Reality and “truth” are being fragmented by modern political and social efforts and promulgated through the internet and social media.
Science is absolutely dependent upon uniformity because without it we could not infer from past events what we can expect under like circumstances in the future. Physical science absolutely requires the ability to predict the future action of material entities. Scientific experimentation, theorizing, and prediction would be impossible were nature non-uniform. Scientific investigation is only possible in an orderly, rational coherent, unified system.
The uniformity of nature and the operations of science do not preclude the possibility of miracles by God. The scientific law of uniformity is a universalistic principle, not a particularistic one. Miracles, by definition, are rare divine, particular interventions in nature that are appropriately called in Scripture “signs” or “wonders” due to their overriding natural law. That is, even though God may occasionally override natural law through miraculous intervention in limited individual cases, these are rare exceptions to the overwhelmingly universal operation of natural law. If there were no uniformity, there could be no miracles in that all would be surprisingly wondrous and unpredictable.
If reality were haphazard and disorderly, we would have no basic scientific laws governing and controlling various phenomena. For instance, medical labs do controlled experiments to create procedures and medications that cure and prevent disease, and so forth. Our space program could not use the laws of gravitation to provide boost assists for interplanetary probes. All branches of science learn from past experiences so that that knowledge will help control future experience.
And of course our everyday lives would be inconceivable without uniformity. We would have no unity at all in either experience or thought. This is true at the most mundane levels of daily life, such as walking, riding a bicycle, or driving a car. These common experiences depend upon uniformity. When you successively put one foot in front of the other and lean forward, you expect to move a certain distance over the surface of the earth, not turn into an octopus or become a mathematical formula.
Everyone assumes the uniformity of nature, otherwise we could not know that gravity would hold us to the surface of the earth, that inertia would cause us to remain at rest until a force is applied, that the sun would rise tomorrow, that ingested food would energize our bodies, and so forth. The laws of nature are deemed by scientists to be true (they are never contradicted), universal (they apply throughout the universe), absolute (nothing alters them), and simple (they can be expressed as mathematical formulas).
If we lived in a multiverse each and every single fact would necessarily stand alone, utterly disconnected from other facts, not forming a system as a whole. Consequently, nothing could be organized and related in a mind because no fact would be relatable to any other fact. Thus, science, logic, and experience necessarily require uniformity as a principle of the natural world.
Pushing the Antithesis
Pushing the Antithesis consists of twelve chapters that include study questions, an answer key, a glossary of terms, and a comprehensive bibliography. If you want to be equipped to present the truth of the gospel in a compelling way, then Pushing the Antithesis is required reading.
Buy NowReality and “truth” are being fragmented by modern political and social efforts and promulgated through the internet and social media. Non-Christian beliefs don’t and can’t offer anything in terms of a comprehensive worldview. On this repeat of a previous episode from 2021, the late Dr. Gary North joins Gary DeMar on today’s episode with a discussion about today’s fragmented world.