2 Peter 2:12a and Jude 1:10 & 19 speak of those who are like brute beasts, unable to process rational thought and only able to respond to their five senses because they don’t listen to the Holy Spirit.
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While inductive reasoning can’t lead to knowledge of truth, we can use it to extend our observations and make predictions about the physical realm. The classic example is the ball on the table. We roll the ball off the table, and we observe that it falls to the ground. It never floats in the air. It never rises. If we do this multiple times, we can plan that the ball will fall the next time we roll it off the table. We can extrapolate that the ball will fall off the table every time if we do this same experiment once a minute for one year, ten years, or a thousand years. That’s inductive reasoning. It’s a form of inductive reasoning.
This principle works well for a ball on a table and its behavior when it hits the edge of the table. It doesn’t work at all for telling us why the ball always drops and never goes up. It doesn’t tell us whether there’s something about our observation that we don’t understand. Therefore, by this inductive inference, we can’t say for certain that the ball won’t float up the next time we knock it off the table. Inductive inference provides a way of survival, but it doesn’t lead us to knowledge of the truth.
By comparison, deductive reasoning is absolute but also requires a true premise. Only divine revelation can provide a true premise. By revelation we can know that God is faithful to enforce the laws of nature, so we can be confident that He’ll continue to enforce the law that makes the ball fall off the table. If He chooses to do a miracle (do something different), we know that He’ll make that slight and temporary exception in His wisdom and to complete His good purpose.
Since the premise for this knowledge about gravity is divine revelation and truth, we have a true premise, and we can use that true premise to reach a true conclusion. We can know with certainty. Therefore, we can continue to do science using inductive reasoning. We can continue to have absolute knowledge using deductive reasoning based on divine revelation. However, we would be irrational if we were to have absolute belief or conviction based on inductive reasoning.
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We can trust that gravity will continue but not because of inductive inference. The reason we can depend on that ball falling when it hits the end of the table rather than floating up is that God enforces what we call the laws of nature, and God is faithful. We can depend on Him. By Jesus Christ, all things hold together. He reveals this fact about Himself as He speaks to us through Scripture.
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