1965 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 244

200

G. J. SIZOO

The most terse and paradoxical formulation of this problem has perhaps been given by Einstein in his well-known statement: „Das ewig Unbegreifliche an der Welt ist ihre Begreiflichkeit" i) Louis de Broglie formulated the same problem more circumstantially by saying: „La grande merveille dans le progrès de la science, c'est qu'il nous a révélé une certaine concordance entre notre pensee et les choses, une certaine possibilité de saisir a I'aide des ressources de notre intelligence et des regies de notre raison les relations profondes entre les phenomènes. On ne s'étonne pas assez de ce fait que quelque science est possible" 2). I think we all agree with Einstein and de Broglie that there is no scientific explanation nor any satisfactory philosophical solution to this problem of the possibility of science. However, the religious faith in God, as the Creator of all things, including man, does shed light on this problem. If we accept by faith that God created man after his image and likeness, and placed him in this created world with the unique instruction to have dominion over all other creatures, this faith will also engender the confidence that man, with his sensory and intellectual faculties on one side, and the phenomena, which he perceives around him, on the other side, will prove to be adjusted to each other in such a manner, that man will be able to acquire the knowledge which he needs for carrying out his cultural charge. Following this line of thought physical knowledge has essentially the character of a qualified relation, extending within the creation between two poles, the intelligent subject, man, on one hand, the intelligible object, the phenomena, on the other hand. In his scientific activity man is engaged in actualizing this knowledge-relation, which is potentially given by the creation, and therefore, whether he recognizes this or not, he is engaged in fullfilling his cultural charge. According to this view, the nature and content of the knowledge-relation will be determined by the two poles between which it extends, by the object-pole as well as by the subject-pole. The possibility of discovering and describing order, uniformity and constant relations within the phenomena, is certainly due to the nature of the object. But it is equally due to the nature of the human intelligence, which enables man to build up a scheme of logically 1) A. Einstein, Physik und Realitat, Journ. Frankl. Inst. 1936, p. 315. 2) Louis de Broglie, Physique et Microphysique, p. 229-230.

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