> Most of you have probably heard the slogan "All truth is God's truth." We
> are inclined to use it in reference to God's common grace and the validity
> of the scientific process.
>
> I have two questions.
>
> 1. [...]
> 2. Do you agree with this quip as a useful principle for integrating
> science and faith? Used in a simplistic manner, it can be somewhat like
> answering any hard question in science with "because God made it that way"
> and that is not helpful. On the other hand, postmodernism has made me at
> least think harder about what I really mean by truth in science. My
> (Christian) friends in the social sciences are not too sure if they even
> like the word truth anymore when applied to their science. Truth in science
> is always tentative, I think. Maybe this slogan, "all truth is God's truth"
> rings too arrogantly.
I agree that "all truth is God's truth" would be a simplistic, unhelpful,
and arrogant slogan if it were pronounced magisterially in order to *end*
the discussion on a science-and-faith issue. However, I have found it to
be a profound, helpful, and humbling principle when it is used to *begin*
discussion and study. That is how I have used it in the past. To both
Christians and non-Christians who are used to thinking of science and
religious faith as being opposed to each other, the idea that "all truth
is God's truth" can open the door and make them start to wonder if,
perhaps, there might be some unifying synthesis after all. To Christians
who were taught to be suspicious of science, it opens the possibility that
maybe scientists aren't completely just self-deceived deceivers after all.
The same goes for non-Christians who were taught to be suspicious of
religion.
If used to end debate, the slogan arrogantly implies that we've got it all
figured out now. If if used to begin discussion and study, it reminds us
that "the truth is out there," and we don't have it all figured
out yet, but it is worth pursuing.
Loren Haarsma