Can Philosophy be Trusted?

One thing that I've noticed is how people oftentimes place an undeserved amount of faith in the perfection of the observational sciences (e.g. biology, chemistry, archeology) and mathematical sciences, and yet have a complete distrust of the philosophical sciences. They seem to think that those sciences which deal with the purely physical, "concrete" evidences are the only ones that can be afforded any measure of trust.

Here are my thoughts on this issue.

Philosophy is just as concrete and trustworthy as the observational sciences. God created man with the ability to think conceptually/abstractly, able to logically build off of conceptual foundations, creating (for lack of a better word) "systems" of thought.* We are capable of rationally understanding and manipulating concepts so as to gain knowledge of new concepts. And since there are such abstract entities as concepts, and since such entities may be studied and understood by the process of human thought, Philosophy (conducted properly) is just as concrete as the observational and mathematical sciences.

And yet I must give a condition. Although the sciences themselves (e.g. mathematical, observational, philosophical) are useful for seeking after and gaining many kinds of knowledge, they are by no means foolproof. Every science requires a scientist to utilize it, and scientific discoveries, theories, and conclusions are all made by men. And this is where the problems begin.

Man, by virtue of his fall from perfection, is depraved. As such, his reasoning is at best often misguided, at worst completely broken and confused. And since men are the ones conducting their scientific search for knowledge, they can (and do) err. Therefore, the declarations of "science" and "philosophy" (which in fact are mainly the declarations of "scientists" and "philosophers") are not flawless.

Yet, in spite of their flaws, true knowledge (true as in factual) can be gained through the sciences. For instance, we know about the existence of DNA, and we have gained a great amount of concrete, factual knowledge about it. We also know that two plus two equals four, and we know that proper philosophy demands that we believe in the existence of God and the perfection of His Word. Nevertheless, there are still instances where all of these sciences necessarily err, since the scientists behind them are by no means omniscient or perfect.

Scientific and philosophical discoveries may be continuously made, and our understanding of the world around us will continue to grow as time goes on. We may find that many of the "common" scientific beliefs that we hold to at this point may actually be incorrect on one level or another. In spite of this, the Lord is never wrong. All knowledge is found in Him. Therefore, the only one that we can fully place our trust in is the Omniscient God, and the Word which His Spirit revealed to us.

*Note: I am not speaking here primarily of "systems" as in Utilitarianism or Stoicism, wherein they have completely different foundations, and are diametrically opposed to one another. Rather, I am speaking primarily of systems that have the same conceptual foundations, but have different "middle" concepts and conclusions. In Theology, we might say it is like Covenantalism and Dispensationalism, not Unitarianism and Trinitarianism. Thus, I am speaking primarily of Biblical systems of philosophical thought, not unbiblical.