A common diatribe emanating from the
atheistic bandwagon is that science has conclusively disproven the existence of
God and the authenticity of Historic Christianity.
Has science conclusively disproven
the existence of God? On what basis?
Scientific materialists argue that
all the workings of the universe can be explained without a need for God. Consider
Stephen Hawking’s arguments against
God’s existence, here’s an excerpt:1
"I think
the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of
science," Hawking, who died in March, wrote. "If you accept, as I do,
that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role
is there for God?"
"Did God
create the quantum laws that allowed the Big Bang to occur?" Hawking
wrote. "I have no desire to offend anyone of faith, but I think science
has a more compelling explanation than a divine creator."
Hawking's
explanation begins with quantum mechanics, which explains how subatomic
particles behave. In quantum studies, it's common to see subatomic particles
like protons and electrons seemingly appear out of nowhere, stick around for a
while and then disappear again to a completely different location. Because the
universe was once the size of a subatomic particle itself, it's plausible that
it behaved similarly during the Big Bang, Hawking wrote.
"The
universe itself, in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity, could simply
have popped into existence without violating the known laws of nature," he
wrote.
Because the
universe also began as a singularity, time itself could not have existed before
the Big Bang. Hawking's answer, then, to what happened before the Big Bang is,
"there was no time before the Big Bang."
"We have
finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time
for a cause to exist in," Hawking wrote. "For me this means that
there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to
have existed in."
Inasmuch as scientists from the
atheistic camp cry foul to God’s existence, an article in the Time magazine authored by Dr. Amir Aczel
questions science’s authority to debunk
God’s existence: [Emphasis Mine]2
But has modern
science, from the beginning of the 20th century, proved that there is no God,
as some commentators now claim? Science is an amazing, wonderful undertaking:
it teaches us about life, the world and the universe. But it has not revealed to us why the universe came into existence nor
what preceded its birth in the Big Bang. Biological
evolution has not brought us the slightest understanding of how the first
living organisms emerged from inanimate matter on this planet and how the
advanced eukaryotic cells—the highly structured building blocks of advanced
life forms—ever emerged from simpler organisms. Neither does it explain one of
the greatest mysteries of science: how
did consciousness arise in living things? Where do symbolic thinking and
self-awareness come from? What is it that allows humans to understand the
mysteries of biology, physics, mathematics, engineering and medicine? And what
enables us to create great works of art, music, architecture and literature?
Science is nowhere near to explaining these deep mysteries.
But much more
important than these conundrums is the persistent question of the fine-tuning
of the parameters of the universe: Why
is our universe so precisely tailor-made for the emergence of life? This
question has never been answered satisfactorily, and I believe that it will
never find a scientific solution. For the deeper we delve into the mysteries of
physics and cosmology, the more the universe appears to be intricate and
incredibly complex. To explain the quantum-mechanical behavior of even one tiny
particle requires pages and pages of extremely advanced mathematics. Why are even the tiniest particles of
matter so unbelievably complicated? It appears that there is a vast, hidden
“wisdom,” or structure, or knotty blueprint for even the most simple-looking
element of nature. And the situation becomes much more daunting as we expand
our view to the entire cosmos…
…The
scientific atheists have scrambled to explain this troubling mystery by
suggesting the existence of a multiverse—an infinite set of universes, each
with its own parameters. In some universes, the conditions are wrong for life;
however, by the sheer size of this putative multiverse, there must be a
universe where everything is right. But if it takes an immense power of nature
to create one universe, then how much more powerful would that force have to be
in order to create infinitely many universes? So the purely hypothetical multiverse does not solve the problem of God.
The incredible fine-tuning of the
universe presents the most powerful argument for the existence of an immanent
creative entity we may well call God. Lacking convincing scientific
evidence to the contrary, such a power may be necessary to force all the
parameters we need for our existence—cosmological, physical, chemical,
biological and cognitive—to be what they are.
So it’s adequately evident that science lacks the authority to question
God’s existence let alone disproving it.
Could
science be the only way to determine truth? Emeritus Professor of
Mathematics at the University of Oxford, John Lennox says, absolutely not,
“Well, obviously science cannot be the only way to truth. Why? Because that's a
logically self-contradictory statement. If science were the only way to truth,
then the statement, "Science is the only way to truth," would be
given to us by science, but it isn't. So the thing falls at the very beginning.
But looking at it more broadly, you see, if science were the only way to truth,
you'd have to close half the faculties at least at Biola. You'd have no
literature, you'd have no theology, you'd have no art, you'd have no music, and
so on. There are so many other intellectual disciplines that are perfectly
rational, but they are not the natural sciences.
Now of course, in German, the word
for science is wissenschaft, and that covers actually all academic disciplines
really. But when we're speaking English, "science" really stands for
the natural sciences. Therefore, it's a very dangerous idea to suggest that the
natural sciences are the only way to truth. And one of the best comments on it
was made by another Nobel Prize winner, Sir Peter Medawar, who worked here in
Oxford. He said it is so easy to see that science, natural science, is limited.
Why? Because it cannot answer the simple questions of a child. Where do I come
from? Where am I going? And what is the meaning of my life? And he pointed out,
it's to literature and philosophy and of course theology that we need to turn
for answers to those questions. Indeed, the really big questions of life and
meaning are not answered by the natural sciences.”3
Finally, William Lane Craig posits four different truths – ethics, aesthetics,
metaphysics and science itself – that cannot be proven scientifically. This is
in addition to the logical and mathematical truths that are part and parcel of
the scientific method, but these too cannot be proved empirically: 4
From a
scientific description you can make no inference whatsoever about statements of
value, about good and evil, or right and wrong. This is the old distinction
between what is and what ought to be…That is a statement of value, or ethics.
Thus the whole realm of ethical inquiry
is closed to the scientific method.
...the whole
question of what it is permissible to do to animals in scientific research. Are
you allowed to just do anything you want, to torture or kill an animal, in any
way you want in scientific research? That is not a scientific question, that is
an ethical question that science really cannot speak to. And if one denies that
there is any ethical truths about these sorts of things, then there can be no
objection to using human beings as human guinea pigs in this sort of medical
research. The world was horrified when it learned that at camps like Auschwitz
and Dachau Nazi scientists had used prisoners for medical experiments on living
human beings. For example, at Auschwitz, Mengele took pregnant women and used
them for vivisection.
A second area is the area of aesthetics.
Like the good, the beautiful cannot be determined by the scientific method…there
are aesthetic truths, and I think we all intuitively know it. There is an
objective difference between the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel and the ceiling
in this room. And yet this whole realm of the aesthetic is closed to the
scientific method and scientific proof.
Number three, metaphysics. There are
truths about the nature of reality which we all accept and yet which cannot be
scientifically proven. [7] For example, how do you know that you are not a
brain in a vat? Maybe you are just a brain in a vat of chemicals being
stimulated with electrodes by some mad scientist to make you think that you are
sitting here in this room hearing this lecture. In fact, he might even be
stimulating you to think right now that it is impossible that you could be a
brain in a vat. There is no way scientifically to disprove such a hypothesis…Or
the belief that other minds exist cannot be proven scientifically. Other
persons could just be mindless automata whose behavior exactly mimics your
behavior as an organism having a mind. There is no way to prove scientifically
that other minds even exist.
Finally, number four, science itself.
This is perhaps the most amazing paradox of all, that science itself cannot be
justified by the scientific method. So that if you say that you should only
believe that which can be scientifically proven, you would throw out science
altogether…
…science is
permeated with assumptions which cannot be scientifically proven, and yet which
lie at the root of scientific theories…
…The
Copernican Principle states that we occupy no special or privileged place in
the universe. This principle underlies all of modern astronomy and
astrophysics, otherwise you could say that distant galaxies run on entirely
different laws of nature than the ones that we know here on earth. And yet the
Copernican Principle is something than cannot be proved scientifically, it is
simply an assumption that you have to make.
…According to
the Continuum Hypothesis, between any two points on a line there is always
another point. This underlies all of modern spacetime theories in physics, and
yet again it is a hypothesis which simply cannot be proven scientifically…
…And so in all
of these different ways – ethics, aesthetic, metaphysics, science itself – our
knowledge is predicated upon truths which cannot be proven scientifically, and
yet which are part and parcel of what we know about the world.
…the scientific method in no way undermines
belief in God because there are beliefs about the world which cannot be
scientifically proven but which we are entirely rational in accepting. The
laymen might say that we accept these things by faith, but I would prefer to
say they are among the deliverances of reason. And in the same way the person
who experiences God as a living reality in his life knows God in such a way
that for him God’s existence is a properly basic belief. And thus I think it
would be more accurate and less misleading to say that belief in the existence
of God is among the properly basic deliverances of reason, and that faith is
that relation of love, trust, and commitment which ought to characterize our
walk with God.
So to conclude, can science disprove
the existence of God?
No! Never!
Endnotes:
1https://www.livescience.com/63854-stephen-hawking-says-no-god.html
2https://time.com/77676/why-science-does-not-disprove-god/
3https://www.biola.edu/blogs/think-biblically/2019/can-science-explain-everything
4https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/lectures/has-science-made-faith-in-god-impossible-tamu-texas/
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