assumptions and pre-commitments. It does not happen very often. The cry of our age is, "Just the facts, ma'am." We just focus upon facts and follow wherever they take us. The problem with this is that our presuppositions have already determined what will be accepted as fact, and what will be discarded.
For example, the Christian is predisposed to accept the existence of the God revealed in the Scriptures. Therefore, His revelation of Himself is factual, objectively and eternally so. It is true truth. The Unbeliever is predisposed to deny the existence of God. Therefore, he regards the Bible as anti-factual or non-factual or mythical. The Unbeliever's presuppositions have already determined not only what the facts will be but also how and where they will be discovered or learnt. So Unbelief is plagued by two self-deceits. The first is that it believes it has no fundamental suppositions or presuppositions. The second is that it believes Unbelief is objective: it follows the facts wherever the facts lead.
But then again, every so often an Unbeliever comes along who is self-conscious about these things and admits them to himself and the world. Such an Unbeliever is self-consciously presuppostional in the way that he thinks and operates--which is to say, he is more honest than the "just the facts, ma'am" brigade.
Harvard geneticist, Richard Lewontin is one such.
In an article arguing for the superiority of science over religion . . . Lewontin freely admits that science has its own problems. It has created many of our social problems (like ecological disasters), and many scientific theories are no more than "unsubstantiated just-so stories." Nevertheless, "in the struggle between science and the supernatural," we "take the side of science." Why? "Because we have a prior commitment to materialism." [Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999), p. 96. (Emphasis, ours).]This "prior commitment to materialism" is not factual; it is a religious commitment that makes modern Unbelieving science atheistic in its procession. But Unbelieving science also, apart from more honest brokers like Lewontin, wilfully obscures its presuppositions, and claims instead that it is only driven by the facts, the empirical data, to its conclusions.
And there is more, for Lewontin says even the methods of science are driven by materialistic philosophy. The rules that define what qualifies as science in the first place have been crafted by materialists in such a way as to ensure they get only materialistic theories. Or, as Lewontin puts it, "we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations." (Ibid.)This, as Colson and Pearcey observe, is a stunning admission. But it is stunning only in its honesty and candidness, not in its substance. What Lewontin is describing is both known and expected by Believers. Unbelief reasons in a vicious circle: circular because we are creatures, vicious because the Unbelieving circle turns upon self. To put it crudely, Unbelieving science produces Unbelieving facts, theories, and explanations. Believing science produces Believing facts, theories, and explanations.
There is a popular saying to the effect that one may be entitled to one's own opinions, but not one's own facts. This is a naive oversimplification. How often have we been told that it is a fact that the world is warming? The temperature data proves it, we are informed. But the temperature data record is patchy, incomplete, and full of data holes. Therefore, temperature data is "adjusted", "interpolated" and "filled in". The facts are massaged. And the massaging has a number of assumptions built in which already pre-commit the masseuse to have the "facts" produce a certain pre-determined outcome--that is, the earth is warming.
The facts are not always what they seem, which is why credible science proceeds on the basis of testing, retesting, replication, and retesting again. But when everyone in the hen house is clucking the same sound, the rigour of replication often softens. The "apparatus of investigation" elides into an exercise to produce certain explanations and certain results that reinforce the consensus of the day.
The moral of the story is that whilst it is essential we talk about facts and empirical data, it is equally essential that we are aware of our philosophy of fact, and talk about that as well. Full disclosure is always be best policy. But Unbelief hates such notions because they skewer Unbelief's apparatus of self-deceit. That's one reason Unbelievers often get angry when debating with Christians.
The truth often hurts.
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