A lot of non-believers point to science as a foundation for their truths that they believe, yet those foundations might be established by God. For example, Aristotle who first used the word "Physics" in his book "The Physics" (Greek: Φυσικὴ ἀκ�όασις Phusike akroasis) stated in that book "that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world" ~Aristotle...
Newton observed similar thoughts saying "Don't doubt the creator, because it is inconceivable that accidents alone could be the controller of this universe." -Sir Issac Newton.
Einstein talked on Physical laws, implying them to be created by God. "We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws... We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books.... That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God."~Einstein
It looks like a lot of scientific thinkers not only believe in God, but imply that God is necessary for science, and a foundation.
Or logical reasoning, for example, also seems to have foundations that rest on God. For example, our word for "Logic" comes from the root Greek word "Logos"... "Logos is logical appeal, and the term logic is derived from it."~Wikipedia… Well Logos is a term that has been identified as resting on God... "Logos (noun) the Word of God, or principle of divine reason and creative order..."... That the foundation of reasoning and logic rest on an absolute truth, a foundation on God, as revaluation from God.. I think that is how the Greeks understood it...
So it seems to be that foundations for science, logic, reasoning, and knowledge, rest on God (and im not even going to get into the law, morality, righteousness, freewill, ect, which also seem to be rested on the necessity of God)…
But maybe a nonbeliever would throw away all these foundational elements of science and logic and reasoning, and say they are unnecessary for science and knowledge to be true, and logic and reasoning to make sense..
However, we can continue to explore the foundations for these things.. Because in order for the scientific method, through observation and empirical evidence, to make sense, we are dependent on our reasoning. It is dependent on what philosophers call "inductive reasoning"... That is to say that our past experiences can predict future events, the scientific method is dependent on induction...
Well even here we come to problems on these foundations for science... For example, David Hume (a ashiest philosopher) observed a problem with inductive reasoning, and made good points. How can we rely on this kind of reasoning for our source of truth?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/We generally think that the observations we make are able to justify some expectations or predictions about observations we have not yet made, as well as general claims that go beyond the observed. For example, the observation that bread of a certain appearance has thus far been nourishing seems to justify the expectation that the next similar piece of bread I eat will also be nourishing, as well as the claim that bread of this sort is generally nourishing. Such inferences from the observed to the unobserved, or to general laws, are known as “inductive inferences�.
Hume asks on what grounds we come to our beliefs about the unobserved on the basis of inductive inferences. He presents an argument in the form of a dilemma which appears to rule out the possibility of any reasoning from the premises to the conclusion of an inductive inference. There are, he says, two possible types of arguments, “demonstrative� and “probable�, but neither will serve. A demonstrative argument produces the wrong kind of conclusion, and a probable argument would be circular... for Hume, the problem remains of how to explain why we form any conclusions that go beyond the past instances of which we have had experience (T. 1.3.6.10). Hume stresses that he is not disputing that we do draw such inferences. The challenge, as he sees it, is to understand the “foundation� of the inference—the “logic� or “process of argument� that it is based upon (E. 4.2.21). The problem of meeting this challenge, while evading Hume’s argument against the possibility of doing so, has become known as “the problem of induction�.
Hume’s argument is one of the most famous in philosophy. A number of philosophers have attempted solutions to the problem, but a significant number have embraced his conclusion that it is insoluble. There is also a wide spectrum of opinion on the significance of the problem. Some have argued that Hume’s argument does not establish any far-reaching skeptical conclusion, either because it was never intended to, or because the argument is in some way misformulated. Yet many have regarded it as one of the most profound philosophical challenges imaginable since it seems to call into question the justification of one of the most fundamental ways in which we form knowledge. Bertrand Russell, for example, expressed the view that if Hume’s problem cannot be solved, “there is no intellectual difference between sanity and insanity� (Russell 1946: 699).
(Note both these philosophers are atheist, Hume and Russell)
So how can we rely on science, if its foundations are still unjustified? It is like saying "logic justifies logic". What if that logic has no coherent foundations to make sense?
However, from a foundation of God, many presuppositional apologists will argue, that induction is justified, and therefor science is justified and so is knowledge and reasoning..
Instead of resting our truth and knowledge on induction which is unjustified, we can rest on God who "is the central reference point and foundation for all questions regarding truth and knowledge".. That when we rely on God for foundations "the principle of induction can be assumed" and that "God is a precondition necessary to make sense of induction".~Jeff Durbin's
It certainly seems like God is a foundation for truth and knowledge, not just historically but also in our present philosophy for truth and knowledge, who justifies induction and science... If not God, then how can we make sense of these things? What do you think is a foundation for truth and knowledge?
