 |
 |
|
Science and the Christian Faith |
||
 |
 |
Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.[1]
Are statements such as this reasoned argument or blind faith? As we examine the evidence, it becomes abundantly
clear that acknowledging the existence of a rational, communicating creator of the universe is the only tenable
position to hold.
In practice everyone in society holds one of two worldviews. For most, there is no God that matters and we are
on our own in this life. According to Professor Richard Dawkins, 'Science has completely eliminated the need for
God. And Darwin has pulled the rug from under God's feet.' However, a minority acknowledge that there is a real
God who not only made the world but controls it as well, and that we are each ultimately responsible to him.
This is not just an abstract philosophical debate but one with very high stakes indeed as the God of the Bible
insists that we acknowledge his supremacy and the status of his Son, Jesus Christ.[2]
The evidence
The evidence for a God who is involved in his creation is very powerful. The apostle Paul wrote about this at
the beginning of his letter to the Romans where he argues that God has made the evidence about himself plain to
our minds and consciences.[3]
It is no coincidence that the birth of modern science followed the conception of clear biblical thinking during
the Reformation. They understood that the world was not chaotic, but could be investigated because it runs according
to certain rational laws - the laws of science. However, the days have now gone when secular humanists could claim
science as an ally, as it increasingly points to God and there are now more Christians in university science faculties
than ever. Yet, scientific method excludes the concept of God, or any other external force from the process being
investigated. Thus when Isaac Newton worked out how the planets keep to their orbits, he did not invoke the concept
of God but defined the force of gravity instead. It is interesting to note though that he clearly recognised that
what he had discovered must have been designed, made and set in motion by an omnipotent God.
The universe and its origins
There have been great advances in understanding the universe during the last 50 years. Albert Einstein's work
led him to produce his ten equations of 'general relativity'. Subtracting one set from another produced a further
equation whose solution provided the surprising conclusion that the universe is expanding. This strongly suggested
that there must have been a beginning with a massive explosion.
This was confirmed by the work of the American astronomer Hubble who examined the light emitted from distant galaxies
and the 'red shift' phenomenon - the faster a galaxy is moving away from us, the redder the light it emits because
of alterations in its light 'pitch'. This strongly supported the theory that the universe is expanding, with the
most distant galaxies moving away fastest.
If everything is moving away it is more than likely that there was not only an early explosion but also a point
in time at which the whole process began. The Bible begins with this very concept.[4]
Scientists have worked hard to discover what might have happened to produce the universe we have today. If there
was a 'big bang', it is thought that there must have been a minute spot of infinite density from which everything
was derived. At the explosion of this 'infinite mass', matter would have been scattered in space creating background
radiation. Measurements of this coincide well with calculated theoretical assessments, supporting the theory of
a 'big bang'.
However, something remarkable must have happened right at the beginning of time, in that earliest fraction of a
second, which scientists call 'Planck time'. In that first 10-43 of a second the constants of the universe must
have been set, the constants of science that eventually enabled the world to form and life to happen. The massive
question that must be asked is: who set those constants? If any had differed even slightly, the universe would
not exist! Furthermore we are still left wondering where the original speck of infinite mass came from.
Let us look briefly at the importance of some of these constants.
1. The explosive force of the 'big bang' must have been extremely finely balanced by the force of gravity. The
exactness of this has been calculated to be within 1 part in 1060. If the explosion had been slightly too powerful
the atoms would have continued traveling into space and would not have congregated into galaxies. If gravity were
slightly too strong, after a few million years the atoms would have been drawn back to the centre, into a 'black
hole'.
2. If the nuclear force was 0.3% stronger or 2% weaker, the universe could not support life.
3. Each atomic nucleus has specific energy levels that affect the stability of the atom. Carbon is the atom on
which all biochemistry depends. In the early atomic explosion, hydrogen protons combined to form helium. Two helium
atoms fused to form beryllium. The carbon atoms formed when a beryllium fused with another helium. The remarkable
fact is that the specific energy of carbon is such that it can form in this way and be stable. Carbon can potentially
combine with another helium atom to form oxygen. The relative energy levels of carbon and oxygen mean that the
reaction does not readily occur but, if it did, life could not exist. If the energy level of the carbon nucleus
were 4% lower, or if that of oxygen were only 0.5% higher there would be virtually no carbon and the carbon-based
biochemistry of life would not occur.
4. Water, which is essential to life, is remarkable because unlike other chemicals it becomes lighter when it solidifies,
because of peculiar changes in the alignment of the molecules as they freeze. This unique happening is vital for
life to occur. If ice were heavier than water, everything in water would die.
Sir Fred Hoyle was one of the foremost scientists of the 20th century. He was not a Christian but he concluded,
'I do not believe that any scientist who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of
nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside the stars.'[5]
This design feature that enables man to exist on earth is called 'the anthropic principle', anthropos being Greek
for 'man'. For life to be possible on a planet more than 32 criteria need to be right. For example:
1. The ratio of oxygen to nitrogen in the atmosphere must be about one to four for the protective ozone layer to
form.
2. The earth must be exactly the right size. If it were slightly larger the toxic gases of ammonia and methane
would stay on the surface of the earth. If it were slightly smaller the water vapour would dissipate.
3. The earth must have the right magnetic field. If it were stronger, electromagnetic storms would be too severe
and, if weaker, the ozone layer would give us inadequate protection.
4. The earth must rotate at the right tilt. Any significant change would result in extreme surface temperature
changes that would be too great for life to exist.
5. The earth must be the right distance from its star, the sun. Too close and it would be too hot, too far and
it would be too cold.
6. The presence of the moon keeps the waters of the earth moving. We see the effect of this in our tides. This
keeps the temperatures of the seas at even levels and so makes our weather habitable.
The massive question remains: who arranged all this?
Biology and evolution
If modern science fails to explain the cosmos, it fails even more when it comes to biology, particularly in
the areas of the origin of life and the development of the different species.
1. The origin of life
In the 1920s two Marxist biologists, Alexandre Operin and JBS Haldane, independently proposed the 'primordial soup
theory' to explain how amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, might have first formed by natural processes.
They suggested that collections of water containing methane, ammonia and hydrogen could spontaneously form amino
acids with the input of energy, such as lightning. In the early 1950s Stanley Miller performed a series of experiments
in which he energised such a fluid in a flask using electric sparks. After some days he found minute quantities
of the basic amino acids, glycine and alanine. It was thought that this was the solution to one of the missing
links, until the problems were pointed out. Oxygen had been carefully excluded from the experiments but analysis
of ancient rocks confirms that it was present in the atmosphere at the time when life appeared. When this experiment
was repeated in the presence of oxygen, no organic compounds formed.
There is a further major problem. Life depends on DNA to store genetic material but it would quickly break down
if it were not protected within a cell. How could it stay intact, even if it could be formed, before the cells
developed? In 1981 Sir Fred Hoyle wrote an article in the journal Nature on the probability of life forming from
inanimate matter. He concluded that this chance, '.is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it.it is big enough
to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup or any other. If the beginnings of
life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence'.[6]
2. Evolution
Neo-Darwinists believe that life has evolved as a result of chance genetic mutations that confer survival advantages;
as such, advanced species have developed from more primitive ones over billions of years. Some cling desperately
to this theory, however unlikely it appears, but again there are several insurmountable problems:
1. Nearly all mutations seen in the animal kingdom are deleterious.
2. We know of no mechanisms for forming extra chromosomes. In the animal kingdom additional chromosomes produce
defects not advantages. Thus an additional chromosome 21 in humans causes Down's syndrome.
3. It has been suggested that over the 4.7 billion years that the world has existed, anything could have happened.
There is however no fossil evidence that life existed on earth before the Precambrian era, and even in those rocks,
which some have dated as 600 million years old, there are very few fossils of multicellular organisms. In the next
era, the Cambrian rocks contain a profusion of fossilised animals. They seem to have suddenly appeared in what
has been described as the 'biological big bang'. The time available for this explosion in life forms has recently
been revised downwards from 50 million years to 10 million. This is a ridiculously short time geologically.
In his book, Darwin's Black Box,[7] Michael Behe argues convincingly that the appearance of biochemical processes
by chance is absurd. For any function to occur, it is essential that many specifically shaped proteins with specific
properties are present and if any one enzyme in a large cascade is not present, nothing will work.
Some people insist that life appeared by chance. But chance is a mathematical statistic and the chance that all
these specific proteins formed by chance is infinitesimal. All this evidence shouts, 'this world is designed to
the minutest detail'.
3. Biological information
One of the most amazing properties of living organisms is their ability to pass on biological information to subsequent
generations. The storage material for this is DNA. It has been calculated that the total knowledge stored in the
world's libraries is around 1018 'bits'. If all this were stored on silicone megachips it would form a pile that
was higher than the distance between the earth and the moon. If it were stored in DNA, the information could be
contained in a volume 1% the size of a pin-head. Who thought of this?
If a message in Morse code was received from outer space, everyone would assume that there must be intelligent
life out there. Language is produced directly or indirectly by someone's mind. The language of DNA is highly sophisticated.
Who wrote that? It had to come from a mind that wanted to communicate. The God of the Bible is just such a personality.
We are now back at the two worldviews that we started with. The beginning of the Bible reads,
In the beginning God.[8]
This contrasts starkly with the view expressed by one leading secular evolutionist who said,
In the beginning life assembled itself.[9]
Psychology
Imagine the consequences if life had somehow assembled itself by chance. We are all simply meaningless accidents,
chance conglomerations of atoms. Life has no meaning, there is neither reliable logic nor truth, and certainly
no morality.
1. No meaning
The philosopher Albert Camus wrote, 'What is intolerable is to see one's life drained of meaning. To be told
there is no reason for existing. A man cannot live without some reason for living.' If there is no God our existence
is meaningless. This would be such an intolerable state of affairs that we would have to invent one!
2. No truth or logic
If there is no God there cannot be a real entity called truth. I recently discussed with some medical consultants
the question 'what is truth?' They finally suggested that the only possible answer was 'consensus'. However 'consensus'
is easy to manipulate, as Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Hitler's Third Reich, or our political 'spin doctors'
could tell us. The only definition of truth that can stand is one relating to an absolute, as Plato recognised.
Truth may thus be defined as 'a concept compatible with God'. If there is no God, there is no truth, only consensus.
Logic also becomes unreliable. Charles Darwin himself was concerned about this and wrote, 'The horrid doubt always
arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value
or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such
a mind?'
3. No morality
If there is no creator and thus no-one to whom we are ultimately responsible, there can be no right or wrong.
Yet instinctively we know that there is right and wrong. God says that he put that there. The God revealed in the
Bible says that he has given us everything in this world both to enjoy and to look after. He doesn't look down
in astonishment from heaven and say, 'Oh my goodness, what will they think of next?' For example, pleasure is his
gift to us, but he has also told us how to enjoy his world to the full by living in tune with him. Thus sex is
to be enjoyed only in a lifetime commitment of one man to one woman. Those who disregard God in this matter risk
major physical, psychological, marital, and social havoc, as our newspapers tell us every day.
4. Guilt
This is a problem that we all face because none of us live as we know we ought to. When CS Lewis first considered
the claims of Jesus Christ seriously, he looked at himself and was not pleased with what he saw: 'For the first
time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me, a zoo of lusts,
a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was legion.'[10]
I recognise this in myself. Who can forgive us, but God alone?
Marghanita Laski, a humanist, was debating on television with a Christian. She made the following amazing statement:
'What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness'. Then she added rather pathetically, 'I have no one
to forgive me'.[11]
Why isn't everyone a Christian?
It is nearly always because we want to remain independent. We do not want there to be God to whom we are responsible,
so we turn a blind eye to the evidence. It is this stubborn rejection of God that so angers him.[12]
The writer Aldous Huxley admitted to this bias in Ends and Means:
I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning, consequently assumed that it had none, and was able
without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.For myself the philosophy of meaninglessness
was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.[13]
Conclusion
Though some truths about how things happen can be discovered by scientific method, it cannot solve the real
problems facing all of us. Professor Stephen Hawking acknowledged this:
Although science may solve the problem of how the universe began, it cannot answer the question: Why does the universe
bother to exist? I don't know the answer to that.[14]
Science is limited to answering questions about how things work. It has nothing to say about right or wrong, the
purpose of life, God or eternity. The question 'why?' can only be answered by God himself. The English Nobel prizewinning
physicist, William Bragg (1862 -1945), giving a lecture at the Royal Institution in London in 1919, said these
words: 'From religion comes a man's purpose, from science his power to achieve it. Some people ask if religion
and science are opposed to each other. They are, in the same way that the thumb and fingers are opposed to one
another. It is an opposition by means of which anything can be grasped.'
God insists that we should place our lives under his authority. When Paul was speaking about this demand he stressed
that we need to recognise who Jesus is, that there is adequate evidence to support this claim, and that rejection
of God will not go unnoticed.[15]
We are each responsible for our own destiny. It depends on the decision we make about Jesus Christ. Is he to have
authority over how we live our lives or are we determined to remain independent of him?
Bernard Palmer is a consultant surgeon in Stevenage
|
|
|
References
(For 4,5&6 see 'The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics' edited by Timothy Ferns 1991.) |
||
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright ©2002 Christian Medical Fellowship.
Comments, suggestions, information: email webmaster@ethicsforschools.org
CMF is a registered charity (No 1039823)
|
|
