Christian Faith and Modern Science by Howard Taylor.

Christian Faith and Modern Science by Howard Taylor.

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. • Web: www.howardtaylor.net

What is it all about? For millennia philosophers and theologians have attempted to address such questions as: • Is the universe eternal or did it begin? • Why does nature have a rational structure? • Is there any purpose to human existence? • What is life? • 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 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.

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..

Books that are particularly relevant to these models are: • Ian Barbour: When Science Meets Religion, pages 7-38 • Alister McGrath: Science and Religion, chapter 2 entitled: Religion Ally or Enemy of Science?

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?

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, 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?

Bertrand Russell: Philosophy's Unanswerable Questions. • According to Bertrand Russell, not only are these questions (that are unanswerable by science), the most interesting they are the most important.(See also History of Western Philosophy page 789) • Without belief in ‘theology’ (ie God who speaks a Word), Russell says they have no answer. • As an sceptic he had to hold the paradoxical view that: • The most interesting and important questions for humans have no answers. • All that philosophy can do is to discuss them.

Not only is the existence of God necessary to make sense of reality but so also is the Cross of Christ in whom He makes Himself known. I am reminded of these words from 1 Corinthians 1: 20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” (NIV)

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and in science.... He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. The sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is. Albert Einstein (Speech to the German League of Human Rights (Berlin 1932).

Argument in favour of materialism. Science has successfully answered many questions about the world. One day it will be able to answer all questions. Question: Are the mysteries getting less or more?

Leibniz’s argument against materialism. • Thoughts cannot be material. • Thoughts affect the physical world. • Therefore the physical world needs more than physical science to understand it’s behaviour. • Why are thoughts not material? • Leibniz’s mill or mountain. • Physical processes just exist – they are not true or false. • Thoughts are true or false. • Therefore thoughts are not just material. (See Bertrand Russell quote in next slide.) • But thoughts do affect the physical world. Therefore the behaviour of the physical world cannot be fully understood by physical science.

If we imagine a world of mere matter, there would be no room for falsehood in such a world, and although it would contain what may be called ‘facts’, it would not contain any truths, in the sense in which truths are things of the same kind as falsehoods. In fact, truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs and statements: hence a world of mere matter, since it would contain no beliefs or statements, would also contain no truth or falsehood. (Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, page 70.)

The mystery of existence. • Why do matter and energy exist? - where did they come from? And what are they? • 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 why they exist or did exist.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

World Views 1. Atheistic Materialism: • There is nothing spiritual - no god, spirit or soul. • Impersonal matter/energy/physical laws (in one form or another) are the basis of all that exist - the whole story. • They are eternal • They have developed into the universe • including all its life and human life and personal human minds.

World Views 1. Atheistic Materialism cont: In principle the human person, including his/her appreciation of beauty, right and wrong, could, in the future, be understood entirely by physics. • A complete understanding of the human person could, in future, come from a study of impersonal physical laws/matter/energy which make up his physical body/brain and environment. • See quotation from Francis Crick on next slide:

World Views: Atheistic Materialism continued. Francis Crick: “You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more that the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”(The Astonishing Hypothesis page 3)

World Views 2. Deism: God is entirely transcendent - out there, not in here. • God created the universe with its physical laws and now leaves it to run its course. • Darwin believed that the Creator impressed laws on matter. • There is no continuing relation between God and the physical universe. • God is not relevant to our physical lives.

World Views 3. Pantheism: • `God’ is immanent - in here, not out there. • There is no Creator God distinct from the universe. • `God’ is the spiritual dimension of the physical universe. • God is impersonal. • We tune into God rather than pray to Him in a personal way. • We may pray to spirits but not to God. • All things are sacred in their own right. • The physical/spiritual universe is eternal.

World Views 4. Panentheism • The physical universe is part of God as a body is part of a person. • However He also is greater than the physical universe. • God is more likely to be personal in panentheism.

World Views: 4. Theism God is both transcendent and immanent • He is distinct from the physical world but He iswith 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.

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.

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 compared to the 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 – except the powerful. • 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).

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.)

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. • Now work your way through Unit 1 especially noting: • The set of questions that arise from the scientific quest. • Einstein’s words quoted on page 3. • The great scientists who were devout believers. • The nature of scientism. • Is the real battle between science and religion - or is merely disguised as if it were?

Further reading on enlightenment science and its effect on religion: • Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, chapter 4 entitled The Dialogue with Science • Alister E.McGrath, Science and Religion,chapter 1 entitled: Historical Landmarks.

Non-Christian Religious World Views. • For Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism see the handouts: • Hinduism and Buddhism. • Taoism. • For Christian World View see handout: • The Biblical World View.

Read Unit 2 which is an overview of some important points that will be discussed in the module. Some, we have met briefly already. • In Unit 2 we think about: • The difference is between science and scientism • Why many people were fascinated by the book `A Brief History of Time’ • The amazing information, order and beauty in all of nature. • What is meant by `Science at the Boundaries'. • Why relationships are essential for understanding God, the natural world and ourselves. • Why we should beware of `the god of the gaps'. • Why the Universe must have purpose. • The religious beliefs that were the necessary spur to the scientific enterprise. • (See next slide for more on this point)

The religious beliefs that were the necessary spur to the scientific enterprise. • God is rational and therefore the natural world He created is orderlyand open to rational investigation. • Its rational order is open to understanding by the human mind. (Man and woman created in God’s image.) • Nature's order is a contingent order. • (That is to say its rational structure did not have to be as it is but was ‘chosen’ to be as it is. Experimentation is therefore necessary to delve deeper into the laws of nature.) • Was there one creative act or several? • Atheists say ‘none’. ID says ‘several’. Anti-ID says one or nature is ‘one seamless whole’

Religious beliefs that were the necessary spur to the scientific enterprise. Being created by God the natural world is good and therefore worth investigating. • This contrasts with the belief that the natural world is inherently evil or unreal. • Although there is now evil and suffering, God’s love for the world means there is hope for it. • We too should love nature and want to understand it more. • For further explanation see the last pages of Unit 2.

Father of the Big Bang Theory Georges-Henri Lemaître(Catholic priest and scientist) was born July 17, 1894 in Charleroi, Belgium. Lemaître is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, although he called it his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom'. He based his theory, published between 1927 and 1933, on the work of Einstein, among others. Einstein did not, at first, like the theory because it was too much like the teaching of the Bible. However in 1935 Einstein, after having travelled on a long train journey with Lemaitre, applauded a lecture on the subject, given by Lemaitre himself, and said, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened". Against much opposition from the scientific community, Lemaître’s theory finally triumphed from the sheer weight of evidence. (In the second half of the 20th Century.) He estimated the age of the universe to be between 10 and 20 billion years, which agrees with modern opinions. The Beginning and the Big Bang.In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Lemaître’s view was, at first, rejected but it raised the question as to whether the universe (in one form or another) is finite (the Jewish/Christian view) or infinite (atheist and pantheist view). Steady State or Beginning? Evidence for beginning. Stars still burning. Not fallen in on one another. Anti-Gravity?? No!, or perhaps yes! Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding as if from an explosion. Big Bang of ‘light’ fifteen billion years ago. Seemingly from nothing! Background radiation - as if from the Big Bang’s echo - confirmed the theory. The Beginning and the Big Bang.In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Robert Wilson, one of those who discovered the background radiation was asked by journalist Fred Heeren ifthe Big Bang indicated a Creator. Wilson said, "Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can't think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis."

From this Big Bang hydrogen and helium eventually formed. The hydrogen clouds contracted and heated up and stars were created. The inside of stars created the heavier elements from which planets are made. Did this confirm the Biblical teaching that God created the cosmos out of nothing? However there is still opposition to the Big Bang theory because it depends on ‘inflation’, ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. See: www.cosmologystatement.org/ which was an open letter to the ‘New Scientist’ from many scientists who do not accept the Big Bang theory. The Beginning and the Big Bang.In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about the conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself up over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements and the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same; the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy. God and the Astronomers, Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow.

Will the Universe contract again to a Big Crunch? • Did the Big Bang come from a Big Crunch? • An oscillating universe? Probably No! • See handout: Cosmos 13 Billion Years Ago. • But even if the universe is oscillating between crunch and bang, the series could not be infinite. • We still have the problem of the genesis of everything. • Could Quantum fluctuations in a vacuum have caused the Big Bang? • (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle does not allow for a vacuum where there is absolutely nothing). • Why is there such a principle? • Colliding membranes and eleven dimensions creating the ‘Big Bang’? - see footnote at end of Unit 3. • The end of the universe - heat or cold death?

The Biblical Teaching is that there has been, is, and will be a New Creation. • Not a creation out of nothing again but a creation out of the ‘death’ of the old. • When evil and decay have done their worst to this world, God intervenes in New Creation. • In Christian theology the link between Old and New is the Death/Resurrection of Christ in whom, God and the world are held together and humanity is forgiven and nature healed. • Too good to be true? • Perhaps, but we are faced with the reality of our universe. • Where did it come from? • Why should anything exist at all is surely amazing - but here we are - too good to be true?

Cosmological Argument. • A simple form of the argument: • The Universe cannot just have popped into existence from nowhere. • Therefore there must be a God who created it. • Another simple form: • Which is the most likely cause of a finite universe? • Nothing acting on nothing -> finite universe. • Infinite God acting on nothing -> finite universe. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-- his eternal power and divine nature-- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.Romans 1:20.

Cosmological Argument - cont. • Another form of same argument: • There is a universe. • It could not cause itself. • It could not come from nothing. • It could not be an effect of an infinite series of causes. • Therefore it must be caused by something that is uncaused and everlasting. • Therefore God exists. • Yet another form: • The universe is contingent and therefore ultimately depends on something uncaused.

Cosmological Argument - cont. • Does this argument depend on the universe having a beginning? • Thomas Aquinas (13th Century - born in Naples) • believed that this argument would be valid even for an infinite universe. • God the explanation for the existence of all things: God Time line  ---------------------------------------------------------  • However Thomas believed the case would be even more convincing if the universe had a beginning.

Cosmological Argument - cont. • The Kalam Cosmological Argument: • The Universe must have had a beginning and therefore must have had a cause. • God ------time line ------------------------ • (Kalam was a word used for a kind of Islamic philosophy and means `speech’ in Arabic) Some have argued that the universe must have had a beginning otherwise we are left with the belief that there would be an infinite time before anything would happen and therefore nothing would happen!

Cosmological Argument - cont. • Against these points some say: • The Universe is just brute fact and ultimatelyunintelligible. • There is no explanation for its existence - it just is. • It is not worth asking why it exists - it just does. • However science looks for reasons. • Do the above three points imply that at the last hurdle science must give up looking for reasons? • At the end of the quest has science itself flipped? • Other arguments against the Cosmological argument are considered later.

For a more detailed discussion of the big bang theory and its religious implications see: • Unit 3. • Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time,chapters 2 and 8 • Paul Davies, The Mind of God, chapter 2.

Christian Faith and Modern Science by Howard Taylor.