“I’M NOT SURE THERE IS A GOD”

H. G. Wells once famously said,

‘If there is no God, nothing matters. If there is a God, nothing else matters.’

This article reviews the evidence on whether there is a God and whether he has revealed himself.

When I was a student, Francis Schaeffer used to visit the university regularly to teach us. One of the concepts I remember him telling us was that when talking with people with a different world view, such as atheists, agnostics, existentialists or whatever, he would spend much time talking with them to show the negative, illogical and often disastrous consequences of that way of thinking. Only then would he go on to explain why he had become a Christian.

The Consequences of the ‘Death of God’

No real values

If mankind accidentally evolved from slime in an atheistic world there can be no ‘real’ values, all must be make-believe and therefore optional. If however, we were created ‘in God’s image’, then God’s values would be part of our make-up. If there is no personal God who created us, such traits have to be downgraded to interesting side effects of our evolution. Clearly they can have no ‘otherworldly’ significance if life is an accident. These values would not be worth dying for. It is no coincidence that these values people admire are characteristics of Jesus Christ.

Some modern thinkers have recognised the importance of these values but want to try and give them substance without invoking a creator. They have been described as ‘ultimate realities’ although logically there can be nothing ultimate about them without there being an ultimate God, as Plato clearly understood. G. K. Chesterton astutely put it this way,

“God is not a symbol of Goodness: Goodness is a symbol of God.”

The instincts that recognise these essential values are common to all people. Goodness is recognised by our consciences, beauty in our imaginations and truth in our rational minds. Goodness is cherished when seen in others. A beautiful scene whispers to us that there is a transcendent aspect to our lives; it is a reflection of ‘another world’. George Steiner thought beauty was “an echo of the presence of other.”

We live in a society that increasingly thinks ‘God is dead’. Some still accept God in theory but in practice he is largely irrelevant – living as practical atheists. The strange thing is that many who think like this still think life should be lived on Christian principles – at least by others.

One hundred years ago the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche foretold that within a century God would ‘be dead’ in society. He rightly scorned those who acknowledged this in their thinking but kept the old morality and duties. George Eliot, the author who wrote ‘Middlemarch’ and ‘Mill on the Floss’ was such a person. She wrote,

“God is inconceivable and immortality unbelievable but duty is nevertheless peremptory and absolute.”

No Truth

There is a universal conviction that there is an ultimate reality called truth. Society is dependent on there being a real value called ‘truth’. In the law courts, witnesses are giving their impressions of what really happened – the truth. In medicine, we use a wide variety of tests to make a correct diagnosis as to what pathology is causing a patients illness. We recognise that there is a true diagnosis even though we may have difficulties coming to the right answer. Society is dependent on there being a real value called ‘truth’.

What is truth? I discussed this with a group of medical consultants and they concluded, “Truth must be consensus”. This cannot be right as consensual support for an idea can be obtained using a variety of means. Politicians with power have often tried to rewrite history when the truth is not helpful to their political aspirations. Hitler had the consensus of Germany supporting his regime yet now most Germans strongly repudiate many of his repugnant views. The majority of people used to accept Aristotle’s teaching that the ‘heavenly bodies’ were made of an unearthly very light ‘fifth substance’ or, in Greek, the ‘quintessence’. The consensus at one time was that the earth was the centre of the universe. The consensus was clearly wrong in the light of subsequent research. Truth is still truth even though no-one believes it. A lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it.

The only definition of truth that can stand is one that relates to an absolute, as Plato recognised. Truth may thus be defined as ‘a concept compatible with God’. If there is no God, there is no truth, only consensus. Some have argued that truth can only be found in physical reality but such a materialistic definition cannot prove the value of many areas of life on which our society depends. These would include love, integrity, honour, courage, and kindness. Although these values cannot be proved, our instincts affirm that they are real and important.

Without there being an absolute God, there can be no absolute truth. Everything is relative. Your truth may be different to mine. Yet in science we are searching for real laws, real explanations that explain our existence. We believe in such truth. In the legal world, though witnesses may give different accounts of what happened, it is widely accepted that there is a truth of what really happened. If our existence is a random event, then there can be no assurance that our instincts concerning truth are valid, yet we cannot live without the concept of truth.

No Logic

Logic also becomes unreliable. Professor Haldane astutely said,

“If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motion of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true, . . . and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be compose of atoms.”

Charles Darwin himself was concerned about this and wrote,

“The horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”

All of science depends upon the obvious finding that we live in a rational universe.

Einstein recognised that the basis of the scientific method was the fact that the universe is rational. He astutely said,

“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.”i

It is this rationality that has led many philosophers to recognise that the universe must be the product of a very intelligent God. He must have a rational mathematical mind.

Science is the search for truth. If truth is defined in Plato’s terms as concepts compatible with God, it is clearly nonsense to try to use science, which is a search for truth, to try to destroy a belief in God. God is the only basis for truth’s validity.

No morals

Nietzsche derided such people as:

“ . . . odious windbags of progressive optimism, who think it is possible to have Christian morality without Christian faith.”

In “Twilight of the Idols” he wrote,

“They are rid of the Christian God, and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality . . . when one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality from under one’s feet.”

This pressure to leave God out of our thinking is very dangerous for ours or any society. Dostoevsky wrote in ‘The Brothers Karamozov’,

“Is there no God? Then everything is permitted.”

In 1992 an article appeared in ‘She’ magazine entitled ‘How moral are you?’

“Ethics is knowing how much you can get away with. I would like among other things to be known as an ethical man. ‘Ethical’ has a ring to it, a suggestion that not only does your sense of truth, kindness and honour have a spiritual base, but an intellectual one too. But the truth is that there is no such thing as truth. (!!!) And without truth how can there be ethics?”

Standards of behaviour and personal integrity will inevitably diminish, both in individuals and in society as fewer individuals do what is right before God, refusing to believe that God will ultimately be their judge. Winston Churchill reminded us that a nation cannot expect its citizens to follow Christian ethics if it fails to teach them Christian dogma.

It is perhaps significant that few recognise the opposite of integrity. It is dis-integrity or disintegration. When an individual loses the determination to do what is right before God, then first his personal life, then his family life, then his societies’ life and ultimately his nations’ life will tend to disintegrate. This is what Gibbon thought was the cause of the ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ and isn’t it what we are beginning to see in this country?

The novelist William Golding, who wrote ‘Lord of the Flies’ said,

“If God is dead, if man is the highest, good and evil are decided by majority vote.”

Adolf Hitler appreciated this.

Hitler developed some of Darwin’s theories into his social ideas. Darwin did try to dissociate himself from these extreme views that held that it was acceptable to exterminate the weaker people in society in order to strengthen the genetic pool and so make society stronger. Darwin thought racial groups such as aborigines and Negroes were intermediaries between apes and fully developed humans that were both intellectually and morally weaker than Europeans. He wrote in ‘The Descent of Man’,

“If we do not prevent . . . the inferior members of our society from increasing at a quicker pace than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde.”

He did think that human beings should control their own evolution,

“All do good service who aid towards this end.”ii

It was Ernest Haeckel, a Professor of Zoology in Germany and an ardent disciple of Darwin, who popularised the logical consequences of Darwinism. He wrote,

“What good does it do to humanity to maintain artificially and rear the thousands of cripples, deaf mutes, idiots, etc who are born every year with an hereditary burden of incurable disease?”

He encouraged ‘involuntary euthanasia’, the active killing of “the hundreds of thousands of incurables – lunatics, lepers, people with cancer, etc.” Haeckel also recommended the “indiscriminate destruction of all incorrigible criminals.”

Haeckel’s views became very popular in Germany. They were accepted by Hitler and became the basis for the extermination of the Jews, the insane, gypsies and other undesirables such as unwanted children, by the third Reich regime. It is important to remember that many of these killings were undertaken by ordinary doctors and nurses who were following approved protocols.iii

Jeremy Rifkin is a New Ager. Towards the end of his book ‘Algeny’ he discusses the effect that Darwinism logically brings with it.

“This is evolution. We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behaviour conform to a set of pre-existing cosmic rules. It is our creation now. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world and because we do we no longer have to justify our behaviour. We are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible, nothing outside ourselves. We are the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever.”iv

The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky often wrote about the dangerous situation that ensues when men refuse to acknowledge their creator and instead make themselves gods.

When my wife and I visited the Nazi extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau the truth of what happens when men become gods becomes grossly apparent. Hitler had envisaged a generation that had rejected the old ideals and boasted,

“I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality . . . We will train young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence – imperious, relentless and cruel.”

When man turns his back on God, morality becomes arbitrary. The agenda can be set by the man who is most powerful.

Totalitarianism increases

So when integrity diminishes, external state control or totalitarianism increases with all its associated problems. Kafka’s book, ‘The Castle’, describes a world with problems similar to those we are beginning to see today. It describes a world where there is overwhelming bureaucratic power and authority. The telephone exchanges produce more muddles than connections. Bureaucracy drowns human beings in a deluge of files and forms. A stifling hierarchy makes it impossible to get through to any senior responsible people. Kafka says,

“The conveyor belt of life carries you on, no-one knows where. One is more of an object, a thing, than a living creature.”

The use of the word ‘creature’ is significant. A ‘creature’ has been formed by a ‘creator’.

Bullying and intimidation inevitably increase. No opposition to the dictator’s wishes can be permitted as the ‘best’ and even ‘truth’ are now defined by what benefits the regime

Joseph Stalin had, in his youth, been a theological student, preparing to become a priest. However his ambitions mixed with Nietzsche’s teaching caused him to reject any belief in God. He pursued with great ardour the goal of atheistic communism instead. The name Stalin was not his real name – it means ‘steel’. It was given him by his fellow communists to reflect his steel like determination to reach his goal. It was this characteristic that led Lenin to appoint him to lead the Communist party. His daughter , Svetlana, was present when he died and said he was troubled by awful hallucinations. Suddenly he sat up in bed, defiantly threw a clenched fist into the air as a defiant gesture against God and died.

No Meaning

The existentialist writer, Jean-Paul Sartre, wrote a book called ‘No Exit’, saying that he can see no exit from the human dilemma. If there are no real answers, make up your own and live them to the full. That is existentialism. A French perfume manufacturer sold its fragrances to the English with the catch phrase,

“Life is to be played by your own script.”

This reflects other current phrases such as,

“Just do it.”

“Just be.”

“Follow your dream.”

Yet Sartre’s logic and conclusions are right only if you start with his atheistic presumptions.

No answer to guilt

“A guilty conscience never feels secure,” said the Roman Publius Syrus.

“Guilt is the source of sorrow, 'tis the fiend, th' avenging fiend, that follows us behind with whips and stings,” said Nicholas Rowe.

“Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind,” said William Shakespeare.

“From the body of one guilty deed a thousand ghostly fears and haunting thoughts proceed,” said William Wordsworth

Such opinions could be multiplied many times. There is no doubt that guilt is a very destructive force in individuals. It has a ‘compound interest’ effect. The more sinful and guilty a person feels, the less chance there is that he will be a happy, healthy, and satisfied citizen.

Yet is this sense of guilt bad for us and society? It is easy to complain when you pick up a hot cooking utensil mistakenly. Yet that feeling of pain is definitely to your benefit. It took many years for doctors to understand why people suffering from leprosy found their fingers and toes disappearing. It is because the slow growing bacterium, Mycobacteria leprae,invades the nerves which subsequently cease to function. Sufferers therefore have limited or no feeling in their extremities. They don’t feel the heat of a boiling kettle when they pick it up. They don’t feel their toes rubbing on their sandals. Ulcers develop which slowly cause degeneration.

Guilt can be painful yet it is necessary both for our society and ourselves. Some have tried to explain it away as a product of our upbringing or the effect of the church, but it must be deeper than that. People who have no connections with church tend to feel more and not less guilty.

Eric Fromm wrote in his book, ‘The Sane Society’,

“It is indeed amazing that, in as fundamentally an irreligious culture as ours, the sense of guilt should be so widespread and deep rooted as it is.”v

The book, ‘Realised Religion’, reviews research on the relationship between religion and health. It concludes, “Mental Health workers need to be aware of the positive potential of religious involvement”. Overall ‘fully eighty per cent of psychiatric research on religion and health conclude that a faith is advantageous’. Many studies in ‘Life Satisfaction’ all show that there is a direct relationship between spiritual commitment and contentment. A number of studies conclude, “materialistic people generally have been found to be unhappy”. This sense of well-being is accredited to the effect of individual beliefs as well as from active involvement in religious communities and activities.vi

The amazing fact is that we all like to be tempted. There is something exciting about it. “We won’t be harmed by a little thought, will we?” A vicar was trying to help a man whose marriage was on the rocks. He had had an affair.

“I don’t know how it happened,” the unhappy man complained.

“I do,” replied the wise vicar, “You had been thinking about these things in your imagination and found them attractive. Then when you found yourself in the same situation it was all too easy to fall.”

An American preacher put it this way,

“Sinful pleasure lures us only in anticipation, dancing before us like Salome before her uncle Herod, quite irresistible in fascination, happiness seems focused on her. But on the day that deed, long held in alluring expectation, is actually done, how swift and how terrible the alteration in its aspect. It passes from anticipation to committal into memory, and will never be beautiful again.”

There is not one of us who can look God in the eye with our head high. We have all failed to live as we know we should have done. Does everyone have these standards? Oh, yes. Just think how we criticise others for the things they do. Everyone knows about guilt.

It was the reality about himself that finally led the agnostic C.S.Lewis to realise how much he needed Jesus Christ.

“For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me. A zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a misery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was Legion.”

Marghanita Lasky, a humanist, was involved in a television debate with a Christian. She said,

“What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness. I have no-one to forgive me.”

The reality about my guilt and my need to be forgiven for wrongdoings are powerful arguments supporting the claims of Jesus.

Huang was only 22 years old, yet he was in a Chinese prison awaiting execution for murder, robbery and rape. He was badly mistreated by other prisoners in his cell. They ate most of his food and poured food over his head and clothes. He was handcuffed and had metal rings fixed to both ankles that cut into his flesh. To add to his woes, he felt guilty for all he had done. He tried to commit suicide on several occasions. In desperation the authorities transferred Huang to another cell. This cell contained some Christians who treated him in a very different way. His new cell mates were kind and sympathetic.

Yun, a Christian in the cell, talked to Huang in a kind way. They gave Huang extra portions from their own meagre rations of soup and food. This kindness reached his heart and he burst out crying. He exclaimed,

“My brother, I am a murderer whom everyone hates. Even my father, mother, older and younger sister and fiancée don’t want me. Why do you love me in this manner? There is no way I can repay you now, but after I die and turn into a ghost I will find some way to repay your goodness towards me.”

Yun was then filled with a deep love for this young man and through his own tears said,

“You should thank Jesus, for we believe in Him. If we didn’t believe in Him we would have treated you the same way as the prisoners in cell nine. Today we love you because of the love of the Jesus Christ. Also, after you die not only can you not repay us, but your soul will enter eternal hell and punishment. Therefore you should repent and believe in Jesus because He is the only one able to save your soul.”

Haung immediately and very sincerely said to the Lord,

“Thank you Jesus, for loving a sinner like me.”

Yun and the other Christians continued to care for Huang. The fed him, taught him the stories about Jesus, about His death and resurrection and second comying. They explained salvation to him. Huang wanted desperately to know more about the Bible. He lost his fear of death and came to love his Saviour very deeply.vii

The Validity of Values

“That is all very nice”, someone may say, “such love and forgiveness may have helped Huang, but are they real values, are they evidence based?” Instinctively we all value such characteristics and we can show that statistically they can be helpful. However without God they can only be artificial inventions fostered by manmade religions. We all know of placebo functions - could the Christian faith be put into that category? What a disaster it would be for someone to commit his or her life to following a lie. Yet if the Christian gospel is not true, what answers can we have for our society and ourselves? What will induce people to selflessly love others if there is no genuine creator who has selflessly loved them first? If the Christian story is true, what a disaster it is not to trust and follow Jesus Christ. The stakes are high! Values are valid because they are part of the very nature of our creator.

Many of the problems that we are facing in the west could be answered if we recognised the spiritual dimension of life that the Bible emphasises. Dying is not a tragedy if there is a heaven with a Saviour waiting for us there. Fraud and cheating, both at work and in relationships would be markedly reduced if we were sure that a Holy God is going to judge everything people think or do. The advantages are clear, yet how few understand that this is an essential area of study. Many try to hide behind the label, ‘agnostic’ as if that has an aura of respectability. This word has the same root meaning as ‘ignorant’. The Greek work ‘gnosis’ means knowledge, and the Greek prefixes ‘a’ and ‘i’ (short for ‘in’) both mean ‘without ‘ or ‘not’ Could anyone successfully hide behind the label ‘ignorant’ in any other aspect of life when answers are there to be investigated?

STEPPING STONES TO FAITH

Imagine a river that separates the two banks of a river. One bank is a godless selfish world where everyone does their own thing, there is ‘no king; everyone does as he saw fit.’ Hatred, dishonesty and selfishness are rife as each individuals makes himself a king. This results in fear, anxiety and loneliness. The choice of government is either anarchy or totalitarian control by dictators who, being in this world will also have their self-interest at heart. On the other bank is God’s world where control is in the hands of a beneficent Lord. All its subjects are committed to living under His authority. What He wants goes but people are happy because he is a true God of love. In this kingdom there is sharing, happiness and contentment.

Although there are many benefits of living in God’s kingdom, it seems as if a giant leap of faith is required to jump across. As a rational being that leap is large. But look, there are stepping stones across the river, each with a name written on it. Each stone represents a rational reason why it is right to live in God’s kingdom. The stones are in groups.

Science

Science can only explain how a machine, system or organism works – it is about technology. It cannot explain why. It is easy for the two to get muddled. Professor Stephen Hawking acknowledged this saying,

“Although science may solve the problem of how the universe began, it cannot solve the question, ‘Why does it bother to exist?’

Yet how often people blindly say that science has supplied all the answers. It hasn’t. Sir William Bragg, a Nobel Prize-winning Physicist said,

“From religion comes man’s purpose, from science his power to achieve it. Some people ask if religion and science are opposed to each other. They are – in the same way that the thumb and fingers are opposed to one another. It is an opposition by which anything can be grasped.”

It is no coincidence that the renaissance of science was associated with the rediscovery of the significance of the Bible as God’s word to man. This teaches that God made the world according to plan, with order and laws. Many of the early scientists were deeply committed Christians who were encouraged to discover these laws. These people include,

Galileo (1654-1642), Babbage (1791-1871), Kepler (1571-1630), Mendel (1822-1884)Pascal (1623-1662), Pasteur (1822-1895), Boyle (1627-1691), Kelvin (1824-1907), Newton (1642-1727), Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879),Faraday (1791-1867)

Believing in a rational creator God meant that there was a basis for the laws governing his creation and that these could be investigated. Thus Kepler, who defined the elliptical orbit of the planets, recognised that science was, “Thinking God’s thoughts after him.”

There are also certain problems that our present understanding of science for which no plausible answers can be found.

Anthropic Principle

There are many remarkable design features of our world and its place in the universe that enable man to live on earth. These together are called the ‘Anthropic Principle’, a phrase coined by Brandon Carter, a Cambridge physicist in 1973.Anthropos is Greek for man. For life to be possible on a planet, more than 128 criteriaviii need to be precisely right.

For example: Protons are the positively charged subatomic particles which (along with neutrons) form the nucleus of an atom (around which negatively charged electrons orbit). Whether by providence or fortuitous luck (depending on your perspective), protons just happen to be 1,836 times larger than electrons. If they were a little bigger or a little smaller, we would not exist (because atoms could not form the molecules life require). So how did protons end up being 1,836 times larger than electrons? Why not 100 times larger or 100,000 times? Why not smaller? Of all the possible variables, how did protons end up being just the right size? Was it luck or contrivance?
It would appear that the earth is specifically ‘made for man’. Freeman Dyson wrote in ‘Scientific American’,

“As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together for our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.”ix

Arno Penzias, the Nobel Prize winner, who discovered the background irradiation in space, summarised his understanding,

“Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the right conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say “supernatural”) plan.”

Sir Isaac Newton, the great seventeenth century scientist who gave us our understanding of gravity, built a model of the solar system to help him with his work. A fellow scientist, who was an atheist, came to visit him and admired the model.

“Who made this?” he asked.

“Nobody,” replied Newton.

“Don’t be ridiculous, someone made it.”

“If no-one has a problem in realising that a model needs a maker, why is it such a problem when confronted with the real universe?” Newton poignantly responded.

Rules in nature

This world works according to rules that can often be expressed mathematically. The sun rises in the morning and goes down at night at regular times. The stars don’t change positions but the planets do so in a methodical way. Beautiful rhythmic patterns can be seen in nature.

Sunflower seeds grow in an intricate pattern of interwoven spirals that go in both clockwise and anti-clockwise directions and are at different angles. The number of spirals tend to be either 21 and 34, 34 and 55, 55 and 89, or 89 and 144. The same relationship can be seen when counting the spirals on fir cones. These have either 8 spirals from one side and 13 from the other, or either 5 spirals from one side and 8 from the other. The number of diagonals on a pineapple are often 8 in one direction and 13 in the other.

The fact that the universe and everything in it works according to mathematical principles is astounding. Science cannot explain this; yet it is a repeated observation and from this comes the assumption that the world will continue to work according to these rules. Paul Davies has commented,

“Just because the sun has risen every day of your life, there is no guarantee that it will rise tomorrow. The belief that it will – that there are indeed dependable regularities of nature – is an act of faith, but one which is indispensable to the progress of science.”x

Professor John Polkinghorne said,

“Science does not explain the mathematical intelligibility of the physical world, for it is part of science’s founding faith that it is so.”xi

Eugene Wigner, a Nobel Laureate in Physics, made a similar comment,

“The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious, and there is no rational explanation for it. . . .it is an article of faith.”xii

This is important for two reasons. Firstly all knowledge is clearly built on ‘faith assumptions’ – faith is not just a religious phenomenon. Secondly there is the conundrum as to how this has happened. The mathematical truths seem to have been present before the universe began as everything is based on them.

The Bible explains this. The God who created the universe is a rational God. He does not design randomly but works according to principles. He also constantly uses reason to remind people of the evidence that he exists and therefore why they should follow his ways. The Biblical God is also a very gracious God who appreciates beauty, honour and repentance. However he has personality and does get angry when nations and individuals leave him out of their thinking and go their own selfish and immoral ways. This is a remarkable combination when he is contrasted with other gods.

The Oxford Professor Richard Swinburne is very clear that to point out aspects of obvious design in the universe is not to fall into the ‘God of the Gaps’ trap where anything difficult to understand is explained as the intervention of God. He wrote,

“I am not postulating a ‘God of the gaps’, a god merely to explain the things that science has not yet explained. I am postulating a God to explain why science explains; I do not deny that science explains, but I postulate God to explain why science explains.”

There must be a God for there to be a rational world which works according to rules. Someone set these. They are so set as not just to be functional but aesthetic as well.

Examples such as this could be repeated again and again. It would be as absurd to suggest that ‘The Mona Lisa’ picture in the Louvre came about by chance and that there was no Leonardo da Vinci or other artist who painted it. It is just as silly to say that there is no design or designer in the universe. The chance of the universe developing without a designer is so minute as to be impossible. There must have been a mind that designed and controlled all that has happened.

Sir Fred Hoyle, the astrophysicist, was not a Christian but he concluded,

“I do not believe that any scientist who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within the stars.”

“A super intellect has monkeyed with physics as well as with chemistry and biology.”xiii,xiv

Professor Owen Gingerich, an astronomer at Harvard University agreed,

“Fred Hoyle and I differ on lots of questions, but on this we agree: a common sense and satisfying interpretation of our world suggests the designing hand of a super intelligence.”

Professor Paul Davies moved from promoting atheism in 1983 to conceding in 1984,

“The laws (of physics) . . . seem themselves to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design.” xv

In his book “The Cosmic Blueprint”, published in 1988, Professor Davies said,

“There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all. . . It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the universe. . . . The impression of design is overwhelming.”xvi

Robin Collins, who has doctorates in both physics and philosophy has said,

“The extraordinary fine tuning of the laws and constants of nature, their beauty, their discoverability, their intelligibility – all of this combines to make the God hypothesis the most reasonable choice we have. All other theories fall short.”

The source of new genetic information

The theory of neo-Darwinism depends upon there being many beneficial mutations that work coherently together. Yet nearly all the mutations seen in the animal kingdom are detrimental. David Demick wrote in an article on mutations,

“With thousands of examples of harmful mutations readily available, surely it would be possible to describe some positive mutations if macro-evolution is true. These would be needed not only for evolution to greater complexity, but also to offset the downward pull of the many harmful mutations. But when it comes to identifying positive mutations, evolutionary scientists are strangely silent.”xvii

It is very hard to conceive how major changes in organisms could be brought about by random mutations. Mutations are largely harmful effects that clearly get weeded out with time. This is why the fossil record confirms that species do not alter whilst they exist. That is why the fruit fly, which can readily develop mutations with irradiation, with sometimes bizarre effects, has not changed significantly according to the fossil records since they first appeared. The geneticist Gordon Taylor wrote,

“It is a striking, but not much mentioned fact, that though geneticists have been breeding fruit flies for sixty years or more in labs all round the world, - flies which produce a new generation every eleven days – they have never yet seen the emergence of a new species or even a new enzyme.”xviii

The oldest insect fossils are about 400 million years old. Around 300 million years ago there suddenly appeared a wide range of insects such as cockroaches. The striking feature is that the oldest dragonflies, centipedes and flies have not changed at all over all this time. The adaptation in design needed for a fly to flap its wings 500 times a second is marked. We are totally in the dark over how insects developed.

Pierre-Paul Grassé, a former President of the French Academy of Science, acknowledges that mutations which are like “making mistakes in the letters when copying a written text” cannot give rise to new information. This point is so important. He writes,

“Mutations, in time, occur incoherently. They are not complementary to one another, nor are they cumulative in successive generations toward a given direction. They modify what pre-exists, but they do so in disorder, no matter how . . . . As soon as some disorder, even slight, appears in an organised being, sickness, then death follow. There is no possible compromise between the phenomenon of life and anarchy.”xix

In fact mutants usually die or are sterile. Experiments over many years have resulted in just what would be expected. Mutations do not produce beneficial, meaningful genetic code.

Male and females with the same beneficial mutations would need to breed together if the effect was to remain. Furthermore this line must then inbreed. So two similar groups of mutants must appear at the same time, in the same place and have a particular survival advantage in that habitat. All this makes the whole thesis very far fetched indeed.

When the genetic differences between the higher apes and humans are looked at, it is seen that there are bigger differences between the gorilla and the chimp genomes than there are between the chimp and humans. There is overall a 98% similarity between the genetic makeup of chimps compared that of humans. In some segments there are very few differences whereas in other segments there are marked differences. There are not uniform slight differences that would be expected if random mutation was the cause of the differences. This is more in keeping with the theory that a creator altered a working genetic template to produce the genome of man.

Professor Lahn, an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago, and his team has been studying genetic differences between humans and other mammals. They examined the DNA of 214 genes involved in the foetal brain development of humans, macaque monkeys, rats and mice. They found that there were marked differences in a large number of genes and concluded that these changes must have appeared over a very short time. They concluded that a simple explanation involving random mutations and selection of the fittest was highly unlikely.xx

In 1967 there was a rather tense meeting between some mathematicians and leading Darwinists at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. The mathematicians argued that there was nothing like enough time for the necessary multitude of small beneficial mutations to have occurred in. Thus it was said that for an eye to develop and become even partially functional would necessitate there being huge numbers of specific mutations that would give no function until they were all present. In a report of the conference it was said,

“There is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged with the current conception of biology.”xxi

In an interview the modern apostle of atheism, Richard Dawkins, was asked the question,

“Can you give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome?”

He was stumped. He sat in silence in front to the camera for a full twenty seconds before asking for it to be turned off. When the filming restarted he answered a completely different question. This short interview is available on the web and is worth seeing.xxii Whether it is a hoax I do not know but it does illustrate that there is no satisfactory scientific answer to explain the origin of new meaningful genetic code.

At the beginning of John’s record of the story of Jesus are the words,

“In the beginning was the word (Greek ‘logos’) and the word was with God and was God.”

This word ‘logos’ could be translated ‘information’ or even ‘code’. The God of the Bible clearly teaches that it was God who designed this world and who is involved in every detail of life and its continuation throughout the generations. The God of the Bible is a creator who also has both personality and values. A preacher put it this way,

“The existence of the world points to a cause, the order of the universe suggests a mind, the beauty of nature a soul, the bountifulness of life a heart.”xxiii

The concept of a supernatural God who is outside his created universe and somehow controls all that goes on is strange to modern man. We have not experienced the supernatural or the miraculous and doubt its existence. Yet here in the world of cosmology and biology we have the miraculous staring at us in the face. God has clearly intervened. The concept of a creator immediately gives rise to the charge of invoking a ‘God of the Gaps’ where anything we cannot understand is attributed to God. Advances in science would have been greatly restricted if difficult problems were simply attributed to God’s direct intervention. However there must, at some stage in the world’s creation, be a time when God did intervene. Clearly he must have set the constants of physics when the world began. Clearly he has been involved in creation. How and how often he has intervened supernaturally can be debated but life cannot be an accident. Miracles, almost by definition are rare, but if God can raise Jesus from the dead and giving details about his coming in the old Jewish Scriptures then he is able to intervene at any stage in his creation to cause what we see today.

The majesty of this creation is also clear for any who have eyes to see it. Agur, the writer of the penultimate chapter of the Book of Proverbs had this to say,

“Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name and the name of his son? Tell me if you know.” Proverbs 30:4

Irreducucible Complexity

Michael Behe wrote a book called ‘Darwins Black Box’ in which he highlighted this problem. He gives the example of the retina cell which cannot transform a photon of light into an impulse along the optic nerve unless it has at least two hundred enzymes all in the right sequence and all fully working. There is no benefit and no ‘survival of the fittest’ unless everything is in place. How could that happen randomly. He also discusses the chemical motor at the base of the flagellum of a bacterium. This motor can turn the flagellum up to ten thousand revolutions a minute. It is made up of many proteins, all in the right place. Such complex mechanisms cannot work unless everything is in place to start with. They cannot have gradually developed as there was now survival advantage until the whole works.

Christian de Duve. "A Guided Tour of the Living Cell" (Nobel laureate and organic chemist)

"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."

Simon Conway Morris, the eminent paleontologist who discovered the significance of the Cambrian explosion of animal life, wrote in his seminal book, Life's Solutions, that he is "convinced" that nature's success in the lottery of life has "metaphysical implications."

DNA

The existence of this remarable nucleic acid is surely an astounding miracle. How could it have developed randomly without there being a designer. Professor Anthony Flew, Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater

"It is, for example, impossible for evolution to account for the fact than one single cell can carry more data than all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together."

"It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design."

It was this realisation that led him to say that there must be a divine creator

Old Testament Prophecies

These are astounding. Again and again people, and especially God’s people are warned that if they fail to live with and for the one true god he will eventually become angry and exert his judgment and wrath on them. It also stresses God’s faithfulness to those who follow him. Thus Zephaniah was a prophet in the days of Josiah (640 -609 BC) He prophesied the complete destruction of the great city of Ninevah and other states that surrounded Israel. It is astounding that, of all those people, it is only the Jews who remain a discrete people.

Famously in 1779 Frederick the Great was discussing the existence of God with the Marquis D’Argens. The Emperor asked the Marquis,

“Can you give me one single irrefutable proof of God?”  

“Yes, your Majesty, the Jews.”

Then there are the three hundred and thirty prophecies about the Messiah in the old Jewish Scriptures. I have written about some of these in my book ‘Cure for Life’ so won’t repeat them here. But as an example let us read Isaiah chapter 53, the last of the passages about God’s ‘suffering servant’. This was written about 700BC. It is describes an innocent person, not a nation, who was to die and take responsibility for the sins of others so that they may be saved. Yet after his death he was to live.

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great. Isaiah 53:4-12

Isaiah is clearly talking about Jesus, God’s chosen king, God’s Messiah.

Jesus’ person and teaching.

It appears that we all want heroes to follow. It may be a pop star, players in your football team. There is something in our heroes we admire even though there is much to disapprove about the lives of many of the heroes, particularly when you look at their private lives. In contrast Jesus stands out. It is no surprise that he developed such a following. Thousands followed him around.

Jesus Healing Ministry

Mark’s gospel describes how both his close followers and the masses were astounded by Jesus’ miracles. These were publicly performed and even non-Christian writers, such as Josephus, refer to his miracles.

Jesus Death and Resurrection

There are five historical facts which must be explained by any adequate historical hypothesis:

1. Jesus’ burial. Even most New Testament critics concur that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb. According to the late John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University, the burial of Jesus in the tomb is “one of the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus.” xxiv

2. The discovery of his empty tomb. His post-resurrection appearances to over five hundred

3. The origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection. The extraordinary rapid expansion of the early church in spite of political opposition

4. Jesus’ character. So loving and caring, so strong on truth, hating hypocrisy and injustice and willing to sacrifice himself for others. He is truly extraordinary.

5. The extraordinary growth of the early church. This occurred in spite of great opposition fro both secular and religious authorities

Instincts

This for me has become a very powerful argument. After I had given a lecture in the University of Hertfordshire on the relationship between science and faith, I was surrounded by a group who were associated with ‘The Atheist Society’. They tried to counter several of the arguments I had used for the need of a designer and creator by bringing up the theoretical possibility of there possibly being an infinite number of universes. However we moved on to the question of ‘moral instincts’ they acknowledged that they also had ‘gut feelings’ that these values were valid. They thought that their lives did have a purpose. They instinctively believed that ‘right and wrong’, ‘integrity’ and ‘honesty’ mattered. They valued ‘beauty’, ‘courage’ and ‘altruism’ even they could not explain where these ideals had come from.

All people have these human ideals even if they consider their origin and or validity as uncertain. ‘The Who’ made a record called ‘The Seeker’, which included the line,

“I’ve got values, but I don’t know how or why.”

Although values such as ‘Goodness’, ‘Beauty’, ‘Truth’, ‘Honesty’ and ‘Courage’ cannot be proved to the mechanistic scientist, they are nonetheless essential ingredients of human life. Indeed these are the main features that distinguish humanity from other members of the animal kingdom. As these values diminish in a civilisation, so that civilisation diminishes. Human society and friendships rely on these virtues.

Everyone I have met believes in right and wrong, particularly when someone has done something against their interests! Honesty and integrity are valued by all people. We do believe in truth. Our law courts are based on the search for truth and modern medicine relies on making a true diagnosis of the symptoms so that treatment that has been proved to be effective in similar cases can be given. Selfless love for others is universally applauded, whereas unkindness and cruelty are deplored. The question must be asked where these instincts come from. They are as innate as the ability of a baby to swallow its mothers milk or to cry when it is in some need. The Bible says that mankind has been made in the image of god. Could these moral instincts not be one aspect of this?

Guilt

Guilt is an interesting phenomenon, shouting that their is right and wrong in the world and in us. Guilt is, to some degree a universal phenomenon. Although some people with obsessive personalities are liable to be overwhelmed with excessive feelings of guilt this should no negate its significance. I have an instinct within me that I should do what is right and when I do something wrong or fail to do something right, something inside my conscience hurts. When Potiphar’s wife was trying to seduce Joseph, he replied.

“How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God.” Genesis 39:9

Joseph recognised that guilt was not just the effect of social upbringing, but was a God given instinct that we have all been given to help us search for and stay close to God.

Sin

At heart sin is the innate rebellion against God that we all suffer from. It is spelt ‘S I N’, which emphasises with great clarity that the root of sin ‘I’ am placed at the centre. Sins, as opposed to ‘sin’ are those things we do wrong as result of this rebellion, we lie, cheat, say unkind things, lust and the like. This is different from but related to guilt. We may sin and not feel particularly guilty. We more we go against our consciences the less we are concerned. It is as if our conscience is a square piece of wood on a rotating lathe. When the chisel first approaches the wood, it jars as the corners of the wood are repeatedly contacted, but gradually, as the chisel eats into the wood there is much less jarring. So our consciences can be weakened by repeated rejection over time. Romans chapter 1 confirms that all men are culpable before God because we reject the truths he has put into our instincts.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.  They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1:18-25

The God-shaped gap

The philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal argued that the human experience of emptiness and the yearning for something more is an indication that our essential need is to be fulfilled in something greater, a relationship with the God who made us. Augustine expressed this in his famous prayer,

“You have made us for yourself and out heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.”

C.S.Lewis also argued that there is a God-shaped gap within all people that we try to satisfy in many different ways – usually by inventing our own false, temporary gods. In the absence of God people experience a deep sense of longing, a longing that is really for God but is misinterpreted as a longing for things in this world.

A Chinese postgraduate student was talking about her interest in Christianity. She recognised that her country needed the values that Christianity brought with it. She has now realised that these values are not related to a religion but are the very nature of God, our creator, himself. Jesus clearly demonstrated this. What her country needs is to be open to Jesus, the Lord of the universe. But first she needs to realise something vital. It is not just her society that needs Jesus. She needs him too. She needs the forgiveness he brings by paying for her sin himself on that cross. She needs the supernatural power he offers her, if she turns to Christ, to live this new life. It is not possible to live a Godly life, which will increasingly reveal these characteristics, unless we know that we have been forgiven, and have a longing to meet our Saviour later on. Living for Jesus Christ our Saviour becomes the greatest value we can have. All other values flow from him. She has now accepted the rule Christ in her life.

A Leap or Step of Faith?

At meal after the funeral of a friend, I was talking with one of his family about the faith of the man who had died. He said,

“But becoming a Christian demands a leap of faith.”

I replied,

“I hope I can show you that to become a Christian does require a step of faith but that this is a small logical step compared with the gigantic leap needed to reject Christ.”

We discussed the two world scenarios of the two banks of the river and briefly went over the reasons for faith as the stepping stones across the river. He appeared to agree with the thinking behind each step. It was as if he was on the last of the stepping stones. He had a choice to make. People can either take a step of faith based on our instincts and the evidence or take a massive leap of faith back into a selfish world where they are one of many gods. Logically to make such a massive leap into an empty world should include providing answers to all the evidence provided by the stepping stones. Yet how few do this.

BVP

The arguments of this article have been developed in my book ‘Stepping Stones to Faith’ published in 2024 by Austin Macauley Publishers

i Albert Einstein, ‘Letters to Solovine’, New York, Philosophical Library, 1987 p.131

ii Charles Darwin, ‘The Descent of Man’, 1871, Penguin Books quoted by Sheena Tyler, ‘Origins 41’ Sept 2005 p16

iii Ernest Haeckel, ‘The History of Creation’, translated by E.R Lancaster, Appleton, New York , 1901, quoted by Sheena Tyler, ‘Origins 41’ Sept 2005 p18

iv Jeremy Rifkin, ‘Algeny’, Viking Press, 1983

v Eric Fromm, The Sane Society, Fawcett, 1977 p. 181

vi Theodore J. Chamberlain and Christopher A. Hall, ‘Realised Religion’, Research on the Relationship between Religion and Health, Templeton Foundation Press

vii Danyun, Lilies Amongst Thorns, Sovereign World 1991 p. 55-61

viii Hugh Ross, ‘The Creator and the Cosmos’,NavPress 2001 p. 194

ix Freeman Dyson, Scientific American, 225.25 (1971)

x Paul Davies, “The Mind of God”, London, Simon and Schuster, 1992 p. 81

xi John Polkinghorne, “Reason and Reality”, SPCK, 1991 p.76

xii E.P.Wigner, “The Unreasoanble Effectiveness of Mathematics”, Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, 13 (1960) pp. 1-14

xiii Fred Hoyle, “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections.” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 20 (1982)

xiv Hoyle F. ‘Religion and the Scientists’ London SCM, 1959

xv Paul Davies, ‘Superforce’, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1984 p 243

xvi Paul Davies, “The Cosmic Blueprint”, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1988 p203

xvii David Demick, “The Blind Gunman”, Impact 308 1999

xviii Gordon Rattray Taylor, “The Great Evolution Mystery”, Abacus, Sphere Books, London 1984 p.48

xix Pierre-Paul Grassé, “Evolution of Living Organisms”, Academic Press
New York 1977 p. 97-98

xx Steve Dorus, Eric J. Vallender, Patrick D. Evans, Jeffrey R. Anderson, Sandra L. Gilbert, Michael Mahowald, Gerald J. Wyckoff, Christine M. Malcom and Bruce T. Lahn “Accelerated Evolution of Nervous System Genes in the Origin of Homo sapiens” Cell, Volume 119, Issue 7, 29 December 2004, Pp 1027-1040
Steve Dorus, Eric J. Vallender, Patrick D. Evans, Jeffrey R. Anderson, Sandra L. Gilbert, Michael Mahowald, Gerald J. Wyckoff, Christine M. Malcom and Bruce T. Lahn

xxi Schutzenberger, M.P. (1967) “Algorithms and the Neo-Darwimian Theory of Evolution”, in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, ed P.S.Moorhead and M.M.Kaplan, Wistar Institute Press, Philadelphia, p75 Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1985, Adler & Adler, Publishers, Inc. pages 289

xxii http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmadkjPrjug

xxiii Walter F Adeney (1849-1920) in Great Sermons ed Warren Wiersbe (1993) p4

xxiv