Enjoy your meal. Here is some light reading from a winner of the Bruce Medal for lifetime achievement in astronomy.
A Scientist Reflects on Religious Belief
Dr. Allan Sandage
Q. Can the existence of God be proved?
I should say not with the same type of certainty that we ascribe to statements
such as "the earth is in orbit about the sun at a mean distance of 93 million
miles, making a complete journey in 365.25 days," or "genetic information is
coded in long protein strings of DNA that, in cells of a particular individual,
replicate during mitosis, and in reproduction unite with DNA from another
individual to produce the hereditary similarity of progeny with their parents,
etc." The enormous success of modern science is undeniable in producing
such facts, which have a strong ring of certainty, and this success simply
cannot be ignored.
Proofs of the existence of God have always been of a different kind-a crucial
point to be understood by those scientists who will only accept results that can
be obtained via the scientific method. God can never be proved to them for
that reason (Those who deny God at the outset by some form of circular
reasoning will never find God.) Science illumines brightly, but only a part of
reality.
The classical proofs of God by Anselm and by Aquinas via natural theology
do not give the same type of satisfaction as proofs of propositions arrived at
by the method of science. To the modern mind they seem contrived.
Nevertheless, they were sufficient for Pascal to finally approach his certainty
in God's existence by preparing his mind for God's necessity, if the world is to
make ultimate sense. After that preparation, he simply could then abandon the
God of natural theology and of the philosophers, and could at last will himself
to faith by leaping across the abyss, from the edge of reason on this side of the
chasm. For those who have experienced this way to God, I would say that
God's existence has been proved beyond doubt for them.
Q. Must there necessarily be a conflict between science and
religion?
In my opinion, no, if it is understood that each treats a different aspect of
reality. The Bible is certainly not a book of science. One does not study it to
find the intensities and the wavelengths of the Balmer spectral lines of
hydrogen. But neither is science concerned with the ultimate spiritual
properties of the world, which are also real.
Science makes explicit the quite incredible natural order, the interconnections
at many levels between the laws of physics, the chemical reactions in the
biological processes of life, etc. But science can answer only a fixed type of
question. It is concerned with the what, when, and how. It does not, and
indeed cannot, answer within its method (powerful as that method is), why.
Why is there something instead of nothing? Why do all electrons have the
same charge and mass? Why is the design that we see everywhere so truly
miraculous? Why are so many processes so deeply interconnected?
But we must admit that those scientists that want to see design will see
design. Those that are content in every part of their being to live as
materialistic reductionalists (as we must all do as scientists in the
laboratory, which is the place of the practice of our craft) will never admit
to a mystery of the design they see, always putting off by one step at a time,
awaiting a reductionalist explanation for the present unknown. But to take this
reductionalist belief to the deepest level and to an indefinite time into the future
(and it will always remain indefinite) when "science will know everything" is
itself an act of faith which denies that there can be anything unknown to
science, even in principle. But things of the spirit are not things of science.
There need be no conflict between science and religion if each appreciates its
own boundaries and if each takes seriously the claims of the other. The proven
success of science simply cannot be ignored by the church. But neither can the
church's claim to explain the world at the very deepest level be dismissed. If
God did not exist, science would have to (and indeed has) invent the concept
to explain what it is discovering at its core. Abelard's 12th century dictum
"Truth cannot be contrary to truth. The findings of reason must agree with the
truths of scripture, else the God who gave us both has deceived us with one or
the other" still rings true.
If there is no God, nothing makes sense. The atheist's case is based on a
deception they wish to play upon themselves that follows already from their
initial premise. And if there is a God, he must be true both to science and
religion. If it seems not so, then one's hermeneutics (either the pastor's or the
scientist's) must wrong.
I believe there is a clear, heavy, and immediate responsibility for the church to
understand and to believe in the extraordinary results and claims of science. Its
success is simply too evident and visible to ignore. It is likewise incumbent
upon scientists to understand that science is incapable, because of the
limitations of its method by reason alone, to explain and to understand
everything about reality. If the world must simply be understood by a
materialistic reductionalist nihilism, it would make no sense at all. For this,
Romans 1:19-21 seems profound. And the deeper any scientist pushes his
work, the more profound it does indeed become.
Q. Do recent astronomical discoveries have theological
significance?
I would say not, although the discovery of the expansion of the Universe with
its consequences concerning the possibility that astronomers have identified
the creation event does put astronomical cosmology close to the type of
medieval natural theology that attempted to find God by identifying the first
cause. Astronomers may have found the first effect, but not, thereby,
necessarily the first cause sought by Anselm and Aquinas.
Nevertheless, there are serious scientific papers discussing events very shortly
after the big bang creation (ex nihilo?) out of which all the types of matter that
we know (baryons, electrons, photons, etc.) were made, and in what
quantities. Even the creation of matter is said now to be understood.
Astronomical observations have also suggested that this creation event,
signaled by the expansion of the Universe, has happened only once. The
expansion will continue forever, the Universe will not collapse upon itself, and
therefore this type of creation will not happen again.
But knowledge of the creation is not knowledge of the creator, nor do any
astronomical findings tell us why the event occurred. It is truly supernatural
(i.e. outside our understanding of the natural order of things), and by this
definition a miracle. But the nature of God is not to be found within any part of
these findings of science. For that, one must turn to the scriptures, if indeed an
answer is to be had within our finite human understanding.
Q. Can a person be a scientist and also be a Christian?
Yes. As I said before, the world is too complicated in all its parts and
interconnections to be due to chance alone. I am convinced that the existence
of life with all its order in each of its organisms is simply too well put together.
Each part of a living thing depends on all its other parts to function. How does
each part know? How is each part specified at conception? The more one
learns of biochemistry the more unbelievable it becomes unless there is some
type of organizing principle-an architect for believers-a mystery to be solved
by science (even as to why) sometime in the indefinite future for materialist
reductionalists.
This situation of the complication and the order to function of an organism,
where the sum is greater than its parts (i.e. has a higher order), becomes more
astonishing every year as the scientific results become more detailed. Because
of this, many scientists are now driven to faith by their very work. In the final
analysis it is a faith made stronger through the argument by design. I simply do
not now believe that the reductionalist philosophy, so necessary to pursue the
scientific method and, to repeat, the method which all scientists must master
and practice with all their might and skill in their laboratory, can explain
everything.
Having, then, been forced via the route of Pascal and Kierkegaard in their
need for purpose to come to the edge of the abyss of reason, scientists can,
with Anselm "believe in order to understand" what they see, rather than
"understand in order to believe." Having willed oneself to faith by jumping to
the other side, one can pull, at first, a wee small thread across the abyss,
pulling in turn a still more sturdy rope, until finally one can build a bridge that
crosses in reverse the chasm that connects the sides of life that are reason and
faith. It is, then, by faith that a scientist can become a Christian, and yet remain
a scientist-believing in some form of Abelard's dictum.
Without that faith there is no purpose, and without purpose all the arguments
for its need drive one once again to build Pascal's bridge. |
