Can we believe in God and still be a scientist? Since the existence of "God" can not be proven or dis-proven scientifically, believing either choice is believing one side of the theory. Those of us who are Christian hold that the God of the Bible does exist and that He created all that we see and know about the universe (and a lot that we do not know). This is considered "Intelligent Design" by many - that the universe as we know it could not have come into existence by random chance.
Those who believe in "Evolution" claim that random mutations of organisms - natural selection - resulted in all of the diversity in the universe and that this can be proven. They do not allow an Intelligent Designer to even be considered. Evolutionists claim that evolution can and has been proven but it appears that what is proven is that natural selection does occur "within species" but that does not prove that every living thing came from one life source and that all species are connected.
None of this even considers the "big bang" and how existence came from nothing. My point is that this is not a finished discussion, evolution is not a proven fact (although natural selection does occur) and that intelligent design should not be ruled out as a possibility. It takes more faith to believe that all of this just "happened" than it does to believe in the God of the universe.
Although I am a Christian and believe in the Bible, I am not pointing to that for the purpose of "proof". Within Creationism there are many different views, old earth, young earth, creation with evolution and others. My belief is that "random chance" as proposed by strict evolutionists is less likely a cause of the universe as we know it than a creation by God. I believe this because I believe the Bible (in spite of the "contradictions" claimed by some) and I believe that the pressure to "evolve" is not sufficient to account for all of the diversity and complexity found in the universe. There is not enough time and most mutations would likely be negative rather than a move in the right direction. Again, none of this even considers the creation of time and space.
Secular Man has tried to understand "why" time and space, the earth, the nature around us and we ourselves exist. He has explained it away as the "big bang", evolution, a random event, a happenstance. But if you look into the Word of God you will see He tells us that He made it all, for a reason, for us to seek Him and find Him in His creation.
Or did it just happen by chance?
It is easy to say that there is no God - scientifically - since science requires a direct observation and God is invisible in a physical sense. But it is even easier to see that God does exist - seeing His work in creation. Evolution, in its strictest sense, can not be proven scientifically either, because it requires an observation of something that happened outside of time, the formation of the universe, or the observation of something that has not happened in the short time that man has been looking for it, the development of a new, more advanced, species from a lower life form.
Scientifically evolution and creation are both theories. Science uses indirect observations of past events, from fossil records or deep space, to support the evolutionary theory. These indirect observations can also be used to support the existence of God. If evolution does occur, less complex life becoming more complex, it does not have to be considered outside of God. God and evolution can co-exist. If God created DNA, He created a way for it to be altered by mutations. This can be part of a design process - allowing for variations within, and between lifeforms.
The purpose of this upcoming blog series is to share known facts about the universe and the world around us that seem to point to a creator, as much as or more than to random chance, so that you can decide for yourself if the universe, the earth and life itself came from the action of an all-powerful source outside of the dimensions of time (God), or were just random actions that resulted, by chance, in the complex world in which we live.
I see this being divided into four parts:
- Looking Upward - Psalm 19:1-2 (NIV) 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 reveal knowledge. - Finding God in the universe above.
- Turning Outward - Proverbs 25:2 (NIV) It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. - Finding God in the world around us.
- Searching Inward - Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV) For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. - Finding God in the formation of the human body, and thus in life itself.
- Moving Forward - Ephesians 2:10 (NIV) For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. - How to take this to the next level - confirmation of your faith, or lack thereof. There is more to life than just "existing".
I am a Christian so I have a bias here, that God does exist and He created all we can see and try to understand around us. I can not make that decision for you, however, it is a personal choice but one that can be based on scientific evidence. It takes faith to believe that the universe as we know it was a random chance event, just as it does to believe in a Creator. All of the scientific evidence we have can be used to point in either direction, depending on how you look at it - there is no way to prove the existence or absence of God by the scientific method.
Just as I have a bias that God exists, many scientists have ruled out the existence of God. They do not even consider it a possibility, even though the evidence points just as strongly in that direction. They consider it "pseudo-science" since it can not be proven.
None of these scientific facts, theories or concepts I plan to share will prove either hypothesis, that the universe exists by random chance or that it was formed by a Creator. This can not be done. But they do show that this existence is wondrous and amazing, and fragile. Because of this, to me, the possibility of God is so strongly present in the evidence that the only way to say that God does not exist is to not even consider it as a possible explanation for the world. You must rule it out in your mind before you even start your examination of the scientific evidence. If you don't, you may just find that God is at the center of it all.
I was reading 2 Kings 20. In verse 11 it says that God caused the shadow to go backwards 10 steps in answer to the request for a sign from King Hezekiah. One commentary (Benson) tries to explain it away as caused by a reflection. I've always thought it means the earth rotating and rotated backwards. That's incomprehensible in scientific thinking. The only other explanation I can think of is since God is outside time and space, the event happened outside of time and space by perhaps resetting the earth or the whole universe backwards through other dimensions. That would take a very big God
ReplyDeleteOne Bible commentary commentaries try to explain it away even unscientifically saying it was some trick to do with air densityas being a reflection
In researching this, I come to the conclusion that neither the sun nor the earth went back in time. If you read the verse it states "the LORD made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz." This seems like a very localized event, not a world wide phenomenon. This could be something miraculous, such as the Shekinah glory of God emanating from the nearby temple and casting away the shadow, or a natural event that happened at the right moment, such as an eclipse that had made the shadow advance and then appear to go back as the eclipse ended. Or it may be something else we need to accept as divine, without an explanation. Attempts to explain this scientifically or to relate it to some calendrical event do not seem to work so it seems best to admit that we do not know the explanation but to accept the testimony of the word of God to the fact that a miracle took place.
DeleteThree references that I found interesting were The Sundial Of Ahaz where the Shekinah is mentioned, The Sun's Shadow Moved Back where the eclipse is proposed and, from the Blue Letter Bible, a Don Stewart commentary Did God Backup the Sun Dial for Hezekiah? where he states that we do not know how this happened.
There are other theories, as well as some fake stories referencing NASA, that make this an interesting question. I tend to agree with Don Stewart that we do not have an explanation for all of God's miraculous actions found within His Word. Just as science does not yet have all the answers to our complex world, neither do we claim to understand all that God has done.