1967 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 99

ESSAY CONCERNING CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING

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natural laws are the result of a fiat on the part of some divine creator (p. 201), according to Peirce, is blocking the holy spirit of science (i.e. blocking the road of inquiry). Compare also Peirce's concept of God, p. 240, dated 1906, and which reads as follows. If a Pragmatist is asked what he means by „God", he can only say that juist as long acquaintance with a man of great character may deeply influence one's whole manner of conduct, so that a glance at his portrait may make a difference, just as almost living with Dr Johnson enabled poor Boswell to write an immortal book and a really sublime book, just as long study of the works of Aristotle may make him an acquaintance, so if contemplation and study of the physico-psychical universe can imbue a man with principles of conduct analogous to the influence of a great man's works or conversation, then that analogue of a mind — for it is impossible to say that any human attribute is literally applicable — is what he means by ,,God". Thomas W. Ogletree, The Death of God Controversy, Abingdom Press, New York 1966. Van Buren's theology (p 47 ff) is a scientific Bible interpretation which takes certain more or less well defined rules holding for certain scientific languages to hold true also for the language of the Bible. Reformed theology (philosophy, logics) has still to establish why such rules do not apply to the language of the Bible. There seems to exist a great variety of ,,languages" (or functions of language) that can be spoken by one and the same person. Is there a ,,prophetical language", in contrast to a „love language", „scientific language" e t c . . . . ? And do these languages obey different rules? Have they a different semantics while having a common syntaxis? A wide area for research! Is there a difference between mathematical language and physical language? At any rate, a logically consistent axiomatic system of physical propositions does not necessarily form a true physical theory, while physical experiments do not lead to verification of mathematical theories. Those propositions function as a set of rules, recipes or principles, which tend to take the place of Holy Scriptures, thus destroying the living fellowship with the Bible. cf the author's The irreducibility of the number concept in Phil. Reformata 31 (1966), where work is done toward a n e w set theory, which will appear in axiomatic form in a paper A new approach to the foundations of geometry and set theory (to appear before long) H. Dooyeweerd, Het oecumenisch-reformatorisch grondmotief etc. (Afscheidscollege) in Phil. Reformata 31 (1966) G. C. Berkouwer, Dogmatische studiën. De Heilige Schrift I, 1966, Kok, Kampen J. M. de Jong and C. J. Dippel, Geloof en Natuurwetenschap I, Boekencentrum, 's-Gravenhage, 1965 J. Blok, in Geloof en Wetenschap 64, nr. 3, maart 1966, p. 54 ff H. Berkhof, Wie A zegt moet ook B zeggen. Geloof en Wetenschap 62, december 1964. The question must be put, however, can a scientist be a man, an Evangelical, a sympathetic, compassionate human being? Without loosing his creative scientific interest? One single look into the books and works on the foundations of sciences (R. Carnap, E. Nagel, W. V. Quine, B. Russell, L. Wittgenstein) should be sufficient to show that there is a vast domain along the border lines between the sciences, which one can not set foot on without bringing forward fundamental beliefs regarding nature of man and regarding man's place inside Creation.

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