science & God - Scott Petty summary

Scott’s intro basically makes apparent the lack of actual science among present day scientists. That celebrity scientists, or New Atheists, have a twisted perception of the barriers of what science can cover. Somehow, many of the most popular of scientists also happen to be out to sabotage religion and the belief in God. This doesn’t mean that they are exactly outstanding in their field, but more that they are loud and obsessive over an area of study they know nothing about. Notice how all of the four examples Scott offered as New Atheists are not only considered scientists in their own right, but that they are also authors. Authors have to be impressive with their choice of words to write effectively, and are therefore conductors of inconspicuous deception. This is easy to execute as a scientist writing to a novice.

Unfortunately, unlike their use of deceptive writing, these New Atheists are conspicuously passionate about openly and intentionally trying to replace God with science. Don’t trust anything that can’t be proven scientifically or logically, is their simplified idea of thinking. Basically claiming that science can explain every part of life, allegedly enough so to explain away the existence of a God. Because, as everyone knows, evolution explains why the universe began, and science tells me why I chose to never put sugar in my coffee. Science requires religion and vice versa. As the great Einstein said, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

However, society persistently continues to encourage everyone to take a side. It’s ultimately a choice between what is stereotypically described as fact vs fantasy, evidence vs make-believe, and reason vs religion. That last one I find to be a real piece of work. Reason is defined as “the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments logically.” If science had been so logical, would it not have attempted to understand religion as well as its own theories before making a conclusion? I’m sorry, but if you’re not willing to understand your opposition, you can hardly call yourself the idol of “reason.”

Scott continues to write about the 277 comments made in reaction to Stephan Hawking’s The Grand Design. He displays three of his favourites. Summarised, all of them persuasively said “Here’s the reality: There is no God. We live. We die. Atoms. The end.” It’s almost admirable how some people are persuaded by these “arguments” (to use the term as lightly as possible before it having no weight whatsoever). To say the least, it’s pretty underwhelming.

Scott then makes clear his intention to turn the relationship between science and God from an either/or conflict to a both/and mutual understanding. Scott says that, unknown to society, science and God have been good friends for a long time. Both agree that if there were more than one god, there would be chaos. Belief in an ordered universe, which is where the Bible starts, is a fundamental building block for the whole idea of science. Chaos makes it pretty difficult to do science whilst it requires an ordered world in which it can observe patterns over a period of time.

Scott makes the point that if we accept the modern belief that there is no God involved in either the creation or continuation of our universe, science cannot continue. The world needs to keep going in ordered patterns for science to develop. There is no guarantee of this without a God to maintain order. This applies on a general scale also. If there is no divine force sustaining the universe in its ordered way, then we have no reason to expect or believe that tomorrow will be the same as it is today.

Moving on, Scott lists specific ways that Christians have aided the development of science in history. He uses Galileo as his example. He makes it apparent that science and God have only been seen as separate teams due to societies assumptions. A quote by Colin Russell to describes this misconception as “not only historically inaccurate, but actually a caricature so grotesque that what needs to be explained is how it could possibly have achieved any degree of respectability.”

Dawkins makes the case in The God Delusion that it is impossible to be a logical, intelligent scientific thinker and a faithful religious follower at the same time. To support his argument, Dawkins refers to a survey taken in 1998. They asked the scientists whether they believed in a God who personally communicates with people, to which 7% did so. This is an incredibly specific question. To register as a believer, you must believe a God exists, believe the God is a personal God, believe the God is a personal God that is interested in people, and believe that the God is interested enough to personally communicate with them. Scientists with a vaguer belief in God would not register as believers in this survey. And not only that.

The survey silently suggests that those who registered as non-believers did so because of their science. This is not necessarily the case, as there can be many other explanations that have nothing to do with science. The survey doesn’t track this.

Pushing all this aside, can we just take a moment to acknowledge that 7% does not mean impossible? Thank you. If you were wondering, similar surveys have been taken, with 40% of scientists believing in a personal God. 40% did not, and about 15% were agnostic, due to a survey taken in 1916. Another one was taken in 1996, and the results were about the same.

Scott delivers a short biography of Francis Collins, Professor Bill Philips, and John Houghton. Three successful scientists that believed in God.

Now, this might shock you, but science doesn’t explain everything. Science is simply just not wired to pick up God or answer ultimate questions such as “Why do we exist?” From this, it would be foolish to assume that because science cannot detect God, then there isn’t one. If science is not supposed to detect God, then how exactly is is supposed to do so? Strangely enough, evolutionists insist that because their theory does not show any evidence of God, then God doesn’t exist. Such a flawed argument requires more faith than the entire concept of God. John Haught gives his opinion on this saying “If science and theology are supposed to be addressing entirely different sets of questions, it makes no sense to claim that one has defeated the other.”

Some people believe that science has proved that we never required a God to have come into existence, and therefore God does not exist. John Lennox shows us that those who make such a claim are confusing the mechanism from the maker. For example, when you look at a Ford Motor car, it’s creator, Henry Ford, is nowhere to be found. Once we have acquired everything there is to know about the car, and we then safe to assume that Henry Ford never existed? No, that’s stupid. Henry is the reason that the Ford was there in the first place. We can’t see him in the car, we don’t need him to know how it works, but that hardly means he never existed. Unfortunately, many atheist scientists make the same error. Scott, to finish off this chapter, talks about layered explanation and how there are always more than one events that had to take place for something to exist. The biggest questions are those with a layered explanation.

Scott moves on to the Big Bang theory, explaining what it is and some of the evidence behind it. He states that God can survive without the Big Bang, as God has always existed. But the Big Bang needs something to have caused it, as is the Law of Causality. And the universe will come to an end, as is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Robert Wilson said, “Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you’re religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”

Moving on, Scott points out to us that the beginning and end of an event are always the most interesting, comparing that to our science understanding today. He then talks about the incredibly microscopic chance it is that everything, including gravity and the atmosphere, could be perfect enough as to support life. One desperate explanation is the Multiple Universe Theory. Basically saying that with a vast amount of universes and time, it is logically possible that a universe able to support life can exist without divine intervention. Professor Ted Harrison shared his opinion on the matter saying, “The fine-tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of a deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes, or design that requires only one.” Similarly, Philosopher Richard Swinburne said, “To postulate a trillion trillion other universes rather than one God in order to explain the orderliness of our universe, seems the height of irrationality.”

Today, evolution is seen as faith’s biggest threat, which is almost hypocritical when you consider that the origins of life itself is evolutions biggest threat. The simplest life form known is the single-celled amoeba. Richard Dawkins, sticking to science like he’s supposed to, estimated that an amoeba has as much information in its DNA as 1 000 complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Is means that even the simplest life form is not simple at all, and therefore life is complex. But that’s not all. DNA relies on proteins for production, and proteins rely on DNA to exist. This means that neither of them could create themselves. Life requires hundreds of thousands of proteins and the chance of these producing at random is less than 1 in 10(40 000). That’s about as likely as a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and producing a jumbo jet, or having a blindfolded guy walk into the Sahara Desert and pluck out a single marked grain of sand three times in a row. That’s about as likely it is that life would have emerged by itself. Genesis says that God breathed life into the animals and humans he created. He is the one that brings life into lifeless things. Just because this isn’t scientific, does not mean it isn’t true. According to the Bible, God is the one who makes things live.

Moving over to evolution (yay) which is defined by Scott as the theory of macroevolution that asserts that all life forms have descended from a common ancestor by natural processes. Because I find evolution dull and pitiful, I’m going to gloss over this chapter as quickly as possible. Macroevolution, even when guided by scientists in a lab, cannot produce a new species from an existing one. Sir Fred Hoyle put it colourfully saying, “Rabbits come from other slightly different rabbits, not from either soup or potatoes. Where they come from in the first place is a problem yet to be solved…” It is the same with Darwin’s finches who dramatically evolved into different kinds of finches. This is an example of adaptation and natural selection, not evolution.

Charles Darwin himself considered the lack of fossil records to be the strongest argument against his evolutionary theory. He was hopeful that in the years to follow, many discoveries would back up his theory. He hoped wrong. Not only could the apparent in-between creatures not have survived the evolutionary process that takes millions of years, but the fossils of these in-between transitional creatures just don't exist. The records show that a species appeared suddenly, fully formed, then eventually became extinct. So for a theory that’s pretty much accepted as fact these days, the amount of fossil evidence is zero. Even if evolution were proven truth beyond doubt, it does not rule out God. Evolution answers a scientific question that relates only to the area of science, and has nothing to do with the philosophical God-type questions. So because evolution is not supposed to address God, it does not rule him out.

At first, Genesis 1 appears to contradict the idea of evolution. This appearance is due to interpretation. Genesis was not written in 21st century scientific format, so why get bothered by it not including scientific terminology. Rather we should read through the lenses of thought-world and culture of the day in which it was written. The ancient cultures were more concerned with the “who” and “why” rather than the “how” questions. So, it’s better to be read in context.

Chapter 5 states that the Christian faith is not about a leap of faith, rather about faith built on evidence. It is the only religion that opens itself up to historical criticism, examination and proof. The other world religions are based on revelations, visions or dreams, which is kind of hard to prove historically. Jesus is widely accepted as historical fact, and his death and resurrection are yet to be disproved. You can’t get a more historical God than one who literally strolls down to earth and reveals himself to the human race. God spoke through Jesus, and before Jesus, God spoke directly through prophets to his people. So basically, if the science doesn’t give you an answer, go historical. Science is only a fraction of everything there is to know. So it is hopeless to assume it can explain everything. But knowing God is neither a science nor historical matter, it’s a personal one. Through Jesus, we can have a personal relationship with God that neither history or science can explain. Both subjects are great as long as they are pursued with humility and respect for the Creator.

And finally, Q & A.

1. Is Genesis 1 written to include scientific information?

No. If Genesis has been written as such, it would only be useful to the particular generation of people who were asking their questions at the time.

2. How can Genesis 1 be true when dinosaurs and people are created on the same day?

Genesis is much more focused on the relationship between God and his creation. It is not giving a biological and geological explanation of the created world or the comings and goings of species in the world.

3. Are the days in Genesis 1 literal days, longer eras, or something else?

Christians have had various views of this over the years. The basic point is that God created an amazingly ordered and functional world, with humanity as its highpoint. This is not saying that Genesis 1 is untrue, but that it expresses these truths about God and his relationship to creation in dramatic and poetic ways.

4. How can humans be special if we just descended from apes?

One of the main points in Genesis is that humans are the highpoints of creation and stand in a special relationship with God. Because we are creatures of creation, it is only natural that we would share some similarities with other creatures. In whole, humans are remarkably different from any other creature. We influence the world like no other creature does. We have a relationship with God that no other creature has.

5. Doesn’t DNA reveal that we are basically another form of ape?

You can examine DNA and conclude that we must all have a common ancestor, or you can conclude that we all have a common creator. Professor Steve Jones said, “Chimpanzees share abut 98% of our DNA, but bananas share about 50%, and we are not 98% chimp or 50% banana, we are entirely human and unique in that respect.”

6. Hasn’t science proved that miracles are impossible?

Just because science cannot come up with a natural cause for a miracle does not mean that other causes cannot or do not exist. The fact that we can’t see them today is not a valid argument against miracles. By definition, miracles occur infrequently and cannot be easily explained. The fact that miracles are unusual, difficult to believe and difficult to explain means simply that they are miracles. It does not mean that they cannot happen.

7. Is there life on other planets?

Despite all our efforts, the chances of us finding life – especially intelligent life – on other planets seems remote. But if we were to discover life on other planets, this would not force us to abandon faith in God. The Bible says nothing whatsoever about life on other planets, because it primarily addresses God’s relationship with us and our world.

8. Why did God create the other galaxies and planets?

God creates because he’s creative. Just because we think there’s no point does not mean that God doesn’t have a purpose for creating them that we haven’t yet discovered. But it could just ultimately be his love for creation.