Creation: The puzzle of a finely tuned, and ordered universe

Many do not know that Science was started by the church, which also ran the first Universities. Believing in God, it made sense to study creation systematically, looking for laws that described how the universe operated. But if everything that is, is the result of a chaotic, undirected explosion, there's absolutely no reason to expect order. And order, and the fine tuning of the universe, are a puzzle for atheistic science.

The term “fine-tuning” is used to characterize sensitive dependences on the values of certain constants that appear in physical laws in physics, biology etc. In terms of it being a puzzle,  Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time) noted, "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.” From Wikipedia “The occurrence of life in the universe is very sensitive to the values of certain fundamental physical constants and that the observed values are, for some reason, improbable.”

Improbable is something of an understatement.  In particular probabilities that reflect one chance in 10 to the power of 120 for a fine tuned universe to occur, are thrown around. That number is over 10 to the power of 39  times more than the estimated number of particles in the visible universe. By comparison, the complete works of Shakespeare coming out of an explosion at the print factory, is likely (please use this with gentleness and humility)!

An online quote from Richard Dawkins reads  “The more statistically improbable a thing is, the less we can believe that it happened by blind chance. Superficially the obvious alternative to blind chance is an Intelligent Designer.” In other words it looks designed, but it can't be, because it would contradict the presuppositions of naturalism.  It's a circular argument of course! Did I mention resistance to change? In what looks to me like desperate attempt to double down on naturalism, the theory of the multiverse has been proposed. It's a kind of survival of the fittest among a myriad of invisible, and scientifically unverifiable parallel universes.

What I am saying, is that to claim that order and fine tuning come out of an undirected and uncontrolled explosion (the Big Bang or whatever) makes no sense. And the fact that there is order and fine tuning is surely evidence for what is being called Intelligent Design (ID).  ID is an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins. Of course, the internet, calls it pseudoscience (not real Science). But order in the universe is far from the only evidence for ID. In particular the Discovery Institute, which advocates it,  has many convincing things to share. For example Stephen Myer's 'Signature in the cell' argues for ID from DNA. He and Michael Behe (Irreducible Complexity),  have many interesting related videos on YouTube.

Father, You tell us that to those who have, more will be given. But to those who have not, even what they have will be taken away. In fact You send strong delusion to those who do not love the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10).  There are many I love who are deceived, and who don't seem to want to hear the truth. I pray for them Lord, and for myself for boldness and humility, and that my very life would speak truth,  in Jesus Name Amen

God created, God made (Genesis 1:1, 6)

The Hebrew word bârâ (created),  is used in the Bible only in connection with the activity of God. It indicates something completely new coming into existence.  As we now know, the heavens and the earth (every material thing) had a beginning, before that there was nothing.  Thus “God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1),  can only mean He created all that exists out of nothing. On the other hand He “made” the sun, moon and the stars (verse 16).  What then is the difference, between 'created' and 'made?' An illustration comes to mind. They say that Sir Christopher Wren built St. Paul's cathedral in London,  England. But he did not physically built it, rather that he designed, commissioned and facilitated the building of it. Likewise 'God made,' as distinct from 'God created' allows for an understanding that the particulars of the formation of the sun, moon and stars was not necessarily hands on, so to speak. Psalm 90:2 speaks of the earth being formed. In other words the text allows for an understanding that the formation of the sun, moon and stars, involved what we would call natural processes.

The phrase natural processes is descriptive, and Scientist have a fascinating description of the formation of the moon. But can natural processes explain everything? From the internet “Naturalism is the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted.” In other words in the eyes of much modern Science the answer to my question is “yes.” But does this reflect reality?

The current most widely accepted description of the beginning of the universe is the 'Big Bang.' From the internet “The Big Bang hypothesis states that all current and past matter in the Universe came into existence at the same time, roughly 13.8 billion years ago. At that time, all matter was compacted into a very small ball with infinite density and intense heat called a Singularity. The Singularity suddenly began expanding, and the universe as we know it began.” Two questions, where did the singularity come from, and in terms of the scientific principle of cause and effect, what caused the Big Bang?

A beginning to the universe requires a beginner, someone or something external to the universe, that starts the whole thing. The universe cannot cause itself. To deny this is to imply that nothing created everything that is out of nothing. When challenged about such things, those who dismiss the possibility or an external causal agent say something like “We don't know the natural cause yet, but we are sure we will eventually!” The word 'belief” in the statement that defines Naturalism, is both correct and interesting. It cannot be proved, and together with atheism, is every much a faith position, as belief in God.

Actually, Naturalism is one of an uncountable number of world views,  lenses through which we seek to interpret the world. There are mathematical theorems (Gödel's incompleteness theorems) that essentially imply that a world view can only be held by faith.  Since this is the case, we need to ask which world views most closely reflect reality.

Father,  there are many questions to ask. And my thesis, and the thesis of this book, is that Biblical World views corresponds most closely to reality.  Help us to examine this with an open mind Lord, and help us to live lives that prompt others to want to examine it too, in Jesus Name Amen

Doubtful disputes: “God called the light Day

and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:5).  My heart is heavy this morning as I write, and I feel God's heart is also heavy too, at the way Christians have argued over how to interpret this chapter, and particularly over the interpretation of the word “yom” (day). Accusations have basically flown back and forth, with one faction essentially accusing another of compromising liberalism,  another of putting stumbling blocks in the way of the world coming to believe the Bible.   

Actually there at least three views. Firstly, that of the young earth creationists who hold that the days spoken of in the enumeration of days (first day, second day etc.) are literal twenty four hour periods. There is no doubt that the One who created everything out of nothing could have done it this way. Young earth creationists affirm that He did.  On the other hand old age creationists interpret 'day' allegorically as an age, quoting “A day with the Lord is as a thousand years” (2 Peter 3:8). In a variation of this, Hugh Ross (The Genesis Question) tells that the Hebrew word 'yom' in addition to being a twenty four hour day is also daylight in 1:5, and it is the whole  creation “week” in Genesis 2:4 (see NKJV). It is also variously translated as time, always,  a life time etc.  Ross concludes that 'age' is therefore a literal translation of 'yom'. Theistic evolution is third view of Genesis 1. It contends that whatever parts of of evolution are true, are simply the way God created things.  One variation,  has the days representing the stages of Stephen Jay Gould's “Punctuated Equilibrium.”

The differences stem largely from different methods of interpretation of these difficult to understand ancient texts. And we still have much to learn about interpretation. One thing we need to realize, is that while these texts were written for us, they were not written to us (Romans 15:4). In particular, they needed to be understood by a pre-scientific culture with a totally different world views to ours. There is also the question of literary genre here (how we classify literature into history, poetry etc.). The genre here is surely unique!

I personally know sincere Bible believing lovers of God, in each of the above camps. Furthermore they all subscribe to the essentials outlined in the meditation 'In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity' given earlier. Surly in light of the substantial agreement in essentials,  this is not an issue over which to declare war. There are many difficulties, and we need to give each other grace to disagree and still be in fellowship. Indeed Paul admonishes us to receive one another (as fellow believers),  but not to doubtful disputes. And they are doubtful when they produce more heat than light!  I am not saying the issues are not important. Paul admonishes each one to be fully convinced, but we are not to judge, or to show contempt for our fellow believers.  Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies  (Romans 14:1-10; 1 Corinthians 8:1).

Father,  forgive us for those times we have been more interested in proving that we are right, than maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3). It's our unity that shows the world that You sent Jesus (John 17:23).  Help us here Lord, in His precious we pray Name Amen

In the beginning: Science, faith and the resistance to change

In the so called Science-Faith conflict, more often than not, it is the resistance of the church to Galileo's theory that the earth revolves around the sun, that is cited. But it was not, and is not,  just the church that resists new ideas.  It is people, even, or perhaps especially, Scientists! I mean very smart people often have an additional obstacle to overcome when it comes to admitting they are wrong (ego). But perhaps I should speak for myself! Nevertheless, from the internet Einstein “fiercely resisted the view that the universe was expanding, despite his contemporaries' suggestions that this was the case.” In both science and faith, we all tend to interpret things though the lens of our pre-determined world views (or theology).  We will look at these things more closely later.  But here I want to talk about the resistance to paradigm shifts that occur in Science.

Thomas Kuhn in his book 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,'  documents how favourite and widely accepted scientific theories, strongly resist change by the Scientific community. One scientific revolution centred around whether the universe had a beginning (Genesis 1:1a). About a hundred years ago the steady state theory was widely accepted, including by Einstein (Google it). It hypothesized that the universe had always existed. This eliminated the obvious logic, based on  the Scientific law of cause and effect, that the existence a beginning, requires a Beginner!

Again from the internet: “When Hubble determined that the vast majority of stars and galaxies had a red shift, he created a major shift in the world view that dominated science. The universe before Hubble was thought to have eternally existed. After Hubble the presently observed universe could no longer be consider to be eternal.”

The red shift in light is similar to the Doppler shift in sound. The Doppler shift is the change of pitch that's heard when an ambulance,  sounding a siren, approaches and then passes an observer. The actual pitch of the siren does not change, but the pitch that is heard is higher during the approach, and lower as the vehicle moves away. The red shift in light is conceptually similar. It can be understood as the observed wavelength of the light being stretched, or 'shifted' towards the red part of the spectrum as a source moves away from the observer.

Please do not think I am anti-science. I am not. Many of the discoveries of Science are awesome. Science ultimately seeks for truth, and I believe, as with the steady state theory, that Science will eventually correct its errors. It might just take a very long time, and  especially, from my point of view,  when it postulates theories that contradict clear and unambiguous Biblical statements! Defending this point of view is called apologetics, and there is much to say. But there is also much to say about “clear and unambiguous Biblical statements.” I am talking about hermeneutics, the theory and practice of interpretation.  And I want to say clearly, that we have arrived neither in Science, nor in our understanding of how to interpret the Bible!

Prayer. Father help us not to be afraid of different ideas. You tell us to hold firmly to the foundations (Hebrews 10:33). But please help us to be open to refinements to our thinking, and to be willing to admit it when we are wrong, or when we don't know. And there are more things we don't know, than things we do. Grant us boldness,  but humility Lord in Jesus Name Amen

Interpretation, unity and the whole council of God.

I have often been asked “Can't you make the Bible say anything you want?” It's called twisting scripture. I usually answer, tongue in cheek, “Oh yes, and using the same rules of interpretation, I can make the dictionary say the same thing! And since I discovered that, I stopped using the dictionary!” Thank the Lord for spellchecker! Twisting words is a fine art both in the church, and in the wider culture. But Peter warns that when we twist Scripture, we do it to our own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).

If you think you have a pretty good handle on interpretation let me ask you what you do with the obscure passages such as the one coming up concerning the Nephilim (Genesis 6:1-4). Or what do you make of “angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode” (Jude 6). But if all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16), then so are the above passages. And if we are to take the whole council of God (Acts 20:27), should we simply ignore them? I have the impression that most Christians don't think much about interpretation. They just do it, but not always well! However, if we are to test all things (1 Thessalonians 5:21), then we need to test our interpretations! There are many pitfalls, and since we are coming to a particularly difficult passage, I want to use it as a spring board to talk (mostly afterwards) about some of the tools of interpretation (hermeneutics).

One basic approach to Bible study is called the inductive Bible study method. We ask the text three questions: What does it say: what does it mean: how does it apply? It's easy to confuse what it says with what it means. Of course there are times when the meaning is plain and literal. 'Do not commit adultery' means 'do not commit adultery.' And the application is 'do not commit adultery! But what do you do with “Unless you hate your mother and father, you cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). One 1970's cult I know of took it literally, capitalizing on family bitterness. But it's a literary device called hyperbole, an exaggerated statement not meant to be taken literally. So what does it mean? One way to look at it, is to say that our love for Jesus needs, in comparison to our love for mother and father, to look like hate. We are to honour father and mother, and we are to love our enemies (Exodus 20:12; Luke 6:27), so there's no way that it's meant to be taken literally. In terms of application, sometimes in wanting to honour our parents we can put them, or their opinions, above God. It's not just parents of course. Anything or anyone, that comes ahead of God is an idol!

Concerning testing our interpretations, the Bible says “The first to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbour comes and examines him” (Proverbs 18:17). So when there are disagreements, we need to hear and weigh, apposing arguments. Paul tells us there needs be differences among us, to show who has God’s approval (1 Corinthians 11:19).

Father, it's not always easy to love those with whom we disagree. But this is where unity comes in. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies (1 Corinthians 8:2). Give us grace and humility to hear each other out. Help us Lord to be willing to be shown where we are wrong, and to be correctable, in Jesus Name Amen.