English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician, Arthur
Eddington admitted, “The beginning [of the universe] seems to present
insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly
supernatural.” https://crossexamined.org/god-and-the-astronomers/
Robert Wilson and
Arno Penzias, Nobel laureate in physics, had initially believed in the “Steady
State Theory,” which maintained that the universe had always existed. Consequently,
the question, “Who created it,” became unnecessary. However, as the evidence
accumulated against it, Penzias admitted:
·
“The Steady State theory turned out to be so
ugly that people dismissed it. The easiest way to fit the observations with the
least number of parameters was one in which the universe was created out of
nothing, in an instant, and continues to expand.” https://crossexamined.org/god-and-the-astronomers/
Now that this theory has been rejected, the question of the
origin of the universe has again become a hot issue. Robert Jastrow was the
founding director of NASA’s Goddard
Institute for Space Studies, a professor at Columbia University, and the
director emeritus of the Mt. Wilson
Observatory. However, Jastrow remains an agnostic:
·
When a scientist writes about God, his
colleagues assume he is either over the hill or going bonkers. In my case it
should be understood from the start that I am an agnostic in religious matters.
My views on this question are close to those of Darwin, who wrote, "My
theology is a simple muddle. I cannot look at the Universe as the result of
blind chance, yet I see no evidence of beneficent design in the details." (God and the Astronomers (1978), Ch. 1: In the Beginning)
Yet, he does see scientific evidence for the existence of
God. In one interview, after strongly
asserting his agnosticism, Jastrow admitted:
·
…that scientific evidence (including Hubble’s
discoveries) pointed quite clearly to the existence of a supernatural Creator.
Yet, the materialistic philosophy he had long embraced rebelled at such a
conclusion. He ended with an admission I’ll never forget: “I’m in a completely
hopeless bind.” https://thejohn1010project.com/blog/2018/05/17/god-and-the-astronomer/
Why the bind? Jastrow remains committed to a naturalistic
world view but see the evidence pointing to ID. In God and the Astronomers, Jastrow also acknowledged that the
reason-of-naturalism had failed:
·
At this moment it seems as though science will
never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the
scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends
like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to
conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is
greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. (116;
p. 107 in 1992 edition)
For the scientist committed to naturalism, the findings are
a “bad dream,” since the evidence puts him face-to-face with a Creator God.
Many things continue to keep Jastrow locked in his “hopeless
bind.” In Red Giants and White Dwarfs:
Man's Descent from the Stars, Jastrow acknowledged that even the fossil
record could not rescue him from his perplexity:
·
We can assume that in a relatively short time —
perhaps within 100 million years — the one celled organism evolved into a
colony of cells. With the further passage of time, groups of cells within those
colonies assumed specialized functions of food-gathering, digestion, the
structural features of an outer skin, and so on; thus began the stage of
evolution leading to the complex, many-celled creatures which dominate life
today. The fossil record contains no trace of these preliminary stages in the
development of many-celled organisms. The first clues to the existence of
relatively advanced forms of life consist of a few barely discernible tracks,
presumably made in the primeval slime by soft, wriggling wormlike animals.
These are found in rocks about one billion years old. These meager remains are
the earliest traces of many-celled animal life on the planet. (1971, p. 249)
After he had interviewed Jastrow for the DVD, “The Call of the Cosmos,” Lad Allen
concluded:
·
I remember being struck by his honesty. Dr.
Jastrow was clearly torn between what he wanted to believe (there is no
Creator) and what the scientific evidence had actually revealed. It was one of
the most memorable interviews of my career and the basis for a fascinating
short film that we’re pleased to premier this month. https://thejohn1010project.com/blog/2018/05/17/god-and-the-astronomer/
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