“SCIENCE, falsely so called”

Asked whether he was filled with the Holy Spirit, Dwight L. Moody replied, “Yes. But I leak.” Perhaps
his experience may not be unique. Who would dare argue with him? Take a cold look at your own life
graph. What do you see? A steady line towards good? Not really. What we see instead – a buoyant high
here, a devastating low there – hardly makes compelling reading. We leak to be sure, but it is our
essential unworthiness, our thirst, which draws us towards God; which makes us device moments of
quiet, times of retreat with God. The halting, stuttered expressions of love we offer do not compare to
what God wants, but like any parent he accepts what the children offer.

Reading straight through the New Testament, one easily notices its sure, settled tone of victory. “Christ in
you” is “the hope of glory”, Paul wrote the Colossians. “We are more than conquerors”, he assured the
Romans. These words do galvanize others, but bothers others still. Although these words may stir up a
wistful sense of longing, for many they hardly apply to day-to-day experience. Others, ever more hopeful,
attribute our failure to a defect of theology; they wonder whether those sparkling promises hold
significance which eludes us. Let the fusty mist of doubt be rolled back, they assure, and everything
would be clear.

In glaring contrast, certain Christian authors, C.S Lewis among them, barely paint the Christian life in
glowing terms. The devil Screwtape, in C. S Lewis’ mischievous fantasy, advised the demon Wormwood
to get his subject to “flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the body of Christ’ and the actual faces in
the next pew.” When we inspect those faces, still more our own, the sparkling images of the New
Testament will lose their luster.

So we ask. How do we paint the Christian life? Does victory hold sway, or failure prowls along? Which
is it, fullness or dryness, light or darkness, the active presence of God or, like Christ on the cross, are
there moments when we feel we are of all people the most forsaken by God? These questions we all seek,
and it is our desire to find answers this coming Retreat where we will “compare notes”, to use C. S.
Lewis’ phrase – that is, by learning from men of experience.

As important as the above reasons for attending a spiritual retreat may be, and no retreat can be complete
without them, an incomparably more compelling reason dictated our choice of the theme for the coming
retreat. The words of the theme, “Science, falsely so called” (1Tim. 6:20), could hardly better express the
modern mood. The so-called “knowledge”, any false ideology which conspires to drown faith, has as
much allure now as they held two millennia ago when Paul penned those words.

In dealing with our failures above, the apostolic rebuke normally takes on a reconciliatory tone. “My little
children, these things I write to you that you may not sin”, writes John to his beloved church. “And if
 “SCIENCE, falsely so called”

anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1John 2:1). As you read
along, though, the rebuke turns into a threatening yell. In his beloved church, former church members tore
the flock apart. Some held on to a teaching that had what many theologians consider to be Gnostic
elements. Their teachings tore at his pastoral heart. “Antichrist” was the label he gave such people. As if
that was not enough, he instructed the Elect Lady, whoever she was, not to receive any into her “house
nor great him.” (2John 10).

The same Gnostic teachings threatened the Ephesian churches, which prompted, in part, the content of
First Timothy. Under the influence of Oriental dualism, they taught that matter, as such, was evil.
Salvation, therefore, they held, should be conceived as deliverance from the body and the material world.
They forbade marriage, insisted on ascetism (1Tim 4:1-5). Some, among them Hymenaeus and
Alexander, had suffered shipwreck of faith (chapter 1: 19, 20). The Apostle Paul appropriately “delivered
them up to Satan.” Whatever that curious phrase might mean, one could hardly fail to sense an element of
repugnance, even hatred, at their teaching. More, he advised Timothy that in order to “guard what was
committed to your trust” he had to avoid the “the profane and idle babblings and the contradictions of
what is called knowledge [“science” in the King James version; knosis in the Greek original, from which
we get gnosticism]”. (Chapter 6:20).

Contradictions. One can hardly imagine a more appropriate word to describe postmodern science. But,
oh, how pathetic it is that we fail to use that word when we think about the presuppositions which
underlie much of the sciences we study. And why should we, when our greater concern is only to secure
jobs with our grades? However, our indifference has a damaging effect on us. While modern
philosophers and scientists obsess over such questions as the origin of life and the meaning of existence,
the rest of us are concerned about paying the fees, sitting for a paper or paying the bills. The conclusions
of science, whether good or bad, eventually percolate through to us unawares. They shape our worldview.
The false conclusions, and they are many, tend to weaken faith. They prompt painful doubts. Our doubts
seep down into behavior. Our evangelistic efforts suffer, too. When asked to give reason for our faith, we
lower our heads; we shuffle our feet.

As Paul makes clear, though, you cannot guard what you have without, as well, “casting down arguments
and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity
to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:5). And that is our goal, our theme for the coming retreat: to reveal
the false sciences (evolution, deism, materialism) for the threadbare things they are. Are you Greek in
thought? Do you love wisdom? Do you think, like the Greeks, that the cross is just that – a cross, an
impediment to true knowledge? Listen to Paul: “The world by wisdom knoweth not God” (1 Cor. 1:21).
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To study what true knowledge consists, presenting it against the drop of the false ideologies, would be the
main object of our meeting.