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by R. Rushdoony Modern Science is a product of a Biblical view, with its belief in God and the world under God's law. Without that substructure, science will quickly disintegrate.
False Authority
Science teaching is made more than normally important, because science in the modern world has for many replaced God as the source of authority. In one field after another, appeal is made to the authority of science; in religion, in the forms of modernism; in education, in progressivist theory; and so on. If we fail to teach science properly, we will only enhance its false authority and obscure its use. For a Christian, the task of instruction is made simpler by the fact that the biblical, Hebrew word for instruction, Torah, means both law and instruction. For us, all things in every sphere are under an ultimate and fundamental law, God's law, and education is instruction in that law order. Modern science is a product of a Biblical world view, with its belief in God and the world under God's law. Without that substructure, science will quickly disintegrate.
science was seen as a means of fulfilling God's command to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth.
Humanist Science
The Christian and the non-Christian approach the universe differently and hence they define it differently. The humanist believes this world is all there is. Life is defined chemically and physiologically, within totally naturalistic confines. They reason that if the reality of our world is entirely natural, then definition is relatively easy. Given enough time, all things can be defined after sufficient research, dissection, experimentation, or study. From a Christian perspective, this is not true. Leviticus 17:11 makes clear that life is "in the blood" but it is even more clear that life is not from the blood, but from God. (Genesis 2:7). To understand life we must look beyond life to God. Definition has to be more than naturalistic: it goes beyond us and our world, and is thus in essence impossible. For us, therefore, science is not definitive but descriptive and theological. Science will become more productive if it abandons its goal to define naturalistically (which leads to theoretical science) and limits itself to description in terms of theological premises.
Limits of Science
The theological foundation also means a realistic view of scientific goals. Because God is God. this means simply that "With God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26). If the physical universe is the ultimate, then it follows logically that, "With nature, all things are possible!!" Because humanistic scientists operate on this premise, they are ever ready to experiment or to hypothesize in areas known to be impossible from scientific experience. Thus, science tells us that spontaneous generation is not possible, and yet it is necessary in evolutionary thought. Because infinite potentiality is ascribed, not to God but to nature, this impossibility is regarded as only impossible in the present; in infinite time, the infinite potentiality of nature will overcome all limitations.
Science Frauds
Because, for humanistic science, all potentiality belongs to nature, it is easy for humanistic scientists to read their beliefs into their research. The result is a massive trend to scientific fraud in experimentation. This is not new, as witness the drawings of the development of the human embryo by Haeckel in the last century. Science Digest (June 1977) has called attention to the high percentage of frauds in reported scientific experiments. The attitude of such researchers apparently is that, 'if it isn't true now, it soon will be'.
Following a 10-month investigation, officials of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine revealed last week that a c never actually synthesized. Based on the falsified claims made by a former employee in the patent application private industry.
References
1. Francis A. Yates: "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition" New York: Random House Vintage Books. (1964) 1969. 2. R J. Rushdoony: "The Mythology of Science" p.76f, Nutley, New Jersey, The Craig Press. (1967) 1976.