“Give us sufficient knowledge, and we will cure all the problems and evils of this world.” That is, in effect, what scientists would tell you. Many people are in awe of science. It has become the modern messiah.

There is good in science, but most scientists believe they have gone beyond the need for God and the Bible. When we see knowledge expansion accompanied by multiplying problems such as immorality, illiteracy, broken homes, crime and insanity, we need to admit that something is dreadfully wrong with our knowledge.

Herbert W. Armstrong wrote this in the May 1985 Plain Truth: “We are face to face with the stern fact that increasing evils have escalated alongside increasing knowledge! That is not to say that the increased knowledge caused the growing evils. It does mean that the knowledge produced did not cure existing evils or prevent new evils” (emphasis mine throughout).

Has science given us hope for the future? Then why are so many people both young and old continuing to wreck their lives with drug addiction, sexual deviance, and all other sorts of crippling vices? In many ways, science is a false messiah that threatens to become a Frankenstein monster.

Only the Bible offers the solution to our problems.

Gerald Flurry points out the fundamental flaw with the scientific method and provides the fundamental solution.

What is wrong with science?

I recently read the introductions to two science-fiction novels: Timescape and The Black Cloud. The Timescape intro expresses hope that science will create a garden of Eden—a paradise on this Earth. Has God not already done that? Could He not do it again? In fact, He will do it again—in spite of man! And this will happen very soon—in most of our lifetimes. But scientists push God out of the picture.

Believe it or not, the problem with science is actually revealed in the biblical story of the garden of Eden!

Where Rebellion From God Began

In the garden, Adam and Eve rejected the tree of life and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As a consequence, God expelled them and cut them off from the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24).

From that point, God allowed humankind to devise their own systems of science, religion and education—apart from His direction.

With an increase in worldly knowledge has come an increasing disdain for God and for true religion. Humanity today follows in the footsteps of the first man and woman. As Herbert W. Armstrong wrote: “With the emergence of ‘modern science’ around the beginning of the 19th century, scientists assured the world that man had progressed to the point where he then could dispense with the superstitious crutch of religion and belief in God” (Plain Truth, March 1980).

Notice what Jesus Christ said: “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed” (Matthew 13:15). Scientists won’t even consider the possibility of a supernatural Creator. They shut off their senses to any proof of God’s existence.

The introduction to The Black Cloud declares the possibility of physical life with no spiritual origin—a creation that can spontaneously organize into more complex forms. That is total fiction and fantasy! Where in the entire universe can you find a system that can spontaneously organize into more complex forms? What we see instead is total disorganization: Man is about to blow himself off the planet!

Mr. Armstrong wrote of this in that same article: “Academic freedom is defined as the independent judgment allowed teachers, scholars, scientists, and students in the pursuit of knowledge. Science as a whole, and higher education, have exercised the academic freedom to postulate a creation without a Creator. They have engaged in the activity of knowledge production with total rejection of any possibility of the miraculous, the supernatural, the existence of God or anything outside the realm of the material! They have utterly rejected revelation as the source of basic knowledge.”

Some scientists devote their lives to researching the origin of Earth and mankind. But they won’t accept the truth. Instead, they promote the unprovable hypothesis of evolution. God tells us to “[p]rove all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Even scientists don’t do this as they should!

It’s no surprise that scientists today reject the Creator. Those in Christ’s day reviled and denied the Son of God in the flesh! “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day” (Matthew 11:23). Those in Capernaum were “exalted unto heaven,” filled with intellectual vanity. They wouldn’t even be taught by Jesus Christ! That is the problem with scholars and scientists and man in general.

“But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee” (verse 24). Intellectual vanity is more dangerous than the grotesque sexual sins of Sodom! Adam and Eve indeed made a deadly choice when eating from the wrong tree. Our number one problem today is that of human survival!

“At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (verse 25). God purposely keeps scientists, intellectuals and the vast majority of mankind under a cloak of ignorance. He carefully selects a few spiritual “babes” to follow Him during this physical life. Only the humble and teachable can receive God’s truth. Most people are not that way.

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” God says (Hosea 4:6). This clearly isn’t referring to physical knowledge, which exists in abundance. People are sorely lacking in the knowledge of God because they are eating from the wrong tree—the tree that leads to physical death and the destruction of all humanity! Unstable leaders in Iran now have nuclear bombs and will trigger World War iii, according to Bible prophecy.

Mankind simply is not equipped to solve world problems. When they receive the Spirit of God to add with their human spirit, then they will be capable of so much more under God’s leadership. Until then, the carnal mind is naturally hateful toward God (Romans 8:7).

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them” (Matthew 13:16-17). Those whom God blesses with this understanding possess the only true academic freedom.

Science has only scratched the surface of the tremendous wonder that fills the universe. But a superior wonder is about to return to this Earth in the personage of Jesus Christ Himself! He will cut man’s suffering short and establish God’s Kingdom. That is the vision we all should be living for.