The American Crisis: Defined
Journal Entry #15
Democratic institutions require that citizens think for themselves…and decide issues on the basis of deliberation and the weighing of evidence. – Irving M. Copi; Introduction to Logic; Sixth Edition; Preface.

We concluded the previous journal entry with a crucial question based upon James Burke’s insightful explanation of the historical formation of Western knowledge, presented in his acclaimed book The Day The Universe Changed.

Insofar as our knowledge is formed by the accumulation of empirical evidence (that gained from external experience and observation) it becomes of crucial importance that we avoid the pitfalls of erroneous thinking and the wrong interpretation of the evidence. Such is essential to the integrity and reliability of the reasoning process generally, and to the scientific method particularly.

Mr. Burke tells us that the ‘knowledge’ we possess structures quite literally everything we subsequently do and think- “architecture, music, literature, science, economics, art, politics”- because it tells us the truth. Over time, however, as a result of scientific discovery or technological advancement the widely accepted truth changes and with it, what is ‘known’ about the universe.

As understanding of the universe and of earth advanced and new truths were discovered- which affected our ‘knowledge’- the question arose whether it was possible for the intellect to declare something true that really is not? Is such a thing conceivable in the context of our modern notion of intellectual progress, achieved through the positive methods of a vigorously advancing science?

We do not refer here to the occasional lapse in thinking, which is quite common, easily recognized and soon corrected. Rather, we are concerned with the “latest version of how the universe functions.” And whether, as we observe nature, “like the people of the past…we see what we want to see, according to what we believe we know about it at the time.” That is to say, by means of a preconceived notion or view about nature, man and God we determine prematurely what is real and what is not: “Like our ancestors, we know the real truth.”

The answer to our crucial question is most definitely yes, the possibility exists of an ill-conceived and erroneously established ‘truth’ in Western thought. The wrongly established truth that has gained dominance and subsequently misdirected modern thought goes by the name of materialism, which simply is defined as the tendency to regard the material world as the ultimate reality.

Originally, the philosophical tendency that emerged in the Renaissance to look to more naturalistic explanations to describe and understand nature and mankind, was greatly enhanced by the perspective that said “all the measurable objects of the universe are material objects”. Gaining ever greater prestige and authority by the time of the European Enlightenment, this perspective was enlarged to state that “all the objects of the universe are material objects”.

The latest version of truth about the universe by which we now live got its systematic start in 1687, with the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica. In it were enunciated his differential and integral calculus- for measuring inertia and gravitational force involved in planetary dynamics- as well as his formulation of the theory of universal gravitation.

In essence, Isaac Newton’s Principia “gave rise to a mechanical philosophy in which nature was conceived as a law-bound system of matter in motion, every state of the system proceeding from previous states by mathematical rule” according to Professor John Greene, in Darwin and The Modern World View.

James Burke observes that with the advent of Newtonian science, “the theory of universal gravity…destroyed the medieval picture of the world as a structure moved by the unseen but ever-present hand of God…There seemed, for the first time, no place in the cosmos for the providential involvement of God in the affairs of mankind.”

Today all human thought and behavior, along with every object and process in nature is reduced to a materialist view of the universe, something we term reductionism. It’s not the case that science declares only material objects necessarily exist; but certainly that only matter and its various processes, interactions and associations have any relevance and bearing on our physical realm.

It is here that our crucial- indeed, essential question enters into our discussion. Should science revisit and reconsider a strictly materialist perspective, in the possibility that it might be wrong? Or, does science consider itself above error? Further, because science hasn’t yet asked this question about its conclusions, and therefore has imposed no order upon its method, are we justified in saying that science operates arbitrarily?

And how would science reconcile its conclusions with the decidedly nonmaterial statement from the Protestant Reformation which asserted that “Christianity is the immortal seed of freedom of the world”.