One of the ultimate fallacies embraced by many in the West in the 20th century was that the explosion of scientific knowledge that was changing the nature of human existence was simultaenously making belief in God intelectually impossible. If it was now possible to scientifically explain how a molecule was constructed, was that not proof that "God did it" was no longer a valid explanation?
What science has actually done, in truth, is to begin to unveil the sheer number of factors that must be balanced for the universe to even exist, never mind for it to allow stars, planets, and water. This number was far greater than anyone could have imagined. Science has shown that there are literally billions of factors that must be interrelated in the most delicate balance to allow existence and everything that follows.
If any one of these billions of factors was one percent greater or lesser, we wouldn't exist. With this in mind, there are exactly two ways that we could have come to this point. The first way is coincidence. The second way is God.
People who believe that this infinitely complicated construct is the result of random forces adopt what is sometimes called the monkey thesis. This thesis holds that if you put a monkey in front of a typewriter, perhaps with a pack of cigarettes, for an infinite amount of time, the monkey will eventually write "Romeo and Juliet".
At first blush, this seems reasonable. After all, if you give the monkey infinity, won't he eventually write every possible mix of letters, spaces, and punctuation? No, he won't. The chances aren't one in a trillion; they are zero.
Perhaps after ten million years, the monkey will have typed a complete sentence of old English, but he will never write "Romeo and Juliet". He will do this ...lkj dd khagbnkvs,.;ankd.. forever. Time and giberish would travel forever on parallel tracks, but they would never intersect in something as complicated and interwoven as "Romeo and Juliet". Only design could cause this. Randomness does not result in order.
Proceed, Solinius, to procure my fall
And by the doom of death end woes and all
That's not random.
Every person on earth can look at themselves in the mirror and say "everything that has every happened in the universe was part of a design that was meant to ensure my existence." This is true for every person who has ever lived. Each baby born is on the cusp of this design. The universe was designed to ensure that I would be here right now. And that you would read this sentence right now.
The idea that science disproved God is perfectly backwards. Science proves God by proving the infinite complexity of every molecule, every shadow, every sparrow. And the language of science is uniquely equipped to tell us that such a construct could not possibly be random.
1 comment:
So if this rusted compass is correct, we are stuck with some sort of purposeful design or meaningless chance. The question then becomes one of how we see.
This seeing thing fascinates me. There's an optical illusion called "the love of dolphins,"painted on a vase. To adults and the sexually experienced it shows a nude couple in an embrace of passion. But to children with no sexual experience, the image is quite clearly one of dolphins swimming in various positions. If the dolphins are pointed out to adults, they can see them. But the power of the human sexual image overshadows that of the water mamals. Both are present on the vase.
Hmmmmm. Chaos or order? Meaning or purpose? Yes, science shows us that this cosmos and our existence in it is really a gazillion to one chance. But how to interpret that information? What is implied by it?
Perhaps the fact that the "cosmos has a purpose" option it seems self-evident we we look at the odds and lose our breath, (like the entwined lovers), is a further clue. We recognize something deep in our bones.
It would be a shame to limit this understanding to just scientific numbers. The ancient christians had a word for this sense of wonder: "Grace." And the only real response to grace, once grace has been recognized, is thanksgiving, worship, and action.
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