So that no one will think I am writing about them in particular, let me make an example up. And let us also be honest. If I had not told you that I was making it up, you would have had to google it to find out. These are difficult days in which to be a satirist. And who knows? Maybe you will google it anyway, and discover that I made up a treatment that somebody else made up too, only he’s making some money off it.
Suppose you scotch tape a cheerio to your forehead overnight to discover whether you have any grain allergies. Suppose further you misjudge your audience the next day, and as you are telling them about your discoveries in alternative science, somebody objects to your methods and procedures. He blurts out, before reflecting on the social niceties, that that’s kinda stupid.
You have had to deal with criticism before, and so you reply with a stock answer from the warehouse — “you know, the Bible says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.” This is quite true. The Bible does say that. But when we think about the track record of the web site you got this unique diagnostic approach from, we might also come to the conclusion that you were fearfully and wonderfully had — especially if you paid ready money to have FedEx ship you the cheerio. The human body is fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14), sure. The brain is fearfully and wonderfully made too, which seems to be an invitation to all of us to use it a bit more.
The issue is not whether we can get odd medicines from odd places. Who knew that squid spleen could cure that rash? The issue is not whether we can get odd allergic reactions to odd combinations of stuff. We are, after all, fearfully and wonderfully made. It is a crazy world, and crazy things can happen.
The issue concerns the laws of logic, and how you go about verifying something. The issue is not whether a cheerio could be able to tell you something. The issue is whether you go through a thoughtful process of elimination or not. The issue is whether your thesis is falsifiable in any reasonable way. The issue is whether or not you know why it should be falsifiable.
Superstition is not knowledge. Wouldn’t-it-be-nice research is not research. Dispensing with the laws of orderly thought is not knowledge. One of the things that the Reformed faith has done well over the course of centuries is that it has encouraged believers to love the Lord their God with all their minds. One of the more discouraging developments in recent years is the spectacle of superstitious epistemologies making their way back in to our churches. The reason I write so forcefully on this subject is that I am allergic to this kind of thinking. How do I know? I taped one of them to my forehead and got a rash.