John Gault Robinson is an author I only became acquainted with at the end of last year. He has 4 books out in his Joe O'Shannick Series so far, with two more coming. They are some of the best Christian fiction I have read.
I asked him a few weeks ago if he would consider writing a guest blog post, and he agreed. I told him to write whatever he wanted, and he sent this today. He is quite versed in Christian apologetics, and it comes across in his books. In the first book, his main character, Joe O'Shannick is pretty much an atheist, and ends up spending a lot of time with Christy Tabrizi, Christian ER doctor, and they have several interesting conversations where John's knowledge of the Bible and apologetics comes across
John himself is an ER doctor, and is a very fascinating individual.
Does Science Disprove God?
By John Galt Robinson
The debate over whether or not God, or a god, or gods exist, has permeated society throughout the ages. The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared; “God is dead.”. More recently, naturalists have asserted that science explains “everything” thus replacing the need for a god and have essentially declared the universe to be of natural origin with no evidence for any god, a worldview that has gained significant traction in today’s post-modern society. In fact, post-modernism goes so far as to declare that there is no absolute truth, only relevant truth.
So, is this the case? Is the universe simply the product of a cosmic accident? Are we simply an accidental collection of highly evolved molecules in motion even to the point that our thoughts are the byproduct of molecules colliding with one another as the naturalist explanation proposes? Has modern science really proven this beyond a reasonable doubt? Let’s delve into this.
Before we discuss a few of the more common scientific arguments, we must first address the post-modernism claim that there is no truth. More specifically, absolute truth. The mere declaration There is no absolute truth is a self-defeating statement. The Law of Non-contradiction declares that something cannot be true and false at the same time. This Law of logic applies to scientific arguments as much as it does to philosophical arguments. When applied to the above truth claim, we see that the premise cannot hold up. In short, if one were to declare “There is no truth.”, a logical response would be; “Is that a true statement?”. Similarly, if one were to declare “There is no absolute truth, only relative truth.”, a logical question to ask would be; “Is that an absolute truth or a relative truth.” If the reply is that it is a relative truth, then the truth claim has no standing. If they declare it to be an absolute truth, then they defeated their own truth claim. Either way, the claim has no basis on which we can accept it logically. Putting that argument to rest, let’s move on to the main thrust of this article.
Let us first define what science is: in lay terms, science if the process of studying the natural universe through a system of observation and experimentation. From the scientific process, we obtain data from which we draw conclusions. It is important to note here that despite a commonly used expression, science does not say anything, scientists do. In other words, scientists look at the data and form conclusions. Often times, scientists do not reach the same conclusions from the data. Furthermore, over the centuries, scientific conclusions can and have been disproven as new and better studies and data emerge. For example, scientific consensus once postulated that the earth was the center of the universe and all of the planets, stars, even our own Sun, rotated around the earth. Obviously, that position is no longer believed by many after later discoveries proved otherwise. It was also once believed the the universe is eternal and has always existed. Einstein’s theory of relativity suggested otherwise; specifically that time, space and matter came into existence in a single event and are co-dependent. Later studies, including an important discovery by Edwin Hubble (of whom the Hubble Space Telescope is named) of an expanding universe have confirmed Einstein’s theory and provided ample evidence that the universe did indeed have a beginning. There are many more scientific principles that we can discuss whether or not they prove of disprove the existence of a god and we can do so in subsequent articles but, for this article, let’s take a closer look at the beginning of the universe.
As already mentioned, scientific discoveries now point to the universe having a beginning. In other words, scientists can now trace back to a point where time, space and matter came into existence simultaneously. To quote the late Stephen Hawking, widely considered one of the most brilliant physicists of all time;
Almost everyone now believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning at the Big Bang.
A detailed explanation as to why the majority of physicists believe this would take volumes so I will briefly list five key findings that lead to this conclusion. We will simplify this explanation using the mnemonic SURGE.
S - Second Law of Thermodynamics
U - Universe is Expanding
R - Radiation Afterglow
G - Galaxy Seeds
E - Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity
The Second Law of Thermodynamics explains that the universe is slowly dwindling down in energy similar to a car running out of gas. Had the universe always existed, it would have long ago ceased to exist for this reason. Imagine running a car on one tank of gasoline for a day let alone an infinite amount of time. It would have long ago run out of fuel. The universe is no different. Hubble’s telescopic discoveries revealed an ever expanding universe that, if reversed, trace the entire universe back to a single point of origin. Radiation afterglow refers to scientists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson who won a Nobel prize for their 1965 discovery of the residual light and heat that originated with the explosion that began the universe better known as The Big Bang. The Galaxy seeds refers to a monumental discovery made through the COBE satellite that revealed variations in the expansion waves of the universe that occurred in precise manners that allowed matter to congregate and form galaxies. Many leading physicists, chief among them, the late Stephen Hawking, postulated that any variation in the expansion rate of the universe would have led to the universe collapsing back in on itself or expanding too rapidly to allow galaxies to form in the first place. The expansion rate is so precise that if off as little as 1/40billionth of a percent too fast or too small, the universe would never have formed. In other words, the fact that the universe even exists is so statistically unlikely as to be nearly impossible, but that’s a point for a future discussion. Finally, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, which has been proven to a very precise degree, demands that time, space and matter have an absolute beginning AND are interdependent and cannot exist without each other. Einstein was troubled by this discovery as he had long held to the belief that the universe was eternal and had always existed but his discovery proved it actually had a beginning which challenged his core beliefs and which was later confirmed with the aforementioned later discoveries. These five key discoveries and many more have led nearly all physicists to conclude that the universe - time, space and matter - had a beginning; the Big Bang.
So where do we go with this information? What can we conclude? Does the Big Bang point to an intelligent designer, a god or does it provide an adequate explanation for the origin of the universe and do away with any notion of a god? The Law of Causality states that everything that comes to be must have a cause. Since we now know the universe came to be, what is the cause? It cannot be nothing. We see the effect. In fact we live within it. From the effect we can reason back to a cause. Reason demands that, in order for time, space and matter to come into existence, the cause must be something that transcends time, space and matter; something, timeless, spaceless and immaterial. Something beyond nature ie supernatural. Creation must have a creator. Additionally, the highly fine-tuned and magnificent natural laws that govern the universe must come from a lawgiver. Not only must this creator/lawgiver be timeless, spaceless and immaterial but it is reasonable to conclude that this entity is infinite in order to transcend time, supremely intelligent in order to have designed the universe in all its complexity and precision, incredibly powerful in order to create, and personable in order to choose to create. Compare these attributes to those of the God of the Bible and one will see they line up. Now, we have not proven this is the God of the Bible but it certainly puts Him on the list of possible gods. Whether or not it is the God of the Bible is a topic for a future discussion. For now, we must at least acknowledge that we are left with two possibilities; either the universe created itself - which to believe violates The Scientific Method as it has never once been observed nor has anything been observed to spontaneously appear in created from in nature - or the universe was created by God or a god(s).
You may still be unconvinced and that is certainly understandable, but I hope this at least opens your mind to the possibility. In the next discussion we will delve into the incredible fine-tuning of the universe which expands on the near statistical impossibility that the universe even exists, let alone life existing. For now, I will leave you with one question to mull over; If there is no god, how can anything exist?
Author’s note: nearly all of this information was obtained from the book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. If you would like to much more detailed and comprehensive study of this topic and much more, I highly recommend this book or visit Frank Turek’s website www.crossexamined.org
John Galt Robinson is a board certified emergency medicine physician practicing in South Carolina. He is also a published fiction author writing the Joe O’Shanick/Christy Tabrizi series as well as his soon to be published Nate Kelsey series in the suspense/thriller genre. His website is www.johngaltrobinson.com.
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