A RESPONSE TO A SEEKER

I am glad that you are seeking, because a true seeker will find. I am also confident that you will see through Dawkin’s claim that science has made God irrelevant. Why?

For one thing, science has never demonstrated that anything ever happens naturally and without Divine guidance. To do this, science would have to demonstrate that our causal laws/forces of science are of natural derivation and continuation. However, science is ill-equipped for such a task.

More to the point, these laws or causal agents give every indication that they are designed and divinely pieced together (fine-tuned) to promote life. Science cannot disprove the divine origin of these laws but, instead, depends upon them for each of its findings. If these laws were simply a part of this universe, they would be changing as the universe changes, automatically voiding the possibility of any coherent scientific proclamation. Indeed, if it had been possible for our laws to have been created by an explosion (the “Big Bang”), there is no reason to expect them to be immutable and universal, making science possible.

We should not expect these laws to be elegant (simple), enabling scientific discovery and understanding. Instead, we should expect what explosions usually produce – Chaos!

But please continue your exploration. If you want the truth, you will find the truth.

DOES INTELLIGENT DESIGN (ID) QUALIFY AS SCIENCE?

According to Wikipedia, it does not:

• Intelligent design, by appealing to a supernatural agent, directly conflicts with the principles of science, which limit its inquiries to empirical, observable and ultimately testable data and which require explanations to be based on empirical evidence.

However, all scientists, IDers included, do science the same way, using the same methods. All observe, measure, quantify, and replicate findings. There is only one difference between IDers and non-IDers. Non-IDers (naturalists) insist that only natural explanations are allowable.

However, this is largely a philosophical issue. It asks these questions:

• “What underlies the objective scientific laws/forces and the resultant findings? Do these laws originate, operate, and continue immutably naturally or supernaturally (ID)? What is the ultimate source of causation and being?”

This question must be answered philosophically and not just scientifically. As such, ID is no less scientific than naturalism, neither of which can be directly observed or measured. Instead, they both represent pre-scientific considerations.

Nevertheless, science can and does ask the question of ultimate causation, even though it cannot be directly determined by measurement. It asks:

1. Where does life come from?
2. What is the origin of the laws of science? The fine-tuning of the universe? The universe itself with its Big Bang? Matter? Space? Time?

How then are these questions to be resolved?

In fact, some naturalists have forsaken their naturalistic understanding of the universe for partially scientific reasons. 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” (Antony Flew with Roy Varghese, There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, 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.” (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). 

However, Wikipedia claimed that:

• Intelligent design, by appealing to a supernatural agent, directly conflicts with the principles of science, which limit its inquiries to empirical, observable and ultimately testable data.

If this is how we determine what science is, then Naturalism also fails. No amount of testing will suffice to determine that the laws/forces of science originate and operate naturally and unintelligently.

IT IS RATIONAL TO BELIEVE IN GOD: THE CASE OF MORALITY

If the virtuous life and morality are not based on God, they must be based on something else. Here are the only other conceivable choices:

MORALITY BASED UPON OBJECTIVE MORAL LAW. In the same way that we have to conform to gravity and not jump off buildings, we have to also conform to moral law so that we do not injure ourselves or others. However, it does not seem that the concept of an objective moral law is sustainable without the concept of God:

1. The analogy doesn’t hold up. We can easily bypass the effects of gravity by boarding a plane or even by bungee jumping. Why then shouldn’t we also do an end-run around the moral laws? In contrast to gravity, moral law would require an Enforcer.

2. There are no sufficient reasons to adhere to an impersonal moral law. If our conscience bothers us, we can simply take a drug or go live in a culture where our aberrant behavior is acceptable.

3. Even if an impersonal moral law is adequate, we would then have to explain where this intricately fine-tuned law came from and why it is universal and immutable in this universe of molecules-in-motion. We would also have to explain why we experience it in the way we do with guilt and shame, as if we had violated more than an impersonal law. 

MORALITY BASED ON PRAGMATISM – THE BENEFITS. If morality is not justified by higher principles, then it can only be justified by lower ones – how living the virtuous life beneficially impacts us. We live virtuously because of the psychological and physical payoffs. However, this rationale is clearly inadequate. If pragmatism is the bottom line – the ultimate reason for our choices – then pragmatism can also justify all forms of non-virtuous behavior. Lying to get a promotion will yield positive results for years.

Many believe in God for strictly personal reasons. However, it is also rational to believe in God. Even some atheists will admit morality fails without God:

Arthur Leff, atheist, Duke School of Law, admitted:

• “The so-called death of God wasn’t just His funeral, but was the elimination of any coherent ethical or legal system…As it stands now, everything is up for grabs…Napalming babies is bad, starving the poor wicked, buying and selling people is depraved—but, ‘Sez who?’ God help us.”

The atheist Max Hocutt similarly acknowledged:

• “To me (the non-existence of God) means that there is no absolute morality, that moralities are sets of social conventions devised by humans to satisfy their needs…If there were a morality written up in the sky somewhere but no God to enforce it, I see no good reason why anyone should pay it any heed.” (Understanding the Times)

And eventually, they won’t!

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.

FAITH IN THE MULTIVERSE

Why is it that the laws of science are fine-tuned, precisely calibrated, for existence, even for life? I would say that this requires an omnipotent super-Mind. Those who are committed to a naturalistic explanation cite the evidence-less multiverse, reasoning that if there are an infinite number of universes, then one of them should be our fine-tuned universe. One physicist boasted that:

·       Arguments for fine tuning do not prove the existence of God, since the fine tuning could be explained by a suitable multiverse even if God did not exist.

Even if we overlook the logical problem of an infinite number of universes, the lack of any scientific evidence, and the lack of any mechanism that could create these infinite universes, there still remains many other problems for this faith:

1.     Why are our laws so elegant, so apparently designed?

2.     Why are they unchanging while everything else is in movement, even exploding?

3.     Why do they work so uniformly throughout our universe?

4.     Why doesn’t our universe self-destruct?

A multiverse cannot answer these questions. Other God-substitutes will have to be invoked! However, Intelligence explains more than accident and chance will ever explain! The choice is yours.