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On Christmas Eve 2014 the Wall Street Journal printed an editorial headed
"Science increasingly makes the case for God".
It provoked an extraordinary response. The full implications of the
discoveries of the previous century were up for debate. The strident atheism
that had reigned for so long was being publicly challenged.
Since the turn of the century an important series of publications have
challenged the prevailing view, among them "Return of the God Hypothesis"’ by
Stephen Meyer (2021) and most recently "Is Atheism dead" by Eric Metaxas, (2021).
They expand on some of the arguments for the existence of God, all of
them springing from scientific and historical developments over the previous century or more.
The claim that "science" has dispensed with the need for a creator does not stand up to investigation.
There are strong arguments that science increasingly reveals and demands an intelligent, almighty designer and originator:
1 The "Big Bang" Theory
Most scientists today seem to agree that the universe and all space/time
began in a massive explosive event which demands a cause and is quite
inexplicable in terms of our accepted ‘laws’ of physics. This is a massive change
of view since the beginning of the 1900s, when the universe was generally
regarded as eternal, and therefore not demanding explanation. Many scientists
opposed the new theory in the 1920s because it seemed to smack far too much
of the single creative event described in Genesis 1:1:
"In the beginning, God created ..."
Even though his own theories predicted it, Albert Einstein himself resisted the idea for many years, dismissing it as
"inspired by the Christian dogma of creation, and totally unjustified from the physical point of view!.
He later admitted this was one of his biggest mistakes.
Albert Einstein with Edwin Hubble at the Mt Wilson Observatory in 1931
Photograph Caltech archive
Some of the evidence was Hubble's work in
the 1920s which showed that the universe was expanding, and if tracked backwards in time must have had a beginning.
So today we have the interesting situation that a theory initially rejected and
derided because it smacked too much of biblical creationism, is now generally
accepted through the simple weight of scientific evidence!
It also illustrates how even great scientists are prejudiced by their own personal beliefs and philosophies.
2 Evolution under Fire
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, now updated, lies at the root of current popular materialism and atheism.
There is a widespread belief that the only people who oppose evolution are religious folk who choose to
cling on to the Genesis account of creation, in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
This has never been true; there have always been serious scientific
objections to the theory, and over the last fifty years or so these have been
explored in detail. In 1981 A.E.Wilder-Smith, eminent scientist and scholar,
published a now famous book "The Natural Sciences know nothing of Evolution",
which proved inspirational for a new younger generation of scientists.
In this century a series of books by highly qualified scientific writers
have explored the inadequacies of Darwin’s theory.
In 2014 the eminent magazine "Nature" published an article "Does evolution
theory demand a rethink? Yes, urgently". In November 2016 the debate reached
one of the foremost scientific forums in the world, the Royal Society in London.
The theme of its conference was "New Trends in Evolutionary biology". Most of
the participants were reluctant to abandon the "status quo", but a vocal
minority saw the need for a new or "extended" version of Darwinism to deal
with the serious problems of the current theory.
The public at large, with the connivance of the mass media, remain almost
totally ignorant of the debate going on. But in an important breakthrough in
2022 an online article appeared in the British newspaper The Guardian: "Do
we need a new theory of Evolution?" Nobody would accuse the Guardian of
having religious or creationist sympathies, but the article exposed the
discontent amongst contemporary biologists. Some openly queried whether
any resolution was possible – perhaps we should be content to remain
ignorant, rather than constantly searching for the elusive "theory of
everything". Many biologists now believe that the basic mechanism suggested
by Darwin, of random variation acted on by natural selection, is quite incapable
of accounting for all the creativity, diversity and complexity of the natural world.
3 The 'Fine-tuning' of the Universe
This is the discovery that all the basic parameters of the universe
appear to have been very finely adjusted to make life and the universe
itself possible. Examples include the strength of the force of gravity, and the
strength of the various atomic forces which hold matter together. Estimates
vary widely but it seems as if at the very least some thirty of these so-called
‘constants’ have been "tweaked" within very fine tolerances to make life
possible, and this could never have happened by chance (see Light Vol 27.3 The
Goldilocks Planet). "A common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that
a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and
biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in
Nature." (astronomer Fred Hoyle). The attempt to explain this without a
designer/creator is the "multiverse" theory, which suggests that ours is just one
in an infinite number of different universes, where we just happen to be the one
that got all the conditions right. It may be fashionable, but there is no scientific
evidence for this theory whatsoever, so it remains a piece of speculative atheist
philosophy dressed up as science.
4 The Origin of Life (abiogenesis)
The discovery of DNA in the 1950s showed us that life was not just
about chemistry but depended on information, and all attempts since to
ascribe the coding, programming and extraordinary complexity of life to
chance processes have failed, and will continue to fail. Recognising this, some
scientists have suggested that life originated elsewhere and could have been
"seeded" on earth by alien visitors. But the aliens too remain elusive, despite the
astronomical sums of money being spent on the search for life elsewhere in the
universe. The origin of any life at all, alien or otherwise, remains a complete
mystery if an intelligent Creator is excluded.
5 Archaeological discoveries in the Middle East
Archaeology as a recognised science came late on the scene, when
scepticism of the biblical record had already been established by the
critics of the nineteenth century with very little evidence. Since then a
continuous series of discoveries have confirmed the authenticity and accuracy
of the Bible's account. The sceptical "minimalist" school of archaeology has
attempted to discount the evidence, but has been confounded by many of the
latest discoveries – the existence of the ancient kingdom of Israel and its most
famous king David around 1,000 BC are now established. Many people, places
and events recorded in the Old and New Testaments have now been confirmed
by evidence outside the Bible record (see the series of articles in earlier editions
of Light in the series "The Bible stands the Test of Time"). The collections of the
great museums across the world make that evidence available to the public.
The Hittites feature prominently in the Bible account, but were unknown outside its pages – so they were dismissed as mythical until the mid 1800s. Here is the great Lion Gate of Hattussah, the Hittite capital, dating back to around 1400 BC.
Bernard Gagnon/wikimedia
It is no longer possible to simply dismiss the Bible as a collection of traditions
and folklore not worthy of serious attention. The widespread rejection of the
Bible is not based on evidence but just expresses the anti-religious secular
culture of our day. For those who want to explore this subject in detail, see
egyptologist A K Kitchen’s comprehensive work "On the Reliability of the Old Testament" 2006.
6 The tide of modern history
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