God's undertaker: has Science buried God?

Designer universe?

By Dr. John Lennox, Reader in Mathematics, University of Oxford

In recent years science has been taking us on a journey full not only of surprises but also of mystery.

Cosmology on an unimaginably large scale, and elementary particle physics on the incredibly small scale, have gradually laid bare to us the spectacularly beautiful structure of the universe in which we live. Its sheer size makes us aware of and simultaneously amazed at our own tinyness. … Just what are we human beings? And what is this universe? …

None of us faces these questions dispassionately. The universe is far too awe-inspiring for that. Nor do we face them disinterestedly. We cannot remain untouched by such questions — after all, we are here. And so our minds insist on asking about the nature of our relationship to the universe.

As ever, the answers we get to these questions are of very different kinds. Some scientists think that we are aliens in the cosmos, ‘an eczema on the face of the universe’, thrown up by the vast maelstrom of chance…

But there are others who do not feel like aliens in the universe. Physicist Freeman Dyson is one such. He writes: ‘As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known we were coming.’ … Does the universe itself give us any clues that would be grounds for thinking that we human beings have significance? It does. The first ground is:

The rational intelligibility of the universe

However much we may debate the essence of the scientific method, there is no question as to the foundation on which that method rests: the rational intelligibility of the universe. It was Albert Einstein’s astonishment at this that prompted him to make the famous comment, ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.’

The very concept of the intelligibility of the universe presupposes the existence of a rationality capable of recognising that intelligibility. Indeed, confidence that our human mental processes possess some degree of reliability and are capable of giving us some information about the world is fundamental to any kind of study, not only the study of science…

Rational intelligibility is one of the main considerations that have led thinkers of all generations to conclude that the universe must itself be a product of intelligence. … Certainly Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Locke, Berkeley saw the origin of the universe as lying in a transcendent reality… They accepted that the universe is not self-explanatory. Thus the inference to the best explanation from the origin and nature of the universe to an underlying non-physical intelligence has a long and impressive pedigree.

The nature and role of faith in science

For Albert Einstein the comprehensibility of the universe was something to be wondered at…

For, as the example of Newton’s theory shows, it is not only the fact that the universe is intelligible which is amazing; it is the mathematical nature of that intelligibility which is remarkable. … It is very striking that the most abstract mathematical concepts that seem to be pure inventions of the human mind can turn out to be of vital importance for branches of science, with a vast range of practical applications.

Davies here echoes a famous essay by Eugene Wigner, a Nobel Laureate in Physics, in which he wrote: ‘The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious, and there is no rational explanation for it... it is an article of faith.’ The relationship between mathematics and physics goes very deep and it is very hard to think of it as some random accident. …

The existence of the universe

Another vital element in the scientist’s credo is the conviction that the universe is there to study — so self-evident a fact, indeed, that we can easily take it for granted. And that is a pity. For one of the fundamental problems of philosophy is: why is there a universe at all, why is there something rather than nothing?

Now there are some scientists and philosophers who think that we should not even ask this question. For them there is no point in looking for a reason for the existence of the universe since, according to them, there simply isn’t one. Their view is that, since any chain of reasoning must start somewhere, we might as well start with the existence of the universe. Echoing Bertrand Russell, E. Tryton writes: ‘Our universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.’ However, the kind of answer that says that the universe just sprang into existence sounds about as scientific as answering the question why apples fall to the ground, by saying that they just do. In addition, it would be distinctly odd, as Keith Ward points out, ‘to think that there is a reason for everything, except for that most important item of all — that is, the existence of everything, the universe itself’. The insatiable human desire for explanation will not let that question rest.

Others maintain that the universe is self-explanatory. For instance, Peter Atkins believes that ‘spacetime generates its own dust in the process of its own self-assembly’. He calls this the ‘cosmic bootstrap’, referring to the self-contradictory idea of a person lifting himself by pulling on his own bootlace. Keith Ward is surely right to say that Atkins’ view of the universe is as blatantly self-contradictory as the name he gives to it, pointing out that it is ‘logically impossible for a cause to bring about some effect without already being in existence’. Ward concludes: ‘Between the hypothesis of God and the hypothesis of a cosmic bootstrap, there is no competition. We were always right to think that persons, or universes, who seek to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps are forever doomed to failure.’ Neither universes nor Aunt Matilda’s cake are self-generating or self-explanatory. Atkins’ ‘self-generation’ explanation is demanded from him by his materialism, not his science.

The beginning of the universe

The question of the existence of the universe is regarded as logically distinct from the question of whether or not the universe had a beginning. Whether the universe had a beginning or not is a question of central importance to the history of thought. It is connected with questions about the nature of ultimate reality. For, if the universe had no beginning, it is eternal and one might argue that it is simply a brute fact of existence. On the other hand, if it had a beginning, it is not eternal and, therefore, not ultimate.

For much of the modern scientific era following Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, belief in general reverted to the idea of a universe infinite in both age and extent. Thereafter, from the middle of the 19th century, this view began to come under increasing pressure, to the point that it has completely lost its domination. For belief in a beginning is once again the majority view of contemporary scientists. Evidence from the red-shift in the light from distant galaxies, the cosmic microwave background and thermodynamics has led scientists to formulate the so-called standard ‘Big Bang’ model of the universe.

It should at once be said, however, that not all scientists are convinced that the Big Bang model is correct. For example, there are difficulties created by possible alternative interpretations of the red-shift, and by the recently discovered evidence that the expansion of the universe seems to be accelerating — a circumstance which raises the question of the existence of a hitherto unknown force that acts in the opposite direction to gravity.

For some scientists and philosophers, worldview considerations play a role in their antipathy to the idea of a beginning. … Stephen Hawking says: ‘Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention.’

That repugnance was shared in the mid-20th century, for example, by Gold, Bondi, Hoyle and Narlikar, who advanced a series of steady-state theories in which it was argued that the universe had always existed…

Another well-known scientist who found the idea of a beginning repugnant is Sir John Maddox, a former editor of Nature. He pronounced the idea of a beginning ‘thoroughly unacceptable’, because it implied an ‘ultimate origin of our world’, and gave creationists ‘ample justification’ for their beliefs…

Testable predictions

There is another point to be made about Maddox’s statement. One often hears the criticism levelled at those (scientists) who believe in a Creator that they do not have a model of the universe that leads to testable predictions. But Maddox’s comment shows that this is simply not true. His antipathy to the idea of a beginning was precisely because a creation-model of the biblical kind clearly predicted a beginning and he did not welcome such confirmation. However, evidence of a space-time singularity in the form of the discovery of the micro-wave background, etc., confirmed the obvious prediction that the biblical account implied. This means that the charge that notions of intelligent design are unscientific because they fail to make any testable predictions, is false. Science itself has shown that the hypothesis of creation is testable.

To be continued next month.

This article is an edited extract taken from God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? by John Lennox, published by Lion Hudson plc, 2007. Copyright © 2007 John Lennox. Used with permission of Lion Hudson plc.

God’s Undertaker (978-07-459-5303-8, p/b, £8.99) is available from your local Christian bookshop and directly from the Lion Hudson website: http://www.lionhudson.com.