The Journal asked contributing editor to comment on the role of the natural sciences in the pursuit of truth. Also in this issue is a discussion of the natural sciences and spirituality.
What can we rely on as truth? Down the centuries, some individuals have traveled in spiritual terrain looking for answers. The Psalmist discovered of Deity, "Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever." Ps. 119:1 60 This suggests that ultimate truth is the outcome of God, therefore entirely spiritual, unrelated to the fluctuations of the human scene. It is more likely to be detected, then, through spiritual sense rather than through the senses of the body. Genuine, underlying truth is durable and unchanging—though our perception of truth clarifies and changes as the mists of mortal research, sensory observations and their conclusions, give way to sharper insights.
What of the community of truth-seekers involved in the natural sciences? In simple terms, the biologist seeks the nature of life, the physicist the nature of matter and the physical universe, the psychologist the nature of the mind; the computer scientist explores the possibilities for measurement and computation—and so on. These are major issues. And in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy indicates the potentially profound consequences of such scientific endeavors: "Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself, out of all that is mortal." Science and Health, p. 195
