Science the New Source of Truth

Lecture

#2 Q + A

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject:

Genre: Speech

Track: 04

Dictation Name: RR325B4

Location/Venue: ________

Year: _______

You’re taught chemistry, physics, and biology, and each is compartmentalized. And in each the orientation is to the classroom, not to life! And they never try to put those three together, for example, to give you a coherent point of view. Just as we’ve had art for art’s sake and its barren, so today we have science for science’s sake. It compartmentalizes things and makes it them irrelevant so that what you’re told is not the true story, not the true history, not the true impact of science, but on the academic development. The academic perspective.

I mentioned last time that perhaps no science in the modern world has been more important than chemistry, and yet you don’t hear much about it because it’s not as spectacular. Not as prone to theoretical ground for reordering a world and lifeview. Now as we try to understand science what we need to do, and I trust within this generation, some new textbooks need to be written on the history of science and science teachings from a Biblical perspective, so that we see its origins in a Biblical faith, and we see how science has been an instrument whereby man has sought dominion under God.

How advances have been made in one area after another. Not in terms of an academic separation of all these things but as an instrument in man’s exercise of dominion under God. Subduing the earth for the glory of God. The Humanistic curriculum is thus totally fallacious. We must view science theologically. It is a tool for man in his calling to exercise dominion, and the realm of ultimacy is not in science, and the disciplines of science are not to be enthroned as though they were ultimate and never the twain shall meet! They are instruments in the hands of godly man and the principle of ultimacy is God, his word, his purpose, and our service to him in terms of that word. Are there any questions now?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Ah, yes. The question is specifically with regard to Gordon Clark. Gordon Clark theologically is a Calvinist, and even a hyper-Calvinist at points, and yet philosophically he tends to deny this and to follow a Hellenic presupposition. As a result, he has two principles at war with each other. Moreover, since he deludes to the total comprehensibility of God by man, it is man is his thinking who merges as ultimate and incomprehensible. So his form of Calvinism winds up undercutting Calvinism. Now {?} also stressed the sovereignty of God and the ultimacy of God to the point where he said, let man be nothing! And he did much to undercut the reality of man as a secondary cause.

It was a shock to many people, for example, when a sizable segment of the Protestant Reformed church took to {?}. What, right back into the Christian Reformed church, knowing how liberal it had become. What had eaten the heart out of their faith, what was this hyper-Calvinism which destroyed Calvinism? It was this with some of your Lapsarian thinkers, they carried their ideas of Lapsarian to the point where they destroyed the doctrine of God. In fact, the whole Lapsarian controversy was blasphemous.

Any other questions?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

The Lapsarian controversy was an attempt by man to probe the deep things of the mind of God which are a mystery and to impose a time sequence into the mind of God - and God is not subject to time. The (empra?), the (supra?), and the (subLapsarians?) were acting as though there was a time sequence in God’s eternal decree. Now that’s a fearful presupposition and in each case it destroyed their doctrine of God.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Now that has to do with what happens in time, not with the eternal decree of the mind of God. So it’s a different area. When God works within the temporal world there is an order in it, but in eternity, when you’re dealing with the eternal degree there you cannot talk of the time sequence as the Lapsarians do. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Park theologically affirms the sovereignty of God. Philosophically in his apologetics he insists on the total comprehensibility of God - which means that it is man, ultimately, who is incomprehensible; whose mind is so great that he can comprehend the mind of God. Are there any other questions? Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Well, there isn’t a rejection with some of those kinds of things, therefore those things are not contrary to God’s orders. Where there is a rejection factor you’ve got to say that very obviously what they’re trying to do is to overwhelm the lines of distinction that God has made. See, there is no rejection factor for a wooden limb. Nor for an artificial arm. Certain things can be used by man, some of them internally, but this attempt to destroy the natural immunization of the body against outside things is another entirely. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. One geneticist about fourteen years ago when this was just beginning, told me that I should discount what I read in the field about how they were creating life. This man happened to believe that they could someday...what he was simply telling me was that the reports, ah though he didn’t want to say they were fraudulent, go far beyond the facts of the experiment. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Well first of all, there is no such disease as cancer. What they call cancer is maybe fifteen or twenty different diseases. So it’s very difficult to answer a question on the subject. Let me add, there are many Christian men who are in the sciences, but that does not mean their view of science is Christian. They just happen to be born again men who are also scientists. They may even believe very strictly in creation - but they’re not applying Biblical premises to the sciences.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Oh yes, that’s perfectly valid. Any other questions? Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

There is in virtually every case. Now, when you have kidney transplants, if it is of a close relative it has a better chance of working. Someone in their family. Now, I’m not sure to what extent, but there has to be also the use of drugs in many of these cases, to try to break down the immunization aspect of the body. The body tends to immunize itself against anything alien. When the body is working normally its immunization qualities are tremendous!

I was very interested awhile back to learn that under normal circumstances you can’t take cholera infected food and eat it and it will never give you cholera! For the simple reason that your gastric juices will kill it instantaneously. However, if you are nervous and afraid and under tension, this will affect your digestive processes. It will affect your gastric juices and then you’ll get cholera. That’s why it is when fear goes through a community that cholera will very quickly spread. Under normal circumstances, it can do you no damage whatsoever. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

No. The piece of the woman who was accused of adultery, the trial of jealousy, I dealt with in Biblical Law. It’s not a trial by ordeal, but the exact contrary. It required the supernatural act of God to demonstrate guilt. I deal with it at some length, both in Politics of Guilt and Pity and even more in Biblical Law.

How many of you saw the copy of the watchmen that we reprinted on the legal case, here? Very good. Well do you know that I received a long and highly critical letter about that? Very interesting. The sad fact is that it came from a Christian school principal. He is all for compromising to the state. He feels that the state is concerned with the wealthfare of Christian schools. The worst part of it is that he comes from Ohio! Can you imagine such blindness? Where they were told they had to teach Humanism in the Christian schools. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Blindness is always self willed. Now let me explain. [addressing audience member] I came in here with my notes and didn’t bring my Bible, may I borrow yours?

Now, this is important because it says so much to us about the meaning of faith....Paul, in Romans 1:17-20 makes clear what all of this means. He says, “For in it,” that is the gospel of Christ, “is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold” -very literally- “hold down the truth.” They suppress it. They all know it, but they “hold down the truth in unrighteousness.” They refuse to look at it, because that which may be known of God and the Godhead so that they are without excuse.

What Saint Paul is saying is that everyone, whether they’re out in a jungle in Africa, or on an island at the South Pacific or in the heart of China or in the United States, knows the totality of God’s truth. They are without excuse! They know it, but they hold down the truth in unrighteousness. They do not want to see it because of sin. Man’s problem is not ignorance. He’s not blind through ignorance, he’s blind because of sin; he deliberately shuts his eyes to it.

One man once, who was a public school principal, claimed I was lying when I told it to a particular public educator on something that was a devastating quote. When I gave him the exact quote he wouldn’t look at it! He wouldn’t look at it. Now that’s blindness, self blindness.

Alright now there’s another interesting point here. Paul says everybody knows! Everybody knows the truth of God. The whole of it! And James says the devils believe and tremble. Well if everybody knows it and everybody including the devils know it, what is faith then? What does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? It isn’t belief in our modern sense of the word, saying I think it’s right, I believe that two and two equals four, or something like that. I believe this was a hot day. No.

What does faith mean? It means saying Amen to God. And to believe means, in the Biblical sense, to put your whole reliance on him. To trust on him, and to act in terms of that faith. That’s why James says that faith without works is dead! It’s more than mere belief in the pagan sense. So everybody knows. It isn’t a question of knowing it, it isn’t a question of ignorance, it’s a question of saying ‘I will say Amen to God. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. I will rely on the Lord, because he is God.’ In everything give thanks. Be content with such things.

That’s faith, you see, in the Biblical sense. But we’ve converted it into something alien--mere belief! But you see, if that’s what Paul meant here he would be talking nonsense because he’s saying the just shall live by faith, by mere belief. He says you already know it! James says the devils know it! So it’s more than knowing that this is God’s word and it’s true...it’s staking your whole life on it.

Now. A man who, in Ohio, says he believes the Bible from cover to cover but compromises with the demand that he teach humanism in a Christian school - as long as he can teach Bible, he says it’s all right - is {?}. He’s not saying Amen to God, he’s not putting his whole reliance on God. Any other questions? Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. The Christian schools of Ohio stand very clearly on this issue. THere is another school association that has compromised, and then there are several other denominational associations; Lutheran, Adventists, Catholics, and others. Some of those may have been ready to stand, but they went after the independent schools first of all so they didn’t get around to these others. Some of them probably would have stood and others may have compromised, there would have been a battle and a split.

There was one Evangelical association, but they split on this issue, you see. The Christian schools will hire a Reformed and they becomes progressively stronger and stronger. [audio ends abruptly]