Science is the truth as much as God wants to give it to us.
This principle has as a corollary another of the most fundamental principles of science:
A statement is a knowledge if and only if it can be produced by a good truth-producing device that has worked well in producing it.
God gives us the means to find science. Nature gives us faculties of observation and reflection. It's not for nothing, it's to use it. If we cultivate our natural faculties, we become able to produce truth reliably, we can make good truth-producing devices and become good truth producers ourselves. This is what God asks of us. He gives Nature and its laws so that the truth shines and that we are worthy of it. He gives the laws of reason, which we must apply, if we want to enjoy the best, the presence in the ephemeral reality of eternal truth.
We do not know the truth without effort and without being honest, with others and with ourselves. It takes virtue and we have to make the effort to acquire it. Intellectual virtues are the virtues that enable us to know the truth. They are gifts from God. This is why the above principle is equivalent to the following:
A statement is knowledge if and only if it can be produced by an act of intellectual virtue.
Atheist scientists rely on their own strength to do science and think they don't need God. But do we do science or do we receive it? Do we invent it or do we discover it?
We don't just receive knowledge because it often takes work to acquire it. But God does not ask us to be lazy. And when we work to know the truth we discover that God has given us this ability. When we invent we discover that we are capable of inventing. The virtues are not given in advance, we have to take the trouble, to correct our mistakes and acquire good habits to develop them. But if we do it, we find that we are able to do it. The possibilities are what they have been for all eternity, they don't need us to be the truth. Everything we are capable of comes from God.
Even with a firm and powerful will, we control almost nothing, we are not even able to control the thoughts that will come to us in the following seconds. To believe that we can master knowledge and voluntarily control its acquisition is an illusion. We seldom know in advance whether the questions, assumptions, or principles we pose at the beginning will bear fruit. Our prior knowledge is very rudimentary and full of errors. We have little or no certainty at the start. It is only at the end of the work that we sometimes recognize the beautiful and good knowledge that satisfies our desires for truth. Even in the house of knowledge, we are not really the masters, or only in the sense that we must be masters of hospitality. This is the first quality of the scholar: to offer hospitality to all the truths that present themselves honestly. Truth cannot be tamed. We must let it come and do her work.
Desiring science and seeking it is like a prayer. "My God, give me truth and wisdom as much as you want." Prayers are sometimes answered, but we must not be unworthy of them. To find, one must desire and seek. If we don't have faith in the truth and if we don't pray for it to come, we cannot meet it. Faith gives access to the sources of science. The certainty in doubt, that is to say the certainty that there is no science, is at the same time an absurdity and a self-fulfilling prophecy, since one does not seek science when one believes that it cannot exist.
For the fundamental sciences, but not for all the sciences, certainly not for criminology, we must seek beauty in order to find truth. Without the desire for beauty we get lost in the jungle of theoretical possibilities, with it we sometimes find a way. But this desire is surely not an infallible guide. Rather, it makes us butterflies drawn to a flame. Taking one's desire for reality is generally the quickest way to be wrong, except when it is a true and beautiful desire for truth and beauty, a divine desire. If science and wisdom did not exist, we could think that this desire is vain and senseless, only purveyor of illusions, but they do exist. Efforts are sometimes rewarded.
We make science with good principles, learning by reasoning what they teach us. But how do we find the good principles? We know they are good when they bear fruit, but in the beginning we have to choose them before knowing what they will give us, so how do we do it? We try, we make mistakes, we correct, we start over, and sometimes we finally succeed. But we don't try just anything. We let ourselves be guided by the dream of a good teacher. A good principle must be such that the best teacher, the most knowledgeable, the most competent and above all the most generous, would teach it to his or her students. The dream of a generous divinity, who never abandons us, who enlightens us when we need the light, and who gives us the best, the most powerful and the most beautiful, as far as it is to our measure, is the best guide in the search for great principles of science.