God VS Science?
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| English: Freeman Dyson (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Every civilization has a cosmic worldview, or story. The scientific story that was gradually built up by research in physics and biology during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries was progressively materialistic. But now, argue these authors, science is shifting from this old story to a new story due to the startling discoveries of Einstein, Heisenberg, Sherrington, Eccles, and Penfield.
In the early phases of modern science, theism was still dominant. Newton wrote in a letter to Dr. Richard Bentley that “the motions, which the planets now have, could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent.” But as time progressed, scientists were quite willing to leave God out of their equations. When Napoleon asked mathematician-astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace about the place of God in his celestial mechanics, he responded: “Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis.” And years later, Freud concluded that humans are insignificant in the machinery of the universe.
But this old story is giving way to a new story brought about by major revolutions in fields as diverse as astronomy and neurophysiology. Research in cosmology, for example, has led to the belief that our expanding universe points to a beginning where all things were set in motion. Since existing evidence suggests that the material universe has not always existed, the authors believe it is quite reasonable to posit the existence of an eternal, intelligent Being who created all things.
Moreover, they now see purpose in the universe. The old story provided an ideology of meaningless existence and despair. All matter, including life, was simply the result of accidental collisions of atoms. By contrast, some new scientists find purpose within the universe. Physicist Freeman Dyson, for example, says that “the more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”
Operation Science and Origin Science
An important key to this new story is a realization of the limits of science and the difference between operation science and origin science. Studying the operation of the universe is very different from trying to study the origin of the universe.
Operation science deals with regularities, the regularly recurring patterns against which theories can be tested. For example, we can regularly observe the action of gravity, thus we can posit a law of gravity which conforms to our observation. But when these patterns have occurred in the past, scientists must then rely upon the principle of uniformity which says that “the present is the key to the past.” Scientists did not observe the formation of the Grand Canyon, but by observing present regularly recurring patterns they can deduce how it was formed.
Origin science, however, deals with singularities in the past. In fact, origin science is more like forensic science. Like a Columbo or a Sherlock Holmes, a scientist studying origins must attempt to reconstruct the past (which is an unobserved singularity) by using evidence in the present.
The origin of the universe and the origin of life were past singularities. Evolutionists propose a secondary natural cause for these events but they do so mostly on the basis of world-view assumptions.
When considering the subject of the origin of the universe, creationists point to the universal principle of causality (which states that “every event has a cause”). Creationists believe that an intelligent cause (God) brought the universe into being. Evidence of order and complexity in the universe argue for an Intelligent First Cause. Evidence of design in nature argue for a Designer.
A similar case can be made for the origin of life. The order, complexity, and design of living systems point to a primary cause. The information content in a molecule like DNA is too great to explain by chance chemical reactions. Life could not have arisen by the interaction of matter, energy, and chance. Design implies a designer, and the order and complexity of molecular systems implies a first cause.
An Unexpected Turn
The founders of modern science (Newton, Bacon) believed that a secondary (natural) cause could be found for the regularly occurring patterns in nature. But they also held that origin events (being singularities) would have the direct, primary (supernatural) cause.
In the last two centuries, scientists have attempted to explain both the operation of the universe as well as its origin merely with secondary causes. This search has led to some rather unexpected conclusions.
Like a well-written mystery novel, this new story of science has provided a surprising ending. At the dawn of this century, few scientists would have predicted this abrupt change of course. Yet as Robert Jastrow notes in his book God and the Astronomers, modern science found an unexpected ally: “The scientist 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.” Author Kerby Anderson
