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Professor John Lennox 'Science & G-d'

Thursday, 15 December, 2016 - 1:30 pm

When talking about science and religion seriously there is no conflict but more than this the difficulty is not the coexistence of science and religion but science coexisting with atheism. The fact that there is no necessary conflict between science and belief in G-d ought to be obvious, as Peter Higgs may have been an atheist but William Phillips believes in G-d and they both won the Nobel Prize in physics. In fact, over 60% percent were believers in G-d. There is no essential conflict between science and belief in G-d but rather the conflict lies between science and atheism. The case is however being made by Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking. Hawking writes in his most recent book The Grand Design with Leonard Mlodinow, “he has no need or space for G-d.” He uses the laws of gravity to argue that the world can and will create itself from nothing. This is ironic as Newton who discovered the laws of gravity used it as a ground for theism. What has caused this shift from Newton to Hawkins?

 

 

Science, historically, points to the existence of G-d, as opposed to the opposite. Firstly, modern science arose in the theistic Judeo-Christian culture of Europe. CS Lewis writes “men became scientific because they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.” The early scientists saw science in Genesis of the Bible. The naming of the animals for example can be considered the science of taxonomy. To counter this and say that everyone believed in G-d back then is not true, as the Chinese did not believe in G-d. It is possibly for this reason that although technology, printing, irrigation and much more developed in China, abstract science did not, as the East had no concept of a rational creator that created the university based on rationally intelligible laws.

 

 

 

Nature of G-d

 

 

There is an intellectual fog that concerns the nature of scientific explanation. There are those who believe that the G-d of the Bible is like the Greek G-d of lightening. That would be the concept of G-d of the Gaps, which may be closed by science, thus there’s no need for G-d. With ‘G-d of the Gaps one is forced to choose between G-d and science because G-d is a postulate that is anti-science. All the ancient gods were believed to have descended from the heaven. Jaeger argued that this is vastly different to G-d of the Bible who created the heavens and the earth. G-d then created everything, that which we do understand and that which we do not understand. For Newton, the more he understands the laws of nature the more he admired the creator of the universe. Similar to the more the way one admires a painting by Rembrandt the more one admires Rembrandt.

 

 

 

Limits of scientific explanation

 

 

Why did they not make the same mistake as today? Because they believe in scientism and that this is the only way to view reality. They believe that science is the only way to truth and rationale. Peter Medawar does science a disservice with the claim that it can answer all questions. Einstein understood the limitation of science when he said, “you can speak about the ethical foundation of science but not the scientific foundation of ethics.”

 

 

 

What do we mean by explanation pertaining to science? The law of gravity does not tell us what gravity is. Wittgenstein saw this most clearly that the great delusion of modernism is that the laws of nature are descriptive but not explanation in the exhaustive sense. We can realize then that there are different levels of explanation. A kettle may be boiling because of the heating plates send currents and heats up the water but we can also say that the water is boiling to pour a cup of tea. One is scientific and one is intention. The problem today is that some people think there is only one type of explanation. This refutes Hawking’s premise that sees the law of gravity as proof that G-d does not exist as gravity can create the world from nothing. I argue in my book ‘A Matter of Gravity: God, the Universe and Stephen Hawking’ that this is a flat argument as laws of gravity cannot create anything. This is a misunderstanding of the nature of explanation.

 

Nature of faith

 

 

Another intellectual fog is generated by the newly revised definition of faith. The Webster says, “faith is believing where there is no of evidence.” This is not the Biblical idea of faith that comes from the word fidelity and trust. Faith in the Bible is based on evidence.  On the contrary, the strength of faith is measured by the evidence that lies behind it. Einstein saw this – he said he couldn’t imagine a scientist who does not have that profound faith in the rational intelligibility of the universe. You cannot do science unless you believe it can be done. Cambridge physicist Sir John Polkinhorne writes that physics is powerless to justify its belief in the rational intelligibility of the universe because you have to believe in the rational intelligibility of the universe.

 

 

 

 

Why should one do science? If one believes that one’s brain is the end product of mindless unguided processes one would not trust it. Darwin expressed this difficulty when he wrote: “with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.” Atheist physics Professor Alvin Platinga wrote: “If Dawkins is right, and we are the product of mindless unguided natural processes, then he has given us strong reason to doubt the reliability of human cognitive faculties and therefore inevitably to doubt the validity of any belief that they produce—including Dawkins’ own science and his atheism. His biology and his belief in naturalism would therefore appear to be at war with each other in a conflict that has nothing at all to do with God.”

 

 

 

Atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel says essentially the same in Mind and Cosmos: “if the mental is not itself merely physical, it cannot be explained by natural science. Evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn’t take any of our convictions seriously, including the scientific world picture on which evolutionary naturalism itself depends.”

 

At the heart of argument then is that there is a self-destruct course here. As you look at the big discoveries in science, as the code structure of DNA with 3.5 billion letters, what do you do with it? Is it purely chance and necessity? This is contradictory as DNA is letters, which by definition has meaning. This opposition to random processes is in Genesis where it describes the act of creation with the words “And G-d says”. This is the input of an intelligible creator of the universe; opposite to the notion that blind forces can create the universe. The choice today is therefore between G-d and ‘nothing’, as apparently ‘nothing’ can create the universe, according to Hawking.

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