Christianity Creation and Science
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Okay, we’re not getting too far here. Still want to know why you think you’re more rational than the theists, because what you believe is nothing more than the product of forces, material forces over which you have no control. And then he went on to talk about how Republicans and Democrats disagree and they both think they’re right, and so on. And then he said this, “And besides science flies rockets to the moon, but religion flies planes into buildings.” That was his answer. You see, the problem with this is, well, one, it was the Nazis that came up with rockets. I mean, do you want to really talk about science and this science attributed to the Nazis? Do you want to associate with them? Well, that’s fine.
But on the terrorist side of things, the terrorists who fly planes into buildings, well you know what? If they’re simply dancing to the music of their DNA, they couldn’t help what they did. They were acting on the basis of forces over which they had no control. So, again, Dawkins was not answering the questions. He was actually “Dawkin” the issue. He was not dealing with this question seriously, but he’s borrowing from something like the Christian worldview that has an account for rationality, that we’ve been made in the image of a rational being, we’ve been made in the image of God, and therefore we are not simply the products of material forces that pump beliefs into us over which we have no control.
So, again, looking at this chart, it makes better sense to say things like, accounting for human dignity and worth, does it make better sense to say that value came from valueless processes, that human rights came from valueless processes or that we’ve been made in the image of a supremely valuable being and that’s where value and dignity and worth come from? So, hopefully, as you engage with people, hopefully this chart will come back to be of assistance to you. But what we’re trying to do here is not offer for some sort of an absolute 100% certainty argument, but rather what we’re saying is that there are very good reasons, in fact, better reasons for believing that a God exists over against his non-existence. It just makes a lot more sense given the sorts of things that we know about the world and human experience.
So there are these philosophical bridges that we can talk about. There are also scientific bridges that we can appeal to. We’ve talked about the Big Bang. Science could actually come to the rescue in some ways. In the 20th century, the two big discoveries that reinforced biblical theism were that the universe began to exist, the Big Bang, and that the universe is remarkably finally tuned for life, that there is a designer of the universe. And, again, the evidence keeps on rolling in. The more we know about the universe, the more these facts are confirmed. So we can appeal to these sorts of things and we also have to be careful about getting off track. Now, I know that you’ve been talking about evolution here and that’s perfectly great, but what I would say to you is that we can often get sidetracked by saying that you have to reject evolution in order to become a Christian. We have to be very careful here.
Embracing special creation or something like that is not something that is a requirement to believe in Jesus or to embrace the Gospel. There are many theistic evolutionists. In fact, one of my heroes, John Stott, a noted evangelical, probably could have been called an evangelical pope of sorts, he was one who believed in theistic evolution, but also believed in the historical fall, believed in a historical couple, Adam and Eve. But anyway, what I want to do is emphasize the importance of keeping the main thing the main thing. The ultimate issue is not creation versus evolution, but God versus no God. And what I try to do is people will say, “Well, okay, well, what’s the big deal then? If evolution can do all the work, then why embrace God?” I’ll say, “No. Evolution is way down the road.” First, we need a universe that exists. You can’t have evolution unless you’ve got a universe that exists and the universe began a finite time ago. Matter, energy, space, and time beginning a finite time ago. Evolution can’t account for that.
Secondly, you not only need a universe, but you need a life sustaining universe, that is life has to be sustainable for evolution to actually take place. And we live in a remarkably finely tuned universe. So, actually, as we move along, the odds against some sort of an evolution that could operate by itself is greatly diminished. So we have a universe, we have a life permitting universe, but still that’s not enough. Just because you have a life permitting universe does not guarantee that life is actually going to be produced. So you have to have a life producing universe. And, again, as we go on, the odds are increasing exponentially against these sorts of things. How could we move from non-living things to living things? Even if they could come up with how life could emerge from non-living matter, scientists are really trying to figure this out. I think that suggests that it takes a lot of intelligent planning to get from non-living matter to living matter.
Another point here is that, even if life is produced, that’s not a guarantee that it’s going to endure. So you need not only a universe, you need not only a life permitting universe, not only a life producing universe, but also a life sustaining universe. And, again, the odds from getting from a single celled organism to human beings, I mean, it’s just mind boggling. So, again, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and what we want to do is emphasize the importance of God versus no God and the idea that evolution did it all is simply a red herring that just does not get to the root issue. So, again, scientific bridges can also be helpful as we talk with people. They may not want to hear you say, “But the Bible says,” but they may more likely be willing to listen to your talk about modern science and how there is a nice dovetailing between what the Christian has claimed and what science is revealing.
There are also historical bridges that we can utilize and we see Paul utilizing the appeal to the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, that God gives proof in raising Jesus from the dead. And so Paul’s clincher in his speech is that, “Well, the final evidence for who Jesus is and for why you should embrace him is that God raised him from the dead.” And so Paul is presenting his case and we can do the same as we talk about the resurrection of Jesus, that the Christian faith opens itself up to historical inquiry, that the Christian faith, unlike other religions, is publicly checkable. It opens itself up to scrutiny. It’s also very interesting that a lot of people, all these religions seem to want a piece of Jesus. They all want to have Jesus included. They want to call in Jesus for support, from Muslims to new-agers and Hindus and oh forth. Well, why is that? Well, maybe there’s something special about Jesus.
We also see that there’s a historical connection between the founding of modern science and Christianity, that it was Bible believing Christians that actually paved the way for modern science. There are historical connections. The Christian faith is not anti-science. The Christian faith gave rise to modern science. Another point is this, on the historical front, we could also appeal to the many gains that have come through the Christian faith. And I know you have talked about that in your sessions here about whether it be human rights and democracy and so forth, but there’s so much that the Christian faith has brought to the West and also to non-Western countries in terms of moral reform. Say in India, the abolishing of suttee or a widow burning where a widow would be burned on the funeral pyre of her dead husband or foot binding in China. Protestant missionaries brought about moral reforms.
So we see a whole host of things that the Christian faith has brought to society, human rights and so forth. These are gains that have come through the Christian faith and there’s a lot of excellent documentation on these topics. Let me move on to another thing that Paul is highlighting and another suggestion for us as we go to our own Athens and communicate the Gospel in the market for place of ideas. Paul speaks about this altar to an unknown God and Paul talks about this God who is not far from each one of us and that it is this God’s desire that we seek for him, that we grope for him in hopes of finding this God. There are signals of transcendence throughout our human existence. We just heard an allusion to living with a good conscience. People feel guilt. People feel shame. Is there a source of forgiveness? Is there some source of a removal of shame? What about the longing for immortality?
This past March, my wife and I went to the Taj Mahal and the person who had this shrine built for his dead wife, Shah Jahān, after he was done having this built, he had the hands of his 20,000 workers cut off so that they could replicate nothing like it in the world. The quest for immortality of wanting to be noted by future generations, wanting to make an impact, wanting to last, having something that lasts, there’s a longing that we have with in us as Ecclesiastes says that “God has placed eternity in our hearts.” The thought of extinction is a terrifying one, being snuffed out of existence. People want to live on people. There is often a quest for life after death, of something beyond.
There’s a hunger and thirst that people have and C.S. Lewis has talked about this longing that we have and he basically gave an argument for a transcendent realm based on these longings that we have that can’t be fulfilled in this life. People are as The Eurythmics said, “Everybody’s looking for something.” People are trying to fill that hole that only God can fill with these finite satisfactions, things that are not meant to last.
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