God Arises
The Method of Argument
~ 99 ~
When a scientist attempts to correlate observed
facts in the process of producing a working
hypothesis, he resorts primarily to instinctive,
belief-like concepts in order to explain, organise and
relate his findings. If the hypothesis, which emerges
from this stringing together of observed facts offers
a reasonably satisfactory explanation for all of them,
it is regarded as being ‘scientific’ and, therefore, as
credible as an observed fact. It must also be borne in
mind that an invisible reality is often regarded as a
fact, simply for lack of other hypothesis, which will
offer a cogent explanation for it. When a scientist
says electricity is a flow of electrons, he does not
mean that he has seen electrons flowing through an
electric wire by means of a microscope. He merely
explains an observed event in terms of the
movement of the switch that makes the bulb light,
the fans move and the factories run. What has come
within our experience is simply an external
phenomenon and not, by any means, the event that
is being inferred. A scientist, in short, believes in the
existence of an invisible fact, after having noted its
instrumentality; or impact upon observable
phenomena. But we should never forget that every
fact that we believe in is always, in the beginning, a
