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By Steve Williams
“I can see the fingerprints of God when I look at you I can see the fingerprints of God and I know its true you’re a masterpiece that all creation quietly applauds and you’re covered with the fingerprints of God”
~from Fingerprints of God, by Stephen Curtis Chapman
The common scientific view of the “hardware of life” (that is, the physical components of living systems) is, as Biologist Richard Dawkins puts it, “the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986).
Unfortunately, Dawkins (like many others in his field) has succumbed to a logically fallacious assumption that a supernatural explanation is not within the “pool of live options” to explain this appearance of design. Why not? Well, to summarize the common opinions of materialists like Dawkins, it’s “not science”. But what is “Science”?
Louis Pasteur once said “Religions, philosophies, atheism, materialism, or its opposite–none of these is relevant to the matter…I might even add that, scientifically speaking, I am indifferent to them all. The question is purely one of fact”. In other words, science should be “the un-biased search for truth” without philosophical preconceptions. That definition was always the ancient understanding of the term.
Since the so-called “Enlightenment” that swept through Europe in the 1700’s, and especially since the proposal of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in 1859, however, intellectual activists have been trying to add the qualifying concept of “within naturalistic explanations” to the definition. What that means, in effect, is the addition of a bias to the search for truth.
This bias first “got its legs” from the writings of an apparently bitter atheistic Scottish philosopher named David Hume in the 1700’s. Hume proposed a set of reasons why the supernatural should be ruled be ruled out of consideration as an explanatory mechanism. Not long afterwards, these reasons were shown to be fallacious (we’ll examine this in a later chapter), but at the time, it was as if Europe was eager to unfetter itself from religion, and atheism blossomed somewhat throughout the continent.
Most modern philosophers (even agnostic ones) find Hume’s arguments to be almost laughably illogical, but many atheists unknowingly cite him today as if he was “the Christ” of their belief system. For a full-length treatment of this subject, see John Earman’s book Hume’s Abject Failure, but suffice it to say for the moment that modern humankind has nowhere near a broad enough scope of reality to eliminate the possibility of the supernatural. To the contrary, there are many things in our experience that defy naturalistic explanations.
The philosophical name of the most common scientific form of atheism is “Materialism”, and it claims that not only is there no God, but that there is nothing even like God in the universe. Although it has taken root within the Biological sciences, it has done so to a much lesser extent within Astronomy, Philosophy, and Physics. Many Americans would probably be surprised to know that polls show that the percentage of PhD’ed scientists overall who identify themselves as Christians and who go to church is roughly the same as the percentage in the population at large. Unfortunately, the small minority who identify themselves as atheists is much louder and more aggressive though, so they exert a disproportionate influence on the media, academic standards committees and the like.
Luckily for all who respect unbiased inquiry, many Philosophers who are experts in logic by definition (logic being a subset of Philosophy), have objected vociferously, especially in the past 40 years, to this effort, and have recognized that the scientific method is at stake. As I wrote before, it seems that the key element that catalyzed this mindset since the late 1800’s is Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Biologists became so enamored with it over the years that they invested heavily in deepening and entrenching their paradigms based on that assumption, and are not willing to consider that major problems have developed within it. Pride in Biology, and a reluctance to admit being wrong might be a factor. One has to wonder if there are spiritual and carnal reasons that admitting the mere possibility of the existence of the metaphysical is so daunting to some. Since Darwinian Evolution seems to be the lynchpin of this type of thinking, let’s take a hard look at it.
The concept of life arising from non-life by random chance is called “abiogenesis”. This concept is the “creation story” of Darwinian Evolution. But what are the odds of the building blocks of life coming together by random chance in a way to provide even the possibility of life? Harold Morowitz, an agnostic Yale University physicist, created mathematical models by imagining broths of living bacteria that were superheated until all the complex chemicals were broken down into basic building blocks. After cooling the mixtures, Morowitz used physics calculations to conclude that the odds of a single bacterium reassembling by chance is one in 10100,000,000,000. (1) Wow! How can we grasp such a large statistic? Well, it’s more likely that one would win the state lottery every week for a million years by purchasing just one ticket each week!
In response to the probabilities calculated by Morowitz, Robert Shapiro, author of Origins – A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, wrote:
The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle. (2)
Sir Frederick Hoyle compared the probability of life arising by chance to lining up 1050 (ten with fifty zeros after it) blind people, giving each one a scrambled Rubik’s Cube, and finding that they all solve the cube at the same moment!
Biological “Hardware” (Complex Structure) Argument
- According to a leading Darwinist, the odds of component parts in close proximity assembling into a single-celled creature are 1 in 10100,000,000,000.
- According to probability theorists, anything with lower odds than 1 in 1050is mathematically impossible.
- Therefore, the spontaneous generation of life is mathematically impossible.
Regarding the origin of life, Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in biology for his work with the DNA molecule, stated in 1982:
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. (3)
Crick’s assessment of the hopelessness of the spontaneous generation of life on earth led him to subsequently postulate a theory called “Directed Panspermia”, which held that space aliens “seeded” life on earth. As Philip Johnson observed, “When a scientist of Crick’s caliber feels he has to invoke undetectable spaceman, it is time to consider whether the field of prebiological evolution has come to a dead end.” (4)
Ever since the discovery of DNA in 1953, the Darwinian Theory of Evolution has faced increasing challenges yearly as more and more evidence for the complexity of the cell has been discovered. In 1996, Dr. Michael Behe (professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University) released a book entitled “Darwins’ Black Box”, which detailed an argument against Darwinian Evolution known as the “irreducible complexity” of biological structures and systems. In the 11 years since the publication of the book, it has been attacked from every angle by atheistic scientists, yet its central thesis has only gained strength, as the debate has exposed the weakness of Darwinian counter-arguments, and the naturalistic (atheistic) philosophical biases that lurk behind them.
Have you ever wondered if Charles Darwin himself would still believe in Darwinian Evolution (or macro-evolution) if he knew all of the evidence that has accumulated for and against it up to this time? Well, there is an interesting quote in which Darwin stated his own minimum standard for assessing whether or not his theory would withstand the tests of time:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. (5)
In Darwin’s day, it was assumed that cells were very simple. In the last half of the 20th century, however, it has come to light that inside each living cell are vastly complex molecular machines made up of various protein parts. Organs, which are made up of these complex cells, have also been shown to be much more complex than previously believed.
The blueprints for assembling the protein parts for cells and organs in correct timing and order are encoded into our DNA, which is similar to binary computer code, although it is quaternary (having 4 letters instead of 2). The density of the information encoded into DNA staggers the imagination; there is enough information-storing space in a half-teaspoon of DNA to store all of the assembly instructions for every creature ever made, and room left over to include every book ever written!
In addition to the incredible information-storing capacity in DNA, there are machines and systems in biology which vastly exceed mankind’s creative capacity in terms of their complexity. For example, the blood-clotting mechanism requires a sequence of 20 different proteins (each of which has an average chance of 1 in 8.03 x 10 to the 59th power of forming by random chance!) triggering one another like dominoes falling in order, until a fibrin mesh scaffolding is formed for the clot itself.
If you subtract any one single protein (regardless of where in the sequence of 20), this scaffolding fails to form, and no blood clot is possible. Without clotting, any creature with a circulatory system would bleed to death from a tiny wound, similarly to what happens to hemophiliacs.
Now think about how this compares to Darwin’s criterion for his own theory. Macro-evolution requires a mutation for every step, each of which needs to confer an advantage in surviving or creating offspring to be retained by natural selection. Even if we grant the creation of proteins by random chance (which is extremely unlikely), at steps 1, 2 ,3, 4, etc. on up to and through step 19, there is no advantage conferred toward the production of a blood clot until step 20 is completed! If you reduce the complexity by any single component (regardless of where in the sequence the single component is), the system doesn’t work, and has no reason to be retained by natural selection. This is Irreducible Complexity.
Let’s look at another example. The Bacterial Flagellum is a tail-like protein propeller attached to one end of a bacterium that propels the organism through its environment via rapid rotations (like a miniature outboard motor driving a whip in circular motion). It has components that are remarkably similar to a man-made outboard motor, such as a rotor, a U-joint, a stator, a driveshaft, a propeller, bushings, and O-rings.
There are at least 40 different protein parts required for the assembly of a flagellum. Many of the flagellar proteins control the construction process, switching the building phases on and off with chemical triggers at just the right times, and setting up construction in the proper sequence. It is an engineering marvel. If you deduct 1% of the parts, you don’t have a 99% functional bacterial flagellum; it becomes completely dysfunctional, and you have nothing but a hindrance (probably fatal) to any organism attached to it. The following picture hints at its complexity…
Consider the fact that it is conservatively calculated that the odds of this incredible structure forming by random chance is 1 in 10 to the 1170th power. (6) According to probability theorists, anything with a chance lower than 1 in 10 to the 50th power is mathematically impossible, so it doesn’t matter how much time you give it—it simply won’t occur by chance alone.
Just recently, a vastly more complex gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle was discovered. Here is an piece on it from www.evolutionnews.org:
Souped-Up Hyperdrive Flagellum Discovered
Evolution News & Views December 3, 2012 5:05 AM
Get a load of this — a bacterium that packs a gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle that gets 0 to 300 micrometers in one second, ten times faster than E. coli.
If you thought the standard bacterial flagellum made the case for intelligent design, wait till you hear the specs on MO-1, a marine bacterium described by Japanese researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Edited by Howard Berg, Harvard’s mastermind of flagellum reverse engineering, this paper describes the Ferrari of flagella.
Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath…. the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle.
To feel the Wow! factor, jump ahead to Figure 6 in the paper. It shows seven engines in one, arranged in a hexagonal array, stylized by the authors in a cross-sectional model that shows them all as gears interacting with 24 smaller gears between them. The flagella rotate one way, and the smaller gears rotate the opposite way to maximize torque while minimizing friction. Download the movie from the Supplemental Information page to see the gears in action.
Electron micrographs included in the paper show that the model is not unrealistic. These flagella really are tightly packed in a sheath, suggesting that the bundle acts like a gear-driven hyperdrive.
Here we have used electron cryotomography to visualize the 3D architecture of the sheathed flagella. The seven filaments are enveloped with 24 fibrils in the sheath, and their basal bodies are arranged in an intertwined hexagonal array similar to the thick and thin filaments of vertebrate skeletal muscles. This complex and exquisite architecture strongly suggests that the fibrils counter-rotate between flagella in direct contact to minimize the friction of high-speed rotation of individual flagella in the tight bundle within the sheath to enable MO-1 cells to swim at about 300 µm/s. (Emphasis added.)
At microbial level, that’s more than 10 body lengths per second. The authors were clearly excited by this engine, sounding like young men checking out high-performance cars, talking thrust, gear ratios and torque.
MO-1 is a magnetotactic bacterium capable of orienting its cell body along the geomagnetic field lines by using magnetosomes. The MO-1 cell has a flagellar apparatus with two lophotrichous [containing numerous flagella in] bundles. In contrast to peritrichously [flagella all over the cell] flagellated bacteria, MO-1 cells swim constantly in a helical trajectory toward magnetic north, and the trajectory changes from right-handed to left-handed without changes in velocity or direction. The cells are able to swim as fast as 300 μm/s, which is nearly 10-fold faster than E. coli and Salmonella. Although the flagella of the other types of bacteria usually work individually or by forming a loose bundle to produce thrust, the flagellar apparatus of MO-1 is a tight bundle of seven flagella enveloped in a sheath made of glycoproteins. This unique architecture appears to be essential for the smooth and high-speed swimming of MO-1.
They can’t see actual gears, of course, but physics demands that the mechanism of rotation must have something like it:
We hypothesize that, whereas each of the seven flagella has its torque-generating motor, the 24 fibrils counter rotate between the flagellar filaments to minimize the friction that would be generated if the flagella were directly packed together in a tight bundle. A schematic diagram representing our hypothesis is presented in Fig. 6. The flagella are represented as large brown gears and the fibrils are represented as small blue-green gears. The flagella and fibrils rotate counterclockwise and clockwise, respectively, as indicated by the arrows, to minimize friction (Movie S1). Although there is no direct evidence that the fibrils can rotate freely in the opposite direction as the flagellar filaments with which they are in direct contact, we think this is the simplest interpretation to explain the superior function afforded by the complex architecture of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus.
Considering the very tight packing of the 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that are in direct physical contact within the sheath, there appears to be no other way for the flagella to rotate at high speed without the counter rotation of the intervening fibrils. Although the fibrils and the surrounding sheath are in direct contact, the friction between them would be small because of the stocking-like flexibility of the sheath. This design must be playing an essential role in the fast, smooth rotation of the flagellar apparatus that allows the rapid swimming of MO-1.
With powerful evidence of design like this, did the researchers become converts to intelligent design? We can’t know, but would PNAS have printed such a paper without an obligatory tribute to unguided materialistic evolution? Evolution is not mentioned until the last paragraph:
Taken together, these features of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus represent an advanced level of evolution of a motility apparatus. It is also intriguing that the same pattern of an intertwined hexagonal array in two evolutionary distant systems: the basal bodies of flagella and fibrils of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus, and the thick and thin filaments in vertebrate skeletal muscle. Similar architectures of filamentous structures presumably evolved independently in prokaryotes and eukaryotes to fulfill the requirements for two very distinct mechanisms to generate motion: counter rotation and axial sliding.
OK, so the Darwinists got their offering, but it leaves a bad aftertaste: now, they have to believe that advanced mechanisms for generating motion evolved not just once, but twice — completely independent of each other. Thanks a lot, guys. Wait till the intelligent-design movement hears about this.
Oops, too late.
(http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/souped-up_flage066921.html).
Going back to our previous subject, what if we just ignored the previously mentioned problems of forming the first cell, and assume that we’re starting the Darwinian process from the bacterial level and advancing to the human level? On page 153 of the book Who Was Adam?, Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross cite one of the world’s most prominent evolutionists, Dr. Francisco Ayala of UC Irvine, as calculating the minimal odds of human beings evolving from the bacterial level to be 1 in 10 to the 1 millionth power. Three physicists, John Barrow, Brandon Carter and Frank Tipler, did roughly the same calculation but included some important factors that Ayala overlooked, and came up with the number 1 in 10 to the 24 millionth power. Again, according to probability theorists, any event with lower odds than 1 in 10 to the 50th power is mathematically impossible. Therefore unguided Darwinian evolution is mathematically impossible!
Reduced to a propositional argument, it might go like this:
Biological “Hardware” (Complex Structure) Argument
- According to leading Darwinists, odds of humans evolving from a single-celled creature are 1 in 1024,000,000.
- According to probability theorists, anything with lower odds than 1 in 1050is mathematically impossible.
- Therefore, Darwinian evolution of human beings is mathematically impossible.
Now, these two sets of odds (totaling to 1 in 10100,024,000,000) seem overwhelming to say the least; why would scientists insist that creations like these could have come about by evolution? To re-iterate, it seems that biological science has become dominated by atheistic philosophers. Science is “a search for truth”, but the oligarchy in control in this day and age is trying to change that to “a search for truth by naturalistic (atheistic) means”. To them, the idea of God is unacceptable, so science cannot consider even the possibility that God created this universe and all that is in it.
Take a look at the following quote by prominent Darwinist Richard Lewontin, and consider whether his viewpoint is logically sound. Unfortunately, this quote seems to be representative of how many Darwinists think, and how they want everyone else to think:
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. (7)
One wonders why such a concerted effort is made to deny the metaphysical into the pool of live options. Perhaps the following quote by another prominent Darwinist named Aldous Huxley provides some insight:
I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption … For myself, as no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneous liberation from a certain political and economic system, and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. (8)
Now, just for fun, look at the following Bible passage, and think about how it relates to the quotes above:
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. –Romans 1:20-22.
Perhaps this is a good place to ponder a quote from Nobel-Prize winning organic chemist Christian de Duve:
If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one… Faced with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this success is actually written into the fabric of the universe. (9)
God has indeed left His signature in nature in its irreducible complexity and fine-tuning. Darwinism has failed repeatedly when tested as an explanation for the existence of life. Hundreds of scientists have recognized this and have signed a document called the “Dissent from Darwinism” (http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/) to express their disagreement with philosophical naturalism dominating science through Darwinism. We simply need to “have eyes to see, and ears to hear”, and stop listening to atheistic philosophers disguised as scientists, who try to insist that the supernatural or metaphysical is off-limits for science. “Reasonable faith” is going in the same direction to which the evidence is pointing. The teachings of the Bible, understood properly, merge perfectly with science.
This article is chapter 3 From What Your Atheist Professor Doesn’t know (But Should), by Steve Williams
Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Ch6MsY
Zombie Science with Dr. Jonathan Wells
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In 2000, biologist Jonathan Wells took the science world by storm with Icons of Evolution, a book showing how biology textbooks routinely promote Darwinism using bogus evidence— in Zombie Science, Wells asks a simple question: If the icons of evolution were just innocent textbook errors, why do so many of them still persist? Science has enriched our lives and led to countless discoveries. But now, Wells argues, it’s being corrupted. Empirical science is devolving into zombie science, shuffling along unfazed by opposing evidence. Don’t miss this fantastic interview with Dr. Wells about his new book, Zombie Science!
Zombie Science (Book) http://amzn.to/2DoHDy8
Why Can’t God Just Forgive Us?
Islam, Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Evan Minton
Some non-Christians, mainly Muslims, ask why Jesus had to die on the cross in order for us to be saved. “Why does God need a blood sacrifice?” They’ll ask, “Why can’t He simply just forgive us?”
This objection was recently posed to me in the comment section in another article in this sight. This fellow said “God is the one who set up this system of sacrificial atonement. This is where I began to have serious doubts about the authenticity of the Bible as the Word of God. I can see a primitive sect of people setting up a system this way since they were familiar with various tribes that thought sacrificing a baby or a virgin would appease the gods. But it is hard for me to accept that the real God of the universe who has all knowledge and power would ever resort to such a bloody, painful and grotesque practice. It makes no sense that he would require the death of someone to atone for the sins of the world. He could have set this system up anyway he wanted to. He could just forgive us like we forgive others. When someone wrongs me, I do not require a blood sacrifice. Generally a simple ‘I’m sorry, please forgive me’ will do. But that is not good enough for God. He requires death.”
How should we answer this?
I think this makes more sense if you think of God’s ridding our sins as a discharging of debt. Imagine you have violated the law and face a $50,000 fine. You tell the judge that you are truly sorry for your crime, but the judge responds “I certainly hope so. You’ve violated the law. Now, pay this fine.” You respond “No, I cannot. This debt is too much for me to bare. I promise I won’t do it again. Just please forgive me.” and the judge says “I can’t do that. The law requires that you pay this fine or face prison. I would be a corrupt judge if I just let you off Scott free. Someone has got to pay the penalty.” You begin to despair because you know the judge cannot just simply forgive you, but neither can you save yourself from this massive debt. Suddenly, something takes you by surprise. The judge steps down from his bench and walks over to you. Then he reaches into his pocket and takes out his wallet, handing you $50,000 in cash saying that he will pay the fine for you (should you accept his offer).
This is analogous to our sin situation. We have all strayed from God’s laws (Romans 3:23), and are therefore guilty before Him, deserving death (Romans 6:23a). God has to punish evil because He is just (Psalm 9:7-8, Psalm 9:16, Psalm 11:16). If He did not punish us, He wouldn’t be a just judge, just as the judge in the illustration above wouldn’t be just if he had let the fine go unpaid. So God must punish us. However, God is also loving (1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16) and therefore desires not to punish us for our crimes. Just like the judge in the above illustration, God stepped down from His throne, taking on human flesh (John 1:14, Philippians 2:5-8), and was punished in our place. He accrued the penalty to Himself by being crucified.
However, Jesus’ death is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition for salvation. Repentance is required for Christ’s death to be efficacious (Isaiah 55:7, Acts 3:19). If we reject Him, God’s wrath will remain on us (John 3:18, John 3:36). Just as if you were to reject the judge’s offer to pay your fine for you, if one rejects Christ, our sin-debt will remain unpaid.
Regarding animal sacrifices prior to Jesus’ death, I think these are analogous to credit cards. Credit cards don’t actually pay for anything, but they allow you to walk out of the store with your desired object until you have the money to pay for it. Likewise, animal sacrifices never discharged our sin-debt before God (Hebrews 10:4), but they were a sign to God that you were repentant and trusted in Him for salvation. God retroactively applied Jesus’ sacrifice to these Old Testament individuals.
Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2qKAzJk
Why Should Christians Care About Logic?
Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Andrew Cabrera
I was at a Christmas party a few years ago and someone walked up to me and began talking to me about my views on God. At one point in the conversation he asked the age-old question, “Can God make a rock so heavy that he himself can’t lift it?” Among other things, I mentioned that omnipotence does not mean that God can do what is logically impossible. Then the conversation abruptly ended as he said, “You can’t use logic to talk about God. God is not bound by the logic of Man!” Then he nodded his head and tipped his chicken wing at me as if to say “Gotcha!” and walked away triumphantly before I had a chance to say a word. Was he right? Is God bound by logic? Can God do the logically impossible?
What are the Laws of Logic?
The laws of logic are not invented; they are discovered truths about the nature of reality itself. It is commonly accepted that there are three fundamental laws of logic and that all other logical principles are derived from these three laws; these foundational laws are: the principle of identity, the law of the excluded middle, and the law of non-contradiction. Each of these is similar, but subtly distinct from the others. The principle of identity can be symbolized as ∀(p): (p=p), which is a fancy way of saying that “p” is what it is. The law of the excluded middle can be symbolized as (p v ~p), and means that it will always be the case that either “p” or “not p” is true (there is no third option). And finally, the law of non-contradiction can be symbolized as ~(p * ~p), and means that both “p” and “not p” cannot be true in the same way at the same time. This may seem a bit abstract, but I just wanted to make sure we began on equal footing about what the laws of logic were before trying to apply them.
Is God bound by logic?
There first needs to be a distinction made between what IS logically coherent, and what SEEMS logically coherent. Our rational intuition can fail us at times. We can think of our rational intuition as failing in terms of what statisticians call Type I errors and Type II errors. A Type I error is also known as a “false positive,” this occurs when your rational intuition says that something is logical when it is really not. Conversely when your rational intuition says that something is illogical when it is actually logically coherent, this is a Type II error or a “false negative.” God is inherently rational and cannot be in opposition to his nature, but he is not limited to our “logic” when we make such errors. What SEEMS logical to us at the moment, may not always BE logical upon further inspection. God is not subject to the laws of logic, as if they are exterior forces acting upon him; but in the same way that Christians see goodness itself as being metaphysically tied to the benevolence of God, we can also see rationality and logic as ontologically anchored in the nature of God himself. God doesn’t submit to external logic, nor does he arbitrarily dictate logic, but he is rational by virtue of his essential nature.
Why should I care about logic as a Christian?
We are made in the image of God as both moral and rational beings. In the same way that we should strive to emulate God’s goodness, we should also strive to emulate his rationality. Logic not only helps us to attain a more robust understanding of the nature of God, but it is essential for fulfilling our commands to share the gospel and have a ready defense of the hope within us. Far from being an opposing force, logic is at the core of the Christian faith. Throughout the Old and New Testament, the authors (and even Jesus himself) make claims of exclusivity, identity and ontological reality; all of which are meaningless without first granting the fundamental laws of logic. Proper exegesis, historical data, every classical argument for the existence of God, every theological position you take, and even the Gospel message itself are all -in one way or another- dependent on these fundamental laws being true. Even the very nature and existence of God must be described in terms of these fundamental laws. If you take away the principle of identity, the identity and deity of Christ follows suit. If the law of non-contradiction is lost, so is the exclusivity of truth itself, and any meaningful notions of the existence of God go with it.
Andrew Cabrera is an undergraduate student currently working towards his B.A. in Philosophy (with plans of pursuing graduate work in philosophy thereafter). He was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and still lives there with his wife and son. His academic interests include: Metaphysics, Formal Logic, Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion.
Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2AIqHzv
Why Evil Disproves Atheism
Atheism, Theology and Christian ApologeticsHow can a good God exist when there is so much evil in the world?
Many people doubt the existence of God because of the existence of evil. But evil doesn’t disprove God—evil disproves atheism!
How so?
Evil can’t exist on its own, it only exists as a parasite in good. Evil is like rust in a car; if you take all the rust out of a car you have a better car; if you take all of the car out of the rust you have nothing. Evil is like cancer—it can’t exist alone, only in a good body. Therefore, there can be no objective evil unless there is objective good, and there can be no objective good unless God’s objectively Good nature exists. If evil is real—and we all know it is—then God exists.
We could put it this way: The shadows prove the sunshine. There can be sunshine without shadows, but there can’t be shadows without sunshine. In other words, there can be good without evil, but there can’t be evil without good; and there can’t be objective good without God. So evil may show there’s a devil out there, but it can’t disprove God. Evil actually boomerangs back to show that God exists.
While evil can’t disprove God, one can legitimately ask the question why does God allow evil to continue? That’s one of the topics I cover in the book, and the new Stealing From God online course I’m hosting that beings January 15 (you can start the self-paced version any time after that too). The course includes ten hours of video, and several live video conferences where I’ll be answering questions. Since we limit the size of the live classes to ensure every student has an opportunity to ask questions, you’ll want to sign up soon if you want to be a part of this.
In addition to the details on that link, I’ll be discussing some of the course content right here on this page in the few weeks leading up to the course. So keep checking back here for more.
What Happens to Our Souls When We Die?
CrossExamined, Theology and Christian ApologeticsThere are many good reasons to believe we, as humans, are more than simply physical bodies. Humans are “soulish” creatures; we are living souls united to physical bodies. Even without the guidance of Scripture, there are good reasons to believe our lives will not end at the point of our physical death. The existence of an afterlife is reasonable, particularly given our dual nature as immaterial souls possessing physical bodies. But what precisely happens to each of us, as living souls, when our physical bodies cease to exist? What will we experience the moment we close our eyes for the last time in this temporal life? The Christian worldview offers an answer to this question, and it can be found by surveying the teaching of the New Testament:
Those Who Accept God’s Offer of Salvation Will Be United with Him Immediately
There is good reason to believe our afterlife experience begins the minute we close our eyes for the last time here on earth. For those of us who are believers, the instant our earthly bodies die our souls will be united with Jesus in the afterlife:
2 Corinthians 5:6-8
Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
Luke 23:39-43
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Those who have accepted God’s offer of Salvation will be with Jesus in what we commonly refer to as “Heaven”. But our experience in Heaven prior to the earthly return of Jesus (and the resurrection of our bodies), while much better than our life here on earth, will not be complete. It will only be part of the experience we will one day have when Jesus returns to earth and resurrects the bodies of those who are already with Him in spirit. While He’s at it, He’ll bring those of us who are still alive home as well:
1 Thessalonians 4:15-18
According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
Only then, after the resurrection, will our joy and satisfaction be made complete; only then will we be able to experience the full physical, the spiritual and emotional joy we were originally designed for.
Those Who Reject God’s Offer of Salvation Will Be Separated from Him
Unfortunately, our experience of the afterlife is instantaneous upon death even for those of us who have rejected God. While believers will be united with God, unbelievers will not. The New Testament describes two different places where the unrighteous go after death. One such place is called “Hades”. This is described as the place where the unrighteous go immediately upon death to await their final destination. Take a look at this story Jesus told in the Gospel of Luke:
Luke 16:19-24
“Now there was a certain rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, gaily living in splendor every day. And a certain poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now it came about that the poor man died and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom.”
While Lazarus, a God fearing and righteous man died and immediately went to be with God, the unbelieving and unrighteous rich man went immediately to Hades. But the Bible also mentions another place for those who have rejected God; it is called “Gehenna”. This was actually a real location (just south of Jerusalem) where, at one low point in the history of the Jews, disobedient Israelites offered their children as human sacrifices to the pagan God, Molech. Later, this infamous valley became a place where waste from the city was dumped and burned in fires stoked day and night. Jesus chose this place as a metaphor to describe another real place, the eternal resting place of those in Hades who finally receive their resurrection bodies and are judged forever. While believers receive their resurrection bodies and stay in heaven with God, unbelievers receive their resurrection bodies and are moved from Hades to Gehenna.
Matthew 5:29
“And if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish than for your whole body to be thrown into hell (the word used for ‘hell’ here is ‘Gehenna’).”
Gehenna is the final resting place of all those who have rejected God in this life and in their unrighteousness have been judged at the return of Jesus.
I’ve written a lot about the reality of Hell and the nature of Heaven here at ColdCaseChristianity.com, and while that’s not the purpose of this particular post, this is a good pace to trace the path each of us will take after we die:
At the Point of Death
Each of us will leave our earthly bodies in the grave and our disembodied souls will go immediately into the presence of God or into Hades. Our destination is determined purely by our acceptance or rejection of God through our faith in Jesus Christ.
Prior to Jesus’ Return, the Resurrection and the Judgment
We will remain in Heaven or Hades until Jesus returns to earth and gives us all our resurrection Bodies. While our experience after death will be tangible, it will not be complete. A complete afterlife can only be experienced with both our body and our soul.
After Jesus’ Return, the Resurrection and the Judgment
If we are saved believers, we will experience the fullness of the afterlife in our resurrected bodies. If we have rejected Jesus, we will move from Hades to Gehenna and experience the fullness of judgment.
The afterlife is the focus of much popular media. Books and movies describing Heaven or Hell are plentiful, but few of them are consistent with the teaching of the Bible. As Christians, it’s important for us to understand and defend the nature of the afterlife so people will understand the importance of the Gospel message. If we can articulate the existence and character of the afterlife accurately, God’s offer of Salvation will be all the more relevant and meaningful.
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J. Warner Wallace is a Cold-Case Detective, Christian Case Maker, Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and the author of Cold-Case Christianity, Cold-Case Christianity for Kids, God’s Crime Scene, God’s Crime Scene for Kids, and Forensic Faith.
Yes, Women Need Apologetics, But More Importantly, Apologetics Needs Women
Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Hillary Morgan Ferrer
1 Peter 3:15 says that we are to give a ready defense for anyone who asks for the hope that is within. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says that we are to “demolish arguments that set themselves up against the knowledge of God.” Now with words like “defense” and “demolish,” it is not surprising that the field of apologetics has been dominated by men in recent years.
Apologetics is important for all Christians, including women, but that’s actually not what we’re here to talk about today. Whenever you hear people talk about “women in apologetics,” they are usually focusing on why we need to reach women with apologetics. And it’s true, we do! The mandate to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, MINDS and strengths is a universal command. So yes, I get it. Apologetics for women is vital. However, there is a lesser talked about issue, and that is the one we will discuss today: why apologetics needs women!
For the record, whenever we include gender in a conversation, there are people who are ready to stand up and declare their non-conformity to gender norms. When I talk about the different qualities between men and women, I am of course speaking in generalities. I acknowledge that there are men and women who defy their gender stereotype. I’m actually one of those women. Let’s all embark on this conversation acknowledging that generalities are not absolutes. We are looking at trends, and every trend has an outlier. That’s my official disclaimer before we dive into why apologetics needs women.
It has long been recognized that women have a… shall we say, civilizing influence on men. Jokes are made at bachelor parties about the “end of wild times,” and the bachelor-pad transforms from a purely functional assortment of free and hand-me-down furniture to a home, full of lovely smells, pictures on the wall, and too many pillows for a man to understand.
Men have traditionally been the trail-blazers. They are the pioneers, and the ones who take pleasure in conquering uncharted territory. Apologetics is no exception. But what happens when a field remains predominantly male for too long? You get something that looks similar to the Wild West. . . or Lord of the Flies. Take your pick.
I have noticed many online conversations between skeptic and believer that have been less than civil. While truth itself must be fortified without compromise, the manner in which we express these truths requires sensitivity to the individual with whom we are speaking. For some of our amazing, warrior, pioneering men, this quickly becomes a bull in a china shop scenario. Difficult truths must be applied gently, with compassion, and with mercy—all qualities for which women are better known.
Speaking of gentleness and compassion. . . There is a reason why females dominate the caretaking industry. Our ability to recognize facial expressions and social cues is much higher than men’s.[1],[2] A phenomena that I have seen emerge within the last 10 years (and especially the last 5 years) is the number of people who are in a perpetual state of fight-or-flight. We may balk at the idea of “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces,” but put the pieces together friends. There has been a fundamental change in our society’s ability to handle conflict and we can’t ignore it or wish it away. We are not out to win arguments; we are out to win people. When a person enters fight-or-flight, you have already lost ground.
You cannot reason with a person in fight-or-flight. This physiological response is accompanied by an activation of the amygdala (the emotional center) and literally competes (and often turns off) the pre-frontal cortex, the part of our brain that thinks logically.[3] A woman’s ability to sense distress and diffuse it during an apologetics conversation is a powerful weapon in a world going mad. Do not underestimate it.
A common complaint I’ve heard from churches is that apologetics isn’t practical. When they say “practical,” what they usually mean is “I don’t see how this will promote new converts to Christianity or put more people in the pews.” Personally, I think the practicality issue could be addressed by adding more female voices to the mix. Women may not necessarily have something new or different to say about apologetics. However, they often approach it differently.
There is truth in the phrase “Men are waffles, women are spaghetti.” Waffles are made of a bunch of little compartments that don’t touch. With spaghetti, you cannot pull one noodle, without affecting allllllll the other noodles around it. Men have an amazing ability to compartmentalize, which is helpful in many ways. However, when it comes to presenting apologetics in a practical manner and showing how it affects everyday life, I think that women’s inability to compartmentalize actually becomes their strength.
I have rarely heard a woman speak on apologetics topics without including how the topic has affected her personal relationship with God, or how she uses it to relate to others around her. Most people don’t instinctively know how to incorporate apologetics into their everyday lives. They go to conferences, and are filled with knowledge, and go home and have no idea how to implement what they have learned. I’m not saying that women alone hold the key to application. However, I will make the case that it often comes more naturally for us. Thus, we could play a vital role in making apologetics more accessible to the common lay-person, and more attractive to the average pastor.
I cannot count the number of times my husband and I have told someone that we did apologetics, and the person reacted with warnings of, “You can’t argue people into the kingdom of heaven!” Friends, if I could reach out through your screen and shake you right now, I would. Listen up. This is important. If this many people think that apologetics is only about arguing, then we have not been doing it correctly.
I understand why men have retreated to apologetics. In many ways, the church has become very feminine, forcing men to hold hands and sing under candlelight.[4] I can fully understand why they would be drawn to apologetics. Rebekah and I joke about how some guys see it as a Christian Fight Club of sorts. #KiddingNotKidding
I get it. Men need a place in the church where they can be men. And contrary to what some guys might think, my push for women in apologetics is not about finding the last bastion of men, and invading it, too. However, we cannot ignore the missing gender dynamic that is at play. There is another phenomenon that I have observed, both in the workplace, and as a teacher. When it comes to leadership, men and women can do and say the exact same thing; the man will be seen as a strong leader, and the woman will be viewed as a [word I don’t say in polite company.] However, this exact same phenomenon is true on the flip side; there are a lot of harsh truths that people will more readily hear from a woman than they will a man. Why is that? Is it because we are less intimidating? Is it because we intuitively know how to soften the blow? Is it because I’m 5’2” and it’s hard for someone to really take me seriously? Who knows. All I know is that if a man and a woman both say something harsh with love, the love is often more readily perceived coming from a woman than it is from a man.
Our society is a mess right now and there are a lot of harsh truths that need to be said. A feminine spin on a harsh truth can sometimes break down walls that might otherwise have been impenetrable if approached in a masculine manner.
Apologist MaryJo Sharp has pointed out an interesting observation from talking with people at apologetics conferences. Men and women often have different reasons for getting into apologetics. While men are usually trying to answer their own questions, women are often trying to answer the questions of someone they love – a child, spouse, or friend. When it comes to the ministry aspect of apologetics, women seem to be more missional, but they do it in a relational way.
Calling our society “gender confused” right now is a massive understatement. Men don’t know how to be men, and thus women don’t know how to be women. It has a cyclical effect. Some women read the verse about having a “gentle, quiet spirit” and think that it means that they have to be a doormat, never speaking up, or never voicing their disagreements. If that’s how God viewed authority, then He would not want our prayers. He would tell us to just shut up and do what we’re told. But that is not how Scripture portrays God. Yes, we submit to His will, but we don’t remove ourselves from the conversation.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the proponents of modern feminism who think that they can elevate the status of women by attacking the value of men. (Like a fish needs a bicycle, right? Ugh.) They react against the doormat stereotype of women, and fight back by emasculating every man in their lives in the name of gender equality. To use the cruder slang, we’ve got the ball-buster women. Let me be clear: “strength” gained by tearing someone else down is not strength. True femininity is neither extreme; it is a fierce strength wrapped in gentleness. As I mentioned in my blog on Wonder Woman, I believe that when women know how to be women, the men become better versions of men. Everybody wins. It is not a zero-sum game. As we women step into apologetics, we have the opportunity to model what truth wrapped in love looks like to a world that has forgotten what Biblical femininity should look like.
In conclusion, yes women need apologetics. Moms, studies show that you get more questions every day than doctors, nurses, or the British Prime Minister during an interview![5] So who do you think is getting the spiritual questions? You are! Apologetics is not a hobby; it is a need. However, this need is not a one-way street. Apologetics needs women just as badly!
My husband likes to talk about an episode of the 90’s TV show about Guiness Book World Records. In this particular episode, they highlighted the strongest teacup ever designed. This teacup was not just strong; it was ornate, beautiful, and extremely delicate. The host showed how with a flick of his finger, the tea-cup would chip. It was that delicate. However, to demonstrate the cup’s strength, they placed four of the teacups on the floor, put a wood palette on top, and then lowered a dump trunk onto it. The teacups remained intact. Ladies, our delicacy does not negate our strength. Our delicacy brings a beauty to our strength that brute masculinity will never have. Embrace who the Lord has created you to be. He did it on purpose. It is in the combination of our beauty and strength of spirit, that we can take the truth of Christ, and the aroma of his love, to transform a dying and decaying culture.
Notes
[1] Babchuk, W. A., Hames, R. B., & Thompson, R. A. (1985). Sex differences in the recognition of infant facial expressions of emotion: The primary caretaker hypothesis. Ethology and Sociobiology, 6, 89–101.
[2] Hampson, E., van Anders, S. M., & Mullin, L. I. (2006). A female advantage in the recognition of emotional facial expressions: Test of an evolutionary hypothesis. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 401-416.
[3] Hamilton, Diane Musho. “Calming Your Brain During Conflict.” Harvard Business Review. February 16, 2016. Accessed January 01, 2018. https://hbr.org/2015/12/calming-your-brain-during-conflict.
[4] Read the book Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow. It is a real eye-opener, and he has nailed his assessment (in my opinion.)
[5] Agencies, Telegraph Staff and. “Mothers asked nearly 300 questions a day, study finds.” The Telegraph. March 28, 2013. Accessed January 01, 2018. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9959026/Mothers-asked-nearly-300-questions-a-day-study-finds.html.
2018 Women in Apologetics Conference:
Hillary Morgan Ferrer is the founder of Mama Bear Apologetics, and Vice-President of Women in Apologetics. Mama Bear Apologetics is a ministry aimed at providing busy moms with easy to access blogs and podcasts to help them raise children who understand why they believe in Christianity. Want to know how to get more involved in Apologetics? Mama Bear Apologetics is partnering with Women in Apologetics at their inaugural conference on January 19-20, 2018 at Biola University. To learn more about the conference, check out the video below, and visit the conference page at WomenInApologetics.com for more details!
The Historical Reliability of the Gospels with Dr. Craig Blomberg
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The reliability of the Gospels is under attack. Skeptics seek to undermine the story of Jesus Christ by saying we cannot really trust the Gospel. “They were not written by eye-witnesses,” “They contradict each other,” “They have historical errors.” Those who have not studied this subject may be caught off-guard and begin to lose the footing of their faith. Frank interviews one of the leading scholars in the subject the Distinguished Professor of New Testament from Denver Seminary, Dr. Craig Blomberg! He shares some great insights on the topic during this podcast and tells us how to learn more about it directly from him on his new Online Course.
Learn more about his online course here.
Christianity Is Based in Truth, Not Superstition
Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Al Serrato
My last post dealt with the belief, common among skeptics, that Christianity is simply a form of superstition. Modern “science-minded” people reject superstitions, and so religious belief holds no interest for them. Historic Christian doctrine is in fact much different, however; while some who claim to be Christian may indeed be superstitious, the faith itself is built not upon fanciful thinking but upon a bedrock of truth.
This distinction, and the importance of pursuing truth can be seen in the following analogy: imagine a person who is suffering from a medical disorder. One day he is fine and the next the disease begins the process of eventually killing him. Initially, he does not know he is afflicted.He “feels” fine. He continues to go about his business, concerned with the problems of everyday life and not suspecting that anything may be different, let alone dreadfully wrong. Eventually, symptoms begin to appear, but they are not particularly troubling to him. After friends insist that he have them checked out, he agrees to see a doctor.This is a big step for him, for he does not “believe” in doctors.He thinks that doctors are often wrong and that they rely too much on pills and not enough on just “living right.” He knows that others really believe in doctors, but he is “sincere” in his belief that doctors do more harm than good, especially when one doesn’t “feel” that anything is wrong. After running a battery of tests, however, the doctor identifies the illness and tells the patient what is wrong.
In addition to understanding the affliction, the doctor also has the means to provide the solution. The patient resists, however, insisting that he feels fine and that he doesn’t need any help. He views the surgery and medicines the doctor offers as “butchery” and “potions.” He sincerely believes that the doctor is practicing voodoo.Ultimately, the patient dies, blissfully unaware of his true condition, content in his belief that he was fine and proud of his refusal to resort to talismanic remedies to fix something he did not believe was wrong.
As this analogy demonstrates, how the patient feels about his situation is not particularly relevant. Nor is the sincerity of his belief. He may feel fine, physically and emotionally, but the issue would be his actual condition, i.e. the truth about his disease. Christianity needs to be assessed on these terms. Either the Biblical claims are true – we are in a world of trouble and only Jesus can save us – or they’re not. If they are true, how we feel about them is of little consequence. And ignoring and rejecting them will, in the end, not succeed.
Now some may object that doctors practice science, and so the analogy is misplaced. The patient was wrong not to rely on science. But science is simply one way of testing and developing knowledge.It is not the only way. Science cannot tell us whether we possess souls and whether these souls are in need of salvation.And science cannot tell us whether improbable past events actually occurred.The only way we can make that assessment is by considering the evidence upon which Christianity is based and becoming familiar with the philosophy that supports its claims.
But we must do so with an open and inquiring mind… for the consequences of ignoring our spiritual illness can be as devastating as the disease was for the unsuspecting patient.
Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2A72p1U
The “Hardware” of Life Argument
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By Steve Williams
“I can see the fingerprints of God when I look at you I can see the fingerprints of God and I know its true you’re a masterpiece that all creation quietly applauds and you’re covered with the fingerprints of God”
~from Fingerprints of God, by Stephen Curtis Chapman
The common scientific view of the “hardware of life” (that is, the physical components of living systems) is, as Biologist Richard Dawkins puts it, “the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986).
Unfortunately, Dawkins (like many others in his field) has succumbed to a logically fallacious assumption that a supernatural explanation is not within the “pool of live options” to explain this appearance of design. Why not? Well, to summarize the common opinions of materialists like Dawkins, it’s “not science”. But what is “Science”?
Louis Pasteur once said “Religions, philosophies, atheism, materialism, or its opposite–none of these is relevant to the matter…I might even add that, scientifically speaking, I am indifferent to them all. The question is purely one of fact”. In other words, science should be “the un-biased search for truth” without philosophical preconceptions. That definition was always the ancient understanding of the term.
Since the so-called “Enlightenment” that swept through Europe in the 1700’s, and especially since the proposal of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in 1859, however, intellectual activists have been trying to add the qualifying concept of “within naturalistic explanations” to the definition. What that means, in effect, is the addition of a bias to the search for truth.
This bias first “got its legs” from the writings of an apparently bitter atheistic Scottish philosopher named David Hume in the 1700’s. Hume proposed a set of reasons why the supernatural should be ruled be ruled out of consideration as an explanatory mechanism. Not long afterwards, these reasons were shown to be fallacious (we’ll examine this in a later chapter), but at the time, it was as if Europe was eager to unfetter itself from religion, and atheism blossomed somewhat throughout the continent.
Most modern philosophers (even agnostic ones) find Hume’s arguments to be almost laughably illogical, but many atheists unknowingly cite him today as if he was “the Christ” of their belief system. For a full-length treatment of this subject, see John Earman’s book Hume’s Abject Failure, but suffice it to say for the moment that modern humankind has nowhere near a broad enough scope of reality to eliminate the possibility of the supernatural. To the contrary, there are many things in our experience that defy naturalistic explanations.
The philosophical name of the most common scientific form of atheism is “Materialism”, and it claims that not only is there no God, but that there is nothing even like God in the universe. Although it has taken root within the Biological sciences, it has done so to a much lesser extent within Astronomy, Philosophy, and Physics. Many Americans would probably be surprised to know that polls show that the percentage of PhD’ed scientists overall who identify themselves as Christians and who go to church is roughly the same as the percentage in the population at large. Unfortunately, the small minority who identify themselves as atheists is much louder and more aggressive though, so they exert a disproportionate influence on the media, academic standards committees and the like.
Luckily for all who respect unbiased inquiry, many Philosophers who are experts in logic by definition (logic being a subset of Philosophy), have objected vociferously, especially in the past 40 years, to this effort, and have recognized that the scientific method is at stake. As I wrote before, it seems that the key element that catalyzed this mindset since the late 1800’s is Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Biologists became so enamored with it over the years that they invested heavily in deepening and entrenching their paradigms based on that assumption, and are not willing to consider that major problems have developed within it. Pride in Biology, and a reluctance to admit being wrong might be a factor. One has to wonder if there are spiritual and carnal reasons that admitting the mere possibility of the existence of the metaphysical is so daunting to some. Since Darwinian Evolution seems to be the lynchpin of this type of thinking, let’s take a hard look at it.
The concept of life arising from non-life by random chance is called “abiogenesis”. This concept is the “creation story” of Darwinian Evolution. But what are the odds of the building blocks of life coming together by random chance in a way to provide even the possibility of life? Harold Morowitz, an agnostic Yale University physicist, created mathematical models by imagining broths of living bacteria that were superheated until all the complex chemicals were broken down into basic building blocks. After cooling the mixtures, Morowitz used physics calculations to conclude that the odds of a single bacterium reassembling by chance is one in 10100,000,000,000. (1) Wow! How can we grasp such a large statistic? Well, it’s more likely that one would win the state lottery every week for a million years by purchasing just one ticket each week!
In response to the probabilities calculated by Morowitz, Robert Shapiro, author of Origins – A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, wrote:
The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle. (2)
Sir Frederick Hoyle compared the probability of life arising by chance to lining up 1050 (ten with fifty zeros after it) blind people, giving each one a scrambled Rubik’s Cube, and finding that they all solve the cube at the same moment!
Biological “Hardware” (Complex Structure) Argument
Regarding the origin of life, Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in biology for his work with the DNA molecule, stated in 1982:
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. (3)
Crick’s assessment of the hopelessness of the spontaneous generation of life on earth led him to subsequently postulate a theory called “Directed Panspermia”, which held that space aliens “seeded” life on earth. As Philip Johnson observed, “When a scientist of Crick’s caliber feels he has to invoke undetectable spaceman, it is time to consider whether the field of prebiological evolution has come to a dead end.” (4)
Ever since the discovery of DNA in 1953, the Darwinian Theory of Evolution has faced increasing challenges yearly as more and more evidence for the complexity of the cell has been discovered. In 1996, Dr. Michael Behe (professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University) released a book entitled “Darwins’ Black Box”, which detailed an argument against Darwinian Evolution known as the “irreducible complexity” of biological structures and systems. In the 11 years since the publication of the book, it has been attacked from every angle by atheistic scientists, yet its central thesis has only gained strength, as the debate has exposed the weakness of Darwinian counter-arguments, and the naturalistic (atheistic) philosophical biases that lurk behind them.
Have you ever wondered if Charles Darwin himself would still believe in Darwinian Evolution (or macro-evolution) if he knew all of the evidence that has accumulated for and against it up to this time? Well, there is an interesting quote in which Darwin stated his own minimum standard for assessing whether or not his theory would withstand the tests of time:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. (5)
In Darwin’s day, it was assumed that cells were very simple. In the last half of the 20th century, however, it has come to light that inside each living cell are vastly complex molecular machines made up of various protein parts. Organs, which are made up of these complex cells, have also been shown to be much more complex than previously believed.
The blueprints for assembling the protein parts for cells and organs in correct timing and order are encoded into our DNA, which is similar to binary computer code, although it is quaternary (having 4 letters instead of 2). The density of the information encoded into DNA staggers the imagination; there is enough information-storing space in a half-teaspoon of DNA to store all of the assembly instructions for every creature ever made, and room left over to include every book ever written!
In addition to the incredible information-storing capacity in DNA, there are machines and systems in biology which vastly exceed mankind’s creative capacity in terms of their complexity. For example, the blood-clotting mechanism requires a sequence of 20 different proteins (each of which has an average chance of 1 in 8.03 x 10 to the 59th power of forming by random chance!) triggering one another like dominoes falling in order, until a fibrin mesh scaffolding is formed for the clot itself.
If you subtract any one single protein (regardless of where in the sequence of 20), this scaffolding fails to form, and no blood clot is possible. Without clotting, any creature with a circulatory system would bleed to death from a tiny wound, similarly to what happens to hemophiliacs.
Now think about how this compares to Darwin’s criterion for his own theory. Macro-evolution requires a mutation for every step, each of which needs to confer an advantage in surviving or creating offspring to be retained by natural selection. Even if we grant the creation of proteins by random chance (which is extremely unlikely), at steps 1, 2 ,3, 4, etc. on up to and through step 19, there is no advantage conferred toward the production of a blood clot until step 20 is completed! If you reduce the complexity by any single component (regardless of where in the sequence the single component is), the system doesn’t work, and has no reason to be retained by natural selection. This is Irreducible Complexity.
Let’s look at another example. The Bacterial Flagellum is a tail-like protein propeller attached to one end of a bacterium that propels the organism through its environment via rapid rotations (like a miniature outboard motor driving a whip in circular motion). It has components that are remarkably similar to a man-made outboard motor, such as a rotor, a U-joint, a stator, a driveshaft, a propeller, bushings, and O-rings.
There are at least 40 different protein parts required for the assembly of a flagellum. Many of the flagellar proteins control the construction process, switching the building phases on and off with chemical triggers at just the right times, and setting up construction in the proper sequence. It is an engineering marvel. If you deduct 1% of the parts, you don’t have a 99% functional bacterial flagellum; it becomes completely dysfunctional, and you have nothing but a hindrance (probably fatal) to any organism attached to it. The following picture hints at its complexity…
Consider the fact that it is conservatively calculated that the odds of this incredible structure forming by random chance is 1 in 10 to the 1170th power. (6) According to probability theorists, anything with a chance lower than 1 in 10 to the 50th power is mathematically impossible, so it doesn’t matter how much time you give it—it simply won’t occur by chance alone.
Just recently, a vastly more complex gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle was discovered. Here is an piece on it from www.evolutionnews.org:
Souped-Up Hyperdrive Flagellum Discovered
Evolution News & Views December 3, 2012 5:05 AM
Get a load of this — a bacterium that packs a gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle that gets 0 to 300 micrometers in one second, ten times faster than E. coli.
If you thought the standard bacterial flagellum made the case for intelligent design, wait till you hear the specs on MO-1, a marine bacterium described by Japanese researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Edited by Howard Berg, Harvard’s mastermind of flagellum reverse engineering, this paper describes the Ferrari of flagella.
Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath…. the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle.
To feel the Wow! factor, jump ahead to Figure 6 in the paper. It shows seven engines in one, arranged in a hexagonal array, stylized by the authors in a cross-sectional model that shows them all as gears interacting with 24 smaller gears between them. The flagella rotate one way, and the smaller gears rotate the opposite way to maximize torque while minimizing friction. Download the movie from the Supplemental Information page to see the gears in action.
Electron micrographs included in the paper show that the model is not unrealistic. These flagella really are tightly packed in a sheath, suggesting that the bundle acts like a gear-driven hyperdrive.
Here we have used electron cryotomography to visualize the 3D architecture of the sheathed flagella. The seven filaments are enveloped with 24 fibrils in the sheath, and their basal bodies are arranged in an intertwined hexagonal array similar to the thick and thin filaments of vertebrate skeletal muscles. This complex and exquisite architecture strongly suggests that the fibrils counter-rotate between flagella in direct contact to minimize the friction of high-speed rotation of individual flagella in the tight bundle within the sheath to enable MO-1 cells to swim at about 300 µm/s. (Emphasis added.)
At microbial level, that’s more than 10 body lengths per second. The authors were clearly excited by this engine, sounding like young men checking out high-performance cars, talking thrust, gear ratios and torque.
MO-1 is a magnetotactic bacterium capable of orienting its cell body along the geomagnetic field lines by using magnetosomes. The MO-1 cell has a flagellar apparatus with two lophotrichous [containing numerous flagella in] bundles. In contrast to peritrichously [flagella all over the cell] flagellated bacteria, MO-1 cells swim constantly in a helical trajectory toward magnetic north, and the trajectory changes from right-handed to left-handed without changes in velocity or direction. The cells are able to swim as fast as 300 μm/s, which is nearly 10-fold faster than E. coli and Salmonella. Although the flagella of the other types of bacteria usually work individually or by forming a loose bundle to produce thrust, the flagellar apparatus of MO-1 is a tight bundle of seven flagella enveloped in a sheath made of glycoproteins. This unique architecture appears to be essential for the smooth and high-speed swimming of MO-1.
They can’t see actual gears, of course, but physics demands that the mechanism of rotation must have something like it:
We hypothesize that, whereas each of the seven flagella has its torque-generating motor, the 24 fibrils counter rotate between the flagellar filaments to minimize the friction that would be generated if the flagella were directly packed together in a tight bundle. A schematic diagram representing our hypothesis is presented in Fig. 6. The flagella are represented as large brown gears and the fibrils are represented as small blue-green gears. The flagella and fibrils rotate counterclockwise and clockwise, respectively, as indicated by the arrows, to minimize friction (Movie S1). Although there is no direct evidence that the fibrils can rotate freely in the opposite direction as the flagellar filaments with which they are in direct contact, we think this is the simplest interpretation to explain the superior function afforded by the complex architecture of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus.
Considering the very tight packing of the 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that are in direct physical contact within the sheath, there appears to be no other way for the flagella to rotate at high speed without the counter rotation of the intervening fibrils. Although the fibrils and the surrounding sheath are in direct contact, the friction between them would be small because of the stocking-like flexibility of the sheath. This design must be playing an essential role in the fast, smooth rotation of the flagellar apparatus that allows the rapid swimming of MO-1.
With powerful evidence of design like this, did the researchers become converts to intelligent design? We can’t know, but would PNAS have printed such a paper without an obligatory tribute to unguided materialistic evolution? Evolution is not mentioned until the last paragraph:
Taken together, these features of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus represent an advanced level of evolution of a motility apparatus. It is also intriguing that the same pattern of an intertwined hexagonal array in two evolutionary distant systems: the basal bodies of flagella and fibrils of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus, and the thick and thin filaments in vertebrate skeletal muscle. Similar architectures of filamentous structures presumably evolved independently in prokaryotes and eukaryotes to fulfill the requirements for two very distinct mechanisms to generate motion: counter rotation and axial sliding.
OK, so the Darwinists got their offering, but it leaves a bad aftertaste: now, they have to believe that advanced mechanisms for generating motion evolved not just once, but twice — completely independent of each other. Thanks a lot, guys. Wait till the intelligent-design movement hears about this.
Oops, too late.
(http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/souped-up_flage066921.html).
Going back to our previous subject, what if we just ignored the previously mentioned problems of forming the first cell, and assume that we’re starting the Darwinian process from the bacterial level and advancing to the human level? On page 153 of the book Who Was Adam?, Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross cite one of the world’s most prominent evolutionists, Dr. Francisco Ayala of UC Irvine, as calculating the minimal odds of human beings evolving from the bacterial level to be 1 in 10 to the 1 millionth power. Three physicists, John Barrow, Brandon Carter and Frank Tipler, did roughly the same calculation but included some important factors that Ayala overlooked, and came up with the number 1 in 10 to the 24 millionth power. Again, according to probability theorists, any event with lower odds than 1 in 10 to the 50th power is mathematically impossible. Therefore unguided Darwinian evolution is mathematically impossible!
Reduced to a propositional argument, it might go like this:
Biological “Hardware” (Complex Structure) Argument
Now, these two sets of odds (totaling to 1 in 10100,024,000,000) seem overwhelming to say the least; why would scientists insist that creations like these could have come about by evolution? To re-iterate, it seems that biological science has become dominated by atheistic philosophers. Science is “a search for truth”, but the oligarchy in control in this day and age is trying to change that to “a search for truth by naturalistic (atheistic) means”. To them, the idea of God is unacceptable, so science cannot consider even the possibility that God created this universe and all that is in it.
Take a look at the following quote by prominent Darwinist Richard Lewontin, and consider whether his viewpoint is logically sound. Unfortunately, this quote seems to be representative of how many Darwinists think, and how they want everyone else to think:
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. (7)
One wonders why such a concerted effort is made to deny the metaphysical into the pool of live options. Perhaps the following quote by another prominent Darwinist named Aldous Huxley provides some insight:
I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption … For myself, as no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneous liberation from a certain political and economic system, and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. (8)
Now, just for fun, look at the following Bible passage, and think about how it relates to the quotes above:
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. –Romans 1:20-22.
Perhaps this is a good place to ponder a quote from Nobel-Prize winning organic chemist Christian de Duve:
If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one… Faced with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this success is actually written into the fabric of the universe. (9)
God has indeed left His signature in nature in its irreducible complexity and fine-tuning. Darwinism has failed repeatedly when tested as an explanation for the existence of life. Hundreds of scientists have recognized this and have signed a document called the “Dissent from Darwinism” (http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/) to express their disagreement with philosophical naturalism dominating science through Darwinism. We simply need to “have eyes to see, and ears to hear”, and stop listening to atheistic philosophers disguised as scientists, who try to insist that the supernatural or metaphysical is off-limits for science. “Reasonable faith” is going in the same direction to which the evidence is pointing. The teachings of the Bible, understood properly, merge perfectly with science.
This article is chapter 3 From What Your Atheist Professor Doesn’t know (But Should), by Steve Williams
Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Ch6MsY
Why Science Needs God
Atheism, Theology and Christian ApologeticsAtheists are fond of asserting that religion and science are at war, and that science supports atheism. Upon closer review, however, “science” doesn’t support atheism or anything else. Why not? Because science doesn’t say anything—scientists do!
Science is a method that people use to discover cause and effect relationships. Science doesn’t gather and interpret data, scientists do. Unfortunately, some scientists allow their atheistic worldview to dictate how they interpret the evidence. Since they’ve ruled out intelligence in advance, there’s no way they will ever interpret the data to conclude an Intelligence such as God was involved. They don’t seem to realize that science needs someone like God.
How so?
In order for us to do science, natural laws must be orderly and consistent. We couldn’t do science if natural laws weren’t held constant or nature behaved in a completely random manner. But where do natural laws come from and why are they so consistent? And why do all physical things change, but not the natural laws that govern them?
In all our experience, laws always come from lawgivers. That’s why the best explanation for the orderly and consistent natural laws that make science possible is a rational Law Giver who created and sustains the universe—the same spaceless, timeless, and immaterial Being that created and fine-tuned the universe at the Big Bang. So even if atheists succeed in demonstrating that natural laws can and do explain cause and effect inside the universe, they still have to rely on God for the existence and persistence of those laws.
Atheistic materialism can’t account for those laws or the orderliness of nature. But a rational Creator and Sustainer powerfully explains the unchanging laws that make science possible. Thus, the war is not between science and religion, but between science and atheism.
Want the details including answers to objections? They are in the book and the new Stealing From God online course I’m hosting that beings January 15 (you can start the self-paced version any time after that too). The course includes ten hours of video, and several live video conferences where I’ll be answering questions. Since we limit the size of the live classes to ensure every student has an opportunity to ask questions, you’ll want to sign up soon if you want to be a part of this
In addition to the details on that link, I’ll be discussing some of the course content right here on this page in the few weeks leading up to the course. So keep checking back here for more.