HAS SCIENCE BANISHED GOD?

Atheists charge that soon there will no longer be a purpose for God. Why? Because—they claim—we will no longer need God to explain the mysteries of life, since science is now providing those explanations, making God irrelevant. One atheist exults:

·       "As our understanding of the physical world has increased—and as our ability to test theories and claims has improved—the domain of God's miracles and interventions, or other supposed supernatural phenomena, has consistently shrunk...We stopped needing God to explain floods, but we still needed Him to explain sickness and health. Then we didn't need Him to explain sickness and health, but we still needed him to explain consciousness. Now we are beginning to get a grip on consciousness..."

The assumption is that science will soon make God irrelevant. However, this assumption is based upon an unsubstantiated leap of faith—that, in some way, scientific explanation is opposed to God's existence.

Instead of this model, there is another more in keeping with reason—that God is the foundation of science. It is God, therefore, who makes science possible. Looked at this way, science becomes, not the enemy of God but rather His invention, beautifully highlighting His workmanship.

After all, what is it that makes scientific discovery possible? Is it not God's immutable, universal, and elegantly causal laws—laws which are impossible without a Designer and immutable Sustainer?

Only with such a God as this is science and learning possible.

How can we account for the elegant laws of science without an Intelligent Designer? Can an explosion, what some might call the Big Bang, account for these exquisitely-structured laws? Can it explain E=MC2?

Instead, we recognize that such elegance is normally the product of intelligence. Without such simple and elegantly-fashioned laws, scientific discovery would be almost impossible. Think about it…if a law of science required fifty terms to accurately describe it, that very complexity might keep it hidden, preventing scientific understanding.

How do we account for the fact that such laws and/or causes operate uniformly and universally throughout the universe? Ordinarily, forces or causes operate locally. A campfire warms only when we are close to it. The radio station can only transmit its signal within a certain distance. However, the laws of science are not limited to certain locales. If they were, there could be no science, no descriptive formulas, no textbooks, no predictions, and no replication of findings appropriate to various continents and conditions.

What then enables the laws of the universe to operate uniformly and universally, unobstructed by storms, mountains, or distances? And why does nothing affect them, while they affect everything? They contrast with the things of this material world in every respect, suggesting that they come from another realm, a Transcendent realm.

What can account for the immutability of these laws in view of the fact that this entire universe is expanding, moving, and even deteriorating—moment by moment? Must there not be an uncaused Cause who remains immutable? For, if the Cause changed, how could “it” sustain our immutable laws?

Besides this, how can science function in such a changing world? Would not its findings also be in flux? And wouldn't these findings be entirely useless? As soon as we could publish them, the supposed facts would have already changed.

In all their characteristics, the laws of science point to their Creator and Sustainer. Their immutability, uniformity, and elegance demand an Intelligent Designer.

Yet, the atheist encounters other problems, as well. If the many laws of science are not eternal, then they too require a cause and an explanation. Their cause can only be an uncaused Eternal Intelligent Being, who does not require a cause.

If these laws are eternal, they must transcend the beginning of this finite universe. The fact that they would have worked so harmoniously and would have been so fine-tuned to create such an orderly, functional, and life-sustaining universe points to their unity and perhaps eternality within the Mind of God.

Besides, without such a transcendent Being, science would never be able to reasonably explain anything! Why not? Because any explanation would always require its own explanation, ad infinitum.

In conclusion, science does not do away with God. Instead—whether it wants to admit it or not—all the sciences depend upon Him! Therefore, science is not in opposition to God. Rather, science derives its very being and substance from Him! As a result, every scientific finding declares, not only His existence, but also His glory.

Does Science make the Christian Faith Irrelevant?

Does science – its findings and technological advancements – make Christianity irrelevant? Law professor and apologist, David Skeel, re-states this common objection to Christianity:

• Many aspects of our existence were mysterious a few centuries ago, and God was the commonly accepted explanation. Since then, science has solved many of the mysteries, and scientists are steadily solving others. There is no need for God. (From an interview in Christian Union)

However, the critical question is this:

• Does science solve these mysteries apart from God or in concert with God? Has science staked out for itself a domain independent of God or dependent upon Him? Therefore, when we acknowledge science, must we also acknowledge that this entire enterprise rests upon God?

Science depends on universal, immutable, and elegant laws. Without them, no scientific knowledge is possible – at best, only change. From where then do these laws arise and how are they maintained within a universe of molecules-in-motion? Can an explosion – the Big Bang – account for them? Certainly, explosions never create order or functional products, even less, the laws of science.

Instead, these laws give every sign of Design and not the product of as yet non-existent natural processes. Therefore, the search for a natural explanation before the natural exists is oxymoronic. Rather, the laws of science tend to point to the Transcendent for an explanation for their origin, immutability, universality, elegance and perpetuation. Even the pages of Scripture would agree:

• Jeremiah 33:25 states that God accomplishes His purposes through “fixed laws of heaven and earth.” 

• Job 38:33 “Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up [God's] dominion over the earth?”

If this is true, then the entire scientific enterprise depends on resources that can only come from God. These resources also include the complex and mysterious phenomena of matter, energy, time, and space, not to mention logic, reason, and math. Skeel marvels about math:

• Mathematicians have repeatedly conjured up concepts that seemed purely abstract, and yet proved essential to understanding features of our universe such as subatomic physics. How is it that the universe is rationally intelligible, and that our minds are somehow tuned to that rationality? For a materialist, this puzzle is very hard to explain.

Not only do we find a harmony between math and this world of science, we also observe an incredible degree of harmony between logic/reason and this world – a harmony that allows us to understand and use it. This harmony seems to represent a grand Design. As Skeel puts it, “For a materialist, this puzzle is very hard to explain.”

In fact, some materialists have forsaken a naturalistic understanding of the universe. The now-deceased Antony Flew has been called the “foremost atheist thinker of the 20th century.” However, after 40 years of debating Christians, he surprised the world.

At a 2004 debate at New York University, Flew declared that he “now accepted the existence of a God” (p. 74). In that debate, he said that he believed that the origin of life points to a creative Intelligence,

• Almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together. It’s the enormous complexity of the number of elements and the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together. The meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute. It is all a matter of the enormous complexity by which the results were achieved, which looked to me like the work of intelligence.” (Antony Flew with Roy Varghese, There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, 75).

Did Flew have a religious experience that had biased him against a naturalistic explanation? He explained:

• I must stress that my discovery of the Divine has proceeded on a purely natural level, without any reference to supernatural phenomena. It has been an exercise in what has traditionally been called natural theology. It has had no connection with any of the revealed religions. Nor do I claim to have had any personal experience of God or any experience that may be called supernatural or miraculous. In short, my discovery of the Divine has been a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith. (93).

In fact, the materialistic/naturalistic attempts to explain this universe fall flat in many respects. Any viable theory must be able to explain all of the phenomena in its domain, However, there are just so many things that naturalism cannot explain – the origins of the fine-tuning of the universe, DNA, life, the cell, freewill, consciousness, biological invention and diversity (irreducible complexity), the chemical table, logic, reason, the purpose of life, art and music appreciation, and objective moral law.

However, the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent Creator provides one simple explanation for all of these phenomena. It would therefore seem that the God-paradigm is the superior one and not the irrelevant one.

Tony Jones: Re-Modeling God according to Updated Specifications

We want life to make sense to us – and this is a good impulse – and so we re-shape God according to our understanding and lifestyle. And this is not a good impulse. Why not? For one thing, we are warned against doing this. Many verses declare that He is above our understanding. We are finite and He is infinite:

•         "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The Creator of the universe is further beyond our understanding than even the universe itself! Therefore, we shouldn’t go beyond what He has revealed to us (Isaiah 8:20; 1 Cor. 4:7).

But how do we understand the recent devastating earthquake in Nepal? Why would our omniscient God allow this horror? He certainly could have intervened!

In order to preserve his belief in an all-loving, non-judging God, the Emergent Church teacher, Tony Jones, rhetorically asks:

•         What if, instead, God is traveling through time with us? What if God abdicated all the sovereignty so as to give creation room to flourish? What if God is in a dynamic love-relationship with us, and both we and God are being changed as a result? http://tonyj.net/blog/2015/04/28/where-is-god-in-the-earthquake/

In order to justify his philosophy of life, Jones is willing to reject God’s biblical self-disclosure – His unchanging-ness (immutability), omniscience, and omnipotence:

•         If this [above] is the case — and there’s ample biblical evidence that it is — then the earthquake in Nepal caught God by surprise. God is neither planning earthquakes nor sitting back and allowing them to happen. God is a victim of the earthquake because thousands of God’s beloved children perished.

“Ample biblical evidence?” Well, let’s take a look:

IMMUTABILITY:

•         Malachi 3:6 – “For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.

•         James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

•         James 1:10-12 - “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; And they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will fold them up, And they will be changed.  But you are the same, and Your years will not fail.”

•         Hebrews 13:8 - Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

OMNISCIENCE:

•         Psalm 139:4 – For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.

•         Hebrew 4:13 – And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must given account.

•         Psalm 147:5 – Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.

•         Psalm 139:16 – Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.  And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

•         Isaiah 42:9 – “Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

•         Isaiah 45:11 – Thus says the LORD, The Holy One of Israel, and his Maker:  “Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons; And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me.

OMNIPOTENCE:

•         Psalm 37:23 – The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.

•         Matthew 10:29 – “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin?  And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.  But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”

•         Romans 8:28 – And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Job’s three friends also tried to construe God and His actions according to their worldview. They were correct that God was involved in Job’s misfortunes and attributed “good” motives to God. However, they were convinced that Job had some massive secret sins that were responsible for His suffering and misrepresented God in their attempt to bring God into conformity with their philosophy, and God was angry at them:

•         After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)

We are not at liberty to conform God to our ideological preferences. Instead, the measure of our love for God isn’t a matter of how “nice” we want to make Him seem, but instead, how faithful we remain to His Self-revelation:

•         Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. (John 14:23-24)

Not only is Jones’ views unbiblical, they are also illogical and beneath the dignity of God. How can we account for the fine-tuning of the universe, the immutable and elegant, laws of nature, DNA, the cell, life, logic, reason, freewill, and consciousness, if even an earthquake had “caught God by surprise?”

Why does Jones invent such a God – one who will also be caught by surprise by our diseases, failures, and even death and therefore helpless before them? I’ll leave that up to you!

A Contextualized Proof of God’s Existence

Many atheists challenge me, “Prove your god exists!” I’ve been through this so often! No proof or evidence is ever enough. This coincides with the Bible’s teaching that they already have the evidence but reject it:

• The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,  since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

The evidence is right under their nose and in their eyes. Whatever they see points back to its Creator! Therefore, the battle for men’s hearts is primarily spiritual not evidential. Nevertheless, I continue to ask God to use our presentations of evidence and reason, and sometimes He does, as reflected in many testimonies.

One militant atheist kept pressing me for proof. I responded:

• I’ll prove that God exists after you prove that you exist. After all, I do not talk to mere machines.

There is absolutely no way that he can prove that he exists and isn’t just a machine. If this is so, how can the atheist demand that I prove there is a God! However, he accused me of obfuscating and playing with words. I responded that this isn’t a word game but an illustration that absolute proofs do not exist and that it is pointless to try to prove something to someone who has no ears (or willingness) to hear. It’s like trying to prove to the color-blind that the color red exists. However, the problem is more acute with the atheist. While the color-blind can’t see red, the atheist refuses to see red.

However, if you want to go with evidence and proof, there is a better way. Let me lay it out in dialogue form:

Christian: Okay, let me attempt to give you just a bit of proof, but first tell me – How do you intend to evaluate my proof?

Atheist: With reason and logic, of course!

Christian: Evidently, you believe that reason and logic provide you with reliable tools to evaluate. Do you believe that they have to be unchanging and universal – that they work reliably in Shanghai as well as in NYC, today as well as next year?

Atheist: Well, in order to be reliable and useful tools, they must be universal and unchanging!

Christian: True, but how then do you account for the fact that these tools are universal and unchanging? What makes them this way in our universe of change and expansion – molecules-in-motion?

Atheist: Our laws of nature are also universal and unchanging. There’s nothing unusual about reason and logic being this way!

Christian: True, but this just magnifies your problem. How can you account for any of these laws being universal and unchanging?

Atheist: I don’t have to account for these qualities. It’s enough that they are useful.

Christian: I think that you do have to account for them. The viability of your naturalistic worldview depends on this accounting, and I don’t think you can. Meanwhile, I can!

Atheist: Ha, you mean with your imaginary sky friend!

Christian: Your worldview can only account for molecules-in-motion; God can account for the stability, operation, and origin of the laws. Meanwhile, you cannot account for how natural laws were created before there was even a “natural” to create them. Nor can you account for their elegance or usefulness. Only a Transcendent and intelligent Creator can!

Perhaps we can call this a “contextualized proof!”

A Unifying Theory of Everything

Where did the universe come from? Some cosmologists want to hypothesize that it sprang into existence from “nothing.” However, their “nothing” is something. Alexander Vilenkin believes that “something is in place beforehand – namely the laws of physics.” However, he admits:

• It’s a great mystery as to where the laws of physics come from. We don’t even know how to approach it. (Steve Nadis, “Starting Point,” Discover [Sept. 2013])

Perhaps Vilenkin doesn’t know how to “approach it,” because he is starting with the wrong paradigm. Certainly, from a naturalistic, atheistic perspective, this question is a “great mystery.” However, this might be more than a mystery but a veritable impossibility:

1. The laws of physics are elegant, universal, and immutable. Only a cause of equal or greater magnitude could explain their existence and uniform functioning. This consideration alone should eliminate naturalism.

2. A natural explanation is impossible because the natural is not yet in existence to cause the natural laws. Nothing is in existence!

3. Invoking any natural cause would also suffer from the problem of infinite regress – What causes the cause, and then, what causes the cause of the cause, ad infinitum! The only way to avoid this conundrum is to invoke the transcendent – an eternal Causer who doesn’t require a cause!

4. It is also hard to understand how the unchanging laws of physics could arise from what is always changing. It is equally hard to envision how they can remain unchanging in our ever-expanding universe of molecules in motion.

The naturalistic paradigm clearly does not prove fruitful here. However, there is one other paradigm that does offer a cogent explanation:

• In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth!

God: The Energy Force

So many young people are talking about God in terms of an energy force. For us old-timers, this might sound strange, but there is a rationale motivating this preference. One young man admitted:

·        Forces of nature make no moral demands. This god won’t disagree with us. If our conception about god is uncomfortable, we can just look a little harder until we find a god that feels right to us and will affirm who we are. Your god is just too judgmental for me.

I must admit that I appreciated his candor. In essence, he was admitting that he merely believed what made him feel good. I wondered how long such a god could satisfy him and his searching mind. 

I tried to explain to him some of the problems with this god of his creation:

·        God as impersonal energy can’t explain much. Let’s take gravity for example. It can only do one thing – attract! It can’t write a poem or even scramble an egg. How then can you call a force “god?”

·        An impersonal, non-judgmental god is one who is unconcerned about injustice and victimization. How could a mere “force” feel one way or another?  Besides that, this kind of god must surely be a poor role-model. If our god is unconcerned, then there is no reason why we should be concerned.

He kind-of agreed, but didn’t seem very troubled by these problems:

·        Well, I know that there is something out there. There has to be.

However, there seemed to be a barrier to his thinking clearly on this subject. (The Apostle Paul claimed that God’s creation revealed a lot about the nature of God – Rom. 1:18-32 – like a footprint that reveals a lot about the beast who made it). So I tried to leave him with one more parting thought:

·        As a painting reveals a lot about the painter, the universe tells us a lot about the magnificence of its Creator.

I sensed that, at this point, he wasn’t listening. Sometimes, more is less, and silence speaks louder than words. I wanted to tell him that his impersonal force of nature was unable to answer his prayers, hear his cries, or provide him with any sense of meaning or purpose, but he seemed unconcerned.

No one wants to be judged, least of all by a God who could judge us eternally. When I post an essay about morality in an atheist group, some will respond, “Why are you trying to make us feel guilty?” That’s the way it felt to them!

Naturally speaking, our aversion to God is so great that we hate His message, as Jesus taught:

·        This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God (John 3:19-21).

In other words, the natural, unredeemed human hates God. But why then would this young man even entertain the notion that there might be a God? He had told me that he had once been an atheist, but that this position now seemed to him to be unlikely.

I would like to believe that our Savior is beginning to draw him out of his darkness. However, the light can be dreadful to one who has dwelled in the dark for a long time.