Limits3: Conjecture, hypothesis, speculation = end of science

      This continues from Part 2 in a series (Table of Contents in Part 1). presenting Prof. Franz Pieper's address at the dedication of a new building for Concordia College in Milwaukee in 1901. — In Pieper's final section, he now brings theology to bear on the subject of his address "the limits of human science". — From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 47 (Oct. 1901), pp. 292-294 [EN]: 

- - - - - - - - -   "The Limits of Human Science" by F. Pieper, Part 3  - - - - - - - - - -

2.

But human science has a field peculiar to it. It has a field in which it can and does know something. This is the area of natural things that fall under human perception and observation or experience. The area is so wide that I can only outline its scope. There is a historical knowledge through investigation of the existing historical sources. There is a linguistic knowledge by research of the actually existing old and new languages. There is a scientific knowledge by observation and research of the wide area of nature lying before us. 

And we as a church consider the knowledge in all these areas to be very valuable. Luther's praise of the study of history and [p. 293] languages is well known among us. He calls history a “display, memory, and characteristic of divine works and judgments,” and the knowledge of languages, with regard to theology, “the sheath in which the sword of the spirit lies”. And as for the vast realm of nature, for the Christian it is a great garden in which every little flower is interesting to him. If it should happen in our materialistic time that neither history nor the old languages are studied seriously and the study of natural sciences is reduced to commercial interests, we as a church will cultivate these fields of knowledge with all seriousness for the reasons given. In short, the church recognizes and cultivates a wide field of human science.

But here a warning is necessary. Human knowledge in the natural field belonging to it has a limit. It must remain aware of this limit if it is not to degenerate into foolishness, ignorance and presumption. Human knowledge of natural things always goes only as far as observation and experience of the facts at hand go. Our knowledge of history goes as far as existing credible documents testify to facts that have happened. Our knowledge of old and new languages is the perception of these languages from existing writings or from the use in oral communication. Our knowledge of nature reaches as far as the observation and experience of facts in this area reaches. 

Where conjecture, hypothesis and speculation begin, science ends. Hypothesis and knowledge are opposites. As in regard to Christian doctrine the sentence holds: “What is not taken from the Bible does not belong to theology,” so in regard to human science the sentence holds: “What goes beyond observation and experience of present facts does not belong to science.”

One might ask: Is this not exceedingly self-evident? Certainly it is exceedingly self-evident. And in theory this is also quite generally accepted. Not only does Luther thus determine the limit of human science when he says: “Now it is not possible for nature to be known by reason after Adam's fall further than experience gives,” but also the more recent representatives of natural science quite generally recognize the proposition that with the limit of experience also the limit of science is given.

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    Dr. Thomas Korcok faults the Old Missourians, in Part 2 of that series, saying 

“Their own personal experiences with the sciences were minimal at best. 601) (fn # 601: [Hermann] Sasse recognized this and believed that the epistemological understanding of the Missourians suffered accordingly).” 

But Hermann Sasse has been shown to have a low view of Holy Scripture as even President Matthew Harrison admitted. So how can Sasse judge Old Missouri on their faithfulness to the Bible with his "epistemological understanding"?  And to answer Dr. Korcok's characterization that Old Missouri's knowledge of the sciences was "minimal at best", one need only look at Dr. A. L. Graebner who had not only knowledge of theology, languages and literature, but  also of the natural sciences and medicine. Here is where Dr. Korcok weakens his own praise of Old Missouri elsewhere, and calls into question his own faithfulness to Scripture. — In the next Part 4…