The word
"testify" is sprinkled all through the Gospel of John. John the
Baptist testifies, Jesus testifies, the Father testifies, Jesus' works testify,
the beloved disciple witnesses the blood and water from the side of Jesus on
the cross and testifies about that, and his testimony is true.
But science
depends on testimony. When a scientist in a laboratory observes the results of
an experiment, that scientist puts the observation into words, or perhaps into
mathematical formulations of what has been observed. Other scientists have to
depend on the truthfulness of the observer's witness. Occasionally an observer
lies and is discovered. The observer has committed the unforgivable sin in
science: falsifying observations. That scientist's reputation is ruined.
Scientists are
expected to disclose the sources of their funding when they publish the results
of their research, because it is always possible that their testimony may be
biased in favor of the people who are paying their bills.
Thus even science
depends on human witness. What distinguishes scientific observation from other
human observation is the expectation that other observers are able to repeat
the observation process and hopefully describe their observations the same way
as the original observer. Scientific statements must be replicable. But all
scientists are human beings testifying to what they experience when they
observe their instruments.
Science is a
massive operation of millions of people observing and testifying to what they
observe. How is that different from millions of people observing phenomena in
their spiritual lives and testifying to what they have experienced?
Religious
experiences are replicable, not on an individual basis, but on a larger scale,
across time. The fact that millions of people gather for religious rituals is
evidence that something replicable is going on. This is the basis for the field
called "sociology of religion." Scientists in that field do not judge
the truth of the stories that people tell--they do not judge the statement that
Jesus Christ rose from the dead. They observe the behavior of people who make
such statements.
Of course there
are millions of people who do not claim to have spiritual experiences. That
does not invalidate the testimony of the people who do have such experiences.
There are millions of people who report that they get enjoyment from listening
to music. The fact that there are millions of people who do not enjoy
music--who are not "musically inclined"--is not evidence that music
is valueless.
Religious people
turn off a lot of other people by behavior that other people judge as foolish.
There are religious sects that promote handling poisonous snakes on the basis
of a statement in the Gospel of Mark. We think such behavior is unwise and
leads to harmful consequences, but that does not mean that people who attend
Mass are behaving unwisely. There are scientists who use science for bad
purposes, or who conduct their research in harmful ways. The Nazi scientists
who performed experiments that caused people's deaths, or the research on
syphilis done at Tuskegee have not caused us to judge all research as harmful.
Postmodern theory
is correct in claiming that no statements are absolutely verifiable. They are
correct in claiming that statements of truth can mask desires to control. I can
accept the truthfulness of postmodern theory without concluding that making
truth statements is worthless or harmful. To reject all truth statements is to
repeat the ancient riddle: "All statements are false, including this
one."
