In this way, then, we obtain three truths that fit together. First, the full and rich clarity of God's thoughts existed in God from eternity. Second, in the creation God has revealed, embedded, and embodied a rich fullness of his thoughts. And third, God created in human beings, as his image-bearers, the capacity to understand, to grasp, to reflect, and to arrange within a totality these thoughts expressed in the creation.
The essence of human science rests on these three realities.
Such a magnificent capacity was not given to human beings for them to keep it unused. They must apply this capacity bestowed upon them for the purpose for which it was given. The moment human beings employ this capacity for reflecting the thoughts of God from the creation, science arises. And to the extent that human beings do this more precisely and more diligently, human science will possess greater stability and richer content.
Nevertheless, one should not understand this to mean that this task of science in itself, in its full range, was being assigned to every human being. That cannot be. The range of this task is far too great for that, and the capacity of the individual person is too limited.
The principal confession of the creation of human beings according to God's image reaches much farther than the acknowledgement that we personally and individually, each for oneself, belong to God's race. Rather, it comes into its own only when we extend it to our entire race down through the ages, and in the combination of the talents bestowed upon all the various persons. It is not so that merely one individual brain, or one individual genius, or one individual talent has been equipped to understand the fullness of the Word in creation, but all of them together have the goal of making this apprehension possible among people. Had it been intended otherwise, then every person, man or woman, would have to be in full possession of all genius and all talent. But this is not the case. Genius and talent appear only as distributed among a few individuals. We readily accept the claim that, in this respect, on account of sin, much has changed from what would have been apart from sin. Even so, no one would argue that according to the original creation ordinance no difference, no distinction would have existed between people.
Even the starry heavens do not disclose to us an infinite number of stars identical to each other, but stars in infinite constellations which all differ from each other. Precisely in this pluriform differentiation the splendor of the firmament radiates. Similarly, one should not suppose that in the world of humanity God intended nothing else than monotone uniformity, and that pluriformity and variety arose for the first time through sin. If that were so, then sin would have enriched rather than impoverished life.
Moreover, the mere fact that God created a man and a woman proves indisputably that identical uniformity did not lay in the plan of creation. So we may draw no other conclusion than that the rich variety among people, in terms of aptitude and talent, came forth from the creation itself and belongs to the essence of human nature. If this is so, then it follows automatically that in relation to the image of God, no single human being bears this feature of God in its fullness, but that all talent and all genius together comprise the capacity for incorporating within itself this fullness of the thought of God.
Science is thus constructed not on the basis of what one person observes, discovers, imagines, and organizes into one system in his or her thinking. Rather, science arises from the fruit of the thinking, imagining, and reflecting of successive generations in the course of centuries, and by means of the cooperation of everyone. Each person does indeed possess individual knowledge, that is, the fragmented knowledge that a person acquires. But God's creation is so unspeakably immense, and the richness of thoughts that lie embedded in his creation is so immeasurably deep, that the fragmented knowledge of any one person virtually disappears. That little fragment is also science in the most general sense of the word. But it is not the science that operates as a unique creature of God with its own life principle in order to fulfill a unique task.
Science in this exalted sense originates only through the cooperation of many people. It advances only gradually in the generations that come on the scene, and thus only gradually acquires that stability and that rich content that guarantee it an independent existence, and begins to appear only in this more general form as an influence in life.
At the same time, from this it follows directly that science can acquire significance only with the passing of centuries, and will be able to develop in its richest fullness only at the end of time. Science is a mighty temple whose foundations had to be dug first, and then its foundation had to be set. Only then could its walls be erected on that foundation, and its battlements could be built once the walls were finished. This temple can display the full splendor of its architecture, its colors, and its shapes only when the entire building is completed. This explains why centuries have passed when, among a number of nations, there was hardly any science to speak of in the higher sense. In our land as well one would have searched in vain for science in that sense among the Batavians. This also explains why only the history of recent centuries, especially of the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, narrates for us the story of such a mighty flourishing of science. Finally, this also helps explain what we all sense, namely, how even today science stands at the beginning of its great accomplishments; and why anyone familiar with the arena of science anticipates with joy the progress in the sphere of science that is to be expected in this twentieth century.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In