Einstein Quote Reveals God? How Christians Founded Modern Science - FAS2603

Speaker A Did Albert Einstein accidentally prove God exists when he said, the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's comprehensible? Did you know there is powerful evidence that science itself was founded by Christians? How does the scientific method actually point to intelligent design? Does modern physics suggest a creator? Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Casey Vacurcker. Joining me to discuss these questions is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome to the program. Speaker B Hello, Casey. Speaker A Dr. John has written a book called the Big Does God Exist? And in today's program, we'll be drawing some insights from this book. So, Dr. John, in this book it talks about how Christianity was involved and influenced essentially in the birth of modern science with figures like Newton and Bacon, who they were actually wanting to learn how God thinks through studying design in nature, in creation. So how did this belief in a creator actually make scientific discovery possible when other cultures didn't reach the same breakthroughs? Speaker B Well, I think one of the big breakthroughs were from the work of the philosopher Francis Bacon, who essentially felt, we can understand nature by studying nature. And these scientists, and especially Newton, of course, believed in a creator. So the concept was that a creator God who had made the moral laws, the codes like the Ten Commandments and had laws and talked about laws. In the Bible there listed health laws. These sort of things had been given through to the people through inspiration that there would also be laws, the similar laws governing the operation of nature itself. And that by understanding these laws, a couple of things we would understand more about God himself and also understand more about how we could work with God, for example, to be stewards of nature and control nature in positive ways. Speaker A Yes, yeah. And of course, naturally they. They believed that God was a God of order and Lord, didn't they? So it just made perfect sense that if he created all things, which is what they believed, that, that. That that trait of order would be reflected in. In the design that he had created. Speaker B Yes, yes. And that's why they looked for laws in nature. Speaker A Right. Speaker B And that led particularly by Newton, who discovered so many of the laws, particularly the fundamental laws of physics. And under law, others began discovering the laws of chemistry and this sort of thing. So very much so. And this thinking was very different to other cultures around the world. There were many animistic cultures where they worshiped nature itself, and so nature was their God and so forth. But for the Christians, the God was outside nature, and therefore he could be a designer of nature, whereas the animistic religions were very limited in this way. Other pagan religions, of course, thought that the universe itself and everything was changing, and so there was in a constant state of flux. So it wasn't worth studying anything because things could be different next time. Speaker A Yes. Speaker B And so the breakthrough based on the Christian creator view of the world or the Judaism view of the world, led to the basic foundation of science. And that was the men, largely men who believed in a creator and began studying and looking for these laws that laid the foundations of science. So, for example, they were great Christians, mathematicians, and they were very, very strong. Some of them, you know, wrote quite a bit in the area of Christianity. For example, Newton wrote commentaries on the books of Daniel and Revelation, and, and, and they, you know, really understood. So he understood the evidence from the Bible prophecies as well. And James Clark Maxwell, another great mathematician who, you know, developed the kinetic theory of gases and so forth and the laws of field theory, discovered that light was a combination of electromagnetic fields. Very, very strong Christian, Very, very strong creationist. Speaker A Very interesting to understand that as a background for science, because today it's a very different world in terms of how science is thought about. And there is a big push and a big focus. It's almost pretty much the norm that science is considered as separate and distinct from any idea of God. And so the idea of scientific materialism really dominates modern science. And the idea of having a design or designer or even purpose in what we see around us is almost like it's obliterated in terms of modern thought. So what specific evidence do you see in nature that really points to an intelligent designer rather than random chance? Speaker B Well, I think this whole view of changing from belief into a creator into this position that, you know, that there is no God, that everything can be explained in terms of some sort of natural process was largely the result of Darwin's theory, because what, up till that time, up to the mid-1800s, pretty well most leading scientists believed in a creator, or a number of them were becoming. Were becoming atheists. And I think there was a resentment against the power and control that the church had, and some were looking for excuses to, you know, prove the church wrong. And so there was. And also there was an acceptance of atheism. You know, it was okay to believe now in this particular setting. Then as people began looking for challenges to the biblical position, we had high criticism of the Bible developers, for example, where people were looking to find fault with the historical account or find fault with the prophecies, these sort of things. They were looking very hard to somehow discredit the Bible. But in the meantime, there was the growth of this mechanical worldview, as Newton published his treatise on Prince of Mathematica or whatever it was called, I forget now, but essentially showed all these laws and the mechanical laws. And we saw the development of steam engines and those sort of things. And the steam engines were gradually evolving into better steam engines. People developed better governors, better boilers and better heat transfer and all this sort of thing. And there was this process of evolution occurring and development of machines and this machine view of the world sort of really, you know, took. Everybody was talking about it. And so Darman was in this environment where this machine worldview was being developed and people were talking about. At the same time we had a massive movement of people from farms into the cities to get work. Now because there were the development of the cotton mills and this sort of thing. So hand spinners went out of business. There were machines now that, you know, could plow the fields, all these sort of things. And so there was a movement into the cities, there was this intense then competition to survive. And so, and people were writing about this as well. And so what Darwin did was he, by developing his theory of evolution and ideas he took in from other people, as well as his own observations he wrote about, he provided a mechanical explanation for how life came to be. And this really empowered those people, and particularly scientists that wanted to discredit the Bible, get rid of the power of the church, establish that there isn't really a God, said, hang on, everything can be explained materialistically. And that began to really, really take hold and develop and particularly through the 20th century, till we get to the point where, you know, these days to counter it is not likely to, is not likely to be accepted. You know, the worldview now is that, see, scientism as we've taught before, that the science can explain everything. But one thing we need to remember is that science can only explain the physical world. Speaker A Right? So anything that's outside of the physical world, metaphysical is really not the realm of science to talk about or discuss because it doesn't have even a power to test that. Speaker B No, but it doesn't mean that a metaphysical existence isn't real or that a spiritual non physical existence isn't real. So to deny it is a metaphysical position, to accept it is a metaphysical position. And science, scientific research or observations can't really be used to define which is real. Speaker A So when we talk about evidence for intelligence, design, then we would see things in nature that look like they have design features. But the question of their existence has to be answered from a point of view outside of Science as opposed to science dictating what caused the design. Speaker B Right. And that's the argument there. And I guess, and you know we can possibly talk about this another time but it comes back to, back to probabilities really. If you're out there and you discover this little rock that looks like it's shaped like an arrowhead and say ah, right, yeah, this was deliberately shaped, you know, some primitive sort of people group made this arrowhead. But then someone could come along and say well now hang on, that could have been weathered. So you know, it could have been weathering, we don't know, unique water flows. Could have been a volcanic eruption or something, you know, and some lava sputn. And the way it splattered, it formed this shape and then there was erosion subsequently and it made it, you know, it's. And so how do you can't know. Right, so what you come back to then is probabilities. What's the probability? How many rocks actually do we find like this forming naturally but it's still not proof that it was. We just say well hang on, no, there's a high probability that natural processes won't produce a rock like that. Therefore we believe it was a result of man made, you know, intervention carving and shaping that rock. Speaker A So do you think then, you know, obviously there's been very prominent scientists like Carl Sagan who have made metaphysical sort of claims sort of guised in scientific language. Do you think it's science has any even scope to disprove God? Or is that, is that attempting something that's way out of science's realm to actually disprove God's existence? Speaker B Oh yes, it's, it's definitely outside scientists realm. And this is something that people don't understand. So to assume that there is a creator God is not outside the science position because the science position just looks at studying the material world, right? That's where we can do experiments, we can measure fields and this sort of thing. We can't measure the spiritual area, the non physical existence, right. And that's why we struggle to explain and understand consciousness. For example, we can understand the brain, right? We can cut it up, we can section it, we can measure electrical voltages and so forth but we can't explain consciousness itself and we can't really understand mind. And so when people like Carl Sagan make statements like the universe is all, all that there is, all that there was and all that there ever will be, the material universe and people say well wow, you know, that must be right. That's just his view, it's just his, his particular belief, it's not based on any evidence, any actual scientific evidence, because he can't know, can't measure it. Well, he can't know what? That there was nothing before the universe and this sort of thing. And so people need to realize that, that that's just a metaphysical statement about a metaphysical thing based on his particular faith position. And so it's equally viable for a scientist to say, well, hang on, I believe that the universe was bought into existence by a supernatural, spiritual, non materialistic creator. And that's a valid position and no one can actually disprove that, that same sort of argument. Speaker A Thank you for sharing those thoughts. Very, very fascinating to try and wrap your mind around the distinctions here which are really important, where science has its place and also the idea of faith in a position for the more metaphysical kind of questions. So thank you so much for sharing. Have you ever struggled with doubts about God's existence? Or known someone who has what helped you through it? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments. Your journey could inspire someone else who's searching for answers.