The following is taken from Josh McDowell’s book, More Than a Carpenter, chapter 3.
Many people try to put off personal commitment to Christ by voicing the assumption that if you cannot prove something scientifically, it is not true or worthy of acceptance. Since one cannot prove scientifically the deity of Jesus or the resurrection, then twentieth-century individuals should know better than to accept Christ as Savior or to believe in the resurrection.
Often in a philosophy or history class I am confronted with the challenge, “Can you prove it scientifically?” I usually say, “Well, no, I’m not a scientist.” Then you can hear the class chuckle and usually several voices can be heard saying, “Don’t talk to me about it,” or “See, you must take it all by faith” (meaning blind faith).
The mentality that modern humanity has descended to is amazing. Somehow, here in the twentieth century we have so many who hold to the opinion that if you can’t prove it scientifically, it’s not true. Well, that is not true! There’s a problem of proving anything about a person or event in history. We need to understand the difference between scientific proof and what I call legal-historical proof. Let me explain these two.
The “scientific method, however it is defined, is related to measurements of phenomena and experimentation or repeated observation.”(1) Dr. James B. Conant, former president of Harvard, writes: “Science is an interconnected series of concepts and conceptual schemes that have developed as a result of experimentation and observation, and are fruitful of further experimentation and observations.”(2)
Testing the truth of a hypothesis by the use of controlled experiments is one of the key techniques of the modern scientific method. For example, somebody says, “Ivory soap doesn’t float.” So I take the person to the kitchen, put eight inches of water in the sink at 82.7°, and drop in the soap. Plunk. Observations are made, data are drawn, and a hypothesis is empirically verified: Ivory soap floats.Now if the scientific method was the only method of proving something, you couldn’t prove that you went to your first hour class this morning or that you had lunch today. There’s no way you can repeat those events in a controlled situation.
Now here’s what is called the legal-historical proof, which is based on showing that something is fact beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, a verdict is reached on the basis of the weight of the evidence. That is, there’s no reasonable basis for doubting the decision. It depends upon three types of testimony: oral testimony, written testimony, and exhibits (such as a gun, bullet, [and] notebook). Using the legal method of determining what happened, you could pretty well prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you were in class this morning: your friends saw you, you have your notes, [and] the professor remembers you.
The scientific method can be used only to prove repeatable things; it isn’t adequate for proving or disproving many questions about a person or event in history. The scientific method isn’t appropriate for answering such questions as “Did George Washington live?” “Was Martin Luther King a civil rights leader?” “Who was Jesus of Nazareth?” “Was Robert Kennedy attorney general of the U.S.A.?” “Was Jesus Christ raised from the dead?” These are out of the realm of scientific proof, and we need to put them in the realm of legal proof. In other words, the scientific method, which is based on observations, the gathering of data, hypothesizing, deduction, and experimental verification to find and explain empirical regularities in nature, doesn’t have the final answers to such questions as “Can you prove the resurrection?” or “Can you prove that Jesus is the Son of God?” When men and women rely upon the legal-historical method, they need to check out the reliability of the testimonies.
One thing that has especially appealed to me is that the Christian faith in not a blind, ignorant belief but rather an intelligent faith. Every time in the Bible when a person is called upon to exercise faith, it’s in intelligent faith. Jesus said in John 8, “You shall know the truth,” not ignore it. Christ was asked, “What is the greatest commandment of all?” He said, “To love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind.” The problem with most people is that they seem to stop with their hearts. The facts about Christ never get to their minds. We’ve been given a mind innovated by the Holy Spirit to know God, as well as a heart to love him and a will to choose him. We need to function in all three areas to have a maximum relationship with God and to glorify him. I don’t know about the reader, by my heart can’t rejoice in what my mind has rejected. My heart and mind were created to work in harmony together. Never has an individual been called upon to commit intellectual suicide in trusting Christ as Savior and Lord.
NOTES ON CHAPTER 3
1. The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropaedia Vol. VIII, p. 985.
2. James B. Conant, Science and Common Sense (New Have: Yale University Press, 1951), p. 25.
