Is Science the Only Source of Absolute Truth?

A Self-Defeating Claim

The statement that “Science is the only way to get to absolute truth about reality”—I’m not sure that’s a scientific statement. I would question that. What kind of statement is that? Is that a philosophical statement? Or did you get to that truth by way of science? It seems to me that that kind of statement self-destructs.

With a lot of the recent atheist writers, you get this denigration of philosophy. Stephen Hawking does it. Lawrence Krauss does it. They say, “Look, philosophy is dead. If you want to answer the fundamental questions about reality you need to look to science.” They’ll start with that in the front of their book and then go on to do an entire book of philosophy. Such naivete is astounding. You’d think that these guys—guys who are just so brilliant—would know this and would see it.

One of the things that Christians should pray for when talking about cultural interaction and influence are atheists who know their epistemology and know their philosophy enough that you can get right down to brass tacks really quickly. With someone like Lawrence Krauss or Stephen Hawking you’ve got to first say, “Look, what you’re doing is philosophy. Could we now move on to the real stuff?”