After speaking with many skeptics you will undoubtedly come across someone who will pit science against faith. They will claim that we Christians have “faith” but they have “science”, as if there is some sort of dichotomy between the two and you can’t hold to both.
The claim holds that “science is the only way to prove anything” otherwise you’re just believing something you can’t prove, hence their definition of faith. First, faith is trusting where the evidence leads, and second, believing science is the only way to prove something is called scientism.
So, Whattaya Do?
When the skeptic claims “I only believe what science can prove”, ask them “what scientific experiment did you do that taught you that?”
Saying “I only believe what science can prove” is a philosophical statement, and therefore self defeating!
Ironically, we can use philosophical evidence and historical evidence to prove things that science can’t prove.
Science cannot prove that what the Nazi’s did to Jews in Germany was wrong.
Science cannot prove that something can’t come from nothing.
Science cannot prove that the scientific method is the only way to prove something!
Apologist William Lane Craig in his debate against atheist Dr. Peter Atkins describes five things that science can’t prove listed here:
-
1. Logical and mathematical truths cannot be proven by science. Science presupposes logic and math; to try to prove them by science would be arguing in a circle.
-
Metaphysical truths such as that there are other minds other than my own or that the external world is real or that the past wasn’t created five minutes ago with the appearance of age.
-
Ethical beliefs about statements of value are not accessible by the scientific method. You can’t show by science whether the Nazi scientists did anything in the camps that is evil as opposed to the scientists in western democracies.
-
Aesthetic judgments cannot be accessed by the scientific method because the beautiful, like the good, cannot be scientifically proven.
-
Science itself. Science cannot be justified by the scientific method. Science is permeated by improvable assumptions. For example, in the special theory of relativity, the whole theory hinges on the assumption that the speed of light is constant in a one-way direction from point A to point B, it must be assumed.