2. Does God Exist? Archives - Page 5 of 21

Big Bang cosmology isn’t the only scientific evidence that the universe had a beginning. There are parallel laws of nature that point us to the same conclusion. We get one of them from the study of thermodynamics. This is not something that is hard to comprehend. You already understand it because you have to charge your cell phone every night.

A battery contains a fixed amount of energy. You can use that energy but you won’t get any more. If you don’t plug it in to recharge it, the battery will eventually go dead. As far as we know, the universe is a “closed system” similar to a giant battery. But it’s not rechargeable.

Barring some outside influence, this kind of process can only go in one direction. We all recognize that this is how energy works. It’s not a mystery. It’s a simple concept that is based on a couple of natural laws:

The Law of Conservation of Energy — energy is neither created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed from one form to another.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics — in a closed system, the total entropy of the system will always increase and this process is irreversible.

So, let’s put these together.

Don’t be freaked out by the term, “entropy.” Think of it as “level of chaos.” Just like the battery, there is only a finite amount of energy in a closed system. The amount of energy cannot be increased; it can only be transformed to a higher level of chaos. An example might help.

To Understand The Second Law Of Thermodynamics, Burn A Match

You have a match in your hand. The head of the match is made of combustible material that has the potential to create a flame. The amount of potential energy concentrated in the head of the match and is fixed. It cannot increase. When you strike the match, the potential chemical energy in the head of the match converts to heat energy in a flame. Then, the heat energy from the flame disperses into the room. Our energy system has gone from a concentrated potential energy source to a flame, to a random dispersal of heat into the air. In other words, it has taken a more “chaotic” form. When we say that “entropy has increased,” that is all it means.

Here’s the key — the process will not go in the opposite direction. You won’t see the heat content in a room suddenly coagulate into a single flame, and then reorganize that flame into a concentrated ball of chemical energy in a single location (like the head of a match). The very idea of such a thing is ridiculous.

Thermodynamics tells us that energy only goes in one direction

The Universe – A Giant Battery

The universe works the same way. Like a giant battery, it contains a fixed amount of energy. As time marches on, the energy inside it becomes more and more useless as it disperses. The “chaos” level (entropy) of the entire system is always increasing. At some point, the usefulness of the energy will run out altogether. Scientists call this “heat death.” The universe is headed toward heat death.

This is a law of nature. It is the basis for the operation of everything from the engine that launches a rocket into orbit, to the biological machinery that runs every cell in your body. And what it means is that we know the whole system — the whole universe — must have started this energy transforming process when its “battery” was full.

The universe had to have a beginning. And, for the same reasons mentioned in our discussion of the cosmological argument, something outside the known universe must have flipped the switch to initiate the beginning of the process. Listen to Frank Turek’s short explanation for the Second Law…

https://youtu.be/Q6tv_L0Bn5w

… and how William Lane Craig connects it to a cosmic beginning:

https://youtu.be/atnk5VBVd-g

Challenges to neo-Darwinian theories of development

2. Does God Exist?, Philosophy of Science

By Julie Hannah

In Article 1, “The arising of our universe: design or chance?” I discussed evidence for the design behind our finely-tuned universe, which has convinced some mainstream scientists of the existence of a transcendent Creator. Article 2, “Can living cells arise randomly from non-living chemicals?” presented recent research findings that call into question the theory that living cells could have arisen from random operations on non-living chemicals. This article considers challenges to reductionist aspects of neo-Darwinian theories of evolution.

How does science account for the range of complex life forms? According to the deterministic neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis model, random errors in DNA-copying cause mutations, and only some of the resulting forms survive the environmental process of natural selection. It is generally agreed that these gene-driven processes can account for some aspects of development, but many scientists are questioning whether they can fully explain the complexity of all life forms. Eugene Koonin, an evolutionary biologist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information makes this blunt observation: “The summary of the state of affairs on the 150th anniversary of the Origin is somewhat shocking: in the post-genomic era, all major tenets of the Modern Synthesis are, if not outright overturned, replaced by a new and incomparably more complex vision of the key aspects of evolution. So, not to mince words, the Modern Synthesis is gone” (“Origin at 150,” 474–75).

Standard evolutionary theory is being challenged in the following three major areas.

Challenge 1: Only small, continuous changes?

Microevolution involves minor genetic mutations and natural selection. But according to geneticists Baguñà and Garcia-Fernàndez, repeated microevolution does not explain major evolutionary transitions, and as a result, “even to the most unbounded optimist, we are still far from understanding morphological diversity and evolution” (“Evo-Devo,” 706). Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould argued that there was a fundamental difference between minor adaptations and the formation of new species, an opinion that is also expressed by paleobiologist Douglas Erwin of the Smithsonian Institute in his article, “Macroevolution is More Than Repeated Rounds of Microevolution.” Anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz points out that some major groups “appear in the fossil record as Athena did from the head of Zeus—full-blown and raring to go, in contradiction to Darwin’s depiction of evolution as resulting from the gradual accumulation of countless infinitesimally minute variations” (Sudden Origins, 3). And Eugene Koonin concludes that “the idea of evolution being driven primarily by infinitesimal heritable changes in the Darwinian tradition has become untenable” (“Origin at 150,” 474).

Challenge 2: Only random variations and natural selection?

Some scientists are questioning the purely random nature of evolutionary change. For example, molecular geneticist James Shapiro makes this observation: “It is difficult (if not impossible) to find a genome change operator that is truly random in its action within the DNA of the cell where it works. All careful studies of mutagenesis find statistically significant non-random patterns of change” (Evolution, 82). Gerd Müller, Head of the Department of Theoretical Biology at the University of Vienna, argues that developmental systems seem to have innate tendencies towards certain solutions, and these tendencies have as strong an influence on development as random DNA variations (“Extended Evolutionary Synthesis,” 4, 7). Professor of evolutionary biology Kevin Laland agrees that “much variation is not random because developmental processes generate certain forms more readily than others” (“Does evolutionary theory need a rethink?” 162).

The theory of random variations also presents unresolved problems. According to genetic biologists Thornton and DeSalle, “It remains a mystery how the undirected process of mutation, combined with natural selection, has resulted in the creation of thousands of new proteins with extraordinarily diverse and well optimized functions. This problem is particularly acute for tightly integrated molecular systems that consist of many interacting parts . . . It is not clear how a new function for any protein might be selected for unless the other members of the complex are already present, creating a molecular version of the ancient evolutionary riddle of the chicken and the egg” (“Gene Family Evolution,” 64).

Simon Conway Morris, who holds the Chair in Evolutionary Paleobiology at Cambridge, also argues that adaptation is not an undirected, random walk through all possibilities. For example, when muscle tissue develops into organs that produce electricity, the process requires very precise amino acid replacements at specific sites, together with accelerated evolution of the new function, and Conway Morris concludes that “there is little doubt that these changes are very far from random” (Runes of Evolution, 38). He therefore argues that while the underlying principles of Darwinian evolution are correct, they do not provide a complete explanation of development, and a more comprehensive theory of evolution is required.

Gould also pointed out that many evolutionists now doubt the exclusive role of natural selection in genetic change (“New and General Theory of Evolution,” 12). And Andras Pellionisz, an expert in genome informatics, suggests that the theory of natural selection should be extended to include goal-directed aspects (“Principle of Recursive Genome Function,” 349).

Challenge 3: What about the complex genetic code?

It is generally accepted that the modern genetic code evolved from a simpler form, but there is no agreement about when or how this initial code evolved. In their article, “Chance and Necessity Do Not Explain the Origin of Life,” microbiologist Jack Trevors and cyberneticist David Abel explain why they believe natural selection could not be the primary mechanism for developing DNA coding (“Chance and Necessity,” 734 – 35):

“Without the machinery and protein workers, the [DNA] message cannot be received and understood. And without genetic instruction, the machinery cannot be assembled . . . It is not reasonable to expect hundreds to thousands of random sequence polymers to all cooperatively selforganize into an amazingly efficient holistic metabolic network.”
“Natural processes, mechanisms, and chemical catalyses do not explain any of these emergent conceptual phenomena. . . . Even ‘meaningful’ RNA or DNA inserted into a lifeless physical world such as the ancient Earth, would not be ‘readable.’ It could not communicate its coded message for protein synthesis unless a language (operating system) context already existed.”
“Contentions that offer nothing more than long periods of time offer no mechanism of explanation for the derivation of genetic programming. No new information is provided by such tautologies. The argument simply says it happened. As such, it is nothing more than blind belief.” In other words, “time made it happen” might be science’s version of “God made it happen.”

Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins insists there is only an “illusion of design in the living world” (God Delusion, 25), and he claims that “cumulative selection, by slow and gradual degrees, is the explanation, the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed, for the existence of life’s complex design” (Blind Watchmaker, 317, original emphasis). However, atheist geneticist and evolutionist Richard Lewontin disagrees, pointing out that Dawkins’s adamant assertion ignores an enormous amount of recent research. He writes: “Dawkins’s vulgarizations of Darwinism speak of nothing in evolution but an inexorable ascendancy of genes that are selectively superior, while the entire body of technical advance in experimental and theoretical evolutionary genetics of the last fifty years has moved in the direction of emphasizing non-selective forces in evolution” (“Billions of Demons,” 29).

Computational physiologist Denis Noble argues that the highly reductionist and deterministic worldview of neo-Darwinism is not a necessary conclusion from the scientific evidence. He expresses the desire of many biologists to “distance [themselves] from the biased conceptual scheme that neo-Darwinism has brought to biology, made more problematic by the fact that it has been presented as literal truth” (“Evolution Beyond neo-Darwinism,” 12). And as Gerd Müller points out, this is not the view of only a handful of fringe scientists because an increasing number of publications call for a major revision of standard evolutionary theory (“Extended Evolutionary Synthesis,” 2).

The more recent approach to evolutionary development is not deterministic or gene-driven. Instead, it argues that there are complex non-random processes at work. However, Laland et al. point out that there is passionate resistance to the newer Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES): “The number of biologists calling for change in how evolution is conceptualized is growing rapidly . . . Yet the mere mention of the EES often evokes an emotional, even hostile, reaction among evolutionary biologists . . . This is no storm in an academic tearoom, it is a struggle for the very soul of the discipline” (“Evolutionary Theory,” 162).

Marcos Eberlin, a winner of the Thomson Medal in Chemistry, summarized a wide range of recent scientific findings in his 2019 book Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose, which is endorsed by three winners of Nobel Prizes in science. Eberlin reaches this conclusion about the evidence regarding the development of life on Earth: it “seems to point beyond any blind evolutionary process to the workings of an attribute unique to minds—foresight. And yes, I know: We’re told that it’s out of bounds for science to go there… [but] I urge you to inspect the evidence” (Foresight, 13–14).

Note

Adapted from A Skeptic’s Investigation into Jesus, J P Hannah.

https://www.amazon.com/Skeptics-Investigation-into-Jesus/dp/1532674619

Used with kind permission from Wipf and Stock Publishers: www.wipfandstock.com.

References

Baguñà, Jaume, and Jordi García -Fernàndez. “Evo-Devo: the Long and Winding Road.” The International Journal of Developmental Biology 47 (2003) 705–13.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8892395_Evo-Devo_The_Long_and_Winding_Road

Conway Morris, Simon. The Runes of Evolution: How the Universe Became Self-Aware. West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton, 2005.

Eberlin, Marcos. Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose. Seattle: Discovery Institute, 2019.

Erwin, Douglas H. “Macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution.” Evolution and Development 2 (2000) 78–84.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1525-142x.2000.00045.x

Gould, Stephen Jay. “Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?” Paleobiology 6 (1980) 119–30.

http://www.somosbacteriasyvirus.com/gould.pdf

Koonin Eugene V. “The Origin at 150: Is a New Evolutionary Synthesis in Sight?” Trends in Genetics 25 (2009) 473–75. doi:10.1016/j.tig.2009.09.007.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784144/

Laland Kevin N., et al. “Does evolutionary theory need a rethink?” Nature 514 (2014) 161–64.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gerd_Mueller/publication/278258986_Does_evolutionary_theory_need_a_rethink_-_POINT_Yes_urgently/links/55cd2f8708aebd6b88e05e5f/Does-evolutionary-theory-need-a-rethink-POINT-Yes-urgently.pdf?origin=publication_detail

Lewontin, Richard. “Billions and Billions of Demons: A Review of The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan.” New York Review of Books 44 (1997) 28–30.

http://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_Review.htm

Müller, Gerd B. “Why an extended evolutionary synthesis is necessary.” Interface Focus 7: 20170015.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsfs.2017.0015

Noble, Denis. “Evolution beyond neo-darwinism: a new conceptual framework.” The Journal of Experimental Biology 218 (2015) 7–13.

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/jexbio/218/1/7.full.pdf

Pellionisz, Andras J. “The Principle of Recursive Genome Function.” Cerebellum 7 (2008) 348–59. http://ww.junkdna.com/pellionisz_principle_of_recursive_genome_function.pdf

Schwartz, Jeffrey H. Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species. New York: Wiley, 1999.

Shapiro, James, A. Evolution: A View from the 21st Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2011.

Thornton, Joseph W., and Rob DeSalle. “Gene Family Evolution and Homology: Genomics Meets Phylogenetics.” Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 1 (2000) 41–73.

https://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~nicholls/BIOSCI743/thorntonanddesalle.pdf

Trevors, Jack T., and David L. Abel. “Chance and necessity do not explain the origin of life.” Cell Biology International 28 (2004) 729–39.

https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~stevel/565/literature/Chance%20and%20necessity%20do%20not%20explain%20the%20origin%20of%20life.pdf

Can living cells arise randomly from non-living chemicals?

2. Does God Exist?, Philosophy of Science

By Julie Hannah

In Article 1, “The arising of our universe: design or chance?” I discussed evidence for the design behind our finely-tuned universe, which has convinced some mainstream scientists of the existence of a transcendent Creator. In this article, I present recent findings related to the theory that living cells arose through random operations on abiotic (non-living) chemicals.

In 1953, scientists Miller and Urey sent sparks through a mixture of gases to produce amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. This seemed to support the theory that life arose on Earth when non-living chemicals randomly combined to form organic compounds, which then spontaneously developed the ability to replicate. However, this process of abiogenesis has been difficult to confirm and model for the following reasons.

Problem 1: Many steps are still not understood

Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins admits that “nobody knows how it happened but, somehow, without violating the laws of physics and chemistry, a molecule arose that just happened to have the property of self-copying” (Climbing Mount Improbable, 259). George Whitesides, who was awarded the Priestley Medal for Chemistry in 2007, also frankly expresses uncertainty: “Most chemists believe, as do I, that life emerged spontaneously from mixtures of molecules in the prebiotic Earth. How? I have no idea” (“Revolutions in Chemistry,” 15). As recently as 2018, geoscientists Kitadai and Maruyama published an extensive review of research results in abiogenesis and were forced to conclude that several steps in the process are still unconfirmed and remain highly hypothetical (“Origins of Building Blocks of Life: A Review,” 1117, 1142).

Problem 2: The first self-replicating molecule has still not been identified

The replication of living cells requires the presence of both protein and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). But this poses a chicken-or-egg problem because DNA holds the genetic code for building proteins, but this information can only be accessed if proteins are already present. Philosopher of science Karl Popper explained the problem: “The genetic code is without any biological function unless it is translated; that is unless it leads to the synthesis of the proteins whose structure is laid down by the code. But . . . the code cannot be translated except by using certain products of its translation. This constitutes a really baffling circle” (“Scientific Reduction,” 270). Microbiologist Jack Trevors and cyberneticist David Abel point out that this DNA-protein problem has still not been solved and remains a scientific enigma (“Chance and Necessity,” 734).

To avoid this dilemma, scientists are trying to identify a molecule that arose before DNA, which could have performed both roles: providing genetic information and also promoting self-replication. This might be RNA (ribonucleic acid), but there are some uncertainties: “The most promising candidate is RNA if a mechanism existed on the primitive Earth for the formation of oligoribonucleotides, and if some of these polymers acquired, by chance, the ability to copy their sequences” (Kitadai and Maruyama, “Origins,” 1138, emphasis added). In Whitesides’s opinion, the proposed RNA world “is so far removed in its complexity from dilute solutions of mixtures of simple molecules in a hot, reducing ocean under a high pressure of CO₂that I don’t know how to connect the two” (“Revolutions in Chemistry,” 15). Kitadai and Maruyama explain that many problems remain unresolved regarding the spontaneous arising of RNA (“Origins,” 1141). And molecular scientists Robertson and Joyce express this opinion: “The myth of a small RNA molecule that arises de novo and can replicate efficiently and with high fidelity under plausible prebiotic conditions . . . [is] unrealistic in light of current understanding of prebiotic chemistry” (“Origins of RNA World,” 7). Nobel-winning biochemist Christian de Duve agrees: “Contrary to what is sometimes intimated, the idea of a few RNA molecules coming together by some chance combination of circumstances and henceforth being reproduced and amplified by replication simply is not tenable” (“Beginnings of Life,” 432). Research chemist Leslie Orgel comments: “It is possible that all of these, and many other difficulties, will one day be overcome and that a convincing prebiotic synthesis of RNA will become available. However, many researchers in the field, myself included, think that this is unlikely” (“Prebiotic Chemistry,” 114).

As a result, some scientists are now looking for an even simpler molecule that preceded RNA. However, this precursor has still not been identified. And in any case, as Robertson and Joyce point out, “all of the arguments concerning the relationship between the fidelity of replication and the maximum allowable genome length would still apply to this earlier genetic system” (“Origins of RNA World,” 9).

Professor of chemistry Robert Shapiro also pointed out that there is still no explanation for how the first self-replicating molecule could have been formed (“Small Molecule Interactions,” 106). It cannot have arisen through natural selection because this process can only operate on an existing self-replicating system, which results in another chicken-or-egg problem.

Problem 3: Laboratory experiments might not replicate conditions on early Earth

When scientists synthesize living molecules in the laboratory, they might be using processes that could not have occurred on the primitive Earth. For example, it is not known whether ribozymes (a type of RNA molecule) could have developed from materials that would have been abundant on early Earth (see Robertson and Joyce, “Origins of RNA World,” 12). Kolomiytsev and Poddubnaya reach this conclusion: “No one has found conditions as yet that could result in the formation of ribonucleotides on the primitive Earth. . . Darwin’s ‘warm little pond’ as well as a pond ﬁlled with self-copying RNA molecules and concentrated solutions of all the biochemical precursors of RNA could scarcely exist” (“Diffuse Organism,” 69–70).Kitadai and Maruyama write: “Various sites for the origin of life have been proposed, including transient melt zones in a frozen ocean, hydrothermal systems within volcanos, and subterranean lithic zones. Although each setting has advantages in some stages of chemical evolution, unsolved problems also remain” (“Origins,” 1121, emphasis added).

Problem 4: Probabilities are low

The proposed evolution of living molecules from abiotic chemicals is extremely complex and requires at least eight different reaction conditions (see Kitadai and Maruyama “Origins,” 1117). Regarding one hypothetical process for the random arising of adenine (a nucleobase of DNA), Robert Shapiro remarks: “While no single reaction or location in this sequence violates the possibilities of chemistry or geology, the need for them to occur in an exact order creates an implausibility comparable to that involved in generating a particular English sentence by hitting word processor keys at random” (“Small Molecule Interactions,” 110). George Whitesides, therefore, makes this admission about the random arising of living molecules: “Perhaps it was by the spontaneous emergence of ‘simple’ autocatalytic cycles and then by their combination. On the basis of all the chemistry that I know, it seems to me astonishingly improbable” (“Revolutions in Chemistry,” 15).

Nobel Prize-winning chemist Ilya Prigogineexpressed a similar opinion: “The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to give rise to the highly ordered structures and to the coordinated functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small. The idea of spontaneous genesis of life in its present form is therefore highly improbable, even on the scale of the billions of years during which prebiotic evolution occurred” (“Thermodynamics of Evolution,” 23). In other words, the popular claim that random processes could convert chemicals into living cells over sufficient time is not supported by science.

In short,after more than seventy years of heavily funded international research into abiogenesis, there is still “no plausible scenario that can explain all the stages of the origin of life” (Kitadai and Maruyama, “Origins,” 1121), and there remains an “insuperable gap between pre biological chemistry and the ﬁrst living systems” (Kolomiytsev and Poddubnaya, “Diffuse Organism,” 76). A clear route from prebiotic chemicals to nucleotides and living cells remains, in Orgel’s terms, “the Molecular Biologist’s Dream” (“Prebiotic Chemistry,” 119). As a result, some scientists now suggest that organic molecules must have been formed somewhere else in the universe and been carried to Earth on meteors to provide the biological basis for life. However, this merely transfers the problem of life’s origins to a different location.

Notes

Adapted from A Skeptic’s Investigation into Jesus, J P Hannah.

https://www.amazon.com/Skeptics-Investigation-into-Jesus/dp/1532674619

Used with kind permission from Wipf and Stock Publishers: www.wipfandstock.com.

References

Dawkins, Richard. Climbing Mount Improbable. Penguin: London, 1996.

———. The God Delusion. New York: Mariner, 2008.

de Duve, Christian. “The Beginnings of Life on Earth.” American Scientist 83 (1995) 428–37.

http://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio372/class/readings/beglifeerth.htm

Kitadai, Norio, and Shigenori Maruyama. “Origins of building blocks of life: A review.” Geoscience Frontiers 9 (2018) 1117–153.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/sdfe/reader/pii/S1674987117301305/pdf

Kittel, Charles, and Herbert Kroemer. Thermal Physics. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Freeman, 1980.

Kolomiytsev, Nikolay P., and Nadezhda Ya Poddubnaya. “The Diffuse Organism as the First Biological System.” Biological Theory 5 (2010) 67–78.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237937058_The_Diffuse_Organism_as_the_First_Biological_System

Orgel, Leslie E. “The Implausibility of Metabolic Cycles on the Prebiotic Earth.” PLOS Biology 6 (2008) 5–13.

———. “Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of the RNA World. Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 39 (2004) 99–123.

Popper, Karl R. “Scientific Reduction and the Essential Incompleteness of All Science.” In Studies in the Philosophy of Biology: Reduction and Related Problems, edited by F. J. Ayala, and T. Dobzhansky, 259–84. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

Prigogine, Ilya, et al. “Thermodynamics of Evolution.” Physics Today 25 (1972) 23–28.

Robertson, Michael P., and Gerald F. Joyce. “The Origins of the RNA World.” Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 4.5 (2012) a003608.

https://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/content/4/5/a003608.full.pdf+html

Shapiro, Robert. “Small molecule interactions were central to the origin of life.” The Quarterly Review of Biology 81 (2006) 105–26.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fd8a/8ef0c136dd80fa2365332fe409c9f0d35475.pdf?_ga=2.155355579.1445154396.1565957529-266559242.1550312466

Trevors, Jack T., and David L. Abel. “Chance and necessity do not explain the origin of life.” Cell Biology International 28 (2004) 729–39.

https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~stevel/565/literature/Chance%20and%20necessity%20do%20not%20explain%20the%20origin%20of%20life.pdf

Whitesides, George M. “Revolutions In Chemistry: Priestley Medalist George M. Whitesides’ Address.” Chemical and Engineering News 85 (2007) 12–17.

https://cen.acs.org/articles/85/i13/Revolutions-Chemistry.html

How We Can Know Who Created the Universe

2. Does God Exist?

By Al Serrato

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the discovery of the Big Bang. After all, even without sophisticated philosophical arguments, most people intuitively recognize that all things that come into existence must have some preceding cause sufficient to the task. But when science, or more specifically physics, supports the Christian worldview by affirming the need for a creator, one would think that many skeptics would begin to accept that Christianity is not the enemy of science. Instead, the atheist will sometimes resort to ridicule to challenge the reasonableness of believing in an omnipotent creator. For example, one skeptic compared belief in God to the thinking of primitive Norsemen attributing thunderbolts to the “god” Thor. Not understanding how thunderstorms formed, and in search of an explanation, such men came up with a mythical character to fill the role. Can’t we see, the skeptic will argue, that positing God as the creator of the universe is no different – we’re just substituting one fictitious being for another, aren’t we? Why not just admit that we just don’t know what preceded the Big Bang and wait for science to solve the problem?

This argument is clever because it puts the believer on the defensive. The implied critique goes something like this: people in earlier times with no knowledge of weather science resorted to something they could understand when they assumed that a personal agent directly caused the lightning they were seeing. In the same way, modern believers who likewise lack knowledge of as yet undiscovered scientific theories are also guilty of ignorance when they rush to assume that a personal agent – here, God – is the explanation. As in past times, they contend, resorting to this “god of the gaps” is just filler until science comes up with the correct answer.

But a moment’s reflection will demonstrate that this line of argument misses the point. Sometimes events occur as the result of purely impersonal natural laws, such as when lightning triggers a forest fire. Other times, by contrast, personal agents cause events, like when someone intentionally or inadvertently sets a fire. In either setting, science may provide the explanation for why combustion occurred, but this does not address whether a personal agent was the original cause. To do that, we must use reason to assess the available evidence to reach a logical conclusion as to what in the particular instance set the events into motion.

Since primitive human beings had no scientific knowledge, it is understandable that they might attribute a powerful event like a thunderstorm to a personal source. Not comprehending that a thunderstorm arises in response to predictable conditions in the atmosphere, and how the resulting movement of air masses generates electrical energy, their minds naturally sought a reason. And since thunderstorms are frightening events, it was natural for them to conclude that someone very powerful was perhaps expressing anger or displeasure. But Christians are not imagining a creator when they consider the explanation necessary to make sense of the evidence we have for the cause of the universe. This evidence includes not just that the universe came into existence from absolute nothingness at a specific point in the past, as science demonstrates, but also the characteristics of the universe: the exquisite fine-tuning and order we see and more importantly the fact that from this mix of matter and energy life, consciousness and intelligence emerged. Using reason, it is indeed quite proper, and quite supportable, to infer that something immensely intelligent and immensely powerful set these things into motion. That the Creator used natural laws to run things is why we have science in the first place; using our senses and our ability to reason, we use the scientific method to learn about these laws. But developing increased understanding of the laws of nature does not eliminate the need to find the source of these laws.

What, then, of the skeptic’s challenge that because we cannot show how God created the universe – what precise steps he took – it is illegitimate to infer that He in fact did so? Why not accept the argument that there is never a need to resort to the “god of the gaps” to explain things, that we should instead simply wait for further scientific discoveries? I submit the answer is because for many things we find around us, the relevant question is not exactly how something works, but is instead by whom was it made? Did it come into being by the work of impersonal forces, such as the contours of the walls of the Grand Canyon, or was it chiseled into existence by an intelligence source, such as the sculptor who gave us Mr. Rushmore? I cannot begin to imagine how that artist could “see” the faces that eventually emerged from his chiseling, but I am right to conclude that time and random chance did not make those changes.

There are countless other examples. I am using a computer to write this essay, yet I know next to nothing about how programming, hard drives and BIOS’s work. This lack of knowledge is completely irrelevant to the question of whether the computer came about on its own, through strictly impersonal laws, or is instead the manifestation of the work of some intelligence. If I see alphabet cereal strewn about the kitchen table, the conclusion I draw as to how that happened will be different if I see groupings that spell out a particular message to me. Again, while I may lack an answer as to how the letters came to be arranged in that particular location at that time, I can indeed conclude that an intelligent, personal source was behind it. This insistence then that attributing a personal source to the origin of the universe is fallacious “god of the gaps” thinking is itself an illogical move. It simply does not take complete knowledge of the “how” to ascertain with adequate reliability that there was indeed a “who” behind it.

As Christians, we unapologetically call that Creator by the name he provided for us. Jesus isn’t a mythical figure from the ancient past. He isn’t a creation of the imagination trotted out to explain physical laws of nature. No, he was a real man who walked the earth, who lived at a particular time and place in history and so impacted the lives of those around him that some sought to kill him and others, a small but growing group of followers with adherents twenty centuries later, changed the trajectory of world history. We need not rely solely upon reason to conclude that an intelligent personal source brought the universe into existence, because first through the prophets and then through the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, He took the time to tell us about himself.
In the end, science and the Christian worldview are not in conflict. It is the one who insists despite the evidence that there is no God – and ultimately no one to whom we will one day be called to account – that is persisting in ignorance.

The arising of our Universe: Design or Chance?

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Julie Hannah

How likely is it that our universe is the result of random physical operations? Scientists point out that shaping the universe into its present form required a very precise balance of many finely-tuned physical constants such as these:

Gravitational attraction—This had to be in perfect balance with the rate of expansion to enable structures to form.
The ratio of gravitational force to electromagnetic force—A slightly different ratio would have created stars that were either white dwarfs or blue giants, neither of which can support complex life.
The electrical charge of electrons—If this were even slightly different, stars would not be able to burn hydrogen and helium, or would not explode to distribute heavy elements.
The strong nuclear force—A slightly weaker force would have prevented the formation of heavy elements, but a slightly stronger force would have converted all hydrogen into other elements, resulting in no water and no fuel for stars to burn.
Formation of carbon—Stars are only able to produce carbon from helium because the carbon nucleus has very specific values of spin and resonance energy.
Initial entropy (disorder)—The entropy of our universe continues to increase, but it is still not at its maximum. Its initial value must therefore have been exceptionally small, with an extremely low probability of 1 out of 10^(10^123 ). This ridiculously large number has more zeros than the total number of protons and neutrons in the entire universe!

For carbon-based life such as ours to be possible, approximately twenty-six such physical properties had to have extremely precise and statistically improbable values. In addition, pairs of matter-antimatter particles annihilate each other, and matter only exists because one extra matter particle somehow came to be formed for every billion pairs. Scientists still do not understand how this imbalance could have arisen.

What about the theory of an infinite number of universes?

To avoid the implication of design, some scientists propose that there is an infinite number of universes with different physical laws. In that case, it is to be expected that ours could arise by chance with the specific properties necessary for human life. But there are problems with this theory.

Paul Davies writes: “It flies in the face of Occam’s razor, by introducing vast (indeed infinite) complexity to explain the regularities of just one universe. I find this ‘blunderbuss’ approach to explain the specialness of our universe scientifically questionable” (Mind of God, 218–19). (According to the principle of Occam’s Razor, the most likely explanation should have the least number of assumptions and conditions.)
The multiverse theory cannot be scientifically proven because it does not provide testable predictions. In the opinion of physicist Peter Woit, the theory, therefore, does not lie within the domain of science: “Maybe we really live in a ‘multiverse’ of different possible universes . . . [But] this way of thinking about physics does not seem to lead to any falsifiable predictions, and so is one that physicists have traditionally considered to be unscientific” (Not Even Wrong, xi).
Cosmologist George Ellis, co-author with Stephen Hawking, is critical of the theory. He argues that universes which actually exist, rather than merely being theoretically possible, would still require specific laws and would probably share a common causal connection. (See “Multiverses and Physical Cosmology.”)
Any inflationary universe must have a beginning in time, which would still need an explanation. (See Borde and Vilenkin, “Eternal Inflation,” 1.)
There are serious difficulties with trying to apply the mathematical concept of infinity to a physical situation. As mathematician David Hilbert pointed out, “The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality” (“On the Infinite,” 151). George Ellis and others argue that an infinite collection of universes is highly problematic and does not solve the problem of origins. He and his co-researchers ask: “Can there really be an infinite set of really existing universes? We suggest that, on the basis of well-known philosophical arguments, the answer is no. The common perception that this is possible arises from not taking seriously enough the difficulties associated with this profoundly difficult concept. . . Many universes in the ensemble may themselves have infinite spatial extent and contain an infinite amount of matter, with the paradoxical conclusions that entails . . . The phrase ‘everything that can exist, exists’ implies such an infinitude, but glosses over all the profound difficulties implied.” As Ellis points out, “Existence of the hypothesized ensemble remains a matter of faith rather than proof. Furthermore, in the end, it simply represents a regress of causation. Ultimate questions remain” (“Multiverses and Physical Cosmology,” 921; 927–28; 935).

In general, there is a problem with the popular belief that infinity renders anything possible. For example, monkeys typing for an infinite length of time are supposed to eventually type out any given text, but if there are 50 keys, the probability of producing just one given five-letter word is

This is a tremendously low probability, and it decreases exponentially when letters are added. A computer program that simulated random typing once produced nineteen consecutive letters and characters that appear in a line of a Shakespearean play, but this result took 42,162,500,000 billion years to achieve! (See Wershler-Henry’s History of Typewriting.) According to scientists Kittel and Kroemer, the probability of randomly typing out Hamlet is, therefore, zero in any operational sense (Thermal Physics, 53).

Against this background, what is the probability that all the universe’s required physical constants arose by chance? The improbability of this fine-tuning has led some scientists to argue that random operations are not sufficient. Below are some examples.

Paul Davies: There is “powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all…It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe…The impression of design is overwhelming” (Cosmic Blueprint, 203). “I belong to the group of scientists who do not subscribe to a conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe is a purposeless accident” (Mind of God, 16).

Physicist Frank Wilczek: “It is logically possible that parameters determined uniquely by abstract theoretical principles just happen to exhibit all the apparent fine-tunings required to produce, by a lucky coincidence, a Universe containing complex condensed structures. But that, I think, really strains credulity” (“Absolute Units,” 10–11).

Fred Hoyle, atheist astrophysicist: “A common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature” (“The Universe,” 12).

Freeman Dyson, theoretical physicist: “The more I examine the Universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the Universe in some sense must have known we were coming” (Disturbing the Universe, 250).

Stephen Hawking (in his forties): “The initial state of the Universe must have been very carefully chosen indeed if the hot big bang model was correct right back to the beginning of time. It would be very difficult to explain why the Universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us” (Brief History of Time, 133–34).

Allan Sandage, a prominent cosmologist who converted to Christianity: “The world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone” (“A Scientist Reflects on Religious Belief,” 57).

Even an atheist professor of astronomy, George Greenstein, makes this admission about the fine-tuning of the universe: “The more I read the more I became convinced that such ‘coincidences’ could hardly have happened by chance”; “As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency—or, rather, Agency—must be involved.” However, he passionately rejects this implication: “As this conviction grew, something else grew as well . . . It was intense revulsion, and at times it was almost physical in nature”; “I will have nothing to do with it. My conviction is that the world obeys laws, the laws of nature and that nothing can ever occur that stands outside those laws” (Symbiotic Universe, 27, 24, 87). Greenstein speaks for many people who are offended by suggestions of any influence beyond blind physical laws, but evidence from cosmology and physics strongly suggests that the existence of our universe cannot be explained as the result of purely random events.

It is therefore not intellectually weak, scientifically ignorant, or logically unsound to consider the possibility of a directing Intelligence at work behind the physical laws of the universe.

References

Borde, Arvind, and Alexander Vilenkin. “Eternal inflation and the initial singularity.” Physics Review Letters 72 (1994) 3305–309. https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9312022.pdf

Davies, Paul. The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature’s Creative Ability To Order the Universe. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

———. The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning. London: Penguin, 1992.

Dyson, Freeman J. Disturbing the Universe. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.

Ellis, George F. R., U. Kirchner, W. R. Stoeger. “Multiverses and Physical Cosmology.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 347 (2004) 921–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07261.x

Greenstein, George. The Symbiotic Universe: Life and Mind in the Cosmos. New York: William Morrow, 1988.

Hawking, Stephen W. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York: Bantam, 1989.

Hilbert, David. “On the Infinite.” Translated by Ema Putnam, and Gerald J. Massey. 1925. In Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings, edited by Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putnam, 134–51. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964.

Hoyle, Fred. “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections.” Engineering and Science 45 (1981) 8–12.

Sandage, Allan. “A scientist reflects on religious belief.” Truth: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Christian Thought 1 (1985) 56–57. http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth15.html

Wilczek, Frank. “On Absolute Units, III: Absolutely Not?” Physics Today 59 (2006) 11. http://ctpweb.lns.mit.edu/physics_today/phystoday/Abs_limits400.pdf

Woit, Peter. Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law. New York: Basic, 2006.

Systems Engineering in Nature

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Cathryn Buse

Before I had children, I worked as a systems engineer at NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. Through my career, I met a lot of brilliant scientists and engineers who were committed Christians. But I also encountered a lot of intellectual skepticism to Christianity, especially on the question of God’s existence.

The question of God’s existence is one of the most consistent challenges Christians face. How can we adequately answer that question, especially when the questioner is scientifically minded? One way is through the evidence of design, something known as the “teleological argument.” It simply means where there is design, planning, and order there must be a Designer, Planner, and Organizer behind it. Something designed cannot be explained by just a natural process or material cause; design requires intelligence.

So if there is design in the universe, then there must be a designer. But is there design in the universe?

Atheists say there is not. Before we can adequately answer that, we have to determine what would constitute something being “designed.” It isn’t just that a system looks complicated or has lots of parts. For something to be designed, it requires several well-matched, collocated, and integrated components in order to work, where it would not work if any one of those parts were removed. Something like that would need a designer with intelligence and forethought to select the right components, size them accordingly, and integrate them together so it could function – and ultimately survive and reproduce.

From my background, I like to refer to this as systems engineering in nature. Part of my job at NASA was reviewing the Ares I Upper Stage design to make sure each system would integrate correctly so the vehicle could actually get off the ground. I would be checking for things like if propulsion lines were placed too close to an electronics box because of the extreme cold temperatures of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Or I would make sure the battery boxes were located near a human access point so they could be changed out at the launch pad. I would verify that a valve needing power from the launch tower had a connector on the umbilical plate. One of my favorite projects was making sure the vehicle could be shipped without being damaged. It needs covers, environmental controls, and other ground support equipment, especially since it ships horizontally but sits vertically on the launch pad.

As you can see, a NASA launch vehicle requires lots of systems engineering – and lots of intelligent design! Each system must be designed alongside the other systems so they will function together. If one system changes something, it may have devastating effects on the other systems. It must be a collaborative design effort. A launch vehicle won’t function if only one system is in place while the other systems are being built. The propulsion system must work with the design of the structure, the avionics and software, the thrust vector control system, and the engine. Remove any one component and the vehicle won’t get off the ground – or worse, will have a catastrophic failure.

So the launch vehicle needs all of these systems and their components to be functional and integrated all at the same time in order to work. A successful launch vehicle requires planning, order, and design; it requires intelligence – and many Designers.

Granted, a launch vehicle is obviously man-made. But is there something comparable in nature? If we can show a biological feature that requires systems engineering, then, like that launch vehicle, it could not have been formed by natural or material causes. It must be explained by some intelligent power behind it.

Luckily, you don’t have to be rocket scientist to find design in nature. We can find systems engineering in the interrelationships of the human body organ systems. For example, the circulatory system pumps oxygenated blood from the heart to the other parts of your body so they can do work. The blood stream then returns the oxygen-depleted blood back to the heart. But the circulatory system cannot distribute oxygenated blood by itself. It needs the respiratory system to get the oxygen. Tiny air sacs in the lungs, called alveoli, transfer oxygen from the lungs to the blood vessels. When the deoxygenated blood is returned, the blood cells transfer carbon dioxide and water, the waste products from the cell, back to the alveoli so it can be breathed out. The circulatory system, therefore, is quite useless without the respiratory system.

However, both of these systems are dependent on the nervous system. The hypothalamus section of the brain controls the body’s autonomic functions, life critical functions our body continually does without us thinking about them, like breathing and pumping your heart. Without this part of the brain and the network of nerves running from it through the spinal cord to the organs themselves, our circulatory and respiratory systems could not work.

The circulatory system also depends on the muscular system. The heart is a specific type of muscle made up of a specific cell type that allows it to contract and pump blood around the body. And it even depends on the skeletal system. The bone marrow produces the red and white blood cells and platelets that the heart is busy pumping around our bodies. Without the skeletal system, there would be no blood to pump.

Even the urinary system is necessary for the circulatory system to function. All of the body’s blood is circulated through the kidneys, where waste chemicals and excess water are filtered out. The kidneys then return clean blood back to the bloodstream. And there is even an interrelationship between the circulatory system and the endocrine system. Hormones from the adrenal gland can speed up your heart rate when it senses danger so you can run away quickly. Hormones from the pancreas are used to control blood sugar levels, which can be deadly if not maintained properly.

We know that everything in our body is dependent on blood flow, but it becomes clear that our blood flow is also dependent on everything else in the body! The human body is the epitome of systems engineering design. What does the body sound like? It sounds like that launch vehicle where the propulsion system needs the structural system, the avionics & software system, and the engine before it can ever get off the ground!

Now if the launch vehicle is missing a system, it fails to launch; we are delayed from resupplying astronauts or sending new missions to space until the design can be completed. But if a system is missing from the body, the body cannot live. All these body systems must show up at the same time, in the same place, fully functional and integrated for life to exist. And like the Ares I launch vehicle, its existence cannot be explained by a random, natural process. The human body has been uniquely and perfectly designed. And design requires a Designer.

What Is The Fine-Tuning Argument For God’s Existence, And Does The Multiverse Counter It?

2. Does God Exist?

By Wintery Knight

One of the best arguments for the existence of a Creator and Designer of the universe is the cosmic fine-tuning argument. The argument argues that individual constants and quantities in nature cannot be much smaller or larger than they are, because it would remove the ability of the universe to support life of any kind. Dr. Michael Strauss, an experimental physicist, explains some examples of the fine-tuning in a recent post on his blog.

He writes:

I liken the finely-tuned universe to a panel that controls the parameters of the universe with about 100 knobs that can be set to certain values. If you turn any knob just a little to the right or to the left, the result is either a universe that is inhospitable to life or no universe at all.

Consider the knob that controls the strength of the strong nuclear force that holds quarks inside the neutrons and protons and binds the nucleus of the atom together. If the strength were increased by 2%, the element hydrogen would be either non-existent or very rare. Without hydrogen, there would be no water (H₂O) or stars that burn hydrogen as their nuclear fuel like our sun. Without hydrogen, there would be no life. If the strength of the strong nuclear force were decreased by about 5%, then hydrogen would be the only element in the universe. That would simplify the periodic table and make Chemistry class very easy, but it would render life impossible.

All known life in this universe is based on the element carbon, which is formed in the final stages of a star’s life. The carbon you and I are made of is the result of the nuclear processes that occurred as previous stars ended their lives. One nice recent study showed that if the mass of the quarks that make up neutrons and protons were changed by just a few percents, then the process that makes carbon as stars die would be altered in such a way that there would not be sufficient carbon in the universe for life. The masses of the lightest sub-atomic quarks are the precise value that is required for carbon to form and for life to exist.

Regarding the multiverse, let me just quote from MIT physicist Alan Lightman, writing in Harper’s magazine about the multiverse:

The… conjecture that there are many other worlds… [T]here is no way they can prove this conjecture. That same uncertainty disturbs many physicists who are adjusting to the idea of the multiverse. Not only must we accept that the basic properties of our universe are accidental and uncalculable. In addition, we must believe in the existence of many other universes. But we have no conceivable way of observing these other universes and cannot prove their existence. Thus, to explain what we see in the world and in our mental deductions, we must believe in what we cannot prove.

Sound familiar? Theologians are accustomed to taking some beliefs on faith. Scientists are not. All we can do is hope that the same theories that predict the multiverse also produce many other predictions that we can test here in our own universe. But the other universes themselves will almost certainly remain a conjecture.

The multiverse is not pure nonsense; it is theoretically possible. But even if there were a multiverse, the generator that makes the universes itself would require fine-tuning, so the multiverse doesn’t get rid of the problem. And, as Lightman indicates, we have no independent experimental evidence for the existence of the multiverse in any case. Atheists just have to take it on faith and hope that their speculations will be proved right. Meanwhile, the fine-tuning is just as easily explained by postulating God, and we have independent evidence for God’s existence, like the origin of biological information, the sudden appearance of animal body plans, the argument from consciousness, and so on. Even if the naturalists could explain the fine-tuning, they would still have a lot of explaining to do. Theism (intelligent causation) is the simplest explanation for all of the things we learn from the progress of science.

It’s very important to understand that if these values were any different, then it’s not like we would bridges on our foreheads, or have green skin, or have pointy ears, etc. That’s what science fiction teaches you. And many atheists form their view of science by watching science fiction entertainment. But the truth is that the consequences of changing these values are much more consequential: no stars, no planets, no hydrogen, no heavy elements, the universe re-collapses into a hot fireball. You’re not going to have complex, embodied intelligent agents running around making moral decisions and relating to God in a world like that.

Questions like the existence of God should be NOT decided by feelings and faith and superstitious nonsense. They ought to be decided by evidence. Specifically, scientific evidence. Everyone has to account for this scientific evidence for fine-tuning within their worldview, and they have to account for it in a way that is responsible and rational. Punting to the multiverse, without any evidence for it, is neither rational nor responsible. Holding out hope that the evidence we have now will all go away is neither rational nor responsible.

By the way, if you are looking for a good book on the cosmic fine-tuning, especially for evangelism and debating with atheists, you really need to get a copy of “A Fortunate Universe. “ Although it is from one of the most prestigious academic presses, it is pretty funny to read, and the main points are made clear, even if you don’t understand science. Two astrophysicists wrote it – one who believes that God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning, and one who doesn’t. I really think that Christians need to get used to the idea that evangelism can be pretty easy, so long as you are arguing from peer-reviewed facts. When you get a good book on evidence for God that is not in dispute, then you are invincible. Everybody ought to believe in God in a universe with this much overt scientific evidence spilling out everywhere. Whether this Creator and Designer is the God of the Bible, who visited us as Jesus of Nazareth, takes more work to establish. Working through the emotional objections people have to God, and coaching them to take on the difficulties of living out an authentic Christian life (very unpopular!), is even harder.

An Intro to Arguments for God’s Existence

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By J. Brian Huffling

Does God exist? This has been one of the most asked questions in history with the most profound implications. As Norman Geisler used to say, our view of God’s existence is most important since it determines what we think about everything else. There are many arguments for God’s existence. This article will examine the standard classical proofs with typical objections and evaluations.

The proofs for God are varied and different, but they can be classified as either a posteriori or a priori. The former means the proofs are based on (or after/post) experience, while the latter are allegedly not based on experience, but prior/apart from it. A posteriori proofs are empirical in nature and take it that we can trust our senses. A priori proofs start with the mind and are thus rationalistic. All but one of the following arguments are a posteriori.

The proofs we will look at are various forms of the cosmological argument, the teleological/intelligent design argument, the moral argument, and the ontological argument.

Cosmological Arguments

Cosmological arguments are arguments based on the cosmos (from the Greek kosmos). They are a posteriori in nature, or based on experience and are thus empirical. There are many types of cosmological arguments. For a good survey, see William Lane Craig’s The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz. Here we will examine a few such as the Kalam argument and two of the famous Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas.

The Kalam Argument

The Kalam argument, popularized by William Lane Craig, is an example of what has become known as a horizontal type of cosmological argument since it argues that there is a temporal beginning of the universe in the finite past (horizontally). Here is the argument:

Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
The universe had a beginning.
Therefore, the universe had a cause.

The first premise is very straightforward in saying that if something came to exist that did not exist, then it must have a reason (cause) for its existence. This is because a thing must be either (1) self-caused, (2) uncaused, or (3) caused by another. A thing that began to exist can’t be self-caused since it would have to exist prior to bringing itself into being, which is a contradiction. It can’t be uncaused since there would, by definition, be no reason for its existence, and something can’t come from nothing. It must then be caused by another. This premise has its challengers, though. Some will say that things like virtual particles come into being from nothing and for no reason. However, such is simply not the case. Virtual particles are particles that arise from unstable energy in a vacuum. Since unstable energy is clearly not nothing, this is not a counter-example.

The second premise is really the crucial premise. The Kalam was originally provided by Muslim philosophers in the Middle Ages who argued that an infinite series is impossible, and since an actual infinite amount of time in the temporal past would be an actual infinite, then the universe cannot be temporally infinite: it must have had a beginning. Nowadays it is more popular to use Big Bang cosmology to show the universe had a beginning, such as the second law of thermodynamics, the fact that the universe is expanding, and the radiation echo discovered in the 1960s that demonstrates there was a massive explosion that gave rise to the universe’s expansion.

The Big Bang model is the reigning model, and atheists do not like its implications for a cause of the universe. Good books on this type of argument include Robert Jastrow’s God and the Astronomers, Hugh Ross’ The Creator and the Cosmos, and Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator.

Aquinas’ 5 Ways

Thomas Aquinas’ famous 5 Ways (See Summa Theologiae Part I Q. 2. Art. 3) are other types of cosmological arguments. The first way is an argument from motion. The word ‘motion’ actually means ‘change.’ It is taken from Aristotle. Aquinas calls this “the more manifest way” since it is clear that change happens all around us. For Aristotle and Aquinas, change is when something goes from being potentially x to actually x. For example, a piece of wood can be hot, but until it is actually hot, it is only potentially hot. The actually hot fire actualizes the wood and makes it hot. Further, a thing can only be changed by something else; in other words, a thing can’t be in potency and act in the same way. So, change must be brought about by an actually existing thing. A thing cannot actualize its own potency as that would mean it would be actually and potentially x at the same time, which is a contradiction. The linchpin to this, and all of the 5 ways, is that there cannot be an actual infinite regression of causes like this. Since things are composed of act and potency, they must be put together of act and potency. But being put together like this requires a being that is either put together of these things or not, which cannot go on forever. So there must be a being that is not put together of act and potency, but a being of Pure Act (or pure existence). Such all men call God.

This is a complicated argument based on Aristotelian metaphysics. However, going through all of the metaphysical thought, in the end, pays great dividends. Much can be deduced from God being Pure Act, as Aquinas demonstrates in the subsequent questions. For example, if God is Pure Act, then he is simple, meaning he is not composed of anything. (See this article on divine simplicity.) Being composed, so the argument goes, requires a composer. So he has no potency. But potency is a requirement for change to take place. So if God does not have potency, then he cannot change. (See this article on divine impassibility which is related to this notion that God can’t change.) Further, if he cannot change, then he can’t be measured by time as time has classically been thought to be the measure meant of change. So he is eternal. (See this article on God being eternal.) In this sense, ‘eternal’ does not mean existing forever. Following Boethius, it means that God enjoys all of his being all at once. There is no succession. He is infinite and perfect (also following from Pure Act). Thus, while the argument is much more complicated than the Kalam, it tells us a lot more about God.

Objections to this argument include Newtonian laws of motion and the idea that a thing can change itself. It is argued, some say, that Newton disproved Aristotle’s point here since objects at rest or in motion stay in such a state unless impeded by something else. However, Aristotle’s point is metaphysical in nature, while Newtons’ is physical. Aristotle does not have in mind inertia, like Newton. While inertia (a thing moving in location) certainly is an example of change, it is only an example, and not change as such. Others maintain that a thing can move itself, such as one’s hand. However, the hand does not move the hand; the nervous system does, which is run by the brain, which the will moves. But such is not a counter example to the first way since the point stands that a thing in potency has to be moved by a thing in act.

Whew.

The second way is from efficient causality. It basically says that a thing cannot be the cause of itself since it would have to exist in order to bring itself into existence, which is a contradiction. There cannot be an infinite number of efficient causes since such causes are the causes of intermediary causes, and if there were an infinite number of efficient causes, then there would be no ultimate beginning to effects. An example of this, that I owe to Richard Howe, is a train. When asked what is making a particular boxcar move, one can reply the boxcar in front of it. But there cannot be an infinite number of boxcars since a boxcar cannot cause motion; an engine is required for that. This kind of causes cannot be infinite in number; thus, there must be an ultimate efficient cause that is known as God. This type of cosmological is referred to as a vertical argument since it is based on a hierarchy of causes rather than a temporal beginning in the (horizontal) past.

A typical objection to this argument is, “what created God?” While one can argue with the reasoning or soundness of the above arguments, this objection demonstrates that the objector does not understand the arguments. The first way concludes with a being of Pure Act that per the reasoning can’t have a cause. The second way is the same since there would then require a seeming infinite number of causes, which the argument denies. God as an uncaused cause cannot have a cause, or he wouldn’t be the uncaused cause. Such an objection does not apply to these arguments.

Good books on the above include Maurice Holloway’s An Introduction to Natural Theology, and Brian Davies’ An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, along with Philosophy of Religion by Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan.

Teleological Arguments

While cosmological arguments argue from the existence of the cosmos, teleological arguments (also known as intelligent design arguments, or ID arguments) argue for God’s existence from the design of the cosmos and biological life. (The term ‘teleological’ comes from the Greek telos, meaning “end” or “goal.”) The argument tends to go like this:

Every design has a designer.
The universe and life exhibit design.
Therefore, the universe and life have a designer.

Regarding design in the universe, design can be seen that allows biological life to live on earth. For instance, the kind of galaxy we are in (spiral), where we are in the galaxy (outer arm), what kind of star we orbit, the size of our moon, the kind and make up of our atmosphere, etc., all go into making biological life possible. Biological life can also be seen to be designed given the amount of specified complexity in the human body. (“Specified complexity” refers to the notion that a given thing needs certain parts to work properly and to perform some function. A typical example is the mousetrap. It has few parts, but each part is necessary for the trap to function properly.) Parts in the human body exemplify specified complexity, such as the eye. Evolution does a poor job of explaining the eye since each part is needed in order to see. Given evolution, the person would not be able to see if the eye were developing slowly via random mutation (or even directed via God for that matter). DNA and the cell also exhibit amazing complexity and design. Since all designs need a designer, the universe and life require a designer.

What about evolution? As the above remarks indicate, evolution has a tough time dealing with specified complexity, as well as the origin of life (for which it has no answer), as well as many other problems. (See The Deniable Darwin and Darwin’s Doubt for a critique of Darwinian evolution. David Berlinski’s The Devil’s Delusion is also very good.) But as a strategic move, one can grant evolution is the case and still argue for God’s existence. This bypasses unnecessary arguments since even if evolution were true, there would still need to be a cause to the universe and biological life (things evolution can’t explain—especially the former). Thus, one doesn’t have to be well-versed in the evolution debate in order to argue for God’s existence.

The ID arguments are very powerful and convincing. However, they don’t provide as much as the cosmological arguments. For example, ID arguments cannot demonstrate creation ex nihilo (that the universe was created from nothing). They also can’t demonstrate monotheism (that only one God exists). What they demonstrate is that there is an intelligent designer (or designers). They also can’t demonstrate that the designer(s) are transcendent to the universe. Nothing in the ID arguments alone can demonstrate that the designer(s) is not part of the universe. Further, natural science on its own cannot demonstrate a transcendent being to the universe since natural science studies nature, and a transcendent being would be supernatural. Thus, natural science is, by definition, limited on the issue of God’s existence without the help of philosophy. (See my earlier blog for a more complete critique of ID arguments and why I think philosophical arguments are stronger.) However, the arguments are very good in showing at least one intelligent designer, and most people are probably convinced that such a being is God. In conjunction with the other arguments, the ID arguments are very powerful.

Typical objections include the need for the designer to have a designer/creator, dysteleology (arguments for a lack of design), the accusation of the god of the gaps fallacy, and evolution. Taking these objections in order, the argument says that designs need designers, not that designers need designers.

Dysteleology is the notion that things are not designed well or do not show signs of design. Many of the examples for this tend to be based on a lack of knowledge. For example, the number of vestigial organs (organs that we supposedly don’t need) have dramatically shrunk in number. Further, the fact that some things may not appear to be designed do not demonstrate the overwhelming design in things like DNA and the cell. Such is positive evidence that far outweighs so-called dysteleology.

Many atheists argue that theists are saying, “We don’t know how this happened, so God must have done it.” (Such is an objection to the cosmological arguments too.) However, the God of the gaps fallacy is when one doesn’t have enough evidence to account for something and then invokes God (fallaciously). However, this is not what theists are doing with the above arguments (teleological or cosmological). We are saying there is so much positive evidence for a designer that there must be one. The God of the gaps fallacy is not committed.

As already stated, evolution is not a reason to give up belief in theism since there must be a cause for the existence of the universe as well as biological life. This is to say nothing of the problems with evolution.

All in all, the ID arguments are strong and persuasive but are not as complete as the philosophical arguments.

Some good resources on the ID arguments are Creator and the Cosmos, The Case for a Creator, and Signature in the Cell.

The Moral Argument

The moral argument is a very popular one. There are at least two forms:

Every law has a lawgiver.
There is a moral law.
Therefore, there is a moral lawgiver.

I have not seen an objection to premise 1. Premise 2 is much more contentious. The reason for it is that one can look anywhere throughout human history and see a basic moral code. For example, moral precepts such as don’t murder, lie, steal, commit adultery are pretty ubiquitous. There are different ways these codes have been understood. For example, in some cultures it is permissible to have several wives while in others it is permissible to have only 1. But cultures will (historically anyway) say that one should not have sex with a woman who is not his wife.

Another form of the argument is:

If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.
Objective moral values do exist.
Therefore, God exists.

This has the same basic thrust as the first argument, it just takes a conditional form. But both arguments hinge on the objective nature of morality. While some people will argue there is no such thing as objective morality, such a view is hard to consistently maintain. For example, it is hard to maintain that the Nazis were not objectively wrong or that rape is not objectively wrong. The person who argues that the latter is not objectively wrong, for instance, probably would be highly upset if his daughter were raped. As Geisler used to say, we can tell more about a person’s beliefs by his reactions rather than his actions.

The moral argument says that there must be a transcendent cause to explain the objective nature of morality. If it is objective, it can’t be explained from within the human race. Evolution can’t explain the objective nature of morality either, even though atheists maintain that it can. If evolution is invoked to account for it, it should be pointed out that such “morality” could only be egoistic or utilitarian in nature. It could never be objective—only useful.

Such is a good argument. Sometimes it is argued that the moral standard that is invoked is God’s nature. Theists often claim that the Euthyphro Dilemma is solved this way while also providing an objective account of morality. (The Euthyphro Dilemma asks the question—put in modern vernacular—”Does God command what is good because it is good, or is it good because he commands it?” The first option is problematic since it would demonstrate that something is good apart from God, which would raise problems about how it is good without him. The latter option seems to make God arbitrary.) Many say, “The answer to the dilemma is to say God’s nature is the standard of goodness.” This is problematic for many reasons. I have written another article on this topic, so I won’t rewrite that here, but I will point out that it is not clear what it means to say that God is morally good. For humans to be morally good means that they measure up to some standard. Even if God could be said to be morally good, it’s not clear what it would mean for him to measure up to a standard since the standard would be his nature. But it seems incoherent to say a thing measures up to itself. It is also not obvious or clear why the standard for finite, temporal, changing, material beings is a being that is none of these things.

Rather than saying that God is the standard of morality, it seems to make more sense to say that God is the cause of the standard of morality. Instead of saying a non-human is the standard of human morality, it is more rational (and biblical) to maintain that human nature is the standard. But if there is an objective human nature (a highly debated topic in philosophy), there must be a cause to it. At this point, the argument becomes more of a cosmological argument for a cause to the objective human nature.

The Ontological Argument

The ontological argument is the only alleged a priori argument in this article since it purportedly doesn’t argue from the cosmos but from the notion of being. The word ontological comes from the Greek ontos, which means “being.” The argument is an argument from being. It was presented by Anselm, an eleventh-century monk who was asked by his brothers to provide an argument for God’s existence that didn’t rely on Scripture. It goes like this:

God is a being than which none greater can be conceived.
It is greater to exist in reality than just in the mind.
Thus, God must exist in reality.

It is a simple argument but very contentious. Atheists and theists have debated the merits of this argument more than any other (although there has been considerable interest in the cosmological argument as of late). The logic of the argument is based on a reductio ad absurdum. In other words, to deny God (or the conclusion of the argument) is to affirm a contradiction. If God is the greatest conceivable being and thus must actually exist extra-mentally, then a God that exists only in the mind would not be the greatest conceivable being. Thus, that God (in the mind only) would not be God. Given the nature of existence, God must logically exist extra-mentally.

Another monk named Gaunilo attempted to give a counterexample to Anselm by arguing that the most perfect island must exist extra-mentally rather in the mind only, given the same kind of argument that Anselm gave. Anselm pointed out that the difference was that God would have necessary existence, which makes his argument different than the island argument.

One’s philosophical commitments tend to determine if he thinks this argument is sound. As a moderate realist in the vein of Aristotle and Aquinas, I do not think the argument is sound as it makes a logical leap from the order of knowing to the order of being.

For resources on the moral and ontological arguments, see Brian Davies’ An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, along with Philosophy of Religion by Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan. For all of the above arguments in their primary (original) text, see Brian Davies’ Philosophy of Religion: A Guide and Anthology and Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Resources.

Conclusion

The above are merely a sampling of theistic proofs from a bird’s eye view. The interested reader should consult the recommended readings for more information. It is my contention that the philosophical proofs, namely the cosmological arguments, are the strongest, especially the five ways and such arguments that are based on metaphysics (the nature of reality). However, such arguments are complicated and difficult to use with non-philosophers. In conclusion, there are persuasive arguments for God’s existence, arguments that some of us consider to be metaphysically necessary since a necessary being must exist to account for contingent being. Contrary to many atheists, belief in God is not merely the desire of wishful thinking by illogical religious folk. Some of the brightest minds in the history of ideas have believed in God for well thought out reasons, such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, et al.

Does The Cambrian Explosion Disprove Darwinism?

2. Does God Exist?, Philosophy of Science

By Ryan Leasure

In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin argued that “all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from someone primordial form.”¹ Darwin suggested that this primordial life form gradually developed into new life forms, which subsequently developed more life forms, eventually producing all the complex life forms we see today.

In short, Darwin asserted that all life descended from a common ancestor. And starting from that original ancestor, he believed nature selected the fittest species which would survive, reproduce, and last for generations. At the same time, nature would sift out the weaker species.

Darwin famously pictured the history of life as a tree. The first life form was the trunk, and all subsequent life forms are the branches. He was certain that the progression of life takes no sudden leaps, but evolves gradually with small-scale variations.

There was one small problem, though. When Darwin proposed his theory, some of the leading paleontologists rejected his theory based on the fossil record. More specifically, they didn’t believe Darwin’s theory could be reconciled with the Cambrian Explosion.

The Cambrian Explosion

The Cambrian Explosion refers to the abrupt appearance of animal life forms in the geological strata without any trace of prior transitional fossils. During this phenomenon, most of the major animal phyla appear in the strata in a geological blink of an eye.

Darwin was aware of the Cambrian Explosion. He noted, “If my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest [Cambrian] stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the [Cambrian] age to the present day; and that during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures.”² Meaning, if he’s right, we should find not just a few missing links, but innumerable links preceding the Cambrian era.

After all, Darwin adamantly declared that his theory could take no sudden leaps. He knew that large-scale variations inevitably resulted in deformity or death. Louis Agassiz, the leading paleontologist of Darwin’s day, put it this way: “It is a matter of fact that extreme variations finally degenerate or become sterile; like monstrosities, they die out.”³

Yet these Cambrian animals seemingly came out of nowhere. Of our twenty-seven different phyla — or macro-level animal classifications — at least twenty of them appear in the geological strata suddenly, not gradually as Darwin’s theory demands.⁴ Hence the name “Cambrian Explosion.”

So how did Darwin respond to this dilemma? He acknowledged, “To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer… The case at present must maintain inexplicable, and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained.”⁵

Darwin, however, was confident that future discoveries would vindicate his theory. Future geological discoveries have since come. Yet these discoveries continue to present fatal objections to his theory.

The Tree Turned Upside Down

Darwin’s tree of life suggests that small-scale differences among species would precede large-scale differences, eventually resulting in different phyla categories altogether. That is to say, as time progressed, and the branches formed, wholesale diversity would result among living species. Phyla categories would only emerge after lower classifications of animals — like species, orders, and families — evolved so much as to warrant macro-level distinctions.

Richard Dawkins put it this way: “What had been distinct species within one genus become, in the fullness of time, distinct genera within one family. Later, families will be found to have diverged to the point where taxonomists prefer to call them orders, then classes, then phyla.”⁶

Yet, the Cambrian Explosion turns this pattern on its head. Instead of species leading to families, orders, and eventually phyla, the Cambrian Explosion presents phyla first, followed by lower-level diversifications (microevolution).

The Burgess Shale, located along the Canadian Rockies and perhaps the most significant Cambrian dig in North America with more than a hundred thousand fossil discoveries, confirms this upside-down model. Stephen Meyer notes, “the large differences in form between the first animals appeared suddenly in the Burgess Shale, and the appearance of such disparity arose before, not after, the diversification of many representatives of lower taxonomic categories within each higher category, designating a new body plan.”⁷

Additionally, the Maotianshan Shale of southern China further confirms the upside-down model. Again, this site does not show the gradual emergence of species progressing toward the diversity of phyla. Rather, it shows full-scale diversity of phyla with subsequent diversification among the species.⁸

The Common Objection By Darwinists

Darwinists typically respond by suggesting that the older, Pre-Cambrian layers could not have preserved the transitional fossils. And they usually suggest one of two reasons. Either the fossils themselves were too small or soft to have fossilized, or the quality of the sedimentary rock was not conducive for preserving fossils.

Neither of these claims, though, holds muster. First, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that older sedimentary rocks have fossilized both small and soft organisms. In several places around the world, Pre-Cambrian rocks have fossilized single-celled algae and other eukaryotes.⁹ Further discoveries in Western Australia show Pre-Cambrian rocks preserved fossilized bacteria of various kinds.

The Maotianshan Shale also preserved a great variety of Pre-Cambrian soft-bodied organism. Archeologist J. Y. Chen found several animals lacking exoskeletons, including corals, sponges, jellyfish, and worms. Chen and his colleague Paul Chien even discovered sponge embryos.

If the sedimentary rock can preserve soft-celled embryos, surely it could preserve the ancestors of the Cambrian animals. It should also be noted that many paleontologists call into question the claim that the ancestors of these hard-shelled animals would have been soft since the hard parts are necessary to protect their soft parts. In other words, the ancestors of these hard-shelled animals would have required a hard-shell to survive in nature. So, the soft-bodied hypothesis is far from certain. Be that as it may, the data still suggests that soft-bodied animals should have fossilized.

Conclusions From The Cambrian Explosion

Darwinism still dominates the biological landscape. But I believe the Cambrian Explosion gives us reason to pump the breaks.

As I’ve studied the Darwinian model, it seems to me that the strongest argument in favor of it is the similarity of genetic information across all living species. Meaning, the closeness of DNA and RNA suggests we all share a common ancestor. While this could be true, it’s also true that similarities in genes could suggest a common designer. For example, when one purchases a set of pots and pans, they all look similar despite their different sizes and shapes. The similarities of the handles and types of metal demonstrate not that they evolved from a common ancestor but that they share a common designer.

Meaning, the genetic similarities among living species is up for interpretation. It’s speculation at best. But the fossil record — especially the Cambrian Explosion — presents us with hard data that is difficult to square with Darwinism. Instead of slow, gradual variations, we see sudden leaps of full-bodied animals without any trace of transitional fossils below.

Darwin knew the Cambrian Explosion didn’t support his theory. But he hoped that future geological discoveries would vindicate him. The Burgess and Maotianshan Shale discoveries, however, create an even larger problem than he realized. For these reasons, I believe we have good grounds to doubt Darwinian evolution.

Jeff Hester Debates William Lane Craig On The Topic “Is Belief In God Rational In A Scientific Age?”

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Wintery Knight

I was very excited to see a recent debate by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig against atheist astronomer Jeff Hester. When I summarize a debate, I do a fair, objective summary if the atheist is intelligent and informed, as with Peter Millican, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, or Austin Dacey. But the following summary is rated VS for Very Snarky, and you’ll soon see why.

The debate itself starts at 29 minutes:

The audio is very poor.

Dr. Craig’s opening speech

Dr. Craig went first, and he presented four arguments, as well as the ontological argument, which I won’t summarize or discuss. He later added another argument for theism from the existence of the universe that does not require an origin of the universe.

A1. Counter-examples

Theists who are elite scientists cannot be “irrational,” for example Allan Sandage, Gustav Tammann, George Ellis, Don Page, Christopher Isham

A2. Kalam cosmological argument

Whatever begins to exist requires a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe requires a cause.

A3. Fine-tuning of the universe to permit complex, intelligent life

The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
Therefore it is due to design.

A4. Moral argument

If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Therefore, God exists.

Dr. Hester’s opening speech

Dr. Hester went second and presented two arguments, which both committed the genetic fallacy, a logical fallacy that makes the arguments have no force.

Hester starts his opening speech by asserting that Albert Einstein was irrational because he denied quantum mechanics.

Hester explains that he became an atheist at 15. This would have been before the evidence for the origin of the universe became widespread before we had very many examples of fine-tuning before the discovery that the origin of life problem is a problem of the origin of complex, specified information, etc. What kind of reasons can a 15-year-old child have for becoming an atheist? It’s hard to say, but I would suspect that they were psychological. Children often desire autonomy from moral authorities. They want to be free to pursue pleasure. They don’t want to be thought of as superstitious and morally straight by their non-religious peers.

Later on in the debate, Hester volunteers that he hated his father because his father professed to be a Christian, but he was focused on his career and making money. In the absence of any arguments for atheism, it’s reasonable to speculate that Hester became an atheist for psychological reasons. And as we’ll see, just like the typical 15-year-old child, he has no rational basis for atheism. What’s astonishing is how he continues to hold to the atheism of his teens when it has been falsified over and over by scientific discoveries in the years since.

Dr. Craig’s deductive arguments do have premises that reach a conclusion through the laws of logic. On the contrary, he just asserts that God exists as his conclusion, and then says that this assertion is the best explanation of a gap in our scientific knowledge. Some of the gaps in our scientific knowledge he uses in his arguments are: 1) he doesn’t understand why the Sun moves through the sky, so God exists, 2) he doesn’t understand why the wind blows, so God exists.

What counts as “rational” are things that have not been disproved. The progress of science has shown that the universe did not need a cause in order to begin to exist, and also there is no cosmic fine-tuning.

A1. The success of evolution in the software industry proves that there is no God.

All hardware and software are developed using genetic algorithms that exactly match Darwinian processes. All the major computer companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, etc. are just generating products using mutation and selection to evolve products over long periods of time. If you look over a typical software engineering degree, it’s all about Darwinian evolution, and nothing about design patterns, object-oriented design, etc.

This widespread use of evolution in the software industry undermines all of the arguments for God’s existence. Evolution caused the origin of the universe. Evolution explains why the universe is fine-tuned for life. Evolution, which requires replication already be in place in order to work, explains the origin of the first self-replicating organism.

A2. Theist’s view of the world is just a result of peer pressure from their tribes.

All of Dr. Craig’s logical arguments supported by scientific evidence don’t matter, because he got them from a primitive tribe of Christians that existed 2000 years ago. Everyone gets their view of origins, morality, meaning in life, death, etc. from their tribes. Except for me, I’m getting my beliefs from reason and evidence because I’m a smart atheist. I don’t have an atheist tribe in the university that would sanction me if I disagreed with nonsense like homosexuality is 100% genetic, transgenderism, man-made catastrophic global warming, fully naturalistic evolution, aliens seeded the Earth with life, infanticide is moral, socialism works, overpopulation will cause mass starvation, nuclear winter, etc. Also, my argument isn’t the genetic fallacy at all, because smart atheists don’t commit elementary logical fallacies that even a first-year philosophy student would know.

A3. Our brains evolved, so our rational faculties are unreliable, so God does not exist.

The logical reasoning that Dr. Craig uses to argue for theism are all nonsense, because human minds just have an illusion of consciousness, an illusion of rationality, and an illusion of free will. Everything Dr. Craig says is just deluded nonsense caused by chemicals in his brain. He has cognitive biases the undermine all his logical arguments and scientific evidence. He just invented an imaginary friend with superpowers. Except me, I’m a smart atheist, so I actually have real consciousness, real reasoning powers, and no cognitive biases. Also, my argument isn’t the genetic fallacy at all, because my arguments would not get an F in a first-year philosophy course.

Discussion

I’m not going to summarize everything in the discussion, or the question and answer time. I’m just going to list out some of the more interesting points.

Dr. Craig asks him how it is that he has managed to escape these biases from tribalism, projection, etc. He talks about how brave and noble atheist rebels are. The moderator asks him the same question. He repeats how brave and noble atheist rebels are.

Dr. Hester is asked whether he affirms a causeless beginning of the universe or an eternal universe. He replies he states that the universe came into being without a cause because causality doesn’t apply to the beginning of the universe. He also asserts with the explanation that Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin have undermined the kalam cosmological argument, mentioning a web site.

Dr. Craig replied to this phantom argument after the debate on Facebook:

Speaking of which, although I haven’t had time to consult the website mentioned by Dr. Hester concerning Guth and Vilenkin on the kalam cosmological argument, I know the work of these two gentlemen well enough to predict what one will find there. Since neither one is yet a theist (so much, by the way, for the dreaded confirmation bias!), they have to reject at least one of the premises of the kalam cosmological argument.

Guth wants to deny premiss (2) The universe began to exist–for which Vilenkin has rebuked him. Guth would avoid the implications of their theorem by holding our hope for the Carroll-Chen model, which denies the single condition of the BGV theorem. This gambit is, however, unsuccessful, since the Carroll-Chen model does so only by positing a reversal of the arrow of time at some point in the finite past. This is not only highly non-physical but fails to avert the universe’s beginning since that time-reversed, mirror universe is no sense in our past. The model really postulates two different universes with a common beginning.

So Vilenkin is forced to deny premiss (1) Whatever begins to exists has a cause. He says that if the positive energy associated with matter exactly counterbalances the negative energy associated with gravity, then the net sum of the energy is zero, and so the conservation of energy is not violated if the universe pops into being from nothing! But this is like saying that if your assets exactly balance your debts, then your net worth is zero, and so there does not need to be a cause of your financial situation! As Christopher Isham points out, there still needs to be “ontic seeding” in order to create positive and negative energy in the first place, even if on balance, their sum is zero.

Dr. Hester is asked how he explains the evidence for fine-tuning. He literally says that “Life is fine-tuned for the Universe,” i.e., that evolution will create living beings regardless of the laws of physics, constants, etc. For example, he thinks that in a universe with a weaker strong force, which would have only hydrogen atoms, evolution would still evolve life. And in a universe that recollapses in a hot fireball, and never forms stars or planets, evolution would produce life. Physicist Luke Barnes, who was commenting on the YouTube chat for the video, said this:

“Life is fine-tuned for the Universe” – complete ignorance of the field. Read a book.

Hester tries to cite Jeremy England to try to argue for life appearing regardless of what the laws of physics are. Barnes comments:

Jeremy England’s work supports no such claim.

Hester appealed to the multiverse, which faces numerous theoretical and observational difficulties. For example, the multiverse models have to have some mechanism to spawn different universes, but these mechanisms themselves require fine-tuning, as Robin Collins argues. And the multiverse is falsified observationally by the Boltzmann brain problem. It was so ironic that Hester claimed to be so committed to testing theories. The multiverse theory cannot be tested experimentally and must be accepted on faith.

Dr. Hester is asked how he grounds morality on atheism. He says there are no objective moral values and duties. He instead lists off a bunch of Christian beliefs which he thinks are objectively wrong. Even his statements about these moral issues are misinformed. For example, he asserts that homosexuality is causally determined by biology, but this is contradicted by identical twin studies that have a rate of 20-40% where both twins are gay.

Dr. Hester is asked about free will, which is required in order to make moral choices. He denies the existence of a free will, which undermines his earlier statements about morality. Morality is only possible if humans can make free choices to act in accordance with a moral standard. So, he claims that Christians are immoral, then he claims that they have no freedom to act other than they do.

Dr. Hester also volunteered that his father believed in the prosperity gospel, and tithed in order to be rewarded with money by God. Dr. Craig immediately says, “no wonder you’re in rebellion against Christianity.” Indeed.

Dr. Hester is asked about his view that human beings are unable to unable to perceive the world objectively. How is he able to perceive the world objectively, when all of the rest of us are unable to? His response is that he is just smarter than everyone else because his ideas have never been falsified by testing.

Scoring the debate

Dr. Craig’s five arguments went unrefuted. Hester’s argument about genetic algorithms was ludicrous to anyone who understands software engineering. His arguments about tribalism and unreliable mental faculties were self-refuting and committed the genetic fallacy. At several points, Hester denied mainstream science in favor of untested and untestable speculations. It was the worst defeat of atheism I have ever witnessed. He was uninformed and arrogant. He didn’t know what he was talking about, and he tried to resort to speculative, mystical bullshit to cover up his failure to meet Dr. Craig’s challenge.

To Understand The Second Law Of Thermodynamics, Burn A Match

The Universe – A Giant Battery

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Challenge 1: Only small, continuous changes?

Challenge 2: Only random variations and natural selection?

Challenge 3: What about the complex genetic code?

Note

References

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Problem 1: Many steps are still not understood

Problem 2: The first self-replicating molecule has still not been identified

Problem 3: Laboratory experiments might not replicate conditions on early Earth

Problem 4: Probabilities are low

Notes

References

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What about the theory of an infinite number of universes?

References

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Cosmological Arguments

The Kalam Argument

Aquinas’ 5 Ways

Teleological Arguments

The Moral Argument

The Ontological Argument

Conclusion

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The Cambrian Explosion

The Tree Turned Upside Down

The Common Objection By Darwinists

Conclusions From The Cambrian Explosion

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Dr. Craig’s opening speech

Dr. Hester’s opening speech

Discussion

Scoring the debate

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