Gödel’s theorem in apologetics - 6 September 2010 |
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Occasionally I hear a Christian evangelist or apologist referring to concepts from mathematics or theoretical physics in the course of explaining of defending the gospel. The leading candidates include Einstein’s theory of relativity and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, but probably the most common are Gödel’s so-called “incompleteness theorems,” sometimes referred to simply (though not technically accurately) as “Gödel’s theorem”.
Since all truth is unified, there’s no problem in principle with such cross-fertilization. However, as a former physicist I sometimes get a little twitchy about the details of this particular leap from theology to theoretical physics.
Here’s one particularly common problem to avoid.
Gödel’s theorems do not state that “All worldviews are inherently contradictory,” or “no worldview can prove its own internal coherence,” or anything of that sort. They actually state that, for certain well-defined systems of axioms, (1) there will always be certain statements that, though true, cannot be proved from within the axioms of the system; and (2) one of those true-but-unprovable statements will be the statement that the system itself is consistent.
The critical point is that Gödel’s theorems concern particular well-defined axiomatic systems; they are not about such vaguely-defined creatures as “worldviews”. It may be true that Gödel’s theorems have implications for how we think about the world more generally (as it happens I believe this is probably the case), but these implications must be demonstrated; they do not drop straight out of the theorems themselves.
And if that all sounds completely incomprehensible, then (1) please accept my apologies; and (2) perhaps you’d be wise to think twice before using it as the basis of a gospel presentation.
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog