Science versus God

1. Science versus God “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1Peter 3:15) Series: Apologetics 101 Romans 1:18-21

2. Can Science prove or disprove God? • Paul Little said, “It is obvious we cannot examine God in a test tube or prove Him by the usual scientific methodology. Furthermore, we can say with equal emphasis that it is not possible to prove Napolean by the scientific method. The reason lies in the nature of history and the limitations of the scientific method. In order for something to be proved by the scientific method, it must be repeatable. A scientist does not announce a new finding to the world on the basis of a single experiment. History in its very nature is non-repeatable. No one can rerun the beginning of the universe or bring Napolean back or repeat the assassination of Lincoln or the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The fact that these events can’t be proven by repetition does not disprove their reality as events.

3. Can Science prove or disprove God? • Paul Little continues: “There are many real things outside the scope of verification by the scientific method. The scientific method is useful only with measurable, material things. No one has ever seen three feet of love or two pounds of justice, but one would be foolish indeed to deny their reality.” • To insist that God be proved by the scientific method is like insisting that you are not in love unless you have verifiable proof. • If this is so about science, then we could say that science has no authority or right to comment, speculate or theorise about God and whether He exists. Because the scientific method is useless when it comes to immaterial things, things of the spirit. • It is very easy today to make the statement, “God does not exist.”   • But this is not evidence, and to tell you the truth I have not heard one shred of evidence to prove that He does not exist.

4. Science Cannot Account For Everything by William Lane Craig

5. To be a Scientist, must you be an atheist? • Atheist scientists like Richard Dawkins and Peter Atkins would try to convince you that theism (belief in God) and science are contradictory, but is that the case? • John Lennox asks the question: “Is theism science? Is atheism science? Most people would give a negative answer...” • Science is not atheism or theism, but is simply a method of studying the material universe. • Lennox said: Neither Galileo nor Newton, nor indeed most of the great scientific figures who contributed to the meteoric rise of science at that time, found belief in Creator God inhibiting... Far from it, they found it positively stimulating... And their prime motivation for scientific investigation.

6. Is Evolution Science? • As Paul Little said: “In order for something to be proved by the scientific method, it must be repeatable. A scientist does not announce a new finding to the world on the basis of a single experiment. History in its very nature is non-repeatable. No one can rerun the beginning of the universe.” • For Science to validate the theory of evolution there would need to be repeatable experiments to announce a new finding. • To date, all we have are theoretical speculations that simply take faith to believe, therefore the scientific community is divided on this issue of evolution. • It seems that you can be an effective scientist whether you are an atheist or a theist, if you are an atheist: evolution is your faith, a theist has God as their faith.

7. Is Evolution Viable?

8. Esteemed Theist Scientists • Is belief in God in Scientific circles truly unacceptable and archaic as Richard Dawkins would have us believe. • This is a list of some of the most esteemed scientists who are and were theists: • From the past Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Issac Newton, Clerk Maxwell, Albert Eistein, Nicholas Copernicus, Rene Descartes, Robert Boyle. • Of the present we have Francis Collins (Director of the human Genome project), Professor Bill Phillips (Winner of the Noble Prize for Physics 1997), Sir Brian Heap (former vice president of the Royal Society), and Sir John Houghton (co-chair of the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and this is but the beginning: for 40% of Scientists in the general survey are theists.

9. Science vs Religion • Francis Bacon, the Father of Modern Science said, “A little philosophy inclines a man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy brings men’s minds about to religion.” • Considering that Science is only concerned with the observable world – and by its nature should not speculate on the reality of God, for science is neither atheistic or theistic it is simply a tool of observation – then it would seem as ridiculous for a Scientist to debate the reality of God with a minister of the Gospel as it is for a Heavy Weight Boxer to think because he is a good fighter that he could beat a horse rider in the Equestrian Event of the Olympics.

10. Naturalism vs Theism • John Lennox writes: “There is a conflict, a very real one, but it is not really a conflict between Science and religion at all. For if that were so, elementary logic would dictate that one would find that scientists were all atheists and only non-scientists believed in God, and this is simply not the case. No, the real conflict is between two diametrically opposed worldviews: naturalism and theism. They inevitably collide.” • A naturalist believe that the cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever shall be. • The truth of the matter is that you can have scientists who are naturalists (atheists) and those who believe in theism, it does not change the quality of the science being investigated at all.

11. Atheism or Theism • Someone will believe in atheism because they have faith that there is no God. They are not certain, they just hope there isn't a God. • But someone else will believe in God because God will reveal Himself to that person, personally as well as in the observable and the unobservable world. • Our text tells us in Romans 1:19-20 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 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. • Job 12:7-10 ” “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

12. Does the Seen World Reveal God? • Ps. 19:1-6 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.”

13. Does the Seen World Reveal God? • Is there a God, well the bible tells us to look at the seen world and that He is clearly seen in it.  • The amazing universe that we live in with its millions and millions of planets, all orbiting in sequence more exact than a swiss watch. The marvel of the design of our planet with all the conditions perfect for life. The air we breathe, the food that springs from the ground for us to eat.  • The endless resources that we can draw from to create energy and power. The vast animal kingdom and all the variations and the way they exist ecologically, self-sustaining.  • The marvel of the incredible designs of animals, plants, insects, birds and aquatic creatures. So profound, so perfect and so unique.  • The marvel of the human body and how intricate our system is, and how it works; our eyes that can focus, hands that can move and create, a divine mind that can think and reason.

14. What a Creation • I believe that the array of complexity and the marvel of the seen world clearly reveals that there was and is a Designer. • But not just any old designer, but the most magnificent, brilliant beyond genius, beyond our finite comprehension, a Designer without limit of ability, power and creativity. • Our God created such a magnificent universe that is so finely tuned and brimming with so many varied forms of life, that atheists have not the capacity to even recognise the miracle of creation, it is so wonderful and so brilliant.

15. Scientism • Scientists like Dawkins and Atkins would have us believe that because of Science we don’t need faith in God, because every mystery in the universe can be answered by Science, in effect science has become another religion promising us greater knowledge than current religions. • Actually If we have learnt anything about science, it's that the current theories will turn out to be riddled with errors, yet we go on using them until we can come up with something better. • Science as a religion is fallible and incompetent. • The only place we can rest our hopes upon, in my opinion, is God and Christ as revealed in the Bible. • To place fallible ever-changing theories and hypothesis above the Word of God, in my opinion, is total foolishness.