Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Modern Science
by
Howard Taylor.
1
Howard Taylor - Brief CV:
Chaplain to Heriot-Watt University and teaches there:
– Moral and Social Philosophy.
– Philosophy of Science and Religion.
• Previously:
– Parish Minister in West of Scotland - 17 years.
– Visiting lecturer at ICC and before that GBC and BTI.
• Two modules:
– Christian Faith and Contemporary Thought (BE305)
– Christianity and Modern Science. (This module - BE304)
– Author of several small books/booklets.
– 16 years in Malawi, Africa.
• Minister, Theology lecturer, African Language teacher.
• Maths and Physics lecturer: University of Malawi.
– Degrees from: Nottingham, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
• Married with three grown up sons and two grandsons and one
granddaughter.
2
• Web: www.howardtaylor.net
What is it all about?
For millennia philosophers and theologians
have attempted to address such questions as:
a Is the universe eternal or did it begin?
b Why does nature have a rational structure?
c Is there any purpose to human existence?
c What is life?
d Can the experiences of consciousness and self-
awareness be reduced to the properties of the
brain or do they imply the existence of a soul?
It is in the latter part of the 20th century that some
scientists have tried to get to grips with these most
3
fundamental of fundamental questions.
You may have thought about these topics
before or they may never have occurred to
you.
Here is something for you to do:
Using the Bible and/or the Christian Faith and/or
other religious views as your authority try to write a
few lines on each of these topics. If you are ignorant of
any or some or even all the areas then write that fact
down and don't worry!
Now repeat the exercise but this time write what you
believe modern scientists or philosophers might say.
Again if you have no idea don't worry - the purpose of
this module is to teach you these things. 4
Models for considering the relationship
between science and religion:
•.Conflict.
•.Independence.
•.Dialogue.
•.Integration.
-(I prefer to say mutual illumination).
The above are the models taken from Ian
Barbour’s writings..
5
Books that are particularly relevant to
these models are:
• Ian Barbour: When Science Meets
Religion, pages 7-38
6
Worldviews and Science.
Under each of these headings there are many sub sections not
mentioned here.
• The material universe is an illusion. Only the spirit or
mind is real. (Some versions of Eastern Religions and
Idealism.)
• The material universe is all that there is – the whole
story. (Materialism.)
• Theism. Both the material and the spiritual are real and
interact. (However the spiritual gives rise to the
material world. Deism says that apart from Creation
there is no interaction.)
With which worldview does science fit most comfortably? 7
We now consider some words of Bertrand Russell in his Introduction to his
History of Western Philosophy.
All definite knowledge belongs to science; all dogma as to what
surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between
theology and science there is a No Man's Land, .. this No Man's
Land is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to
speculative minds are such as science cannot answer, and the
confident answers of theologians no longer seem convincing. …(The
questions are:) Is the world divided into mind and matter, and, if so
what is mind and what is matter? Is mind subject to matter, or is it
possessed of independent powers? Has the universe any unity or
purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really laws of
nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order?
Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon
and water impotently crawling on a small unimportant planet? Or is he
what he appears to Hamlet? (next slide) Is he perhaps both at once? Is
there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways
of living merely futile? If there is a way of living that is noble. In what does
it consist, and how shall we achieve it? Must the good be eternal in order
to deserve to be valued, or is it worth seeking even if the universe is
inexorably moving towards death? … To such questions no answer can
be found in the laboratory. …. The studying of these questions,
8
if not the answering of them, is the business of philosophy.
Hamlet:
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in
reason, How infinite in faculties, in form and
moving how Express and admirable, in action
how like an angel, In apprehension how like a
god: the beauty of the World, the paragon of
animals; and yet to me, what Is this quintessence
of dust?
9
Bertrand Russell: Philosophy's Unanswerable Questions.
15
The mystery of existence.
• Why do matter and energy exist? - where did
they come from?
• Scientific theories about the origin of the
universe have to assume the initial existence of
some kind of energy/law of nature. (Eg: Wave
function of the Universe, Colliding membranes,
Strings, eleven dimensions and Loop quantum
gravity.)
– leading to matter/space-time/laws of physics in
the big bang.
• But scientific theories cannot explain how the
initial energy/laws of nature came to exist or 16why
The mystery of existence.
• If God exists why does He exist? Was He
created?
• Whether or not God exists we are face to face
with the mystery:Why does anything exist at all?
– Stephen Hawking:`Why does the universe go to all
the bother of existing?’
– JJC Smart (atheist philosopher): Why should
anything exist at all? - it is for me a matter of the
deepest awe.
– See Handout re Quentin Smith (atheist
philosopher)’s comments.
17
The Mystery of existence - cont.
♦Some believe the questions:
♦'What is life?'
♦'What is consciousness?’ and related to
it:
♦‘What is my self that only I
experience and know?
♦ also give rise to fundamental mysteries.
18
Fundamental Mysteries - cont.
♦ If science could, one day, fully examine my brain,
would the scientist know what I am thinking
about?
♦ If not, then my mind must be more than my
physical brain.
♦ My mind (including my thoughts and ideas)
affects my behaviour - therefore it is real.
♦ So we have something that it real but is not
subject to scientific investigation.
19
The Mystery of Existence - cont..
Most believe that ‘goodness’, ‘morality’, ‘beauty’ and
our sense of ‘ought’ are not just the result of our
subjective feelings but are objective realities.
♦ Goodness, morality, beauty:
♦ do have a real effect on the physical world - they effect
our behaviour - what we do with our bodies and what we
make.
♦(they therefore are real.)
♦ but they are not open to scientific investigation - (science
examines the physical universe - it can’t tell you what is
good or beautiful, or morally right/wrong).
♦ Many conclude that there must be more to reality than
the mere physical existence that science examines. 20
The Mystery of Existence - Cont.
♦Some or all of these questions and
convictions have given rise to the religious
quest.
♦As science penetrates deeper into the very
nature of things many scientists are
beginning to wrestle with these questions.
♦Science is giving rise to questions it believes
are beyond its scope.
♦Thus there is scope for dialogue.
21
World Views 1. Atheistic Materialism:
24
World Views 2. Deism:
God is entirely transcendent - out there, not
in here.
27
World Views: 4. Theism
God is both transcendent and immanent
– He is distinct from the physical world but
He is with and `in’ all things.
– He alone is eternal.
– He created matter/energy/laws of physics.
– He holds all things in being.
– He is personal Mind.
– Some believe that we may know Him
personally.
28
World Views 5. Christian Theism. :
As well as the theism already outlined:
– God is love and is not distant from sin and
suffering.
– He stoops to the human level, and bears sin,
judgement, pain and death for us. (Christ’s Cross)
– He lifts us up back to where we belong, giving us
new life and forgiving us our sin. (Christ’s
resurrection.)
– Although this is seen in Jesus, it is a process that
occurs throughout history - the subject of the Bible.
– Judgement, new Creation and eternal life are real.
– Thus, Our true destiny is fulfilled and our uncertain
lives on earth find their purpose. 29
Secularism and the ordinary man’s scientific worldview.
•Why do the planets orbit the sun?
•Not God but the law of gravity.
•False assumption: gravity is an eternal independent law.
•God of the gaps - a mistake the Church made.
•A mechanistic universe.
•In the 17th C the universe was compared to the great clock in
Strasbourg.
•If the universe is just a mechanism - so humans are just
complex mechanisms too.
•Humans too are controlled by the laws of physics and have no
responsibility for their thoughts or actions.
•The powerful can ‘engineer’ other humans to suit them.
•False assumption: humans are only physical.
•Space and time have always existed.
•This too was/is a false assumption.
•Light, space-time, matter, energy are related - not by external
laws but by what they are in themselves. (Relativity). 30
Public world of facts and Private World of Values.
• Scientific facts become facts for everyone - public facts
about which there could be no debate.
• Everything that is not investigated by science (beauty,
goodness etc) would eventually become private matters
for individual opinion or preference.
• So each person should make up his own mind about
those things which lie outside bounds of science e.g.:
•The Purpose of the universe and human life,
•Religion, morality and ideals.
• The stage was set for the eventual collapse of religion,
morality and idealism.
(The situation was made worse for the Church by its disputes
with Galileo and others. For example it wanted to cling to its
belief that the stars circled the earth - a belief based only on a
superficial reading of the Bible.) 31
A paradox: If there is no real purpose to the universe
and our lives why bother to have any ideals
including the scientific ideal to explore the
universe?
• Many great scientists investigated the universe
because they believed it has a purpose given by
its Creator - God.
50
The Universe is finely tuned!
If the properties of the universe had been a tiny
bit different:
the stars would not have formed
or if they had they would have not lasted long.
there would have been no sun, no planets
and no earth.
the universe would either have been black
holes or gas.
there would have been complete darkness.
51
What are the variations in the initial
conditions of the universe that would have
made it dark and lifeless?
54
Anthropic Principle and Fine Tuning.
64
Blaise Pascal (d.o.b.
1623) and the
Meaning of Life.
I owe the material in
these slides to Thomas
V. Morris and Peter
Kreeft.
65
His accomplishments:
He
• invented the precursor of the
calculator,
• founded Probability Theory,
• designed the first system of
public transportation in
Europe.
66
Pascal accepted the metaphysical proofs for God.
For example the argument from the objective
reality of numbers.
However he cautioned as follows:
The metaphysical proofs for the existence of God are
so remote from human reasoning and so involved
that they make little impact, and, even if they did
help some people, it would only be for the moment
during which they watched the demonstration,
because an hour later they would be afraid they had
made a mistake. (190) and in (449) he says:
Even if someone were convinced that the
propositions between numbers are immaterial,
eternal truths, depending on a First Truth in which
they subsist, called God, I should not consider that
he had made much progress towards his salvation. 67
Blaise Pascal (French Philosopher and
Mathematician 17th C.)
He wrote about the human condition. He said we are
both glorious and wretched.
• We are capable of advanced mathematics,
reasoning and science and great goodness. We are
made in the image of God.
• We are capable of evil and we are all moving
towards death.
We are all seeking but not finding happiness and
truth.
This is a sign that we have lost something. 68
Pascal’s Illustration. Two labourers.
1. The first used to be a prince. He has
lost his royalty and so feels unhappy.
2. The second was never a prince and so
he has not lost anything. He is not
unhappy.
===========================
Humans are like the first. We have a
collective memory of something that we
have lost. That is why we are seeking,
but not finding, happiness and truth.
69
Pascal’s Ideas – continued.
God made us for glory but we lost it because of sin.
We need to be restored to God as His children
(princes).
So God, who loves us all, suffered the pain of our sin
for us and then lifted us up back to Him.
This is the meaning of the cross of Jesus.
The cross shows us how much God loves us – our
glory.
It also shows us how bad we are now - our
wretchedness.
Only the cross links our glory with our wretchedness
and makes sense of our human lives.
70
However men hate religion because they are
afraid it may be true. (Said Pascal)
(They prefer to live lives independent of God.)
They use the following to try to avoid God:
• Indifference. They pretend they do not care.
• Diversion. They are too busy with other things.
We go on to consider:
• The Meaning of Life.
• The Human Enigma.
71
Indifference.
A realisation that religion is one cause of
dispute is a widespread excuse for
indifference among many people.
Pascal describes such people as persons
“who do not love the truth”. An object of
love is not a matter of indifference. When
you have it you embrace it. When you
lack it, you pursue it.
People who are indifferent about ultimate
questions neither embrace nor pursue
truth.
72
Indifference (Continued)
There are only two classes of people who can be called
reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because
they know him and those who seek him with all their heart
because they do not know Him. (427)
There are only three sorts of people: those who have found God
and serve Him; those who are busy seeking Him and have not
found Him; those who live without either seeking or finding
Him. The first are reasonable and happy, the last are foolish and
unhappy, those in the middle are unhappy and reasonable. (160)
73
Indifference (continued).
There are people who avoid religious and
philosophical thinking out of fear. Often it
is just fear of the unknown. Others fear
what they suspect to be true and wouldn’t
want to face head-on. (TVM)
74
(In my early years) I began to write out of
vanity, self-interest and pride. I did the
same thing in my writing that I did in my
life. In order to acquire the fame and
money I was writing for, it was
necessary to conceal what was good and
to flaunt what was bad. And that is what
I did. Time after time I would scheme in
my writings to conceal under the mask of
indifference and even pleasantry those
yearnings for something good which gave
meaning to my life. And I succeeded in
this and was praised. (Leo Tolstoy,
Confession.) 75
That man is the product of causes that had no
prevision of the end they were achieving; that his
origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his love and
beliefs, are but the outcomes of accidental
collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no
intensity of thought and feeling can preserve
individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours
of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all
the noonday brightness of human genius are destined
to extinction in the vast death of the solar system,
and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement
must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a
universe in ruins – all these things if not quite beyond
dispute are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy
which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within
the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm
foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s
habitation be safely built. (B. Russell, Why I am not a Christian.)
76
Pascal applies the context principle.
Our behaviour is a function of its
context. People attend to every
context they find themselves in
except the ultimate context.
Since in this life there are often
more rewards for vices than for
virtues, few would prefer what is
right to what is useful if they
neither feared God nor hoped for
an after-life. (Descartes,
Meditations.) 77
Pascal wanted to shock us out of our
indifference.
Imagine a number of men in chains, all under
the sentence of death, some of whom are each
day butchered in the sight of others; those
remaining see their own condition is that of
their fellows, and looking at each other with
grief and despair await their turn. This is an
image of the human condition. (434)
78
After Indifference comes Diversion.
Being unable to cure death,
wretchedness and
ignorance, men have
decided, in order to be
happy, not to think about
such things. (133)
79
Woody Allen wanted to make a
story about:
80
Pascal is not against all diversion. It is the constant use of
diversion to stop us from ever thinking about ultimate
issues that he warns against.
That is why men are so fond of hustle and bustle; that is
why prison is such a fearful punishment; that is why
pleasures of solitude are so incomprehensible. That, in
fact, is the main joy of being a king, because people are
continually trying to divert him and provide him with every
kind of pleasure. A king is surrounded by people whose
only thought is to divert him and stop him thinking about
himself, because, king though he is, he becomes unhappy
as soon as he thinks about himself. (136)
We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting
something in front of us to stop us seeing it.
(166)
81
Why do we pay medical doctors so much?
Because we want to keep death from our door.
We want them to keep death and the troubling
questions it raises as far away as they can. We
want this badly and we are willing to pay.
But have you noticed that we pay the best
entertainers even more, in fact much more – the
cinema and television stars, the sports heroes?
Maybe it is because we know, deep down, that
the doctors will ultimately fail, and the
entertainers keep us from thinking about that.
This might also explain why we pay philosophers
so little: they make us think about it. (TVM) 82
There are two striking human
passions, the passion for
uniqueness and the passion for
union. Each of us wants to be
recognised as a unique member of
the human race. We want to stand
apart from the crowd in some way.
We want our own unique dignity and
value. But at the same time we have
a passion for union, for belonging,
even for merging our identities into
a greater unity in which we have a
place, a role, a value. (TVM) 83
The Meaning of Life.
Tolstoy: Five years ago, something very
strange began to happen to me. At first I
began to have moments of bewilderment,
when my life would come to a halt , as if I did
not know how to live or what to do; I would
lose my presence of mind and fall into a state
of depression. But this passed, and I began to
fall into a state of depression. But this passed,
and I continued to live as before. Then the
moments of bewilderment recurred more
frequently and they always took the same
form. Whenever my life would come to a halt
the question would arise Why? And What
next? 84
Tolstoy: I did not even want to discover truth anymore because
I had guessed what it was. The questions seemed to be such
foolish, simple, childish questions. But as soon as I laid my
hands on them and tried to resolve them, I was immediately
convinced, first of all, that they were not childish and foolish
questions but the most vital and profound questions in life, and,
secondly, that no matter how much I pondered them there was
no way I could resolve them. Or in the middle of thinking about
the fame that my works were bringing me I would say to myself,
"Very well, you will be more famous than, Pushkin and
Shakespeare - so what? And I could find absolutely no reply. My
life came to a stop. The truth was that life is meaningless . . .
The only thing that amazed me was how I had failed to realize
this in the very beginning. All this had been common knowledge
for so long. If not today, then tomorrow sickness and death will
come (indeed, they were already approaching) to everyone, to
me, and nothing will remain except the stench and the worms.
Why, then, do anything? How can anyone fail to see this and
live? That's what is amazing! It is possible to live only as long
as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing
that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion! Nor is there anything
funny or witty about it; it is only cruel and stupid. 85
If we never died would that solve the problem of
meaning?
A few thousand years in front of a TV set would
answer that!
An infinitely long life is not necessarily endowed
with meaning.
However the reality of death does focus the
mind on the ultimate questions.
Something has meaning if and only if it is endowed
with some purpose by a purposeful agent.
Meaning is never intrinsic, it is always
derivative. 86
What about a ‘Do it yourself’ approach to meaning?
Then there would be no objective meaning to life.
Make up your own meaning (subjective meaning) for your own life.
Find out what you can do best and do it to the full.
John is good at curing diseases and it brings him pleasure.
Bill is good at torturing people and he enjoys it.
Fred is good at collecting match boxes and he is happy focussing
his whole life on this hobby.
They devote their whole lives to these pursuits.
If there is no objective meaning then there is no way to
distinguish, from one another, the value of these different
‘meanings’.
87
Only One who is Eternal and
has an eternal purpose for our
lives can give our lives real
meaning.
Thus there is nothing more
important than the search for
God, and nothing more foolish
than the neglect of God
through indifference or
diversion. 88
What are Space and Time, or more accurately
what is Space-Time?
Are Space and Time merely the infinite containers
of matter, energy and events?
The Nature of Space - a mystery.
• Can we imagine something in space but
infinitely far away?
• Now try to imagine there is only one thing
‘in’ the universe.
• Would it make any sense to say it is moving in
space? No!
• So space is not a ‘thing’ in itself which could
have a place of absolute rest.
• Does matter/energy create its own space? 89
Light and Space.
• Light travels to us from stars.
• Most of space is a vacuum.
• Light emerging from two slits makes interference
patterns on a screen - implying it is a wave motion.
• Wave in what medium? Isn’t most of space a
vacuum?
• Ether - some unknown medium that pervades all
of space?
• Michelson and Morely’s famous experiment showed
that:
• there is no such thing the ether pervading space.
• the speed of light is a fundamental constant.
Is light a thing travelling in space at all?
• Perhaps light leading to matter/energy creates space?
90
A Mystery about Time.
If time were infinite it would take an infinite
time before anything happened so nothing
would happen! (Stephen Hawking!)
If the world were uncreated, then time would
be infinite, but infinite time cannot be
traversed. Hence, the present moment could
not have come about, but the present
moment does exist. Hence the world had a
beginning. (Saadia Gaon: Medieval Jewish
philosopher)
If time is not infinite but had a beginning,
was there a time before time?! 91
Einstein’s Special Theory of
Relativity.
•It relates the speed of light, space
and time together:
•Since the speed of light is same for
all observers - however fast they are
travelling - time must be different for
observers travelling at high speeds
relative to one another.
•Twin paradox.
92
Light, Energy and Mass.
• We could never catch up with a beam of light.
• More and more energy needed to accelerate to
higher and higher proportions of the speed of
light.
• Energy to accelerate from 90% to 91% speed of
light would be same energy as from stationary to
same speed.
• Therefore enormous amount of energy for small
increase in velocity.
• An object would be ‘heavier’ and ‘heavier’ as it
approached the speed of light.
• The energy to accelerate it is changing into mass.
• At the speed of light the mass would be infinite -
impossible.
• Nothing can travel as fast as light. 93
Mass and energy are interchangeable.
• This is the foundation of the theory
behind atomic and nuclear power.
106
Black body radiation
- fundamental constituents of nature are
particles or distinct packets of energy
(quanta).
Two slit experiment
- fundamental constituents of nature are
waves.
- are these waves that carry information as if
the universe were a great ‘thought’?
•Some think that is so.
- if one photon at a time is released - a wave
pattern is made.
- but not always! - see next slide. 107
If the ‘electron’ (say) is observed.
- If each ‘electron’ (say) is ‘watched’ as it goes
through the slit,
•the result is not a wave pattern.
•instead a bright spot is made on the
screen as if the beam of electrons were a
stream of particles.
Does the consciousness of the observer have
a unique part to play in the behaviour of the
universe?
•These highly speculative questions are still
being debated among quantum physicists.
•There is no consensus.
108
There was once a The Answer:
man who said `God
Dear Sir, Your
Must think it astonishment's odd:
exceedingly odd
I am always about in
If he finds that this the Quad.
tree
And that's why the
Continues to be tree
When there's no one Will continue to be,
about in the Quad.'
Since observed by
Yours faithfully, God.
- Ronald Arbuthnott Knox
(1888-1957), Limerick - Anon.
on Idealism. 109
The Uncertainty principle.
• If we know where an electron (say) is we
cannot know how fast it is moving.
• If we decide to try to find out its velocity we
will not know where exactly it is.
• This is unlike any other ‘thing’ in the
ordinary sense of the word ‘thing’.
• See handout: Quantum Mechanics as a
Science-Religion Bridge by Jewish
Physicist Prof Stanley Klein.
110
The physical world an Open System?
• The behaviour of each fundamental wave-
particle is unpredictable in principle.
• This seems to mean that the universe is
not a closed ‘clockwork’ deterministic
system of cause and effect.
• Within limits nature is open and free?
• If the universe is an open system it is open
to What?
• John Polkinghorne and other Christian quantum
physicists have used this as a way of seeing how
God can interact with the natural world - see slide
much later in course.
111
EPR
Two electrons emerging from the same source will remain
related even if separated by great distances and there is
no way that they can communicate with each other.
If the ‘spin’ on one is changed the other will immediately
respond.
At fundamental levels, reality is relational (or entangled).
A relation that transcends the bounds of space and time.
However separate entities (electrons) still exist.
Relationships between the ‘building blocks’ of matter/energy
are not based on external laws but rather on what they are in
themselves.
122
Now to life and evolution. However hold in your head
what we have said about information, word and mind.
At a higher level, life too, has at its heart ‘information’.
The Mystery of the Origin of Life.
(Biological evolution can only get going once life has
begun to exist).
A common theory:
In the early earth there was a ‘cosmic soup’ of
gases and liquids.
Electricity from lightening produced, in the
cosmic soup, amino acids - the building blocks
of life.
This can be replicated in the laboratory today.
123
Modern Theories
How did life originate?
(The Mystery of the Origin of Life.)
(Biological evolution can only get going once life
has begun to exist).
A common theory:
In the early earth there was a ‘cosmic soup’
of gases and liquids.
Electricity from lightening produced, in the
cosmic soup, amino acids - the building
blocks of life.
This can be replicated in the laboratory
today. 124
How did life originate? (Cont)
• However it is one thing to know how stones (say)
were formed but another to know how an intricate
stone palace was built from the stones.
• Energy and an intelligent mind are needed to
work on the stone.
• Simple proteins involve many amino acids in
correct sequence.
How are proteins actually made?
In the cells of life.
In each cell of life there is a chemical factory
(cytoplasm) for making the proteins, a computer
program (the DNA) and a translation system (the
RNA) 125
Cytoplasm for making proteins. It
receives its instructions from the DNA
via the RNA translation system.
RNA
Nucleus of cell
made up of DNA
126
Professor Francis Crick, who received the Nobel
Prize for discovering the structure of DNA (the
famous double helix), writes: “The origin of life
appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the
conditions which would have had to be satisfied
to get it going” (italics added).
Professor Harold Klein, chairman of the U. S.
National Academy of Sciences committee that
reviewed origin-of-life research, writes: “The
simplest bacterium is so damn complicated that
it is almost impossible to imagine how it
happened” (italics added). 127
American Spectator magazine (May 2005) says:
IMAGINE A NANOTECHNOLOGY MACHINE far
beyond the state of the art: microminiaturized rotary
motor and propeller system that drives a tiny vessel
through liquid. The engine and drive mechanism are
composed of 40 parts, including a rotor, stator,
driveshaft, bushings, universal joint, and flexible
propeller. The engine is powered by a flow of ions, can
rotate at up to 100,000 rpm (ten times faster than a
NASCAR racing engine), and can reverse direction in a
quarter of a rotation. The system comes with an
automatic feedback control mechanism. The engine itself
is about 1/100,000th of an inch wide - far smaller than
can be seen by the human eye.
128
And then goes on …
Most of us would be pleasantly surprised to
learn that some genius had designed such an
engineering triumph. What might come as a
greater surprise is that there is a dominant
faction in the scientific community that is
prepared to defend, at all costs, the assertion
that this marvellous device could not possibly
have been designed, must have been produced
blindly by unintelligent material forces, and
only gives the appearance of being designed.
129
How did life originate? (Cont)
• The chemical factory receives its instructions from
the very complicated DNA code.
• The DNA is a code written in a four letter ‘alphabet’.
(Each letter is a different nucleotide.)
• The DNA code even for a simple bacteria may be a
thousands of ‘letters’ long.
• These letters have to be in a particular order to
provide the information necessary for the
manufacture of the proteins.
• The DNA sends its instructions to the cytoplasm via
the RNA which ‘translates’ the instructions so that
the cytoplasm can ‘understand’.
• The DNA, cytoplasm and the RNA are themselves
made by the very cells of which they are a part!130
Some say that life’s beginnings may have
been much simpler than this.
However we still have the problem of the
origin, not just of complexity, but of
information.
131
How did life originate? (Cont)
Encyclopaedia Britannica:
The origin of the code.
A critical and unsolved problem in the origin of life
is the origin of the genetic code. The molecular
apparatus supporting the operation of the code the
activating enzymes, adapter RNAs, messenger
RNAs, and so on are themselves each produced
according to instructions contained within the
code. At the time of the origin of the code such an
elaborate molecular apparatus was of course
absent. 134
How did life originate? (Cont)
Douglas Hofstadter, (a world famous and non
religious artificial intelligence expert) writes:
"A natural and fundamental question to ask, on
learning of these incredibly, intricately interlocking
pieces of software and hardware is: 'How did they
ever get started in the first place?'..... from simple
molecules to entire cells is almost beyond one's power
to imagine. There are various theories on the origin
of life. They all run aground on this most central of
central questions: "How did the Genetic Code, along
with the mechanisms for its translation originate?" For
the moment we will have to content ourselves with a
sense of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer.' 135
Karl Popper: The Self and Its Brain. Page 28:
God of the gaps. (Nature does this and God does that.)
• It is the advance of knowledge that has led to ID, not
ignorance. The advance of knowledge reveals a code
138
and information, not just complexity.
Michael Polanyi's gave his reaction to the claim that the discovery
of the DNA double helix is the final proof that living things are
physically and chemically determined.
No said Polanyi it proves the opposite. No arrangement of
physical units can be a code and convey information unless
the order of its units is not fixed by its physical chemical
make-up. His example is a railway station on the Welsh
border where an arrangement of pebbles on a bank spelled the
message - "Welcome to Wales by British Rail". This
information content of pebbles clearly showed that their
arrangement was not due to their physical chemical
interaction but to a purpose on the part of the stationmaster ...
The arrangement of the DNA could have come about chance,
just as the pebbles on that station could have rolled down a
hillside and arranged themselves in the worlds of the message,
but it would be bizarre to maintain that this was so ... 139
How did life originate? (Cont)
My comment:
We can add to the mystery of the `miracle' by noting that
the DNA, by itself, is useless; it must be translated via the
RNA so that its `message' can be put to use by the
cytoplasm `factory'.
The problem is that the RNA that links the DNA with the
factory, itself is manufactured by that very factory which
cannot function without the RNA and the DNA! Indeed
each component depends on the other for its manufacture.
Try to imagine a factory for making computers - the factory
itself being run from the beginning by the very computers it
alone can manufacture!
This is only one of the enigmas of the origin of life even in
its simple forms. 140
An individual life form is more complex than
the DNA codes in his cells.
I am more complex than even the cell of life from
which I grew.
Just consider one of a thousands of possible
examples
• the brain.
Writing about the brain Richard Dawkins in his preface
to `The Blind Watchmaker', tells us:
"The brain with which you are understanding my words is an
array of some ten million kiloneurones (ten thousand million
neurones). Many of these billions of nerve cells have each
more than a thousand `electric wires' connecting them to other
neurones."
Where does this greater complexity come from? 141
An individual life form is more complex than
the DNA codes in its cells. (Cont)
151
Evolution (Cont)
In response to a claim in late 2001 by Eugene Scott of
the (US) National Center for Science Education that
“virtually every reputable scientist in the world”
supports (Darwinian) evolution, a list of over 100
reputable scientists was published in an advert in the
New York Times - entitled “A Scientific Dissent from
Darwinism.” Signatories included 5-times Nobel
nominee Henry F Schaefer, University of Georgia
chemist, and other research scientists who are faculty
members at Princeton, Berkeley, Yale, MIT etc. These
are not arguing for creation in 4004 BC, but scientists
who dare to doubt Darwinism on the basis of the
evidence itself. 152
Evolution (Cont)
• Darwin did not believe that Natural
Selection could provide a full explanation
for the origin of species.
• Many modern evolutionary biologists
(such as Steven Jay Gould) agree with
Darwin that there must be more to it than
that.
• Militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins
insist that natural selection alone will one
day provide sufficient explanation.
• What is the evidence for their prophecy? 153
Evolution continued:
Irreducible complexity.
(This is one of the points made by the controversial
Intelligent Design movement.)
Challenge from Darwin:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ exists
which could not possibly be formed by numerous
successive slight modifications, my theory would
absolutely break down.
Michael Behe’s ‘Darwin’s Black Box’ responds, claiming
there are many irreducibly complex organs in nature. He uses
the workings of a mouse trap to illustrate his point. If just one
of the eight parts of the mouse trap is missing the mouse
trap will not trap fewer mice - it will trap none at all. See
Handout: Behe Defends ID.
Others dispute this claim (see for example Forrest and Gross's
Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, (OUP) -
the debate continues. 154
Two statements from cell biologist Franklin Harold in
his 2001 book (OUP) titled The Way of the Cell.
161
Evolution concluded.
Now read Unit 6 whose sections include:
♦What life is.
♦Information technology at the heart of living things.
♦The unsolved mystery of the origin of life.
♦The Human Genome project.
♦Can a recipe for a cake change into a cake?
♦Is evolution without God possible?
♦Could Chaos theory be a clue to the origin and development
of life?
Further reading:
• Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Chapters 1, 5, 6
• Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, Pages 11-48
• Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint, Chapter 7 162
Brain - Mind - Consciousness - Soul.
The Brain - extremely complex.
167
Brain - Mind - Consciousness - Soul (Cont)
Could a brain scientist of the future know
‘you’ or ‘me’ by examining our brains?
• Our thoughts?
• What you and I see when we look at something red
(say).
• Are we seeing what is the same colour as the
same colour?
• What you experience when you taste dates (say).
180
Reply 2: Recent Human Genome Discoveries
192
Can Christians hold to a purely materialistic view of
human beings?
Christian ‘Resurrectionists’ (perhaps John Polkinghorne
is one of these?) hold that we are purely material but
that God will re-create a copy of each of us (DNA codes
and much more of our ‘pattern’) at the last day.
200
Resurrection of Christ and our resurrection.
Christ’s Old body renewed or newly embodied?
Continuity - empty tomb; eats; nail marks.
In the New Creation - this world is redeemed.
Discontinuity - not confined by our space-time.
In the New Creation - ‘what no eye has seen …’
Tomb is empty.
Yet our tombs are not empty - or at least not now
In the New Heaven and New Earth (still partly continuous
with this world) - will the old graves and bones still be
there? 201
2 Corinthians 4.
6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his
light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-
surpassing power is from God and not from us.
10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death
for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal
body.
14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus
from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with
you in his presence.
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are
wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is
unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is
eternal. (NIV) 202
Animal and human consciousness - the differences?
• Higher animals are conscious but not self-
conscious?
•They don’t ponder their own existence?
• Language and signals and the image of God.
• Human personhood dependent on
interpersonal relationships - ultimately the
relationship with the Person of God.
204
Prayer - a way of knowing God.
Once we are aware that there is more to reality than
a collection of atoms and physical laws that govern
its relations; and further, once we have recognised
that there is probably Personal Being above all and
yet closely related to all things, then the most
obvious thing to do is to try to communicate.
See quotation from Lord Hailsham near the
beginning of Unit 8.
It describes the kind of prayer that he thinks would
come most naturally to someone seeking to
communicate with that which may be beyond the
physical world. 205
Prayer and personal knowledge
• Once we have prayed that or a similar prayer we are
opening our lives to a knowledge that essentially
different from that which can be reached by natural
science.
• Yet this way of knowing is in a sense still science - ie if
we define scientific method as using ways of knowing
that are appropriate to the object that is before us.
• This is important for we don't want an impersonal
theology where we try to make logical deductions from
nature about what God is like, and then make images of
Him using our own reasoning skills. That would be a
modern form of idolatry. 206
Prayer and personal knowledge
• The only appropriate way of knowing persons or The
Person is by `methods' appropriate to personal knowledge
namely speaking, listening and trusting - ie by faith.
• It will lead to a personal knowledge of a Personal Being to
whom the whole natural world owes its own being.
• Although a different way of knowing from the ways of the
natural sciences, it is still a real way of knowing that which
really exists - what cannot be discovered by natural
science.
• As in the knowledge of all persons our knowledge of God
will depend on Him revealing His mind to us.
• Humans reveal their mind to us in words as we spend time
in their presence. So it is reasonable to speak of God's self-
revelation in terms of a Word heard in His presence.207
Prayer and personal knowledge
• Our words to one another reveal our own
consciousness and we can speak of our own true
self.
• Similarly with the Person of God.
• "For who among men knows the thoughts of a
man except the man's spirit within him? In the
same way no-one knows the thoughts of God
except the Spirit of God. "For who has known
the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"
But we have the mind of Christ."
– 1Cor 2:11,16 208
• To know God we need His own way of revealing
Himself to us.
– So we do not find God by looking at nature, or seek to
find Him as part of the data of natural science.
– Nature prompts us to look away from itself to God
who is its Creator.
• We must allow the way we think to change if we
wish to advance in knowledge.
– The greatest advances of science each involved a
change in the way of thinking in which a deeper logic
(not just new data) was discovered.
– See Unit 8 pages 2 and 3 bullet points for examples of
this.
209
• It is only as scientists are open to question their
own fundamental presuppositions that science is
able to proceed to a deeper knowledge of reality.
– As they discover a more profound logic than they had
previously imagined, coming from the very reality they
are seeking to know, true understanding of reality
progresses.
• This is the reason the theologian Karl Barth so
strongly rejected natural theology.
– He believed we could only know God in the way He
reveals Himself to us in the Person of Christ as the
Scriptures testify about Him.
210
Natural Theology - knowledge of God from nature.
213
John Polkinghorne reminds us that in the
outdated Newtonian physics space and time
were considered the stage on which the drama
of physical processes took place, so that the
geometry of space "was capable of being
pursued in isolation from the mechanics of
matter."
However he continues: “In General Relativity
this is not the case. Space and matter, geometry
and physics, impinge upon each other.”
215
Creation Open To God
• Unit 9 is not appropriate for a Power Point
presentation. However it is important.
• In Unit 9 the following topics are considered:
– Creation out of Nothing
– Nature is an open system
– The Days of Creation.
– Prayer Changes Things?
– The Image of God.
– Creation and the Whole Bible Story.
216
– In Unit 1 we noted that the Bible teaches
that God's Eternal Word is not only the
origin of Creation, and not only that by
which all things are held in being, but also
the origin of the redemption of the world.
– According to John's gospel that Word
who is the Source of the order of creation
is fully made known in the coming of
Christ among us and therefore is also the
source of our salvation.
217
John 1:14 The Word became flesh and
made his dwelling among us. We have seen
his glory, the glory of the One and Only,
who came from the Father, full of grace
and truth.
It is reasonable to believe then that there
should be some connection between what
learn of creation with what we believe
about the renewal of the world in Christ.
218
• The very God who created this world seeks to know His
people and be known by them
• This can only be so if the mind and will of God actually act
in the physical world.
• It was argued in Unit 7 that the human mind cannot in
principle be reduced to physics and mathematics.
• Yet it too undoubtedly acts on our physical bodies and
physical world.
• We do not yet understand how that happens but it does.
• If the human mind and will act on physical reality why not
God's mind and will as well?
• Although we cannot say how this happens it can only be
possible if there is a real openness in the very nature of
219
physical existence.
God: history/answered prayer & miracle..
John Polkinghorne says:
Our view may be summarised as being expressed in
a complementary metaphysic where human
participation in a noetic world arises from mind
being the complementary pole to matter in flexible
open organisation. .... it also makes coherent the
possibility that God is in a relationship with his
creation which goes beyond his simply being the
upholder of its order. It allows for the exercise of
his providential care within the unpredictable
unfolding of world history. (emphases added)
220
• John Polkinghorne sees ‘Divine Action’ and miracle
not as God suspending laws of nature nor God
adding/subtracting new mass and/or physical
energy, but as God implanting information (Word)
into physical systems. This ‘input’ is possible
because of the open structures revealed in quantum
physics (micro level) and chaotic dynamics (macro
level).
• Keeping in mind what is said above, go on to read
Unit 10.
• It cannot be summarised easily with Power Point.
However it is important.
221
Unit 10 deals with the following subjects:
:God comes into our world - Israel and
Jesus.
:The witness of Jewish History
:Incarnation of God in Space-Time
:Divine and Human in One Person.
:Our Union With Christ.
:Christ the Cosmic Saviour.
:The Christian Hope.
Also see my article: The Nature and Origin of
the Bible at:
www.apologetics.fsnet.co.uk/bible.htm 222
Read handout: ‘The Gospel according to
science’ by physicist Paul Davies and ponder
the points below:
223
There is an underlying assumption that the
survival and future happiness of our species is
the final goal of goodness and morality.
If, as he says, we do evil things, why should
our survival be a `good’?
Even if it is the case that our survival and
happiness are good things, does that belief
follow from science?
If not science then what?
Our desires?
Do our desires determine what is
‘good’?
What about competing desires?
224
‘The Gospel according to science’ by
physicist Paul Davies - continued.
• He wonders how science can be used to
give us moral values.
– Does he give any indication of how this
might be possible?
– If not, why do you think he fails (and is
bound to fail) to find a solution to his
problem?
• Can we get an `ought’ from an ‘is’?
225
Read handout: ‘Michael Ruse and reductionary
illusions.’ by John Byle. .
• Michael Ruse’s theory is that there is no real ‘good’;
it is just a helpful illusion that helps preserves our
species by making us behave more co-operatively.
– He believes that morality comes from our genes that trick
us into thinking that co-operation is objectively ‘good.’
– He believes, then, that understanding morality can be
reduced to understanding our genes.
– He has a reductionist view of morality.
Note the ways in which John Byle shows that
this theory refutes itself and therefore cannot
be true. 226
The Problem of Evil
• Two kinds of evil:
– 1. Moral Evil.
• Why do people behave badly?
• Is God to blame for creating us with the
capacity for evil?
• Why does He not stop us doing evil?
– 2. Natural evil.
• Why are there natural disasters - such as
earthquakes etc which surely cannot be
blamed on us?
227
The Problem of Evil
• Intellectual problems for all world views.
– For the theist:
• If God is good and powerful why is there evil
and suffering?
– For the pantheist:
• If the natural world (which contains evil) is part of
God, does that mean that God Himself is partly evil?
• If the natural world is eternal, does not that mean
that evil is eternal and there is no salvation?
• Does it make sense to say we should try to escape the
cycle of re-incarnation when we have already had an
infinite time? 228
In response pantheism often denies
the existence of evil:
saying that the way things are is
the way `things are meant to be´,
and giving us advice on how to
cope with suffering in ourselves
and others.
229
The Problem of Evil
• Intellectual problems for all world views (cont).
– For the atheist:
• If the atheist challenges the theist saying
´Why does evil exist?, is he not
acknowledging the existence of good?
• How does he distinguish good from evil?
• If he does distinguish good from evil does not
that imply the existence of an objective
goodness?
– an objective goodness which is independent of
our private opinions and biology? 230
Christian responses to the problem of
Suffering and Evil.
233
So in this world, pain and happiness exist side by side.
1 God shares all our suffering and ultimately
triumphs over it.
2 Pain exists but is defeated in the end.
3 Good people as well as bad suffer but the
good are eternally rewarded in another world
that they cannot yet see.
4. Ultimately goodness, love and mercy reach
fulfilment in the context of evil and pain.
A famous book on this subject is:
CS Lewis's `The Problem of Pain´. 234
• Unit 11 carries the discussion of evil and
suffering further, considering:
Evolution and the Fall
Where and when is the Golden age from which
we have fallen?
The meaning of the Fall.
♦Alternative non-Atheist World Views.
Deism
Pantheism
Panentheism
Biblical World View. 235