SCIENCE, FAITH, AND THE PRECONDITIONS OF RATIONAL INQUIRY: John Lennox's Argument Read Through MKS®-Thronaxis Epistemic Governance

Abstract The science-faith debate is frequently misframed as a conflict between empirical knowledge and religious belief. This paper argues that science itself presupposes non-empirical conditions of intelligibility—rational trust, lawful regularity, and mathematical describability—that cannot be grounded by empirical method alone without circularity. The study reframes John Lennox's critique of atheistic naturalism as an implicit Critique of epistemic flattening: the collapse of ontological depth into method and of authority into empiricism. Employing The conceptual grammar established in MKS ®-Thronaxis, the paper distinguishes ontological tiers (domains of reality), epistemic axes (modes of disclosure, mediation, and adjudication), and methodological grids (tier-specific inquiry practices). On this On this basis, it argues that empirical science possesses genuine Authority within Tier I, but cannot serve as the ultimate explanatory court, since its intelligibility depends on Tier II rational order, Tier III metaphysical grounding, and Tier IV theological telos. The paper concludes that MKS®-Thronaxis supplies the architectonic epistemic governance needed to preserve scientific integrity without scientism and to affirm faith without fideism.