The Human Quest for Explanations: Is the Capacity for Faith Inherent?

Aristotle was not a scientist. He was a first rate philosopher and perhaps one of the greatest minds that ever lived but Aristotle did not understand or practice the scientific method. His theories about the universe-like the existence of four essential elements that make up all matter or the imbalance of basic biological "humors" that cause all disease-were created out of whole cloth from observations of reality and were never subjected to testing. Thus, Aristotelian theories were not science.

It is not discredit to Aristotle that he was not a scientist, he lived almost two thousand years before science was even really invented. For millennia human beings speculated about the puzzling and often frightening nature of the world around them. They came up with often wild theories about the various phenomena that they did not have the equipment, training or terminology to understand. For this they should not be blamed. Lightning is absolutely terrifying when it happens close to you. Regardless of the cold knowledge that lightning is a static discharge of an electrical gradient that results from rising water vapor colliding with falling condensation particles-when it happens within a hundred yards of you, you will feel the same primordial terror felt by cavemen. Without said scientific knowledge, a bolt from the blue could not help but take on supernatural characteristics from the perspective of early people. From their limited perspective something so powerful and unpredictable had to come from the wrath of God.