I\u2019m not a scientist, and I don\u2019t play one on TV. But I can examine scientific evidence and ask the question, \u201cHow is life possible?\u201d Stay tuned.<\/p>\n
This past Christmas, the Wall Street Journal ran an essay of mine entitled \u201cScience Increasingly Makes the Case for God.\u201d The content will be familiar to those who have read my latest book, \u201cMiracles,\u201d or heard me talk about it here at BreakPoint.<\/p>\n
I noted that the initial euphoria over the possibility that there were a septillion — that\u2019s one followed by 24 zeros — planets capable of supporting life in the universe was followed by the sober fact that such planets, never mind evidence of extraterrestrial life, are exceedingly rare.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because science has learned just how \u201cfine-tuned\u201d the universe has to be in order to support life of any kind, never mind intelligent life.<\/p>\n
As I wrote in the Journal, \u201cToday there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life \u2014 every single one of which must be perfectly met,\u201d or our existence would be utterly impossible.<\/p>\n
Yet, not only do we exist, we\u2019re discussing the fact that we exist, which prompted me to ask, \u201cWhat can account for\u201d all of this? and \u201cDoesn\u2019t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions actually require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, the response to the column was overwhelming. The piece really went viral and garnered more \u201clikes\u201d on Facebook than any article the Wall Street Journal has ever published — over 350,000 as I read this now! I find that amazing and more than a little humbling.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, the piece had plenty of critics. One scientist wrote to the Journal complaining about \u201creligious arguments for the existence of God thinly veiled as scientific arguments\u201d and \u201callowing a Christian apologist to masquerade as a scientist.\u201d<\/p>\n
This objection, which I\u2019m told figured prominently in the comments section at the Journal, essentially amounts to saying that only scientists should be allowed to talk about the religious implications of scientific things. Scientists, it seems, can dabble as metaphysicians, philosophers, and theologians, but not vice-versa.<\/p>\n
This is the foregone conclusion even when the person of faith is merely citing scientific findings, as I did. However, this objection is not rooted in science but in scientism, which holds that \u201cempirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints.\u201d<\/p>\n
The criticism wasn\u2019t limited to comments from atheistic scientists. Several religious believers, including those whose work I respect, took me to task for saying that science can \u201cprove\u201d the existence of God, much less the God of the Bible. As one Christian philosopher put it, a god whose existence can be proved scientifically isn\u2019t God.<\/p>\n
That is true, which is why I\u2019m happy that I never said anything resembling that. What I did was point to the sheer improbability of our existence and ask whether it might not be reasonable to infer, like Fred Hoyle, who coined the phrase \u201cBig Bang,\u201d whether the universe might be, as he put it, a \u201cput up job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scientific findings I cited aren\u2019t \u201cproof\u201d that compel belief in God\u2019s existence but \u201csigns\u201d pointing to that possibility and inviting you to follow them to see where they might lead.<\/p>\n
In the end, belief in God, especially the biblical God, is an act of faith. But so too is believing that our existence is simply the result of chance. Like it or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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