Will Science Someday Rule Out the Possibility of God?

[Keachian]

How am I accepting the atheistic definition of naturalism. The atheistic definition of naturalism include the big bang, 14 billion year universal expansion, abiogenesis, and the evolutionary process driven by natural selection. I don't agree with any of these hypotheses.

I also believe in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. What you are not understanding is that I am a strong Christian who just so happens to be educated in science. I work in a scientific field and I believe science to be the study of God's creation.

You obviously don't understand much about the philosophy of science or even science itself if you are contending that atheistic naturalism talks about the big bang theory.

Steady State Theory is a "competing" cosmology in much the same way as YEC is, it's objection to the Big Bang Theory is that it is too theistic.

But back to the definition of atheistic naturalism; a theory that posits that God is not involved in the processes that science has explored.

It's good that you understand science to be the study of God's creation, but it is only because you have accepted the wind-up clock theory of the universe, which is inherently deistic that you must deny Big Bang Cosmology, abiogenesis and the like, because suddenly your picture of the work of God in creation is limited to the one act. Your belief that God came to earth should tell you that he is far more interested in creation than just as a wind up toy to play with, haven't you heard that God so loved the world that he came to save it? I know from my experience the things that I have made that I really and truly love, I hold them, pour more of myself into them, continue to fiddle with them, if I am made in the Image of God then it stands to reason that this is a mirror of how God interacts with his creation.

 

[KTskater]

I am not limiting God in the slightest. God is the God of science; thus, all scientific process has come from Him. It seems to me that you are suggesting that God is performing every scientific process at all times. While God could definitely do this, He does not have to because He created it all once to work like clockwork. Like a computer program, God has programmed His creation to carry out everyday functions. Does God conduct the weather? Sometimes (he has been known to influence human history with weather), but regular climate he does not have to conduct because He created the Earth to spin along its axis and rotate around the sun. He created the Gulf Stream and Coriolis Effect and caused the moon to control tides. He does not have to conduct this in real time because he set it into motion.

Does He form every baby in the womb? No, because he created the processes of cell mitosis and meiosis to work independently of his constant input. He coded the DNA in the chromosomes to take the dominant and recessive traits of the mother and father and form one cohesive human.

Does God literally feed both predator and prey out of the palms of His hands day to day? No, because He set up the ecosystems to provide for the animals.

God set up the physical laws; so, mankind bound by these laws must follow suit. Think about this, man programs software to serve different functions. Now, we expect this software to run on its own and do the tasks that the programmer has told it to do. The same can be said of DNA. Understanding DNA is vital to understanding how God created life. God initially programmed the nucleotides in the DNA to do the tasks He programmed them to do. DNA is programmed to perform every vital function any living organism could ever perform. If God would have to perform every vital function Himself then why would He create DNA?

I think this is fairly accurate. However, I don't think this pulls God out of His creation. Just because the biological processes work without God actually redoing creation every single time a cell divides, that doesn't mean that if He stepped away that things would continue just fine. His presence is what holds these laws in place.
Furthermore, I believe that He intimately involved with His creation spiritually. He is going after His lost sheep, calling them by name. That's about as far from deism as you can get.
He also intervenes when He needs to suspend or change laws that he has set up. We have some miracles as evidence of this (i.e. the feeding of the 5,000, Lazarus' coming back from the dead, and most importantly, The Resurrection.) We have other miracles where God may not have suspended the laws of nature, but rather bent them to His will. For this, I think of the the crossing of the Red Sea, and some of the plagues of Egypt.
A kind of think of creation like a backing track that a musician uses. You create the backing track, with all its components and then play over it with various instruments. Sometimes you need to change the key of the backing track, so you go in an you edit something, or add something. You are the cause for its existence, and it requires your presence (power to the device) to keep playing, but you don't have to play that while you're also playing your solo.

 

[Mr.Waffles]

"Hi, you don't have, in my opinion, any empirical evidence of the origins of the universe. Therefore, my bronze age religious text wins."

For one, it was specific to biological life, not the whole universe. Secondly, the point was to contrast between two world views, not argue "religious texts" .

Thirdly, it is not about making a claim of "no empirical evidence". It's about taking what we already know of biological life (particularly at the cellular level) and evaluating what the scientific community puts out as explanations for its origin in that light.

Naturalism as a world view breaks down at the cellular level, at least in my perspective, particularly when we beg the question of "origin". What happens when we encounter certain phenomenon that transcends our ability to explain naturalistically?

It's not that we don't know how things work, we do, and we can explain how. It's just when we consider how unfathomably complex those cellular components are, the idea of them arising due to strictly naturalistic processes in a purely natural, untampered environment seems far fetched to the point of it being impossible.

 

[ptomwebster]

Will Science Someday Rule Out the Possibility of God? - Yahoo! News

Or will God rule out the possibility of atheism?

Does it really matter what science says about God?

 

[Armistead14]

That doesn't even make sense.

"Hi, you don't have, in my opinion, any empirical evidence of the origins of the universe. Therefore, my bronze age religious text wins."

Is that what you're saying? In any event, we can look at the origins of the universe through things like distant astronomical observation, background radiation, and particle accelerators.

What came first the chicken or the egg? We know cause and effect exist, but for it to be true, a first cause must exist, which is scientifically impossible.

Yes, I'm aware of all the theories, even something out of nothing, but all scientist agree there is no such thing as nothing, even in empty space paritcles and energy exist. No matter what source science finds, they will always be left with another energy source to find, until they can find a first cause.....which is impossible in the natural world.

 

[lucaspa]

Will Science Someday Rule Out the Possibility of God? - Yahoo! News

Or will God rule out the possibility of atheism?

In the article, Carroll is working on a god-of-the-gaps theology:
" Sean Carroll, a theoretical cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology, says there's good reason to think science will ultimately arrive at a complete understanding of the universe that leaves no grounds for God whatsoever."

Even that complete understanding still leave grounds for God. Carroll is working on the premise that 'natural' = without God. That is NOT Christian theology. Natural is God's way of working. In religious language, "natural" is God's secondary cause. Carroll cannot tell whether God is necessary to sustain all those explanations science is finding. Carroll can't rule out the second quote in my signature.

Now, having said all that, an essential function of God is as Creator of the universe: First Cause:
http://christianforums.com/t43923

One theory for the origin of the universe is called ekpyrotic theory. In ekpyrotic theory, there are 11 dimensions, of which 6 are rolled up and safely ignored. In perfectly flat 5 dimension space space floats 2-4 dimenstion (4D) 'branes. Each is a universe. Random fluctuations cause one of the universes to shed a 'brane that floats to the other universe with quantum fluctuations. The collision destroys both 'branes but creates a new universe. Some of the energy of collision becomes the matter and energy in the new universe. Our universe is the result of one such collision in the past. Ekpyrotic removes the need for inflation and the singularity of big bang, instead is a "platelike splash". Big bang and ekpyrotic have different gravity waves, so we can test whether ekpyrotic is correct. www.arXiv.org/abs/hep-th/0103239
Science Magazine: Sign In http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/npr/

The "disproving" God comes with the 5 D space. Like God, it is just "there", has no cause, and is eternal. But, of course, it is not God because it is not a sentient being. So, IF ekpyrotic would turn out to be correct, then IMO God would be disproved.

I am not holding my breath. Ekpyrotic is derived from String Theory, and String Theory is in deep trouble. Every time it has been tested it has failed the test. New versions give hundreds or thousands of possible solutions to the equations, so those versions can't even be tested. However, if we should ever build a detector of gravity waves and that detector finds the waves predicted by ekpyrotic, then the theory that there is God is, IMO, toast.

 

[lucaspa]

The only way IMO that science can rule out God is to find the first cause of creation. However, a first cause is scientifically impossible to find within the natural realm.

Not necessarily. The First Cause may have left evidence of that cause within the universe. In the post above I talked about ekpyrotic and the evidence it would have left. Another candidate for First Cause is quantum fluctuations. IF the universe is the result of an uncaused quantum fluctuation, then it should have no net energy. As it happens, the universe does have zero net energy. The positive energy of matter/energy is countered by the negative energy of gravity. Now, God as First Cause could also have created a universe with zero net energy, so the evidence is not definitive for quantum fluctuation.

I agree science has found many answers for how things evolve, but origin of life will always be the believers ace in the hole.

And welcome to god-of-the-gaps. But there is not gap there. You can produce life from non-living chemicals in your kitchen. It's easy. Chemistry is the secondary cause by which God created life. No miracle. Just chemistry.

The best thing you can do is discard god-of-the-gaps theology. God didn't create an incomplete universe. There are no gaps.

 

[lucaspa]

What came first the chicken or the egg? We know cause and effect exist, but for it to be true, a first cause must exist, which is scientifically impossible.

Yes, I'm aware of all the theories, even something out of nothing, but all scientist agree there is no such thing as nothing, even in empty space paritcles and energy exist. No matter what source science finds, they will always be left with another energy source to find, until they can find a first cause.....which is impossible in the natural world.

Scientists do agree on "nothing". When cosmologists talk about "nothing" it means the absence of matter/energy and spacetime. Right now scientists agree that this condition of "nothing" existed before the Big Bang.

Vacuum was supposed to be the absence of matter. As you noted, virtual particles mean that the vacuum always has particles.

What you are also doing is making God impossible. If there must be a "chicken or egg", then what is the chicken/egg for God? You are setting up a condition where God Himself can't exist because He would require something to exist before Him.

 

[lucaspa]

How am I accepting the atheistic definition of naturalism. The atheistic definition of naturalism include the big bang, 14 billion year universal expansion, abiogenesis, and the evolutionary process driven by natural selection. I don't agree with any of these hypotheses.

Because you accept the atheistic definition of naturalism: without God.
The atheist definition of "natural" is: if something is natural then God is absent. That is, the atheist definition of "naturalism" is processes that happen by themselves without God. You don't accept the specific processes you mention because YOU think they mean God is absent.

But for Christians what is 'natural' is just as dependent on God and part of God as miracle. Look at the second quote in my signature: evolution by natural selection is just as much God working as God "poofing" each species into existence in its present form by miracle. Same with Big Bang and abiogenesis. Life coming into existence thru chemical reactions is just as dependent on God as God manufacturing the first cell by miracle.

I work in a scientific field and I believe science to be the study of God's creation.

But you don't accept any of the results of that study. How ironic Why don't you accept the results? Because you are an atheist at heart.

 

[lucaspa]

It seems to me that you are suggesting that God is performing every scientific process at all times. While God could definitely do this, He does not have to because He created it all once to work like clockwork.

The correct term is "sustaining", not "performing". The view you described is deism: God sets it up to work and then it works without Him all on its own.

But God isn't absent. God must sustain all those processes you described. They happen only at the will of God. If God ever withdraws His will, the earth stops orbiting, gravity stops, winds stop moving, etc.

"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

Does He form every baby in the womb? No, because he created the processes of cell mitosis and meiosis to work independently of his constant input.

Not according to Christian doctrine. No, God does not direct the process, but it does not work without God either. As the above quote indicates, God must continually will cell mitosis and meiosis to work.

Everything you mentioned is deism: it all works now without God. Basically, that is atheism except you have God at the beginning make the clock, but after that any natural process works without God.

Col 1:16-17 "For through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see -- such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together."

Heb 1:3 "The Son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command."

 

[Redheadedstepchild]

Mod Hat

Please remember this is a Christian Only area. Some OT posts and their responses have been removed. If your post is gone, this is why.

 

[LionofJudahDK]

Will Science Someday Rule Out the Possibility of God? - Yahoo! News

No. Science cannot investigate or speak of that which is trancendant.

 

[Greg1234]

Furthermore, I believe that He intimately involved with His creation spiritually. He is going after His lost sheep, calling them by name. That's about as far from deism as you can get.

He is intimately involved with us while we inhabit and control the physical (for the spirit is life for the soul), but I didn't see how that promotes Darwinian science.

 

[lucaspa]

He is intimately involved with us while we inhabit and control the physical (for the spirit is life for the soul), but I didn't see how that promotes Darwinian science.

What is "Darwinian science"?

Perhaps this will help you see how evolution as formulated by Darwin helped Christianity. These quotes were written by Christian ministers toward the end of the 1800s.
"The scientific evidence in favour of evolution, as a theory is infinitely more Christian than the theory of 'special creation'. For it implies the immanence of God in nature, and the omnipresence of His creative power. Those who oppose the doctrine of evolution in defence of a 'continued intervention' of God, seem to have failed to notice that a theory of occasional intervention implies as its correlative a theory of ordinary absence." AL Moore, Science and Faith, 1889, pg 184.

"The one absolutely impossible conception of God, in the present day, is that which represents him as an occasional visitor. Science has pushed the deist's God further and further away, and at the moment when it seemed as if He would be thrust out all together, Darwinism appeared, and, under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend. ... Either God is everywhere present in nature, or He is nowhere." AL Moore, Lex Mundi, 12th edition, 1891, pg 73.

http://www.oxford.anglican.org/docs...522743334.shtml
"...the theory of evolution, far from undermining faith, deepens it. This was quickly seen by Frederick Temple, later Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that God doesn't just make the world, he does something even more wonderful, he makes the world makee itself._ God has given creation a real independence and the miraculous fact is that working in relation to this independent life God has, as it were, woven creation from the bottom upwards: with matter giving rise to life and life giving rise to conscious reflective existence in the likes of you and me. The fact that the universe probably began about 12 billion years ago with life beginning to evolve about 3 billion years ago simply underlines the extraordinary detailed, persistent, patience of the divine creator spirit."

 

[lucaspa]

I am not limiting God in the slightest. God is the God of science; thus, all scientific process has come from Him.

God is the Creator of the physical universe. Science is the study of the physical universe. So it's not "God is the God of science" but rather "God reads God's book of Creation."

Just like we have translators who read the Hebrew and Greek texts and translate them into English and commentators on what scripture means, so we have scientists who read Creation and tell us what they found.

It seems to me that you are suggesting that God is performing every scientific process at all times.

Not "performing" them, but sustaining them. God must will gravity to work each and every time. So every time an apple falls from a tree, God has to will gravity to work or the apple will not fall.

While God could definitely do this, He does not have to because He created it all once to work like clockwork.

That's deism. It means God is absent from "natural". That is NOT Christian theology. However, it is the basic belief of atheism.

 

[lucaspa]

No. Science cannot investigate or speak of that which is trancendant.

Lion, please go back and read my posts on the previous page.

One of the ways we decide an entity does not exist is show that it has nothing to do. This is one way how Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause are shown not to exist: we have found that parents/guardians leave money in exchange for baby teeth and buy and put out Christmas presents. Since these are the only things Tooth Fairy and Santa do, then they are falsified.

The role of the aether was to provide a medium for light waves to travel thru. When it was shown that light waves don't need a medium, there was nothing for the aether to do and it was falsified.

The Biblical writers knew of God thru God's intervention in human history, particularly His intervention to create Israel. Out of nothing. So the authors of the Old Testament knew God as Creator of Israel long before they decided He was also Creator of the universe.

Today we are, I submit, more sophisticated. We can envision very knowing and powerful non-human beings (extraterrestrials) that would have the power to perform the miracles in scripture, even bringing Jesus back to life. The one thing God needs to do to be God is create the universe. Anything less than that, and we can imagine some powerful beings with advanced technology, mortal beings, being able to do.

So, IF it can be shown that the universe was created by some other process, then science would be able to say God does not exist. I point out ekpyrotic theory as one of the other processes. ekpyrotic can be tested because it predicts specific gravity waves. So, IF we ever build a gravity wave detector and find those predicted waves, then it looks like science could get rid of God -- by taking away the one thing that God has to do.

As I said in that post, I'm not holding my breath. I think it unlikely that ekpyrotic is correct, because it is dependent on String Theory and the longer scientists look at String Theory and test it, the more it looks like String Theory is incorrect.

However, that does not stop it being possible for science to show God does not exist. Right now science does not show it, but it is incorrect to claim it is absolutely impossible for science to look at God's existence.

 

[Greg1234]

What is "Darwinian science"?

It's in the term.

Perhaps this will help you see how evolution as formulated by Darwin helped Christianity. These quotes were written by Christian ministers toward the end of the 1800s.
"The scientific evidence in favour of evolution, as a theory is infinitely more Christian than the theory of 'special creation'. For it implies the immanence of God in nature, and the omnipresence of His creative power. Those who oppose the doctrine of evolution in defence of a 'continued intervention' of God, seem to have failed to notice that a theory of occasional intervention implies as its correlative a theory of ordinary absence." AL Moore, Science and Faith, 1889, pg 184.

"The one absolutely impossible conception of God, in the present day, is that which represents him as an occasional visitor. Science has pushed the deist's God further and further away, and at the moment when it seemed as if He would be thrust out all together, Darwinism appeared, and, under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend. ... Either God is everywhere present in nature, or He is nowhere." AL Moore, Lex Mundi, 12th edition, 1891, pg 73.

http://www.oxford.anglican.org/docs...522743334.shtml
"...the theory of evolution, far from undermining faith, deepens it. This was quickly seen by Frederick Temple, later Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that God doesn't just make the world, he does something even more wonderful, he makes the world makee itself._ God has given creation a real independence and the miraculous fact is that working in relation to this independent life God has, as it were, woven creation from the bottom upwards: with matter giving rise to life and life giving rise to conscious reflective existence in the likes of you and me. The fact that the universe probably began about 12 billion years ago with life beginning to evolve about 3 billion years ago simply underlines the extraordinary detailed, persistent, patience of the divine creator spirit."

Same old same old- misspelling materialism as Christianity. The spirit is life, and you and me, while inhabiting the physical, mediate the functioning of same.

God is the Creator of the physical universe. Science is the study of the physical universe. So it's not "God is the God of science" but rather "God reads God's book of Creation."

Um, science is not God- materialists are not God and physical instruments are not God. I take it you're friends with a certain Mr Mzungu?

Just like we have translators who read the Hebrew and Greek texts and translate them into English and commentators on what scripture means, so we have scientists who read Creation and tell us what they found.

As just given.

Lion, please go back and read my posts on the previous page.

One of the ways we decide an entity does not exist is show that it has nothing to do. This is one way how Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause are shown not to exist: we have found that parents/guardians leave money in exchange for baby teeth and buy and put out Christmas presents. Since these are the only things Tooth Fairy and Santa do, then they are falsified.

If the being is only defined through that activity then checking out that activity would be sufficient.

The Biblical writers knew of God thru God's intervention in human history, particularly His intervention to create Israel. Out of nothing. So the authors of the Old Testament knew God as Creator of Israel long before they decided He was also Creator of the universe.

Divine inspiration is not sitting down and deciding that God is a part of something.

Today we are, I submit, more sophisticated. We can envision very knowing and powerful non-human beings (extraterrestrials) that would have the power to perform the miracles in scripture, even bringing Jesus back to life. The one thing God needs to do to be God is create the universe. Anything less than that, and we can imagine some powerful beings with advanced technology, mortal beings, being able to do.

The only thing sophisticated here is the pathway you chose to say God is imagined or "envisioned." You haven't changed one bit and even appear to be getting worse.

So, IF it can be shown that the universe was created by some other process, then science would be able to say God does not exist.

And that comes from someone who just said natural processes are sustained.

I point out ekpyrotic theory as one of the other processes.

I think we got it.

 

[jilfe]

I think this is fairly accurate. However, I don't think this pulls God out of His creation. Just because the biological processes work without God actually redoing creation every single time a cell divides, that doesn't mean that if He stepped away that things would continue just fine. His presence is what holds these laws in place.
Furthermore, I believe that He intimately involved with His creation spiritually. He is going after His lost sheep, calling them by name. That's about as far from deism as you can get.
He also intervenes when He needs to suspend or change laws that he has set up. We have some miracles as evidence of this (i.e. the feeding of the 5,000, Lazarus' coming back from the dead, and most importantly, The Resurrection.) We have other miracles where God may not have suspended the laws of nature, but rather bent them to His will. For this, I think of the the crossing of the Red Sea, and some of the plagues of Egypt.
A kind of think of creation like a backing track that a musician uses. You create the backing track, with all its components and then play over it with various instruments. Sometimes you need to change the key of the backing track, so you go in an you edit something, or add something. You are the cause for its existence, and it requires your presence (power to the device) to keep playing, but you don't have to play that while you're also playing your solo.

Very, very well explanation, wonderful words and phrases to address a extremely difficult question, but you really did an excellent job of explaining this and making it more understandable.

Thank God that He gave you wisdom to use the proper words and phrases and examples to make this clear for the rest of us.

What I just wrote is an example of the question about God being in controle,

I first give KTskater the compliment that is due, and rightfully belongs to him,

but I also know deep down inside, that ultimately, it was God's wisdom and timing and God's provision and leading to reveal this thread to KTskater, as well as everything else that God does supernaturally, to move us into position to perform His will, that is the cause of such a wonderful post that KTskater made.



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