I think you just proved that it’s impossible to commit the sin of pride
.
But surely this is playing with words - the truth is that if we are certain we’re certain then our mind is closed while if we are certain we’re doubtful then our mind is open.
We are not the lord of nature and so we cannot ordain how nature behaves, therefore we cannot be certain of what it will do.
I just finished watching
The Magician’s Twin on YouTube. It is a documentary about CS Lewis’ view on scientism and the limits of scientific knowledge.
Well worth watching.
There are two thoughts that your post triggered in my mind.
1) The Euthyphro dilemma can be applied to ourselves epistemologically.
Are things good because God wills them or does God will them because they are good. Thomism argues that it is not either/or but both/and.
As it pertains to knowledge:
Are things true because God knows them or does God know them because they are true?
Thomism, again, would argue, “Why can’t it be both?”
As pertains to human knowledge:
Are things true because we know them to be true or do we know them to be true because they are true?
This may seem a vacuous statement, but it seems to me that both would have to obtain if true human knowledge were possible.
**2) Knowledge of other persons, in a subjective sense, has to be of a fundamentally different kind of knowledge from scientific knowledge. **We cannot “know” another person as a person by carrying out the scientific method on them.
The reason is because to be motivated do so fundamentally entails an attempt to control or manipulate them in some way and, therefore, is an infringement of their dignity.
Here’s why:
Suppose I invite a friend to attend a gathering. They politely refuse. I could continue the conversation by asking why they refused, but what would be my motivation to do so?
To find out the reason for their refusal. Okay, but again, what would be my motivation to know that?
It seems to break down to two possibilities. Either
A) to persuade them to change their mind and so to attempt to override their decision by persuasion, i.e., to manipulate their choice in some way
B) to simply get to know them better as a person; to find out what moves them.
To be motivated by the second possibility and only the second entails an implicit respect for the autonomy of the other person. However, to be moved by the first possibility seems to entail a kind of disrespect for the autonomy of the other person because the information is sought with the intent of imposing one’s own will on the other.
It seems to me that scientism approaches knowledge about the reality around us, with the assumption of disrespect for its autonomy. That having greater knowledge about the world is, itself, the permission granted to manipulate the world simply because we have grasped it. That assumption is built into another assumption, that the “universe” or what is behind it, is essentially not personal and therefore we have some inherent right to trespass and impose our will on it.
However, why do we have a right to assume that before we find out if, indeed, the universe is ours to do with as we will?
The garden is seemingly unowned and therefore we can trespass and do with it as we will.
Scientism presumes that we do have that right. Lewis’ question here is very important. By what means to we determine the “will” by which we impose change upon the universe as we find out more about it. Surely just knowing how it works, in itself, is insufficient for determining how we will use that knowledge.
Which brings me to the answer to the thread question.
What science cannot tell us is what to do with the knowledge that we gain by means of science. Where does the knowledge to answer that question come from? Is that not an even more fundamental question than any question that science can answer?
