Inference has played a role in the work of science from the beginning.

A scientist observes various phenomena and infers a relationship between them. He then establishes a series of tests or experiments in an effort to create conditions which reproduce his observations at some level, thus, hopefully, demonstrating the validity of his inferences and establishing what we might refer to as a scientific truth.

Inference works because scientists can observe and manipulate material phenomena and processes – or their numerical proxies – to achieve measurable results. But what if we cannot actually observe a phenomenon? What if we can only observe certain effects? How can we infer either the cause of those effects or how that unobservable cause might affect other phenomena, without actually being able to observe or manipulate that unobservable cause?

I’m thinking, of course, of black holes and dark matter. Scientists can observe neither, and their attempts to define them are merely guesses, at least for the present. How, after all, can we define something we can neither observe nor manipulate? As reported at The Daily Galaxy recently, “Black holes cannot be seen directly, but their influence on nearby stars is visible, and provides a signature…”

We see the “signature,” but not the hand that signs it. However, since the scientific community is committed to the idea of a purely materialistic cosmos, they assume that the hand which produces the “signature” must be some form of matter. Hence, “dark” matter and “black holes.”

“What’s inside a black hole is one of the biggest mysteries in physics,” The Daily Galaxy continues. That only makes sense. Since we don’t really know what a black hole is, we would expect knowing what’s inside one to be a “mystery.” But that sounds more like the language of faith than of science.

“Mysteries abound” reports The Daily Galaxy. To be sure. “Many researchers have offered theories of how supermassive black holes might have formed, but there is no consensus.” Since we don’t really know what they are, or what’s inside them – or whether there even is an “inside” to them – it’s hard to imagine anything like a consensus existing on how they were formed.

For something we really can’t define, filled with stuff that remains a mystery, scientists express a good deal of confidence about “black holes.” They now posit that “most, if not all, of the universe’s hundreds of billions of galaxies have supermassive black holes at their core.” That, without ever having seen a black hole or even being able to explain what one is. All scientists can see are influences. From those influences they infer some form of matter, because matter is what they believe in.

But what if the influence scientists are observing is coming from something other than dark matter and black holes? What if those signatures are being signed by something beyond or outside the realm of mere matter?

The anti-supernatural bias of the scientific community will not allow its members to embrace such a notion, much less pursue it, whether by research or additional speculation. All the attempts to understand black holes and dark matter from a materialistic perspective have accomplished little more than closer observation and cataloging of the effects – the influence – of these phenomena. No one really knows what they are or even, on the basis of the methods of science alone, whether they really exist.

That something exists out there seems pretty clear. Is there an explanation for the presence of a powerful, unseen influence, existing throughout the cosmos, that resolves this question in something other than a materialistic way?

If there is, it will not be discovered by the methods of materialistic science, but by the methods of faith. But materialistic science is no stranger to faith. Just as the faith of materialistic science insists that these phenomena can only be some as-yet-unknown form of matter (hence, “dark” matter or “anti-matter”), so the faith of one who considers the cosmos from more than a naturalistic perspective – from the perspective of a supernaturalist – might give rise to different faith-based inferences about such powerfully influential phenomena. Would such inferences be any less valid than those of materialist science?

I know of no such inferences being proposed as yet; however, since, as I understand, a good many Christians are at work in the fields of physics and cosmology, perhaps such an explanation – an inference regarding certain influences that allows for spiritual presence disbursed throughout the cosmos – may be forthcoming at some point.

We’ll see.