How do we know what we know?
Sermon St Peter Milton Lilbourne, 11th August 2019, 9.30am
Eight Sunday after Trinity: Hebrews 11.1-3,8-16 & Luke 12.32-40
Today’s readings invite us to think about things seen and things unseen. Like last week, we are encouraged to put our hope in trust not in the material world around us, but in the things that really matter, things which are often unseen: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”.
I would like to explore how we can put our trust in things that are unseen. How can we have faith, which as we hear is the assurance of things hoped for? How can we believe without seeing? It is a challenging question, particularly in a world that increasingly puts its trust in the truths acquired through science and the progress obtained by technology.
Being a scientist myself, of course I see the value of science in investigating and getting to know the world around us. However, I do not believe in the apparent opposition between science and faith, as what we can know through science is limited to the way it is used to look for patterns and regularities. Added to that, the God that is often opposed by the more vocal atheists, is a God in which very few people believe. So indeed, I think that there is plenty of room for faith.
The underlying question of both faith and science is ‘how do we know what we know?’ And that question applies both to the things seen and the things unseen, which as we will realise is not the same as the world of science and the world of religion.
Without wanting to make any judgment, I think that some of you who are reading this may be old enough to remember one of the BBC’s most famous April Fool’s Day hoaxes, reporting the remarkable 
Discovering Life 