COSMIC SPECIFICITY AND ASTROPHYSICS: WORLD VIEWSIN CONFLICT AND THE DEMISE OF FOUNDATIONALISM

Caveat Emptor: “Let the Buyer Beware”

The scriptural foundation of absolute origins of the Space-Time Universe is the creation account in Genesis 1.1. There is no claim to the absolute origin of the universe in classical Semitic nor Graeco/Roman culture. The so-called creation myths were not about the absolute origins of the space/time universe or the building blocks of the universe, i.e., the Periodic Chart, the Gene Code, etc. (because all the Near Eastern thought was Pantheistic). The so-called demise of Foundationalism derives from Kant’s First Critique, where both the universe and God, the creator, were removed from “knowledge access.” Kant, himself tried to avoid cultural/ epistemological relativism by absolutizing Newtonian Mechanics, Euclidean Geometry and Aristotelian Logic -grounded in the Greek language, as the non negotiable foundation of knowledge claims. This, however, has proven to be a futile attempt to protect the Christian Faith from losing Reason, Faith and Revelation contrary to the hard sciences.

Genesis 1.1: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. I Corinthians 3.18: Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this world, let him become a “fool,” so that he may become wise.John 18.38: What is truth? (Pilate’s question)I John 4: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.I Timothy 4.1: But the Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.Romans 1.16: For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus. (Read Romans 1.1-26, I Corinthians 1.18-31, John 1.6-17, Acts 1.1-8, Hebrews 1.1-14, II Peter 3.15, I John 1.1-10, Colossians 1.13-18, Ephesians 6.10-20, Galatians 1.6-10, and Revelation 21.10-27)

“Others apart set on a hill retired in thought more elevated and reasoned high of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate.Fixed fate free will, Foreknowledge absolute and found no end, in wandering mazes lost.”(Paradise Lost, Book II, lines 557ff; see also J.K. Beilby, P.R. Eddy, editors, Divine Foreknowledge, IVP pb.).

Genesis 1.1 is the first place in recorded history where an “absolute” origin of the Space-Time universe is affirmed. All other so-called ancient creation myths are not affirmation of the “absolute origin of the space/time universe.” There is no “absolute creation” in Graeco/Roman thought, (Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, et al maintained that matter was eternal and history was cyclical). This fundamental biblical claim is available for study only by the developments in Astrophysics (e.g., Einstein and the coming of the “Big Bang” theory). Postmodern anti science in the 20th/21st centuries is not adequate to respond to the challenge of “Cosmic Specificity.

There are now many classic and notable works covering the concept of World Views (e.g. Kant, Orr, Clark, Naugle, McGraf, Sire, Holmes, Beckwith, Craig, Moreland, Dockery, Dembski, Behe, et al). A crucial factor for the postmodern controversy appeared in Vatican II’s

declaration that Kant’s First Critique would be the authority in this controversy. Kant denies that knowledge of the absolute origin of the universe is possible and thus the discussion of fundamental issues can be reduce to social categories that only apply to the earth (e.g. History, Sociology, Anthropology, Linguistics, Economics, Politics, etc.) instead of the entire universe. Therefore, and unfortunately (!), much world view discussion is no longer concerned with the “absolute origins of the universe,” but only with a very “small” dimension of the cosmos, i.e., the earth and its social configurations.

The postmodern cosmology controversy emphatically repudiates the cosmic design argument and replaces “cosmic specificity” by the naturalistic fine tuning of the universe for life on the earth. Vital questions remain—(1) Why is there a universe at all? (life, mind, consciousness, morality); (2) Why is the universe understandable through mathematical equations” (3) Is the universe merely socially constructed? If so, there is no unified world view; there are only world views (there are as many world views as there are languages, a’la’ Wittgenstein’s Language Game).

First Things First

(Naming the Elephant, James Sire (Inter Varsity Press, 2004), pgs. 51-73)

What is the most foundational issue of all analysis? Is it Being, or Knowing, or Meaning? In reference to the two questions of why there is a universe and why it is understandable by mathematical equations, are they only social constructs? Or do they require a “critical realism” position (a position this author holds to be the case) to adequately understand?1

The contribution of Sire’s Naming the Elephant would be greatly enhanced by at least a survey of the most crucial developments in science, which “all support the thesis that the cosmos reveals enormous “specificity”, i.e., design. In April 24, 1992 a team of Astrophysicists revealed the findings of The Cosmic Background Explorer (Cobe) satellite’s confirmation of the hot big bang creation event. At this juncture the scientific community became open once again to the idea that God created the universe, which is the foundation of a Biblical worldview. The Law of Thermodynamics declares that an expanding universe must be cooling simultaneously.

In 1946 George Gamow discovered that only a rapidly cooling of the cosmos from near infinitely high temperatures could account for how protons and neutrons fused together forming a universe that today is about 73% hydrogen, 24% helium, and 3% heavier elements. Developments have shown temperature irregularities at three different wavelengths of observation. From the 1990’s scientific development reveals that the universe must have erupted from a single explosive event that by itself accounts for at least 99:97% of the radial energy in the universe. This cosmos suggests that this universe is made up of clumped clusters of galaxies. The ‘specificity’ of these events strongly supports the claim of the “rational design” of the “whole that is the universe” (scientifically there is no evidence of a multiplicity of universes).

1 See esp. Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos has the greatest scientific discoveries of the century (Nav Press, 1993); also my essays, “Idolatrous Absolutes: Man’s Search for Ultimates;” “Loss of Transcendence in Our Christian Culture;” “The Creation/Evolution Controversy: The Christian Faith and Biological Theories of Evolution.”; at: www.worldvieweyes.org/strauss-docs.html.

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Another dimension of the “creation”/creator debate is “the matter mystery,” i.e., matter is made up of protons, neutrons, electrons and other fundamental particles that are detected easily in particle physics experiments. Such matter strongly interacts with radiation. The “matter mystery” is that it does not strongly interact with radiation. Particle physicists have classified 36 different fundamental particles or massive objects which only weakly interact with radiation.

On April 24, 1992 the ripple measurements precisely matched the level of fluctuation the astrophysicists had predicted. The fundamental problem of how the galaxies clumped while the background radiation remained so smooth was solved ?

The marvelous design or fit of this phenomenon was a cosmological breakthrough. The six new discoveries provided overwhelming evidence that God is the power and intelligence behind it all. These discoveries were foundational for scientific understanding of galaxy formation.2

One of the new discoveries was Deuterium, i.e., heavy hydrogen atoms which have a proton plus a neutron. Another marvelous discovery was made by The Hubble Space Telescope. Since Earth’s atmosphere blocks out all radiation in the deep ultra violet, only a large telescope in outer space would be capable of getting a good look at these lines and at what they can tell us about the amount of deuterium. With the Hubble the astrophysicist could now measure those lines and use them to determine that ordinary matter comprises about 1/10 of the “critical mass density” of the universe. From these discoveries scientists could now define the material that comprises the universe.

“The critical mass of the universe is the minimum density of matter the universe would need to bring about half of its expansion. . . . As Newton explained, massive bodies will tend to attract one another the more mass in the universe the greater the braking effect.” (Ross, p. 35)

The exotic matter weakly interacts with radiation, its gravitational influence is the same as for oxidizing matter. Gravitational density gave astronomers the capability of measuring the combined total of ordinary and exotic matter.

As early as 1916 Albert Einstein laid the foundation for the measuring tool. He predicted, using his Theory of General Relativity that starlight would be bent by the sun’s gravity. This prediction was proved correct in 1919. The light of stars and radio waves from distant objects is indeed bent by the sun to exactly the degree Einstein calculated. Massive galaxies or clusters of galaxies pulling on the light from a distant quasar or galaxy are even more dramatic.

As previously stated, the Hubble Telescope provided another tool for determining the total mass of the universe. It is a measurement that fills a crucial gap in a series of calculations. These measurements are made by gravitational lenses, and from measurement of the background radiation ripples.

2 These indirect measuring techniques are similar to, say, how one would determine an elephant’s weight from the depth of his footprints in the mud and from the consistency of the mud at the time he walked through it.

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Together, the Hubble Telescope, the Rosat Satellite, and the Cobe Satellite discoveries have helped solve the mystery of how galaxies and clusters of galaxies form out of a hot big bang creation event. The question remains, how does all of this imply the existence of God?

Kant (1724-1804) reasoned that an Infinite Being could be reflected in nothing less than an infinite universe (Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Theories of the Universe, edited by Milton R. Munitz (Glencoe, IL: Fortress Press, 1957, p. 240) How the universe came to be is immaterial and therefore unknowable according to Kant. He concerned himself with how the universe works (mere description, not explanation). His studies convinced him that everything in the universe could be accounted for by the laws of mechanics described by Sir Isaac Newton, 1642-1721, (see esp. Lincoln Barnett, The Universe of Dr. Einstein (NY: Wm. Sloane, 1948); See also Ross’s The Fingerprint of God concerning paradoxes of God, predetermination and man’s free choice and the existence of evil and suffering in the presence of God’s love and power; finally see also Reasons to Believe, PO Box 5978, Pasadena, CA 91117)

On that assumption, he built the first in a series of mechanistic models for the universe (cf. the historic origins of The Newtonian World Machine and the ensuing Deism, Atheism, and Idealism in Western Pantheism of much Christian thought). Newton, fused with Hume’s (1711-1776) critique of Miracle, challenged the Christian World View and the Western world in the academy). The origin of “mind,” “consciousness,” “value” was impossible in the Newtonian World Machine of Kant. His efforts to construct a model for life origins were abandoned only when he realized that scientific understanding of the internal workings of organism was missing. Surely the major credit for Darwinism and the multitude of “isms” that sprang from it belongs to Immanuel Kant (Hugh Ross, ibid., 2nd edition revised, Orange, CA: Promise Pub., 1991, pp. 27-38).

Paradox of the Dark Night Sky

Why does it get dark when the sun sets? The question is not as trite as it sounds. In the context of an approximately static, infinitely old and infinitely large universe, the light from all the stars would add up to an infinite brightness. The brightness of a light source is diminished before every doubling of its distance. For example, a light bulb at the center of a one foot diameter globe will illuminate the globe’s surface four times brighter than the same bulb at the center of a two foot diameter globe. This is because the two foot diameter globe has a surface area four times larger than the one foot diameter globe. So, for example, since Jupiter is five times more distant from the sun than the earth, the sunlight it receives is twenty-five times dimmer.

This phenomenon did not stop proponents of an infinite universe. They claimed cloud dust between the stars would absorb starlight sufficiently to allow the night sky to be dark even in an infinite universe. They overlooked (until 1960), a basic principle of thermodynamics that states, given sufficient time, a body will radiate away as much energy as it receives. Therefore, the universe in some respect must be finite, i.e., created in time and space. Fused with Olber’s Paradox, this is the death flow to the concept of an Infinite Universe!3

3 See implications for an infinite materialistic ordered universe—Herbert P. Yockey, “On the Information Content of Cytochrome,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, 67 (1977), pgs. 345-376; and his “Self Organization-Origin of Life Scenarios and Information Theory,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, 91 (1981), pgs. 13-31; James H. Lake, “Evolving Ribosome Structures: Domains in Archaebacteria, Eubacteria, Ecocytes, and Eukaryoles” “Genetic Code

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Closing Loopholes

As early as Arthur S. Eddington’s book, The End of the World, he states that “We must allow evolution an infinite time to get started.” Darwin’s evolution was the fundamental assumption of this statement, i.e., the belief that inorganic material evolves into simple cells and later into advanced life without any input from “God”, and to defeat the notion of a “beginning” with its obvious implications.

Edwin Hubble’s “time” confirmed that the universe is expanding but also measured the rate of the expansion; with that measurement plus the availability of the distance of the farthest out galaxies, it was then possible to produce close approximation of when the universe began. According to Hubble, it was a few billion years old.4 In 1948 three British astrophysicists, Herman Bondi, Thomas Gold, and Fred Hoyle, circumvented “the beginning” via “continual creation” thesis.5

Big Bang Growth versus Steady State Growth?

In a Big Bang universe the destiny of matter thesis is out and the mean age for the galaxies advances. All Big Bang models predicate a finite age for the universe. In a Steady State universe new matter is spontaneously and continuously created! The density of matter remains the same, and the mean age for the galaxies is constant. On a large scale nothing changes with time. All Steady State models assume that the universe is infinite in age and extent. Since the light of very distant galaxies takes considerable time to reach us, astronomers can look back into the past to see which growth pattern the universe follows.

Bondi and Hoyle totally reject Christianity and affirm that “the universe is everything” and to suggest otherwise is a crackpot. The major problem with Big Bang is what was there before the bang? This problem alone was basic to the initial impetus to the Steady State Theory. The model in which the universe expands from a “singularity” merely repeats the cycle indefinitely. (J.H. Taylor, et al “Experimental Constraints on Strong-field Relativistic Gravity,” Nature 355 (1992) pgs. 132-36) Any rejection of these models leaves only the pantheistic Hindu thought of reincarnation or an oscillating universe. Theoretically, the universe could be brought to a halt

Redundancy Structures,” (1985, pgs. 343-348), and Hubert Yockey, “Do Overlapping Genes Violate Molecular Biology and the Theory of Evolution?” Journal of Theoretical Biology 80 (1979), pgs. 21-26). Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box thesis of universal genetic structure, i.e., Genetics are the complex origins of reality and their complexity reduces to simplicity.4 e.g., for exposition of the creation data controversy see chapter 13 of The Finger Print of God, 1994; my essays “The Creation Evolution Controversy,” “Idolatrous Absolutes;” Man’s Search for Ultimates;” and “Lost Transcendence in a Post Christian Culture;” “Eastern Antecedents of the Development of Science;” “The Maze of Ancient Sumerian Semantic Pantheism;” “Creation Covenant, Redemption and Doctrine in Genesis 1-11;” and “Literary Criticism After Gunkel.”5 See esp. Herman Bondi and T. Gold, “The Steady State Theory of the Expanding Universe,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 108 (1948), pgs. 252-270; Fred Hoyle, “A New Model for the Expanding Universe,” Monthly Notices, pgs. 372-382; Herman Bondi, Cosmology, 2nd ed. Rev. (Cambridge University Press, 1960, p. 140; Fred Hoyle, The Nature of the Universe, 2nd ed. (Basil Blackwell, 1952, p. 111; and his “The Universe Past and Present Reflections,” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982), pg. 3; also my essay, “Creation/Evolution Controversy.”

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by gravity if the universe contained enough mass. But gravity could shrink the universe back into a tiny volume. Some unknown “bounce mechanism” must be involved to make this a reality!

Present research centers around “exotic matter;” the total mass appears to fall short of what would be needed to make “oscillate” work. Even if the universe did bounce or oscillate, its oscillations would be limited because of entropy, i.e., energy degradation.

The Second Law of Thermodynamic claims that the entropy of the universe increases with time. This entropy increase means a decrease in the energy available to perform mechanical work, such as bouncing or oscillating: even if the universe could oscillate, it could not have been oscillating for an infinite time. The laws of thermodynamics compel the maximum diameter of the universe to increase from cycle to cycle. Therefore, such a universe could look forward to an infinitely long future but only a finite past. One ultimate moment of creation could not be rejected scientifically.

If the universe oscillates that means it is like an engine or a system designed for work. The ability of any system to work depends on its mechanical efficiency. The universe literally ranks as the worst engine in all existence. Its mechanical efficiency is so low that oscillation is impossible!

System or Engine Mechanic Efficiency

Diesel engine 40%Gasoline engine 25%Steam engine 12%Human body 1%Universe 0.000000001%

The Quantum Gravity Era: The Reincarnation Connection

Most Eastern Religions, classical, modern and postmodern, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, (all are forms of Pantheism), and New Age philosophies are rooted in the doctrine of “Cosmic Reincarnationism, i.e., the oscillating universe. The popularity of the oscillating universe model derives from this anti science development in postmodern cosmology.

The counter culture reasoned that ancient Hinduism got very close to the right answer; therefore it was held that Hinduism was surely more than a humanly devised reason. This irrationalism fused with enchantment of anything “non-Western” and “non-traditional” and a diversion to the moral values of Christianity produced much of our present international/global chaos in our postmodern multicultural diversity of the 21st century.

The rationalizing has now been removed. Reality is not described by infinite cycles or cosmic reincarnation. The pantheistic world view of Hinduism (all world religions) has been proven false. The developments in the physical sciences have proven that all reality is not socially

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constructed! (See my essay, “Critique of the Sociology of Knowledge Thesis, i.e., Social contextualization of All Reality”)

Time before Time

This was an era of new speculation concerned with “bounce in quantum gravity.” The universe before the hypothetical bounce begins with a huge amount of space curvature and little or no matter. But, as the universe expands, space is stretched, reducing the curvature. This loss of curvature is transformed into matter, and in the process, a huge amount of entropy is generated. Because of the enormous entropy produced the process is not reversible. Matter cannot be converted back into the needed space curvature. Then the universe we live in cannot be the product of oscillation even if the bounces are hypothesized to occur in the quantum gravity sense. If a quantum gravity theory cannot explain how the present universe developed from the initial quantum state it must be decoded. Hinduism and Buddhism because of their pantheistic belief (and all pantheistic world views) are based on/in the concept of an oscillating universe. Their scriptures contain data concerning indefinite cycles of birth, growth, collapse, death, and rebirth of the cosmos and of ourselves as “one” with it, the “reality” described by the oscillating universe model. Hindu scriptures predicted a period of oscillation, the time between successive rebirths. These writings claimed 4.32 billion years.6

With the collapse of the oscillating universe model, attempts to get around the Hubble time turned in a new direction. Still many held out for an infinitely old universe and hypothesize that the fundamental loss of nature as we knew than are either incorrect or will break down under special conditions. If the laws of nature cannot explain the amazing advances in complexity of living organisms, do these advances violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that systems tend to degrade from higher levels of order, complexity, and information to lower levels of order, complexity, and information?7 If one rejects the existence of the creator he is forced to conclude that the second law of Thermodynamics broke down for the organisms on earth, it could have broken down for the entire physical cosmos.

The rate at which entropy or energy degradation increases suggests a finite origin of the cosmos, i.e., the Creator. Lerner starts with the presupposition that God does not exist; thus he must reinterpret the laws of nature. Lerner’s efforts are an escape from reality, not a scientific explanation of it. Nothing of the physical world can be “trusted” to exist if we reject the physical laws. We cannot recreate the universe into any form we wish simply by imaging a breakdown of the laws of physics at whatever point we deem convenient. If this anti-science move is “necessary,” we have traded in “Science” for “Science Fiction,” or “Virtual Reality.” In fact, if there is no structure to reality, then we have only postmodern alternative systems which are pluralistic, relativistic alternatives. In this postmodern “cosmos” there is no True Truth—only alternative interpretive systems. We have arrived at our Postmodern multicultural death of God

6 Igor D. Navikov and Y.B. Zeldovich, “Physical Processes New Cosmological Singularities,” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 11 (1973), pgs. 387-412; Arnold E. Sikenous and Werner Israel, “Black-hole Mergers and Mass Inflation in a Bouncing Universe,” Nature, 349 (1991), pgs. 45-47; Andre Linde, “Self-Reproducing Universe,” Symposium on Large Scale Structures, California Institute of Technology, CA 27 (Set. 1991); Charles W. Misner, Kip Thorne and John Wheeler, Gravitation (San Francisco, CA: W. Freeman, 1973), p. 752).7 See esp. Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box; Eric J. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened (NY: Random House, 1991, pgs. 120, 295-318).

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who did not survive “The God of the Gaps” virus. The God of the Guts is pure irrational superstitious subjectivism! Reality is indeed socially constructed by semiotic, linguistic, culturally contingent Legitimization Structures, Paradigms, and World Views, etc. The disproof of these models and the continued use to reject the creator as the irrational appeal to more bizarre unknowns and unknowables in reality strength.

The Universe and Its Beginning

Even before the death of the oscillating universe model, a fundamental reason was uncovered for the failure of cosmological models that rejected the finite age of the universe. In a series of papers appearing from 1966 to 1970, three British astrophysicists—Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose—extended the solution of the equations of general relativity to include special time.8

The need for proof for the beginning of time was evidence that the general relativity really does tell the true story about the dynamics of the universe. Einstein proposed three tests at the time of his theory publication.9 Within two years, a team led by British astronomer, Arthur Eddington, met the condition for he first test when they proved that the sun’s gravity bends starlight by just the amount general relativity predicted.10 The original confirmation of the relativity equation was ca. 10% They have since increased confirmation to 1%

In 1976 an echo delay experiment placed on the moon by Apollo astronauts reduced the uncertainty down to 0.5%. In 1979 measurements of the gravitational effects on radio signals further reduced the uncertainty to just 0.1%.11 In 1980 a hydrogen master clock, based on the laser principle and nearly a hundred times more accurate than the best atomic clock aboard a NASA rocket confirmed general relativity to the fifth place of the decimal.

A new version of the “Big Bang” model, a model called “Inflationary Universe,” answers most of the previously unanswered questions of “Big Bang” cosmology. A recent development of great theological significance is a paper just produced by Alexander Vilenkin establishing that inflationary models with no beginning are impossible.12 Pantheism claims that there is no existence beyond the universe, that the universe is all there is, and that the universe always has 8 See Roger Penrose, “An Analysis of the Structure of ‘Space-Time’, Adam’s Prize Essay, Cambridge University, 1966; Stephen Hawking, “Singularity and the Geometry of Space-Time,” F.R. Ellis, “The Cosmic Black-Body Radiation and Existence of Singularities in Our Universe,” Astrophysical Journal 152 (1968), pgs. 25-36); S. Hawking and Roger Penrose, “The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A 314 (1970), pgs. 527-548.9 Albert Einstein, “Das Grindlage des Allgemeinen Relativity Theory,” Annalen der Physic 49, 1916), pgs. 769-822; Henfrik A. Lorentz, et al. The Principle of Relativity with notes by Arnold Sommerfeld, translated by W. Perrett and G.B. Jeffery (London Methuen, 1923, pgs. 109-164).10 F.W. Dyson, Arthur Eddington, C. Davidson, “A Determination of the Defect in Light by the Gravitational Field from Observations Made at the Total Eclipse of May 29, 1919,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London series A. 220 (1920), pgs. 291-333; Steven Weinberg, Gravitation and Cosmology: Principle and Application of the General Theory of Relativity (NY: J. Wiley and Sons, 1972, p. 198).11 R.D. Reasenberg, et al., “Viking Relativity Experiment: Verification of Signal Retardation by Solar Gravity” Astrophysical Journal Letter, 234, 1979, pgs. 219-221. In 1980 a hydrogen master clock based on the laser principle and nearly a hundred times more accurate than the best atomic clock abroad a NASA rocket confirmed general relativity to the fifth place of the decimal. (R.J. C. Vessot, et. al., “Tests of Relativistic Gravitation with a Space Borne Hydrogen Mass,” Physical Review Letters, 45 (1980), pgs. 2081-2084.

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existed. Atheism claims that the universe was not created and no entity exists independent of the matter, energy and space/time dimensions of the universe. But all the data accumulated in the 20th century tells us that a transcendent creator must exist, for all matter, energy, length, width, height, and even time suddenly and simultaneously came into being from some source beyond itself. Matter, energy, space, and time are effects that the Creator caused. The creator is transcendent, for the act of causing these effects must take place outside or independent of them. Both science and Scriptures are fused in the Creator and His creation!

A Transcendent God is Knowable by Inscriptionand Incarnation (the crucifixion is an historical event)

The space/time theorem of general relativity led not just to a theistic conclusion but specifically to the “God of Scriptures” i.e., the originator of the universe. Of all the holy books of world religions, only the Judeo/Christian Scripture unambiguously states that time is finite, that time has a beginning, that God created time, that God is capable of cause and effect, in operation before the time dimensions of the universe existed, and that God did cause many effects before the time component of our universe existed. Some of the Bible verses making such statements are: (1) Genesis 1.1; (2) Hebrews 11.3 (the heavens and the earth always refers to the entire physical universe. The Hebrew word Bara means to make something brand new—out of nothing); (3) II Timothy 1.9 “before the beginning of time;” (3) Titus 1.2, “promised before the beginning of time;” (4) John 17.24, “chose us before the creation of the world;” (5) Ephesians 1.4, “before the creation of the world;” (6) I Peter 1.20 “before the creation of the world;” (7) John 1.3 “without Him nothing was made;”(8) Colossians 1.61,17 “He is before all things and in Him all things hold together;” (9) John 20.19 “on the Lord’s day, first day of the week, Jesus came and stood among them;” (10) Luke 24.37-43, “Witness after His resurrection He transferred his three dimensional body from the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions, back into the first, second and third;” (11) Philippians 2.5-55--In the incarnation (kenosis) Christ stripped Himself of the extra dimensional capacities He shared with God, the Father and Holy Spirit. But these capacities were restored to Him after He had finished His mission of redeeming men from their sin.

Religions that view the Scriptures through the limited dimensionality of the universe inevitably deny portions of God’s transcendence. Judaism accepts the teaching of the Old Testament but rejects the New Testament. Islam and Mormonism accept both the Old and New Testaments but add other holy books to supercede them. The Jehovah’s Witnesses accept both testaments but choose to change several hundred words in both; other cults such as Christian Science and Unity simply ignore “unpleasant” passages in the testaments. The common denominator in all alternatives to Christianity is a denial of God’s transcendence and extra dimensional attributes. Only the Christian faith teaches the Trinity, i.e., the Unity of God. The General Relativity leads to the description of Jesus Christ as our creator God.

Who Created God?

12 Alexander Vilenkai, “Did the Universe Have a Beginning?” Colt 68 1772 DOE Research and Development Report, California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA, November 1992.

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A child might ask if God created us, then who created God? If Jesus Christ created the universe and everything in it, including all matter, energy, and the four space/time dimensions—we stand in the presence of the creator, i.e., the universe and everything in it is confined to a single, finite dimension of time. Time in that dimension proceeds only and always forward. The flow of time can never be reversed. Nor can it be stopped. Time is only one-half a dimension. The proof of creation lies in the mathematical observation that any entity confined to such a half-dimension of time must have a starting point or point of origination. That is, the entity must be created. This necessity for creation appeared to the whole universe and ultimately everything in it. The necessity for God to be created, however, would apply only if God, too, were confined to half a dimension of time. He is not! Time is that realm or dimension in which “cause and effect” phenomena takes place according to the space/time theorem of General Relativity, such effects as matter, energy, length, width, height and time were caused independent of the time dimension of the universe. According to the New Testament (II Timothy 1.9; Titus 1.2) such effects as grace and hope were caused independently of the time dimension of the universe.

Both the Special Relativity and Scripture speak of it at least one additional time dimension for God. In two or more dimensions of time, an entity is free from the necessity of being created. If time were two dimensional, both a time length and time width would be possible. Time would expand from a line into a plane. In a plane of time an infinite number of lines running in an infinite number of directions would be possible. If God were to so choose, He could move and operate along an infinite time line that never touches or crosses the time line of our universe. As John 1.3, Colossians 1.16,17 and Hebrews 7.3 declare “He would have no beginning and no end. He would not be created. God’s timeframe is relative to our time frame. The creator can choose to move and operate for infinite time, forward and backward, on a time line that never intersects or touches the time line of the universe.

The Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism in 1992-1993 issue of their magazine “Free Inquiry” lined up four physicists to write articles addressing “Does the Big Bang Prove the Existence of God?” (Paul Kurtz, “Free Inquiry” (Winter 1992-93, pgs. 10-15). The British journal “Nature” enlisted its physics editor, John Maddox, to write an editorial entitled, “Down with the Big Bang.” (1989, pg. 25) All four articles attack the Big Bang theory because it implies “an ultimate origin of our world,” whose cause lies beyond the universe (Maddox, p. 425). The expansion of the universe from a point or a line has zero volume. Matter as two or three dimensional shape for the origin of the universe that has zero volume yields a creationist-theistic conclusion. In all cases the origin of four dimensions of length, width, height, and time reject a self replicating source of energy. Rejection of a finite origin rests on a personal commitment to atheism, not from scientific considerations

The developments concerning abnormal redshifts for some quasars do not provide supporting evidence that the universe may not be expanding. The universe expansion is well attested long before the invasion of “Redshifts” and “Quasars.” As the measuring tools multiply and precision of instruments progresses, the correlation between the measured ages of the old set stars and the age of the universe becomes tighter. Since 1992 there have been tremendous improvements in the accuracy of age determination of the cosmos through measurement of the universe’s total mass and expansion rate and through observations of the maximum alterations of star burning. (Hugh Ross, The Fingerprints of God (CA: Promise Pub., 1991, pgs. 89-94).

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A Brief Look at Time

Any initial effort to explore the concept of Time would necessitate a critique of Stephen Hawking’s book, A Brief History of Time. Hugh Ross tells us of an opportunity to address a text for Hollywood media people. You guessed it—they chose Hawking’s work. The night of the event, the place was packed, and nearly everyone present had read the book. What Dr. Ross learned was that Hawking had become an American Cult Figure for New Agers! What? The work was by a brilliant mathematician, the greatest since Einstein, who must force the communication of his brilliant mind through the barriers of Lou Gehrig’s Disease or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. There has not been his intellectual equal since Einstein and Nash. His work on time is his first work directed toward a “popular audience.” It moved from the New York Times’ best seller list to a feature length film which was distributed to theaters around the world. Most of the books relate to the history of the universe to the latest discoveries about the theories of gravity. The ultimate significance is that the work is that of a history-making mathematician. Those interested to learn about research on the applications of gravitational theories to the origin and development of the universe will not be disappointed.

Hawking’s work is both unique and controversial because of its philosophical and theological pronouncements. He declares that his life’s goals are to answer fundamental questions: (1) What is the nature of the universe? (2) What is our place in it? (3) Where did it come from? (4) Where did we come from? (5) Why is it the way it is? (Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (NY: Bantam Books, 1988, p. 171). Hawking believes that he can answer these questions by physics alone.

In his book, Hawking demeans God’s role in the affairs of the universe and elevates the role of man. (See my essay, “God, Man and Nature in Carl Sagan’s Universe” on the web site stated at the end of this paper) He declared that just as the behavior of a hydrogen atom can be described by a quantum mechanical wave function, so might the behavior of the universe (as hydrogen is the simplest element on the periodic chart, it is a far cry from explaining man’s complex structures in quantum mechanics).

According to Hawking, the universe could have just popped into existence out of absolutely nothing at what could be called the beginning of time. He declares that “the universe would neither be created nor be destroyed; it would simply be. What place, then, is there for a creator?” (Hawking, pgs 136, 141) He later admitted in the book that the whole idea is “just a proposal: it cannot be deduced from other principles of physics.” (Ibid., p. 136) This projection could not escape from a nobler creator. The theoretical physicist, Heinz Pagels explains:

This unthinkable void converts itself into a plenum of existence—a necessary consequence of physical laws. Where are these laws written into that world? What “tells” the void that it is pregnant with a possible universe? It would seem that even the void is subject to law, a logic that exists prior to space and time. (H. Pagles, Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1985, pg. 43).

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Hawking has not escaped the need for a Creator. Neither has he escaped the “singularity” (e.g. order/design). Frank Tipler, another theoretical physicist, has pointed out that Hawking may simply be substituting unawareness of one kind of singularity for another, more specifically a classical singularity of general relativity for a quantum singularity:

A quantum universe (such as Hawking proposes). . .necessarily consists of not just one, four dimensional sphere, but rather the infinity of spheres of all possible radii. However, since it is meaningless for the radius of a sphere to be less than or equal to zero, a four-dimensional sphere of zero radius forms a boundary to Hawking’s universe. . . . He (Hawking) has eliminated the classical singularity, the beginning of time, only to have it reappear as the “beginning” to space of all possible four spheres. (Frank Tipler, “The Mind of God” The Times Higher Education Supplement (London, 14 October 1988, p. 23)

Only the creator God can transcend “real time”, that is, the single time dimension of the Physical universe. Thus He is not confined (transcendence) to the boundaries of singularities. While human beings and the physical universe are limited to real time (e.g. God’s transcendence and man’s freedom), the ridiculous claims of Process Philosophy and Openness Theology are confronted by this issue. Therefore, they would be confined by boundaries and singularities, i.e., free but not sovereign to determine the “consequences of free decisions.” Hawkings limits the role of the creator or more precisely, to eliminate the need of a creator’s involvement in the existence and development of the universe, though he is not trying to eliminate God altogether. He repudiates the title of “Atheist.” (e.g., probably at best a Deist). He says that “these laws of physics may have originally been decreed by God, but it appears that He has since left the universe to evolve according to them, and does not now intervene in it.” (Hawkings, p. 122) He further declares that “with the success of scientific theories in describing [but not explaining] events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws.” (Ibid., p. 140, i.e., no miracles, even before Hume’s critique, Incarnation, Revelation, Inspiration, Resurrection etc..)

Hawking’s reasons for taking a Deistic position lie beyond his perception that it is a majority view. He made it clear from the outset that he believes there exists a complete set of physical laws that yield “a complete description [but not explanation] of the universe we live in” (Ibid., p. 13), and further, that these laws “would also presumably determine our action.” (Ibid., p. 12) Therefore, “If there were a complete set of laws, that would infringe on God’s freedom to “change His mind and intervene in the world.” (Ibid., p. 166) (e.g. source of Hegel’s Process Theology and Openness Theology) Only if the universe is structured by the Laws of Nature would miracle carry any evidential claims for supernatural intervention, i.e., intervention into the Laws of Nature which were derived from His sovereign decision.

The fundamental clash between Hawking’s philosophy of Time and biblical Christianity (not to mention physical reality) is Hawking’s belief that human beings can discover that “complete set of laws.” He means by this. . .”not just a complete and consistent unified field theory, i.e., a theory explaining how a single primal force splits into the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetic and gravitational forces but a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence.” (Hawking, p. 169).

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Elsewhere, he has said that he wants to know the mind of God. Since the existence of the God of the Bible or the existence of singularities would guarantee that his goal could never be reached, it is understandable that he seeks to deny both. His position is not just biblically impossible, but was proven mathematically impossible by Kurt Goedel in 1930.13 According to Goedel’s incompleteness theorem, “no non-trivial set of Arithmetical proposition can have its proof of consistency within itself.” When applied to the cosmos (universe, creation) this means it is intrinsically impossible to know from the universe that the universe can only be what it is (see esp. S.L. Jaki, Cosmos and Creator (Edinburg, 1985), pgs. 49-54; also his God and The Cosmologists (WDC Regnery Gateway, 1989, pgs. 104-109)

He acknowledges two unavoidable limitations on our quest for more scientific knowledge: (1) “The limitation of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, i.e., the impossibility for the human observer to measure exactly both the position and the momentum to any quantum entity. (2) The impossibility of exact solutions to all but the very simplest of physical equations.” (Hawking, p. 168) Romans 1.19-22 affirms even a brilliant research scientist will waste his or her efforts in this case on theoretically impossible lines of research, if he or she rejects the clear evidence pointing to God.

Hawking’s Rejection of the Anthropic Principle

The Anthropic Principle is the observation that the universe has all the necessary and narrowly defined characteristics to make human life possible (see for an example of Anthropic Principle the book by Richard A. Swenson, More Than Meets the Eye (Nav Press, 2000).

From Einstein’s relativity theory we learned that all reality was open for redefinition. Light, he explained, is not some smooth ubiquitous ray that fills a room but rather a discrete quantum called a proton. Unbelievably, the proton travels at the same speed for all peoples in all cultural/linguistic frames of reference no matter when or where or who. In addition, once something accelerates to the speed of light, both space and time begin acting bizarrely. At the speed of light we witness several unearthly phenomena: (1) Dimension shrinks to zero. (2) Mass increases to infinity; and (3) Time stands still. The physics of Time, Space and Light permits us to examine the physics of the universe, i.e., heaven and earth. Time versus eternity entails that God stands outside of time. When Jesus returns “time” shall be no more. Then eternity will totally dominate reality. Time seems rigid to us because we exist in only one time dimension—a straight line. The elasticity of time is not a spiritual apparatus but rather a proven fact of physics and an established observation in psychology. In physics we know that the elasticity of time is related to both velocity and gravity. The faster the velocity or the greater the gravity, the slower time passes. In psychology, time deletion is noted in the dream state. Opium use can give the impression of an almost non-existent passage of time.14

Musical scores and book plots illustrate how God stands above time. Time and Prayer—how can God listen to millions of people all over the globe when people pray all at once? This is a 13 See my paper, “Rationality, Transcendence (objectivity) and Goedel’s Theory” and “Goedel’s Refutation of the Mechanical Model of Explanation on my web site.14 Clifford A. Pickour, Time: A Traveler’s Guide (NY: Oxford University Press, 1998, pgs. 58-59); Hugh Ross, Beyond the Cosmos: What Recent Discoveries in Astronomy and Physics Reveal About the Nature of God (Colorado Springs: Nav Press, 1996), pg. 6).

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problem because of our dimensional blinders. Once these blinders are removed, there are no obstacles left in physics or mathematics that would prevent God from hearing a million prayers simultaneously. As a matter of fact, God can listen to an infinite number of prayers at the same time, and take an infinite amount of time in answering each—all within the bonds of scriptural perspective.

Foreknowledge versus Free-Will: Time and Artificial Barriers

The crucial problem can be cleared up when we understand the extreme facility with which God operates in time. He lives in the past, the present and the future all at the same time. C.S. Lewis states that “God does not foresee you doing things tomorrow: He simply sees you doing them because though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him.” (Mere Christianity).15

The heart of the issue of Time and Space is the possibility of history and verb tenses in grammar to express one dimensional reality. In God’s sovereignty He orders that every frame of reference will somehow travel at the speed of light and thus never age. When God eliminates the time, space, light, and speed barriers it will be the reality God first created. The aforementioned dimensions directly confront the pantheistic monism of post modernists’ science and its pantheistic base (cf. we must not forget that classical forms of Pantheism, Gnosticism, Visigoths, Postmodern anti-Science reject language, logic, and history as vehicles of truth).

Life (matter) is not an illusion as in Hinduism, Buddhism, et al all non-Western religions. In the biblical perspective, trouble, hurt, tears, pain, death are only momentary. Life is not a dream. Paul declares, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (II Corinthians 4.17)

Time and Heaven: It’s All About Time

On this earth we are locked in time and space boundaries of our earthbound imagination.

(Albert Einstein) “Interpreting time varies depending whether you are waiting on your girl friend or sitting on a hot stove.” “The distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, even if it’s a stubborn one.”

(William D. Howells) “Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.”

(Augustine) “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain what it is to him who asks me, I do not know.”

(John Newton) “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise then when we first begun.”

15 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (NY: MacMillan, 1952, p. 146); Lambert Dulphin, Jr., Lord of Space and Time (Westminster, IL: Good News Pub., 1974, pgs. 47-48); John Gribbin, Questions in Four Quantums: An Encyclopedia of Particle Physics (NY: Free Press of Simon and Schuster, 1998, p. 283); Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for Ultimate Theory (NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999), p. 51).

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“The shortest possible time is a New York minute. It is the time that elapses between a stop light turning green and the cabby behind you honking his horn.”

(II Peter 3.8) With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.”

(Galatians 4.4) “In the fullness of time (kairos not kronos) God sent forth His Son.”

(Colossians 1.17) He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” “And time shall be no more”

(See especially the first 17 verses of the Prologue of John--the incarnate logos became flesh)

Redefining Space

Just as time was redefined by Einstein’s relativity, so also was space. Space and time are inextricably linked. We cannot have one without the other, but both are different from Newton’s absolute space and time! If time and space are absolute we have the Newtonian “World Machine” (i.e., Deism/Atheism). While in new and non Christian religions, i.e., Pantheistic-- matter, space, time, etc., are illusions. If so, they represent the most powerful illusion in the world. What is the “universal cause” of this illusion?

We are comfortable with the smallness of three dimensional spatial understanding. The Newtonian view has scientific laws that work and we have centuries of confirming experiences. But our comfort is an artificial one, for the issue of space is very complex, far beyond our simplistic understanding. From a biblical perspective time and space are creatures of the creator.

Space and the Void

When God created the universe, He called into being all that is, including all space, time, energy, and matter (e.g. Einstein’s equation E=ML2). He spoke the universe into being. But where in the Void did it show up—nowhere? And it continues to reside nowhere. He spoke the universe into being and suspended it in the Void. The components of the universe were ordered by gravity, acceleration, and speed of matter. The universe has no address! Where is it? Is not a question answerable by the scientific enterprise?

Beyond the walls of our finite universe exists nothing. Nothing is not dark and cold because dark and cold are something, whereas the Void is nothing. Dark and cold are properties of our own created universe. Even the Laws of Physics exist only within the confines of our universe and do not extend into the Void. Nothing has no temperature, no luminosity, no energy, no matter, no time, and no spatial dimensions. This is not a “Big Bang” of nothing, stretching for trillions of light years. Neither is it a “Small Bang.” It is simply Void. We could take a spaceship to the far side of our universe, then pass through the wall to continue our journey into the Void. There is nothing to enter. The Void has no dimensions. The created universe is finite, thus it has a time/space origin. The universe is not a giant bubble suspended in a massive darkness. The Void is not massive because that implies dimension and the Void has no dimension. The Void is not dark because it cannot possess the quality of darkness. There is no

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analogical picture for man to speak in reference in human experience. The Void is by definition the absence of everything. Out of the Void God calls out His creation. Our universe has temperature and luminosity. It has matter and energy. It has time and space. Specifically, it has dimensions—length, width, depth, and time. But length, width, depth, and time were all created, not preexistent. No human has a principle of on going existence in itself apart from God’s perpetual preservation. John Piper states—“If God should ever cease to address our body, mind and soul with the command “Be” you would cease to be. The only barrier between you and nothingness is the Word of God. . . apart from Him we fly into nothingness.”16 Our visible, temporal existence contains three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. In reality these dimensions are not separated but integrated.

When we travel in space, “we travel in time and space: we exist in space and time. But are these four the only possible dimension? These are the structure/order of God’s creation. Neither do we know why God chose four forces. String theories incorporate more than twenty dimensions. Our limitations are for our present universe. God’s inhabits as many dimensions as He chooses. God is spirit and not ordered by the Laws of Physics which He created. God is non physical and extra dimensions are as many as He chooses: (1) He can be dimensionless; (2) He can inhabit a large number of dimensions, up to infinity; and (3) He can inhabit a smaller number of dimension as He chooses in the Incarnation, Providence, Miracle, Prayer, Resurrection, etc..

God can therefore be anywhere and everywhere He chooses! He can inhabit a human heart/soul/mind or an entire universe. He can be present among “us” while at the same time He is helping Christians in Iraq, Iran, China witnessing (there are martyrs around the world).

He can listen to prayers in Argentina, Spain, Germany, the USA and Lincoln, Illinois. God is not obligated to conform to our limited paradigm. Only a biblically grounded worldview can empower us to transcend our limited linguistic and cultural paradigm. In order to understand God and our worship of Him we must realize how He is differentiated from His space/time creation. If we cannot or refuse to reach beyond our space/time preconceptions, stretching our thoughts up to greatness of God will be impossible. When we understand how radically free God is from our dimensionality, it is easy to believe in miracles or even anticipate them! (e.g., Jesus disappeared from their eyes on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24.31) i.e., His ascension; angels appear and disappear; Philip is transported away after baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8.39; Jesus walked on the water (Mt. 14.25,26; Jesus appeared through locked doors (John 20.19-26).

Light a Third Entry: In a Time/Space/Light Trilogy

Light is unequaled in the universe. Nothing in the created order is equal to the remarkable essence God assigns to light. We take the ubiquity of light for granted. In the development of 18th century science, theories and experiments by such luminaries as Faraday, Michelson, and Maxwell revealed that light is related to electromagnetic force and to have a constant speed = c. Yet it fell to Einstein to put all the pieces of the puzzle together which he so memorably did in 1905. His publications that year dealt extensively with the nature, properties, and characteristics

16 John Piper, “He commanded and they were created,” a sermon (St. Paul, MN 1981, pgs. 2-4).

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of light. His paper on photoelectric effects established that light flows in discrete packets of energy called photons, and this discovery later earned him the Nobel Prize.

The speed of light had already been established by Maxwell’s equation as c = 186,000 miles per second-second. Einstein’s work on relativity went further by saying that the speed always remained the same regardless of the frame of reference. Even if one star was moving toward us at 99.999 percent the speed of light while another star was moving away f rom us at 99.999 percent the speed of light, in both cases the light coming from the two stars would arrive at Earth traveling precise the same speed—186,000 miles per second-second.

Einstein further proved that nothing can exceed the speed of light. His equations revealed that as an object accelerates, its masses increase as its speed finally reaches the speed of light; the mass of the object reaches infinity. Obviously the object cannot go faster because it would not be able to exceed infinite mass. From the same equation came the equally startling result that time slows as speed increases, and at the speed of light time stops. God’s marvelous design which assigned to light is expressed: (1) It establishes the speed limit for the entire universe; (2) Its speed is the only constant in the universe; (3) It is outside of time; (4) It never ages; (5) It anchors the laws of relativity; (6) It is both a wave and a particle; (7) It allows us to see; (8) It confronts us with its presence and depresses us by its absence; (9) It conveys the energy and warmth that allows us to live; (10) It consumes darkness but itself is never consumed by darkness (cf. Obler’s paradox—if E = ML2 why is there darkness, i.e., night? Darkness is the absence of light, i.e., the universe is finite, not infinite light; (11) It is mentioned as the first thing God created after the heavens and the earth; (12) It clearly exposes the heart of the creator, i.e., divine aspect of nature (cf. not the Pantheistic divinization of much classic, modern and postmodern science and non-Christian religions). Light is composed of photons; perhaps some idea of the number of photons contained in visible light might project us in the right direction: a flashlight emits about a million trillion photons each second;17 a 100 watt light bulb emits about 200 million trillion (2x10 to the 20th) photon each second.18 Everything about light strongly suggests a metaphysical dimension of reality. The transcendental is expressed in prayer, providence, miracle, classic hymnology—“And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light” (Genesis 1.3).

God is light (I John 1.5) and will redefine everything—change all the laws of nature and rid His realm of decay, pain, aging and death! “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, and there will be no night there.” (Revelation 21.22-25)

Science, Scripture and Sovereignty(Unfolding the Promises of God)

17 John R. Cameron, James G. Skofromick, R.M. Grant, Physics of the Body (Madison, WI Medical Physics Pub., 1999), pg. 321.18 Gerald L. Schroeder, The Science of God: Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom (NY: Broadway Books, 1997, p. 155).

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From beginning to end, the scriptures declare the sovereignty of the creator of the universe. Yet, from the 18th to the 21st century developments in science and philosophy, since Kant has called into question the sovereignty of the creator, the ultimate postmodern discussion from Hegel to Process Philosophy to “Openness Theology”, God’s creation sovereignty has been under the scalpel.

During the centuries of development in the sciences, God has slowly pulled back the curtain and opened the door. We have looked through the glass darkly and see farther into the great mysteries of the greatness of the creator. When we rewind the videotape for thousands of years back in time, we begin to take note of the unfolding of these mysteries. The Almighty is shrouded in mystery when He calls Abram to a new land. As a result, Abraham knew more about God than before. Moses heard God speaking in the burning bush, witnessed the miracle of the plagues, received the Ten Commandments (the ten words, davarim) felt the mountain tremble, and saw God’s glory. We begin to see more of the Creator’s awesome righteousness, justice, and love.

Four hundred years later, God promised David an eternal kingdom and the plans of a Messiah began to emerge out of the mystery surrounding God. A millennium passed. Then in the greatest unveiling of mystery since creation, a baby was born. This event changed everything! With the birth of Christ God now lived and breathed in our midst, walked and worked at our side. But even this Jesus was often mysterious, speaking cryptic parables and telling His disciples “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them” (Matt. 13.11). With the appearance of the glory of God, we have a glimpse all the way into the eternal. In Him all wisdom, feeling and compassion was unveiled.

Of course we were not there (Old and New Testaments), but God made provision for us to listen in. Through scripture we read: “A great prophet has appeared among us . . . God has come to help His people” (Luke 7.16) “Nothing like him had been seen in Israel” (Matt. 9.13). We have seen remarkable things today” (Luke 5.26; 9.43; Mk. 2.12). “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1.29). “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did; could this be the Christ?”. . .”We no longer believe because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the savior of the world” (John 4.29, 42).

Malcolm Muggeridge said, “He was the kind of Messiah who ruled from the cross and whose only power was sacrificial love.” (M. Muggeridge, Jesus, The Man Who Lives (NY: Harper, 1975), p. 74) Truthful science always tells us much about the power, precision design, and the sovereignty of God. God has always chosen us to live in a period of history in which the great mysteries are decoded. No previous era (or culture) knew about quantum mechanics, relativity, subatomic particles, supernovas, ageless photons, or DNA. They all reveal the amazing genius of the creator who spoke a time-space-matter-light universe into existence, balanced it with impossible requirements of precision, and then gifted it with life.

Does it matter to realize that in a millionth of a second a trillion atoms in our bodies turn over, yet we maintain our identity. Change and stability are fused in the human body, yet our personal

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identity remains--what a wonder--“It is hard to believe so great a thing.” Do we “stand amazed” when we learn that 60 trillion (10th to the 16) words spoken by humans since the dawn of time, God heard everyone, remembers everyone, can recite them from memory in every language, and even knew them before they were spoken? This marvel fused together other marvels—that of the 10th to the 30 snow crystals necessary to form an ice age, each snowflake comprised of a hundred million trillion water molecules is unique in all the universe (Clifford A. Packover, Keys to Infinity (NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1995, p. 193). No wonder our days are swamped by the mundane; our nights are swallowed by insomnia. Be still and know that I am the creator/sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth. A British mathematician has determined that the precision seen in the created universe is ca. 10 to 10 to 123rd power. (Michel J. Behe, “Tulips and Dandelions” in Books and Culture, (Sept/Oct., 1998, p. 34). The British mathematician is Oxford University’s renowned Roger Penrose.)

God cares about “us” more than He does about a hundred billion “galaxies.” God’s sovereignty works in our lives on a thousand levels all at the same time. God’s creative power extends all the way to our daily problems, personal and national/international. He has sufficiently demonstrated His greatness in both science and scripture and He created both. The problem is not a deficiency on God’s part but on ours (Matt. 17.20). Our God is a God who created the heavens and earth, the stars, galaxies, rods and cones—photo receptor cells that are light sensitive, converting images into electrical cells that are light sensitive, converting images into electrical signals that can in turn be interpreted by the brain. The sensitivity of the retina’s photoelectric cells is exceptional, as little as one or two photons of light can trigger a visual signal in each rod. This marvel is hardly “socially constructed” and it occurs in every person, language and culture in God’s creation. Don’t forget that there is no passage of time at the speed of light. Time ceases to flow altogether. All events are composed into the present, an unending now! Einstein showed us in the flow of light, the corollary of the Eternal Now: “I was”, “I am,” “I have been—always.”19 God’s Creation is more than meets the eye! All the while, Hawking refused to believe that the universe was created for us. He finds it impossible to believe that “this whole vast construction (universe) exists simply for our sakes.” (Hawking, p. 162, 168)

Postmodern Goliath

The biblical Goliath marched through Israel’s camp in the days of King Saul. The postmodern Goliath is ‘quantum mechanics,” i.e., a theory defying the energy relationships of particle sized physical phenomena in terms of discrete levels. One prominent theologian heralded this giant as “the greatest contemporary threat to Christianity.” (Allen Emerson, “A Disorienting View of God’s creation” in Christianity Today, Feb 1, 1985, p. 19) All the while, several famous physicists and many New Age proponents have proliferated popular books exploiting the difficulties and mysterious nature of “quantum mechanics” to undermine the biblical view of origins (e.g., Hawking, Davies, Sagan, et al.).

All these attacks seem to express the defiant reaction to mounting evidence from physics and astronomy that the universe—all matter, energy, space, and time—began in a creation event, and that the universe was strategically designed for life The evidence is now sufficient to rule out all theological options but one—the biblical affirmation of absolute creation (Genesis 1.1). Of

19 Gerald L. Schroeder, Ibid.

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course, this unexpected turn of research proves very discomfiting to those who reject the “narrowness” of the message of salvation in Jesus Christ only (Acts 4.12) After all of this confirming data supporting the inescapable ”creative designer” --some of the greatest minds in the scientific citadel denied that this data does not support the God of the Bible. Here enters replacement, any replacement but not the creator of the universe! There are three quantum possibilities in addition to Stephen Hawking’s universe as a “wave function.” A major alternative is “Quantum Tunneling” set forth by the British astrophysicist, Paul Davies, in his book, God and the New Physics, written in 1983, loaded all cause and effect phenomena into the time dimension of the universe. Because the act of creation represents cause and effect, and thus is time-bound activity, the evidence for the origin of time, Davies argued against God’s agency in the creation of the cosmos.20

The Biblical Claim of “Cause” even before Time

The Biblical claim of “cause” is, of course, ignored or rejected. Davies claims that virtual particles can appear in existence from nothingness through “quantum tunneling.” Such particles can be produced out of nothing, providing they are converted back into nothingness before the human observer can possibly detect their appearance. This means that the particle so produced must disappear in less than a quintillionth of a second. Quantum Tunneling rejects classical physics. In classical physics a marble released from the height H will roll down the side of the bowl and up the other side to the same height H, assuming there is the absence of friction. Since the dip of the bowl is at a height of H+AH, the marble will remain forever trapped inside the bowl. But the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics states that for a quantum particle there must always exist a minimum uncertainty in the energy of the particle. This uncertainty implies that a quantum particle released from height H has a finite possibility of exceeding height H + AH on the other side. The small AH is relative to H, the greater the possibility. Also, the faster the particle can travel from one side to the other (i.e., the less shallow the bowl) the greater the possibility. So quantum tunneling up a quantum mechanical particle can escape from the bowl, whereas a typical marble could not (Ross, pg. 90).

Davies next appealed to the grand unified theories of particle physics to suggest that by the same means the entire cosmos could have popped into existence. Davies failed to acknowledge that for a system as massive as the universe, the time for it to disappear back into nothingness must be less than 10 to 103 second (102 zeros between the decimal point and the one), a moment a bit briefer than the age of the universe.

Davies’ argument against God creating the universe can be turned against his hypothesis. Quantum mechanics is founded on the concept that quantum events occur according to finite probabilities within a finite interval of time. The greater the time interval, the greater the probability that a special quantum event will occur. This means that if the time interval is zero the probability for that quantum event occurring is also zero. Because time began when the universe was created, the time interval is zero, eliminating quantum tunneling as a possible candidate to be the creator of the cosmos. There is no evidence of “break down”, even before the universe was 10 to 43 second old, that the possibility necessarily exists that the relationship

20 Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1983), pgs. 25-43); esp. pgs. 38,39.

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between time and the probability for certain quantum events in that tiny time interval. We cannot speculate about human ignorance!21

Ockham’s razor is a guiding principle of Western science that the most plausible explanation is that which contains the simplest ideas and fewer assumptions. The possibility of quantum tunneling as creator of the universe fails to meet the criteria of Ockham’s razor. It is true that Davies reconsidered and revised his position in his 1984 Superforce where he argued for the laws of physics, seems “themselves to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design.”22

In his more recent book, The Comic Blueprint, 1988) he posed this question: “If new organizational levels first pop into existence for no reason, why do we see such an orderly progression in the universe from the featureless origins to rich diversity.”23 His conclusion is that there is “powerful evidence that there is something going on “behind it all.” If the universe had zero information before 10 to 43rd second, how did it acquire its subsequently high information state without input of an intelligent, personal creator? How else but through a personal creator did a primal radiation field come into existence? Here is redividius “no god of the gaps” theory. Surely the burden of proof lies with those who suggest that more than one universe exists or that physical conditions or physical laws were totally different in the period before 10 to the 33rd second.

There is no evidence for a pluralism of universes. The hypothetical universe in this model remains disjointed. The universe can never overlap travel between one universe and another; it would be prohibited even in principle. In the 1920’s and 30’s the physics of quantum mechanics was questioned, most notably by Einstein.24 A fundamental problem lies in the wedding of one philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics to physics. Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, cast such a large shadow over his “Copenhagen interpretation” that it is widely assumed by many to be one of the basic physical principles. But this is not so!

Niels Bohr operated from Hindu, pantheistic presuppositions and declared that in the micro world of quantum phenomena, “reality” as absence of an observer does not exist (e.g., pure idealism). At this point it should be clear that this development in science/physics is a crucial factor in anti science/positivistic Eurocentric science, Revisionist History and Multicultural pluralism and the death of True Truth. If reality is socially constructed, both practicing scientists and Christians are annihilated in one fell swoop. The observer creates reality! This is postmodern irrationalism. Bohr’s epistemology must declare that the quantum event could not take place without an observer, but that the observer through his or her observations actually brought about the quantum event.25

21 Davies repeatedly appealed to Ockham’s razor, pgs. 167-974.22 Davis, Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature (Simon and Schuster, 1984), pg. 243.23 Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint: Nine Discoveries in Nature’s Creative Ability to Order the Universe (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1988), pg. 141.24 Heinz R. Pagels, The World Treasure of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, ed. T. Ferris (Boston, MA: Little and Brown Co., 1991), pgs. 106-108.25 See esp. Davies, God and New Physics, pgs. 172-174; Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics: An Excursion into Metaphysics and the Meaning of Reality (NY: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1987, pgs. 16-29). Stanley Jaki, Cosmos and Creator (Edinburgh U.K.: Scottish Academy Press, 1980) pgs. 96-98); James Jeans, “A Universe of Pure Thought” Quantum Questions, ed. Ken Wilber (Boston, MA: New Science Library 1985, pgs. 140-144); Paul Teiller, “Relativity Relational Holism, The Bell Inequalities” Philosophical Consequences of Quantum,

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Quantum Reality –Decoded or Encoded?

In popular level discussion of quantum mechanics a clear distinction is seldom made between physics, philosophy, and theology. (1) Physics tells us there are certain inviolable principles operating on quantum entities. These principles allow the human observer to predict accurately probability for the outcome of any particular quantum event, e.g., an electron moving from one energy level to another. (2) Philosophy is the attempt to describe the nature of cause and effect in quantum phenomena and in particular, the role of human observers in such cause and effect. (3) Theology is the attempt to discern who or what is ultimately behind cause and effect in quantum events. Here lies the challenge between mere description and explanation (see my essay “The Social Construction of Reality Theory” (www.worldvieweyes.org/strauss-docs.html).

Alternative Philosophies of Quantum Mechanics

The error in the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is widely acknowledged and the proliferation of alternatives is legendary. At least ten of these alternatives are the following—(1) A coherent reality exists independently of human thinking; (2) A common cause lies behind the cause and effect phenomena humans observe; (3) All possible outcomes will actually occur; (4) The act of observation dissolves the boundary between the observer and the observed; (5) The cosmos obeys non human reasoning (i.e., reasoning decodes, not encodes, reality); (6) The cosmos is composed of “objects” that possess attributes whether or not the objects are observed; (7) The only observer who counts is the conscious observer; (8) The world is two-fold, consisting of potentials and actualities; (9) The real essence of substances is beyond our knowledge; (10) The physical realm is the materialization of pure thought. Niels Bohr arrives at his conclusion by noting a difference in a quantum particle before and after its detection by an observer. Before a specific quantum particle is “detected,” only a probability of where it might be located or of how energetic it can be known. But after detection, the precise location or energy level is determined. This movement from imprecision to precision led Bohr and his associates at the Bohr Institute for Atomic Studies in Copenhagen to believe that the observer actually gives reality in the quantum particle. (This confuses “partial information” with “necessarily false information,” i.e., the limitations of “observation/empiricism”).

Ultimately the Copenhagen interpretation has been extended into the relativism of multicultural pluralism in all categories of the academy. Copenhagen relativism reigns over the Postmodern Deconstruction of Reality. From this assumption it seems logical to conclude that human beings, not God, created the universe. We have now arrived at Postmodern Relativism (Wittgenstein’s Language Game; every language creates its own cultural worldview, i.e., world views, not worldview).

Logical Flaws in the Copenhagen Interpretation:(The Road to Irrational Absurdity)

For our limited purpose we will take note of seven flaws in the Hindu pantheistic view of the Copenhagen school, i.e., “The Indeterminacy Principle.” (1) There is no movement from

Theory, ed. Ernan McMullen (Notre Dame, Press, IN, 1988, pgs. 216-223).

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imprecision to precision in quantum phenomena. All that happens is that the observer can choose where to put the imprecision. If the observer chooses to measure the position of the quantum particle accurately, he or she loses the potential for any precision in measuring the particle’s energy. Conversely, if the observer chooses to measure the energy of the quantum particle accurately, the potential for any precision and the position of the particle will be irretrievably lost. (2) The observer does not give reality to the quantum entity. The observer can only choose what aspect of the reality he wants to discern, though in quantum entities indefinite properties become definite to the observer through measurements. The observer cannot determine how and when the indefinite property becomes definite. (3) Rather than telling us that we human beings are more powerful than we otherwise thought, quantum mechanics tells us that we are weaker! In classical physics, no apparent limit exists on our ability to make accurate measurements. In quantum mechanics, a fundamental and easily determinable limit exists. In classical physics, we can see all aspects of causality, but in quantum mechanics some aspects of causality always remains hidden from human investigation. (4) Experiments in particle physics and relativity consistently reveal that nature is described correctly by the condition that the human observer is irrelevant.26 (5) For both the universe and human beings, time is not reversible. Thus, no amount of human activity can ever effect events that occurred a millennium ago. (6) There is nothing particularly special about human observers. Inanimate objects like photoelectric detectors are just as capable of detecting quantum mechanical events. (7) The time duration between a quantum event and its observed result is always briefer by many orders of magnitude than the time period, separating the beginning of the universe from the origin of human beings (Genesis 1-3).

This brief list of logical flaws is more than adequate for maintaining that the human race is neither powerful nor wise enough to create the universe. To say that we have created our own universe would imply that we can control time and restructure the past (note the significance for anti science and Revisionist History in Post Modern citadel of learning multicultural relativism). As time advanced, the quantum mechanical alternatives to God became more and more absurd. Today, there are scientists, philosophers and mystics who are willing to claim that we human are the Creator.

A Brief Journey towards Absurdity

This journey underscores the observations of the persistence of rejection of God’s existence and creative work despite the buildup of evidence that the source of rejection is not intellectual. This fact was brought home to me while reading an article in one of the Humanist Magazines. The article noted that “Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists and Free Thinkers--call them what you will--are almost all former Christians.27

The evidence for design has been a major apologetic for God’s existence, though after Paley, Hume, Kant, et al., the Design argument fell on evil days. The Newtonian “world machine,”

26 E.g. James S. Trefil, The Moment of Creation (NY: Charles Scribners and Sons, 1983, pgs. 91-101); Ken Wieber, ed., also Quantum Questions (Boston: New Science Library, 1985).27 E.g. David Diorkin, “Why I Am Not a Jew” Free Inquiry 10, No. 2 (1990), pg. 24; He points out that orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Christians share many beliefs in common and also share the tendency to add dogma to their doctrines; see my bibliographies, God, Creation, Science and Atheism; The Death of God: God After Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche; Relativism and Contextualization.

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developed after Newton’s mechanical equation became “established.” In this milieu, mystics were willing to claim that we humans are the creators of all reality. This absurd claim stands or falls on two observations: (1) The persistence of the rejection of God’s existence and creative work despite the build-up of evidence for both suggests that the source of rejection is not “intellectual.” It is clear that the issue for atheists, deists, agnostics, humanists, and all forms of free thinkers is not so much the deficiency of evidence for the Christian faith, but rather the deficiency of “Christians”—they seem to be reacting to their past, holding bitterness over the “wrongs” or “abuses” (e.g., the Crusades, Slavery, etc.) - they incurred in their experience with Christians. They claim that the polarization of groups and subgroups of people derived from “capitalistic democracy.” There was no middle class until the scientific/technological revolution. Before this phenomena was an historical event, no culture ever had a “middle class” in their social structure. (2) The appeal to increasing absurdities in response to the evidence for the God of the Bible demonstrates again how secure these evidences must be. Nothing in our human experience can be proven absolutely! Our limitations in the space-time continuum of the cosmos guarantee this. But when a conclusion is opposed by increasing absurd alternative explanations, that indicates something about the strength of the conclusion. For example, the Flat Earth Society still has “reasons” for rejecting the conclusion that the planet earth is spherical: the historical developments in science present a growing certainty about the earth’s spherical shape. Similarly, the historical developments in science call in question appeals to non theistic interpretation for the physical universe produces growing certainty about the existence of the Creator, i.e., of scriptures.

Besides the existence from microscope physics there is another factor in support of cosmic design that is the inability of natural evolutionary explanation of the human eye. By the 19th century, the anatomy of the eye was well known in great detail and the sophisticated mechanisms it employed to deliver an accurate picture of the outside world astounded everyone familiar with human sight. The 19th century studies were also aware of the implication of the loss of sight in either or both eyes. This implied that the eyes functioned best if both eyes were nearly intact.

Charles Darwin considered possible objection to his theory of natural selection (e.g., the Origin of Species); he discussed the problem of the “eye” in a section of his work entitled “Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication.” He acknowledged that if any one generation can account for the origin of the complexity of the eye and it suddenly appeared it would present a problem to evolution even that would be a miracle. Darwin sought in vain to remove the difficulty the public had in envisioning the gradual (natural) formation of complex organs. Darwin instead was occupied with the variety of animals that were known to have eyes of various construction, ranging from a simple light sensation spot to the complex vertebrate camera eye, and suggesting that evolution of the human eye might have involved similar origins as intermediates.

But he failed to explain—how do we see? He never even explained how the simple light sensation spot that was his starting point actually worked when discussing the eye. Darwin dismissed the question of its ultimate mechanism—(1) How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated? (2) Perhaps the reason could be that 19th century science had not progressed to the point where the matter could even be approached. The great question of how the eye works, that is, what happens when a photon of light first impinges on the retina, simply could not be answered at that time. As a matter of fact,

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no question about the underlying mechanism of life could be answered at that time. How does Photosynthesis work? How is energy extracted from food? How does the body fight infection? No one to this hour knows the answer to these questions. Yet, all of the issues seem to rest in fine tuned, highly designed structures, but how? Neither chance nor time are serious candidates to provide answers to these complex questions.

The complex changes appeared to be simple, i.e., via “spontaneous generations.” One of the great voices who evoked this assertion was Ernst Haeckel, an apologist of Darwin’s views. As 19th century microscopes had limited capacity to unravel the complex “albuminous combination of carbon.” (2) This claim was very similar to a piece of microscopic jello. Thus it seemed that simple life could easily be produced from inanimate material. Eventually Haeckel came to observe the “mind” and “thought” that closely resembled some cells he had under the microscope. It became widely believed that protoplasm was the progenitor of life itself,28 and Aldous Huxley named the mind Bathybries Haeckelii after the imminent proponent of abiogenesis. The cell is even a whimsical term for a machine or structure or process that does something, but the actual mechanism by which it accomplishes its task is unknown—it is called a “black box.” In Darwin’s time all of biology was a “black box;” not only the cell or the eye or digestion or immunity systems, but every biological structure and function because, ultimately, no one could explain how biological processes occurred.

Ernst Mayor, a major biologist, historian and guiding force behind the new Darwinian systems, has pointed out that—“Any scientific revolution has to accept all sorts of “black boxes,” for it had to wait until all “black boxes” are opened; one could never have any conceptual advances. That is true. But earlier when “black boxes” were finally opened, science and sometimes the whole world (Paradigmatic Revolution) appeared to change. In spite of enormous progress due to the model that Darwin set forth, new Darwin “black boxes” are being opened, and our views of the world are again being shaken.

In order to understand the molecular basis of life, it is necessary to understand how things called “proteins” work. Protein is not only something we eat in major food groups, but when they reside in the body of an uneaten animal or plant, proteins serve a different purpose. Proteins are the machinery of living tissue that builds the structures and carries out the chemical reactions necessary for life. Therefore, a typical cell contains thousands of thousands of different types of protein to perform the many tasks necessary for life, much like a carpenter’s workshop might contain many different kinds of tools for various carpentry work. What do these versatile tools look like? The basic structure of protein is quite simple—they are formed by hooking together in a chain called “amino acids.” Although the protein chain can consist of anywhere from about 50 to 1000 amino acid links, each position can only contain one of twenty different amino acids. This phenomena can be compared to words which can come in various lengths but they are made up from a set of 26 letters. A protein in a cell does not float around like a floppy chain but rather it folds up into a precise structure which can be different for different types of proteins. If the shape of protein is significantly changed, then they fail to do their jobs. This brief trek into the structure of biological systems on the molecular level are performed by networks of proteins, each member of which carries out a particular task in the chain.

28 See my essay, “Narrative Displacement in the History of Evolutionary Ideas” on the web.

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The fundamental challenge is the question—How do we see? To Darwin, the event of vision was a “black box,” through the efforts of many biochemists an answer to the question of sight is near at hand. When light strikes the retina a photon is absorbed by an aquanic molecule called 11-cis-retinal, causing it to rearrange within picoseconds to trans-retinal. The change in shape of the retina forces a corresponding change in shape of the protein, ahodopsin, to which it is lightly bound. As a consequence of the protein’s metamorphosis the behavior of the protein changes in a very specific way. In this very complex system from imbalance of the charges across the cell membrane which finally causes a current to be transmitted down to the optic nerve to the brain; the result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision!

If the biochemistry of vision were limited to complex reactions, the cell would quickly deplete its supply of 11-cis-retinal and a GMP while also becoming depleted of sodium ions. Finally, a third enzyme removes the isomerized the molecule to 11-cis-retinal and an enzyme removes the previously added hydrogen atoms to form 11-cis-retinal and the cycle is complete. It takes very complex details of biochemistry in order to explain vision; the same is true of the biochemical power to explain the origin of life.

All relevant steps in the biochemical processes occur ultimately at the molecular level, so any adequate explanation of a biological phenomenon such as Sight, Digestion, and Immunity must include a molecular explanation. It is no longer scientific for an evolutionary explanation of that power to invoke only the anatomical structures of whole eyes, as Darwin proposed in the 19th century, and as most proponents of evolution continue to do in our postmodern anti science culture of the 21st century.

Anatomy as well as the fossil record, is irrelevant to the discussion. It does not matter whether or not the fossil record is consistent with evolutionary theory, any more than it matters in physics that Newton’s theory was consistent with everyday experience. Here lies the foundation of the demise of the “Common Sense” theory of knowledge.29 It is almost ubiquitously acknowledged, even by naturalistic evolutionary biochemists, that the “origin of life research” shows how virtually any complex biochemical system came about. Biochemistry has revealed a molecular world which emphatically resists explanation by the same theory that has long been applied at the level of the whole organism. Neither of Darwin’s black boxes—“the origin of Life” or “the origin of vision”, or any of the complex biochemical systems, has been accounted for by Darwin’s naturalistic, evolutionary theory (see Michael Behe’s book, Darwin’s Black Box; the work has been attacked but not answered).

Irreducible Complexity

If it could be demonstrated that any complex origin existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modification, the Darwinian and all neo Darwinian theories of evolution absolutely breaks down as a scientifically structured system of explanation (versus mere description). A system is irreducibly complex when it exhibits irreducible complexity. By irreducible complexity I mean a single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function and where the removal of any one of the

29 E.g., the assumption that our Restoration Heritage is locked into “Scottish common sense” epistemology is total, technical nonsense!

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parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by “definition” non functional. Since “natural selection” requires a function to select an irreducible complex biological system, if there is no such thing, it would have to arise as an integrated unit of natural selection to have “anything” to act on. It is surely all but universally acknowledged that such a sudden event would be irreconcilable with the gradualism Darwin (and neo Darwinism) envisioned!30 If there is such a thing as irreducibly complex systems, then there may also be irreducibly complex biological systems.

Molecular Machines

In many biological structures, proteins are simply components of larger molecular machines. Like the electron system of TV picture tubes, wires, metal bolts and screws that comprise a TV set, many proteins are part of a structure that only functions when virtually all the components have been correctly assembled. In humans, the epithelial cells living in the respiratory tract each have ca. 200 cells that beat synchronically to sweep mucus towards the throat for elimination. This complex phenomena of cilium, axoneme, microbiabales, and proteins called Alpha and Beta tubulin; all held together by three types of connectors—(1) subfiber, outer doublets, nexia, central microbiabales are joined by a connecting bridge containing protein dyneina. But how does this work? The complex system is fused by cross links, therefore, connect the dynein inducing a sliding motion to a bending motion of the entire axoneme. The workings of the ciliums are composed of at least a half-dozen proteins: alpha-tubulin, beta-tubulin, dynein, nexin, spoke protein, and a central bridge protein. These combine to perform the one task of ciliary motion and all of these proteins must be present for the cilium to function. If the tubulins are absent, then there are no filaments to slide; if the dynein is missing, then the cilium remains rigid and motionless; if nexin or the other connecting protein are missing, the axoneme falls apart when the filaments slide. Here is just one example of one “designed-profound complexity,” but also irreducible complexity in the molecular scale. “Irreducible complexity” entails several distinct components for the “whole” to work.

Example of Irreducible Complexity and Molecular Evolution

Another extremely crucial argument for irreducible complexity is the aspect of protein transport, blood clotting, closed circular DNA, electron transport, bacterial flagellum, telemoerea, photosynthesis, transcription regulation and many more. Examples of irreducible complexity can be found on almost every page of a biochemistry textbook. If these can but be explained by Darwinian/neo Darwinian theories, how does the scientific community regard these phenomena over the past fifty years? The Journal of Molecular Evolution (JME) came into existence to address how evolution occurs on the molecular level. This is a premier journal which derives its contents from only advanced research in this discipline. The journal is constantly attentive to the

30 Here lies the foundational weakness of all Process Philosophy which attempted to fuse biological evolution with theological explanation – see my essay, “Darwinism Foundations of Liberal Theology” on the web.

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analysis of protein or DNA sequences. Other imperative sources to research this challenge are National Academy of Science, Nature, Science, and The Journal of Molecular Biology.

The articles appearing in these journals provide sequence comparisons, but sequence comparisons cannot account for the development of complex biochemical systems any more than Darwin’s comparison of simple to complex eyes told him how vision occurs. Silence is again golden! This implies when we infer that complex biochemical systems were designed (by a rational creator), we are contradicting no experimental result, we are in conflict with no theoretical study, no experiment needs to be questioned, but the “interpretation” of all experiments must now be re-examined, just as the results of experimentation that were consistent with a Newtonian view of the universe had to be reinterpreted when the particle duality of matter was discovered.31

Rejection of “Design” is ultimately a rejection of God, the creator, i.e., “supernatural” explanation versus “natural” explanation of the complexity of Biochemical Systems and the total universe. Cosmic design suggests a cosmic designer. No amount of time can account for complex systems.

In the context of these factors, physicists proposed a BIG BANG hypothesis and Steady State. In our post modern culture, as biochemistry multiplies, examples of fantastically complex molecular systems, systems which discourage even an attempt to explain how they may have arisen, we should take a lesson from physics after Einstein, Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, et al. The conclusion of Design flows naturally from the data of what is being experienced—the conflict of world views, not the accumulation of more interpreted data. In spite of 19th century physics, Western intellectuals subscribed to the elegant principle of natural selection. Post Modern biochemistry makes plain that the fundamental mechanisms of life cannot be ascribed to natural selection, and therefore were “designed.” The work of undirected evolution is already dead, but the work of highly complex sciences continues unabated.32

Another factor in this great postmodern debate is the relationship of the brain, mind, machines, and persons. The essence of this debate centers around the conflict between Monism and Pluralism. The brain is under the microscope—how do nerve cells communicate in the split brain research unfolds the problem of information capacity (the loss of the person’s self identity is called into question in this postmodern debate).

Even granting that every event of conscious experience had some correlate in the brain, how precise could we expect this correlation to be? How can a handful of brain tissue be capable of all varieties of distinct configurations that would be needed to correspond to every feature in the rich variety of our human experience? How could the brain possibly have a sufficiently large repertoire of distinguishable states to represent and store the full gamut of all that goes on in our minds in the course of a lifetime (e.g., our memory of self identity throughout our life)? The magnitude of the storage space required include the many independent bits of information we can take in through all our senses combined in one second (e.g., yes and no items).

31 Kuhn’s Paradigmatic Revolution and my essay “Narrative Displacements – Eastern Antecedents to the development of Western Science” on the web site.32 See Behe’s web site—http://isl-www.uesb.edu/fsc/library behe/MM.html.

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Where is brain science taking us? How can naturalistic evolution explain moral responsibility and personal identity through time? The developments in brain research are taking us more and more into the biblical concept that man was created in the image of God. The mushrooming growth in our knowledge of the brain is supportive of a biblical world view. Machines are not created in God’s image but in the image of man who had rejected and trivialized belief in the creator of the universe. We are a long way from Paley’s Watchmaker argument, i.e., the design argument for God’s existence. We must be aware that by the 19th century developments according to the Newtonian world machine rejected the Design Argument.

The Divine Watchmaker

The evidence for cosmic design in the physical realm has been a dominate argument for God’s existence. It has been perhaps the most compelling argument for God. The design argument is concrete and tangible. The eighteenth century theologian and naturalist, William Paley, presented the most powerful argument in “The Watchmaker.”

Suppose I had formed a watch upon the ground and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in this place? I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, and for anything I knew the watch might have always been there. . . . The watch must have had a maker--that must have existed at some time and at some place or other, an artificer who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction and designed its use. . . . Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design which existed in the watch in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater of more and that is a degree which exceeds all computation.33 Paley reasoned that the living organisms on our planet demand a maker of far greater intelligence and ability.

Rebuttal by Hume, Darwin and Gould

As powerful as Paley’s Watchmaker argument was, there were rejections of his theory. The basis for the rejection stems from three rebuttals—David Hume, a philosopher, Charles Darwin, a biologist, and Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist. Hume argued that the analogy between the watch and a living organism only have the appearance of an engine, and therefore, the complexity and capability of living organisms are evidence for apparent design. As to where the apparent design of organisms came from, Hume hypothesized that a universe composed of a finite number of particles all in perpetual random motion for infinite time. In such a universe, the random shuffling of matter eventually would produce complex bioforms well adapted to their environment. Such complexity and adaptation would bear to the casual observer the appearance of design.34

Darwin argued that observations with earth’s biosphere established three self evident truths: (1) tremendous variations existed among populations of organisms; (2) these variations could be

33 William Paley, Natural Theology on Evidence and Attributes of Deity (Edinburg UK, 18th revision, 1818, pgs. 12-14).34 David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Fontana Library, ed. Landon Collins, 1963, pgs. 154-156).

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inherited; and (3) all organisms were involved in an intense competition for survival and would favor the preservation by “natural selection” of superior variation. To these three can now be added a fourth—(4) new varieties to replace those extinguished through natural selection are generated by random changes or mutation in the genetic codes within organisms that are responsible for the inheritable characteristics. Many modern Darwinists concluded that random mutations and natural selection are capable of explaining all of the changes in life forms that have occurred during the history of our planet.

Stephen Gould attempts to buttress the Darwinists’ attacks on Paley by pointing out a number of “bad designs” in nature (see his work, The Panda’s Thumb (NY: Wm Norton, 1980). He argues from his examples that living organisms developed by random tinkering not as the results of any real design. Specifically, he gives the credit to opportunistic utilization of previously existing parts. In his most famous example, he claims that the “panda’s thumb” is a clumsy adaptation of a variant bone, not the work of a divine design. (See the significance of this issue of design in the public schools, Francis Beckwith, Law, Darwinism, and Public Education, chapter 4, pg. 145ff.)

Critiques of Hume and Darwin

Hume’s attack on Paley’s watch analogy is unfounded for the following reason: (1) While no mechanical engine is an organism, all organisms are engines, and energy is any system capable of processing energy to perform work. All organisms do this and more. Thus, since no one would rationally argue that a working engine designed by another human could be assembled by purely natural processes. It is far more ludicrous to suggest that strictly natural processes could assemble living organisms.

Hume’s argument was made before astronomers could measure the cosmos. He did not know his necessary conditions for the natural assembly of bioforms, namely infinite time, was false. Neither did he know that suitable conditions for life chemistry have existed for only a brief portion of the universe’s duration. Hume also wrote before biologists were capable of appreciating the incredible complexity and functioning of living organism. Statistical mechanics tells us that if the means to preserve the initial and immediate stages of assembly are absent, the greater the complexity and functionality of a system, the less advantageous additional time becomes for assembly by random processes (e.g., the parts wear out too soon). More over, assembly is not enough. Just as the assembled watch must be first wound up and the time set before it is able to function, so also, someone or something must send the assembled organism into operation.

The Origin Question

The major flaw in the attack by radical Darwinists on The Watchmaker argument is their failure to address the origins of life. The Darwin mechanism of Natural Selection and Mutations are useless until the first life from is assembled. In spite of decades of intense research, origins of life, scientists have yet to demonstrate the feasibility of any mechanism(s) for the assembly of a living organism from inorganic materials by strictly natural processes. Here the analogy with

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Paley’s watch remain quite close. Both have a high degree of complexity, and both move zero functionality to complete functionality.

Another lethal flaw in both Hume and Darwin is that they failed to understand that the geological eras do not provide even remotely sufficient time for living organisms to change significantly by natural processes. While it is beyond dispute that life forms have changed very significantly over the course of the history of planet earth, only micro evolutionary changes have been determined to occur by strictly natural processes.

Natural selection can move a species only a limited distance from the species’ norm, and the greater the distance, the lower the probability for survival. A good example of these limitations is demonstrated in dog breeding. One cannot possibly breed a dog significantly smaller than a teacup poodle; moreover, such a poodle requires an intense level of care just to survive (e.g., if all breeds of dogs were allowed to interact sexually, they would quickly revert to their wild dog ancestors. For macro evolution to occur by strictly natural processes, multiple favorable mutation must take place simultaneously at a rate sufficient to overcome the natural extinction rate. This leads to an insurmountable problem.

According to fossil research, more and more species of life come into existence through the millennia before the appearance of modern humans.35 Through time the number of species extinctions nearly balanced the numbers of introductions, but introductions remained slightly more numerous (fossil analysis is only geological stratifications of the earth. See the arguments from Plate Tectonics from Los Alamos scholars) Everything changed with the arrival of the human species. Since the first human being, the number of species appearing measure a virtual zero.36

Biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich disclose that “The production of a new animal species in nature has yet to be documented. . . in the vast majority to cases, the rate of change is so slow that it has not even been possible to detect an increase in the amount of differentiation.”37

The imbalance between speciation today and speciation in the fossil record era cannot be explained by radically different natural conditions. The conditions are known, and they are not significantly different. What is different is God’s activity in creation. In the Genesis account of creation, i.e., His work of creation new life forms and all those going extinct by “created processes.”

Naturalistic materialists fail to address their neo-Darwinism missing is the reversal in the direction of biological evolution. Before the appearance of the human race, life on earth was becoming progressively complex and diverse (during God’s day of creation). But after the appearance of human beings, life on earth is becoming less complex since God’s seventh day of rest.

35 Jacques Monad, Chance and Necessity (London: Collins, 1972, pg. 110).36 See Raloff, “Earth Day 1980: The 29th Day?” Science News 117 (1980), p. 270; Roger Lewis, “No Dinosaurs This Time” Science 221 (1982), p. 1169.37 Ehrlich and Ehrlich, Eco Science: Population, Resources, Environment (San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman, 1977, pg. 142); also The Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species (NY: Ballantine, 1981, p. 33, see esp. 23).

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There are many factors against the naturalistic/materialistic interpretation of the universe and God’s crown of creation of man and woman, i.e., human beings. These problems are those of mass extinction, similarities in chemistry and forms among earth’s species, the origin of sex, consciousness, non random mutations, missing horizontal branches in the fossil record tree, genetic decay, etc. The enormous advances in the research of astronomy, biology, paleontology, microscope physics, DNA, the Gene Code, etc., far from disordering “design” were in fact, overwhelming data in support of cosmic design. All of these aforementioned categories cover only the earth, not the totality of the universe. The most brilliant work in astrophysics still functions within the “laws of nature” i.e., logic, mathematics, language acquisition, etc. The Christian world view is concerned with the totality of the created universe, not merely the data from a microscopic particle on a golf ball (the golf ball represents the earth).

God created human beings to live only on the earth. There is no data of extra-terrestrial life any place in the universe. The universe has now been measured and new understanding of the whole helps us to comprehend more about the creator of heaven and earth. The universe is finite and therefore it must have an origin, but How, Why, and by Whom? The failure of Big Bang, Steady State, and all forms of Eastern and Western pantheism have technically been found wanting in rational legitimization! So, the creator/creation are once more on the discussion table in the post modern academy.

Every category scrutinized at the post modern academy is based on a materialistic/naturalistic world view. Looking at the “whole of creation,” is not merely a description of its parts. Paley, et al left unanswered questions because his gaze was structured by the now falsified view that science was alone “empirical” fused with Darwinism precipitated the modern and post modern maze. The scientific agendas of both modernism and postmodernism are fatally flawed. The Church in the 21st century does not need to bow a knee to the idols of modernism or post modernism or fideistic pietisms, i.e., “faith justifies itself!” This raises the challenge of world view, presuppositions, paradigms, and legitimization structures. The heart of our post modern dilemma is Baconian influence in the mind set of “our heritage.” A heavy dose of the history and philosophy of science at least in the past 400 years, will provide adequate perspective from which to critically evaluate the “signs of the times.”

Christian education can only be revitalized when it expresses awareness that “science” had its origins in the West and not the East. Eastern pantheistic religions had a radical influence in the Counter Culture from the 1960s to 2005. The relativism present in sociology, cultural anthropology, economics, politics, and the notion of a religious cafeteria all stem f rom Kantian contextualized cultural and epistemological relativism. While Kant escaped cultural/ epistemological relativism by “absolutizing” Newtonian mechanics, Euclidian geometry and Aristotelian two-valued logic, Kant escaped complete contextualized relativism. In less than two centuries each of these assumptions were radically modified, but not refuted. Every one of Kant’s assumptions are utilized as having interpretative capabilities while new research into the structure of “the universe” demands limiting the interpretative capacities of Kant’s trinity. No brief essay can do justice to the radical influence of Kant in Western thought. His epistemology removed the universe (cosmos) and God, the creator, from rational categories, thus leaving only the ensuing irrational developments of Romanticism, Hegelian Idealism, Existentialism, i.e.

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Kierkegaard’s irrational phenomenological method, Freud’s irrationalism, and Darwinian evolution, which opens the door of History of Religion, Sociology of Religion, Psychology of Religion, and the Phenomenology of religion, which are mere descriptions but not explanations of data. This enormous intellectual development, especially from The Enlightenment (e.g. Kant) Positivism and Historicism, Modernism, Post Modernism, derives from the influence of especially physics and all hard science and its purported Scientific Methodology.38

Perhaps the most significant impact of scientific interpretation on postmodern thought and its anti science movement, is the Pantheistic influence from Quantum Physics. The movement can be traced from physicalism, positivism to postmodern mystical world view. Postmodern science no longer objects to a “religious worldview” (but this influence is Pantheism and not the classical Christian worldview) grounded in the absolute creation of the universe, time and space.

The classical, pioneering physicists did not believe that physics and mysticism shared similar worldviews, and the very compelling reasons that they nevertheless are becoming mystics because of the dual theme of this Christian worldview. If they did not get their mysticism from the study of physics, where did they get it and why? This postmodern mysticism is the very “foundation” of the “New Age Agenda” (audience). Since the arrival of Quantum Physics it is widely held that it supports pantheistic mysticism. This influence is so pervasive that no single essay or book or power point presentation could possibly reverse the tide. We as Christians are responsible to understand the narrative displacement from Positivism to Pantheism (via Quantum Physics). Positivism was displaced by the Historicism of Cultural, Epistemological and Linguistic Relativism.

Perhaps concern for the downfall of Positivism was well intentioned but pantheistic/mysticism is no “rational response” to our postmodern dilemma. The postmodern pantheistic mysticism’s good intentions were misplaced and the results have been not just wrong but detrimental.39

We Cannot Support Science and Pantheistic, Monistic Mysticism

As particle physicist, Jeremy Bernstein, declared, “If I were an Eastern mystic, the last thing in the world I would want would be a reconciliation with modern/postmodern science, [because] to hitch a religious philosophy to postmodern science is a sure route to its obsolescence.” Genuine mysticism, like all forms of Idealistic Pantheism, is true because “they” believe it. It is true that “true believers” believe it, but this is a far cry from the claim that what they believe is True Truth! It is only true because they believe it. But Pantheistic Mysticism cannot “do science,” fly airplanes, make nuclear weapons, solve metallurgical equations to produce steel for sky 38 See my essays, “Postmodern Context of Pluralistic Pragmatism,” Goedel’s Refutation of the Mechanical Model of Explanation,” “Heart of Postmodernism is Rooted in Kuhn, Popper, Goedel’s Theorem and Polanyi’s Debate;” Thomas Kuhn’s concept of Paradigm;” “Narrative Displacement;” “Theories of Scientific Method;” “Prolegomena to Theories of Scientific Revolution (Kant, Popper, Lakatos, et al.);” “Quantum Mechanics, Creation and Scientific Paradigms,” “From Darwin to Dilthey and Dewey: Prophets of Cultural Relativism;” “Scientific Revolution, Part I, Eastern Precursors to Western Science: Teleology, Mechanism, and Ontology: Scientific Revolution: Teleology as Subtle Poison,” “Scientific Revolution: Thomas Kuhn’s Science as System of Traditional Authority;” “Between Rationalism to Empiricism;” “the Long Days’ Journey to the Death of Truth, Reality, Scientific Progress, and Freudian Epistemology;” “Terrorism of Truth: Truth and Theory in Postmodern Epistemology” “Whatever Happened to True Truth?” and “Narrative Displacement and the Corruption of Language.”39 See my critique “God, Man and Nature in Carl Sagan’s Universe, especially pages 24-38.

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scrappers. In fact, all forms of mysticism are internally correct, but totally irrelevant in dealing with the reality of the physical universe. In fact, mysticism denies that “physical reality” is only an illusion. If it is, it is the most powerful illusion ever produced along with the illusion of “consciousness.” What produced the illusions of self consciousness and the existence of the periodic chart, DNA, Black Holes and Steady State Physics? If every one of the classic scientists were pantheistic mystics where would science and technology be in 2005? Curiosity and wonderment are essential to give rationality to the history, logic and philosophy of science.

Classical theories would not surrender their critical thinking. For it is exactly through the sustained use of critical reason that rational explanation can be traced in the narrative displacement of various views of science, from classical Eastern to Greek, Roman, Medieval, modern and post modern anti science, and it is most certainly not to be accounted for by “emanation” or “intuition.” Goedel’s theorem has rationally refuted the autonomy of mathematics and its developments from Einstein, Bohr, Planck, Heisenberg, Creek, Monad and John Nash.

If rationality is to be maintained after the mathematical and physical scientific developments in the 20th century, which refuted “absolute objectivity” and made rational room for the recovery of the fact that all language and cultural structures are legitimized by “paradigms” and “presuppositions” beyond relativistic Structuralism, Operationalism, and Postmodern Pragmatism—the great minds in science have sent us on our postmodern journey into Irrationalism (e.g., Cultural and Epistemological Relativism, which is expressed in most Western media, and Educational Models of Multicultural/Diversity Pluralism). Physical science still reigns, not only in the West, but wherever science is practiced, while multicultural relativism reigns in the behavioral sciences in the academy.40

Gould’s Bad Design

Stephen J. Gould claims that there is evidence of Bad Design in the structure of the universe. There are at least three responses to his claim. (1) His judgment of certain biological components as bad is largely subjective. Peter Gordon takes issue with Gould’s best known example of the “panda’s thumb.” Gordon argues that rather than the thumb being clumsy and jury-rigged, it is a functional, original design (P. Gordon, “The Panda’s Thumb Revisited: An Analysis of Two Arguments against Design,” Origin’s Research 7, no. 1 (1984), pgs. 12-14).

Organisms are so complex that no biologist can claim to understand them completely. Thus, even biologists are not often in a position to judge the quality of the creator’s world. In fact, no naturalistic/materialistic quantity of “Time” can explain the complexity levels in the structures of the universe. (2) Response to counter attacks on the creation by God is not to claim that all development in organisms is directly by divine action. In addition to God’s intervention, natural

40 For a brief trek se Ken Wilber, editor, Quantum Questions (New Science Library, 1984.) This excellent work takes us through the thought of Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Einstein, Die Broglie, Planck and Eddington. Much of the present popular interest in the relationship between quantum Physics and Mysticism has arisen primarily through the publications of Carl Sagan’s The Tao of Physics which attests to the unprecedented interest in the relationship between modern quantum physics and pantheistic mysticism. Sir Arthur Eddington asserts, concerning the “Uncertainty Principle” – “Something unknown is doing—we don’t know what.”

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processes are obviously at work to change, in some degree, the form and function of organisms. Thus the second law of thermodynamics, for example, would guarantee increasing degradation of the creator’s design. (3) Gould’s attack on “design” provides no new explanation for the design in the “previously existing parts.” All of Gould’s attacks rest on the already discredited Darwinian explanation.

Paley’s Watchmaker arguments still stand firm by starting with the entire universe instead of its multitude of parts. How is multitude of “parts” unified into the “Universe?” Only in the past decades could science actually take the “universe seriously.” After Kant removed the universe from rational discourse, the development from Darwin, et al. confused “description” with explanation. Because the metaphysical implications of “absolute creation” (Genesis 1-3) could not be acceptable to the positivistic philosophy of the physical sciences which dominated Western science in the 19th century. Fused by the confusion of Hume’s critique of miracles by his distortion of “Empiricism” as the scientific epistemology and Kant’s First Critique, which removed God and the universe from rational discourse, the coming of Hegelian pantheism and Darwin’s naturalistic evolution supposedly brought the death knell to classical biblical Christianity.

A Fine Tuned Universe

Our generation has witnessed more discoveries about the universe than any previous epic. No other generation has seen the measuring of the cosmos. For previous generations the universe remained a profound mystery, but now many of the mysteries are solved. Not only can certain segments of the universe be measured, but in the measurement we see certain characteristics of the creator of the cosmos provided by the new tools of Astronomy.41

Before the measurement of the universe was demonstrated, non theists assumed the eternal availability of the appropriate building blocks for life. They posited that with enough time, and the right natural processes, even systems as complex as organisms could be assembled without the help of a supreme being. Of course, time does not cause anything and beside that, there is not “enough” time. It is amazing that the universe provides the right building blocks and the right natural process for life.42 Imagine the possibility of a Boeing 747 aircraft being completely assembled as a result of a tornado striking a junkyard. The possibility of the necessary building blocks for life to come into existence without someone or something designing them stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point. Four major building blocks must be designed “just right” for life.

Selecting the Right Molecular—Who/How

41 See particularly John Polkinghorne, Reason and Reality: The Relationship Between Science and Theology (Trinity Press International, 1991); Stephen Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985, pb.); Stanley L. Jaki, Bible and Science (Christendom Press, 1996); Chance and Reality, the Absolute Beneath the Relative; and his The Origin of Science and the Science of Origins (1977); The Relevance of Physics; Science and Creation: From Ethical Cycles to an Oscillating Universe.42 See Richard Swinburne, “Argument from Fine Tuning of the Universe;” Physical Cosmology and Philosophy, ed. J. Leslie (NY: MacMillan, 1991, p. 160); Hugh Ross, The Fingerprint of God (2nd edition revised, Orange, CA: Promise Press, 1991, p. 122).

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For life to be possible, more than forty different elements must be able to bond together to form molecules. Molecular bonding is dependent on two factors—the strength of the force of electromagnetism and the ratio of the mass of the electron to the mass of the proton.

If the electromagnetic force was any larger, atoms would hang on to electrons so tightly that no sharing of electrons with other atoms would be possible. But if the electromagnetic force was any weaker, atoms would not hang on to electrons at all, and again, the sharing of electrons among atoms which makes molecules possible, would not take place. If more than just a few kinds of molecules are to exist, the electromagnetic force must be more delicately balanced, yet the size and stability of electron orbits about the nuclei of atoms depends on the ratio of the electron mass to protein mass. Unless this ratio is balanced, the chemical bondage essential for life chemistry could never take place.

How Do We Get the Right Atoms?

Life molecules cannot be built unless sufficient quantities of all the elements for life are available. This means atoms of various sizes must be able to form. For that to happen, a delicate balance must exist for each of the constants of physics governing the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and gravity; also for the nuclear ground state energies (quantum energy levels vital for the forming of elements from protons and neutrons) for several key elements. In that case, only one element would exist in the universe – hydrogen – because the hydrogen atom has only one proton and no neutrons in its nucleus. On the other hand, if the strong nuclear force were of slightly greater strength, then what we observe in the cosmos, protons and neutrons, would have such an affinity for each other that not one would remain alone. They would all find themselves attached to many other protons and neutrons. In such a universe there would be no hydrogen—only heavy elements. Life chemistry is impossible without hydrogen; it is also impossibly if hydrogen is the only element.

How delicate is the balance for strong nuclear force? If it were just 2% weaker or 0.3% stronger than it actually is, life would be impossible at any time and any place in the universe.43. This delicate condition must be met universally, i.e., throughout the cosmos. The weak nuclear force governs the rate of radioactive decay. If it were much stronger than what we observe, the matter in the universe would quickly be converted into heavy elements. But if it were much weaker, the matter in the universe would remain in the form of just the lightest elements. Either way, the elements essential for life chemistry, such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, either would not exist at all or would exist in amounts far too small for all the life-essential chemicals to be built. Unless the weak nuclear force were delicately balanced, those life essential elements that are produced only in the core of super giant stars would never escape the boomerang those cores (supernova explosions would become impossible (Ross, pgs. 122-123).

The strength of the force of gravity determines how hot the nuclear furnaces in the core of the stars will fuse. If the gravitational force were any stronger, stars would be so hot they would burn up relatively quickly, too quickly and too erratically for life. Additionally, a planet capable

43 Richard Swinburne, “Argument from the Fine Tuning of the Universe,” Physical Cosmology and Philosophy, editor John Leslie (NY: MacMillan, 1991, p. 160); Hugh Ross, The Fingerprint of God, Op Cit.

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of sustaining life must be supported by a star that is both stable and long burning. However, if the gravitational force were any weaker, stars never would become hot enough to ignite nuclear fusion. In such a universe no elements heavier than hydrogen and helium would ever be produced.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Fred Hoyle discovered that an incredible fine tuning of the nuclear ground state energies for helium, beryllium, carbon and oxygen was necessary for any kind of life to exist. The ground state energies for these elements cannot be higher or lower with respect to each other by more than 4% without yielding a universe with insufficient oxygen or carbon for life.44 Hoyle has written extensively against theism and Christianity in particular; nevertheless he concluded on the basis of this quadruple fine tuning that “a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology.

How Do We Get the Right Nucleons?

Even if Hoyle’s physics, chemistry and biology could unveil the right elements of life, and further to get those elements to join together to form life molecules, this would affirm fine tuning of the universe. In the moments after creation, the universe contained about ten billion and one nucleon for every ten billion anti nucleons. The ten billion anti nucleons annihilated the ten billion nucleons, generating an enormous amount of energy. All the galaxies and stars that make up the universe today were formed from the leftover nucleons. If the initial excess of nucleons over anti nucleons were smaller, there would not be enough matter for galaxies, stars, and heavy elements to form. If the excess were any greater galaxies would form, but they would so efficiently condense and trap radiation that none of them would fragment to form stars and planets.

The neutron is 0.138% more massive than a proton. Because of this extra mass, neutrons require slightly more energy to make the protons. So as the universe cooled from the hot big bang creation event, it produced more protons than neutrons—in fact, about seven times as many.

If the neutrons were just about 0.1% more massive, so few neutrons would remain from the cooling off of the big bang that there would not be enough of them to make the nuclei of all the heavy elements for life. If the neutron were 0.1% less massive, protons would decay so readily into neutrons that all the stars in the universe would have rapidly collapsed into either neuron stars or black holes!45 The way the universe is structured, protons do not decay into neutrons. But they might decay into mesons, but there is no evidence of this phenomena. (SeeJames S. Trefil’s book, The Moment of Creation (NY: Collier Books, March 1983, pgs. 127-134).

44 Fred Hoyle, Galaxies, Nuculii, and Quasars (NY: Harper & Row, 1965, pgs. 147-150) and his “the Universe Past and Present Reflection,” Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics 20 (1982) pg. 16; Hoyle has written extensively against theism and Christianity in particular. The Nature of the Universe, 2nd revision (Oxford UK Basil Blackwell, 1952, p. 1109; Astronomy and Cosmology: A Modern Course (San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman, 1975, pgs. 684-685); “Astronomy and Cosmology” p. 522; also Ross, pp. 126-127.45 John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (NY: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 400.

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This phenomena would also require getting the “right electrons.” Not only must the universe be fine tuned to get enough nucleons, but also a precise number of electrons must exist. Unless the number of electrons is equivalent to the number of protons to the accuracy of one part in 10 to the 37th or better, electromagnetic forces in the universe would have so overcome gravitational forces that galaxies, stars, and planets never would have formed. Yet with the measuring of the universe, even more astounding facts become apparent.

Measurement of the Universe: Cosmic Expansion

The first parameter of the universe to be measured was the expansion rate. In comparing this rate to the physics of galaxy and star formation, astrophysicists found something amazing. If the universe expanded too rapidly, matter would disperse so efficiently that none of it would clump enough to form galaxies. If no galaxies form, no stars will form. If no stars form then no planets will form, and then there is no place for life. On the other hand, if the universe expanded too slowly, matter would clump so efficiently that all of it, i.e., the whole universe, would collapse into a super dense lump before any solar-type stars could form.

The inflationary big bang model for the universe proposes a physical explanation for why the universe poised so delicately in its expansion rate. As the fourth fundamental forces of physics, i.e., gravity, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and electro magnetic, the expansion rate of the cosmos must be fused with these four constants of physics. Here “fine tuning” is its most exquisite expression.

A Fourth Parameter: Star Masses

This parameter is the ratio of the electromagnetic force constant to the gravitational force constant. If the electromagnetic force relative to gravity were increased by just one part in 10 to the 40th, only stars would form.

In the late 80s and early 90s several other characteristics of the universe were measured successfully. Each of these also indicated a careful fine tuning for the support of life. Currently, researchers have uncovered 25 characteristics that must take a narrowly defined value for life of any kind to possibly exist.46

God of the Astronomers: Compare Jaki and Ross(or God and Astronomy)

The laws of physics are products of an exceedingly intelligent designer. The argument concerning the anthropic principle continues unabated in 2005.47 Theoretical physicists are all

46 See H. Ross, ibid, pgs. 111-114 and 120-128 for evidence of the fine Tuning of The Universe; Barrow and Tipler, pp. 123-457. Bernard J. Carr/M.J. Rees, Nature, 1999, pp. 608-612); J.M. Templeton, Journal of American Scientific Affiliation (December 1984); 194-200.47 J.W. Neidhardt, Journal of America Scientific Affiliation, Dec. 1984: 201-207; B. Carter, Proceeding of the International Astronomical Union Symposium, no. 63, 1974; 291-298; J.D. Barrow, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1981): 404-420); T. O’Toole, Science 81 (Apr. 1981):71-72; B.J. Carr, Physical Cosmology and Philosophy (MacMillan, 1990):134-153); R.E. Davies/R.A. Koch, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, series B, 334 (1991): 391-403.

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but unanimous in concluding that the universe is Fine Tuned, but many are hesitant to acknowledge this as significant evidence for the existence of the Creator/Redeemer of Genesis 1.1ff.48

Physicist Freeman Dyson concludes his treatment of the anthropic principle with, “The problem here is to try to formulate some statement of the ultimate purpose of the universe. In other words, the problem is to read the mind of God.” (See Dyson above, p. 298). Vera Kisliakowsky, MIT physicist and past president of The Association of Women in Science, commented, “The exquisite order dispensed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine.” (See in Margenau, above, p. 52)

Allan Sandaze, winner of the Crawford prize in Astronomy (equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize), remarked, “I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery, but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing?”49 Even agnostics in astronomy most often acknowledge that the evidence in fine tuning or careful crafting of the cosmos is so compelling that they have yet to hear dissent.”

The Creator’s Personality and Fine Tuning

Does fine tuning empty purposeful design? The intricacy and degree of fine tuning hardly supports any other conclusion that the personal God who created heaven and earth is God? Concerning this profound debate there seems to be only two possibilities: (1) Divine Design or (2) Blind Chance. Blind chance is ruled out because “chance” must be derived from known, not hypothetical, sample sizes. The known sample size of the universe is one and always will be only one, since the space-time universe is closed, i.e., not available to human intelligence. All the suggestions addressing the high complexity of the universe apply only to a Person! (e.g. this argument goes far beyond Aquinas’ argument for the existence of God.)

God’s love and care for all living things, particularly the human race, are indelibly inscribed on the universe. In spite of the mass destiny of the universe, God’s focus is on the needs of humans, but how? The mass density determines how efficiently nuclear fusion operates in the cosmos. God invested heavily in living creatures. He constructed all these stars and carefully crafted them so that at this brief moment in the space-time of the cosmos and human history man could exist and have a pleasant place to live. (If the earth’s sun were 10 to 1000e further from the earth, the earth would freeze to death; if it were closer, it would burn up. What a marvelous designer!)

There are at least three powerful arguments in reply to non theistic options to the evidence for cosmic design. (1) The evidence for design is merely coincidental: our existence simply testifies that it is extremely unlikely that it did take place by chance. We would not be here to report on the characteristics of the universe unless chance produced these highly unlikely properties. Response: This argument is fundamentally an appeal to “infinite chances” which already have 48 Freeman Dyson, Infinite in All Directions (NY: Harper and Row, 1988); H. Margenau/R.A. Varghese, editor, Cosmos, Bios and Theos (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1992); W.L. Craig, “Barrow and Tipler on the Anthropic Principle vs. Divine Design,” British Journal of Philosophy and Science, 38, 1988, esp. p. 392.49 John Noble Wilford, “Sizing Up the Cosmos: An Astronomer’s Quest” New York Times 12 (March 1991, p. 39).

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been answered, i.e., cosmic design in creation/creator. (2) Design arguments are outside the realm of science and, therefore, must be ignored. Response: To affirm that science and theology are mutually exclusive for a materialistic/naturalistic perspective, but here is the crucial of disagreement.

Both science and theology deal with the origins of the universe—the solar system, life, and human kind. When it come to “causes,” “developmental processes,” and origins, only two possibilities always exist, i.e., naturalistic materialism or supernaturalism—creator God. It is from a naturalistic worldview that supernatural explanation is considered equivalent to demanding that all human beings follow only one religion, the religion of Atheistic materialism. These issues are exposed by postmodern science education proponents who insist on redoing the curriculum and research institutions of any faith that dares to challenge the dominate world view.(3) As we continue to evolve, we will become the creator designer.50 The anthropic principle must take on characteristics of living systems. Life that exists--past, present, future, will continue to evolve with the inanimate resources of the universe until it all reaches a state that Barrow/Tipler call the “Omega Point.” (Ibid, pgs. 676-677) In other words, the creator God does not exist yet, but we all (all life and inanimate structures in the universe) are gradually evolving into God. Response: Martin Gardner calls the Anthropic Principle at best “crap.” The completely ridiculous anthropic principle can only exist in an environment which has a characteristic that allows for habitation of FAD which is the final principle that life will continue to evolve with uncalculated resources of the inverse and more and more marvels of the universe which we shall owe to the Creator.

The Earth and Cosmic Design: The Place for “Life/Consciousness”

The human mind boggles in trying to grasp the intrinsic details The Designer wove together to make the universe suitable for “life” and perpetual self awareness.” That same intricacy is apparent as one looks closer to home, at our galaxy, our sun, and our planet and moon. The search for a favorable environment for the support of life is over.51 Shklovskii and Sagan, working with just these two parameters, estimated 0.001% of all stars could have been a planet capable of supporting advanced life (op cit pg. 413)

The evidence of Shklovskii and Sagan overestimated the sample of permissile star types and the range of permissible planetary distance and they ignored a pluralism of other significant parameters. It is their optimistic estimate that has fueled the search for “Extraterrestrial intelligent life.” Well over a million dollars of U.S. taxpayer support has been devoted to search for radio signals from extraterrestrial intelligent life.52

50 In their book, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Astrophysicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler review many new evidences for the design of the universe (see esp. W.L. Craig, “Barrow and Tipler on the Anthropic Principle vs. Divine Design,” British Journal of Philosophy and Science 38 (1988), p. 392; and the Anthropic Cosmological Principle (NY: Oxford University Press, 1986.51 See Josef S. Shklovskit and Carl Sagan Intelligent Life in the Universe (San Francisco, CA: Holden Day, 1966, pgs. 343-350).52 Dava Sobel, “Is Anybody Out There?” Life Magazine, September 1992, pg. 62.

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The large system like the universe does not support the pantheistic conclusions of much previous research. Research on smaller systems such of our galaxy, our star, our planet, and life itself, also fails to support much pantheistic evaluation of the universe. All Galaxies are not Spirals.53

Research has eliminated from contention a majority of galaxies and a vast number of stars in the few remaining galaxies also are eliminated.

Another Kind of Life?

John Maddox, a member of the editorial board of Nature and a staunch atheist, attempted to find a way around Davies and Koch’s implications for creation.54 As a physicist, Robert Dicke observed 32 years ago, all life forms must have a carbon base.55 Boron and silicon are the only other elements on which complex molecules can be based, but boron is extremely rare, and silicon can hold together no more than about a hundred amino acids. Given the constraints of physics and chemistry, we can reasonably assume that life must be carbon based.

Another sensitive characteristic of our galaxy for life support is stellar density and most galaxies and all globular clusters (spherically symmetric systems of stars containing more than a hundred thousand stars and residing around and in between galaxies) have stellar densities that are too high for life supportable planets. If the stars are too close to one another, their gravitational interactions with one another disrupt planetary orbits. On the other hand, the stars cannot be too far apart. The need for right stellar density also means the sun’s location is sensitive. A distance too close or far away from the center of a galaxy or too close or far away from the density part of the spiral in which it resides would eliminate the possibility of a planet capable of supporting life.

The Right Star

Not only is a particular kind of galaxy essential for life, the star around which a life bearing planet resolves must be just right. It must also be a single star system. Zero or two plus star systems will fail.

A planet ripped away from its star will be too cold for life, but if a planet is orbiting a binary or multiple star system, the extra stars frequently will pull its orbit out of the temperature zone essential for life support.

As Shklovskii and Sagan first pointed, a life support planet must be maintained by a star of very specific mass. A star more massive than the sun will burn too quickly and too erratically for life on the planet to be sustained. The smaller the mass of the star, the closer the planet must be to that star to maintain a temperature suitable for life chemistry. Bringing the planet just the slightest bit closer causes such a tremendous increase in tidal interaction that the planet’s rotation period quickly lengthens from hours to months. This is the fate for both Mercury and Venus.

53 See esp. Ron Cowen, “Were Spiral Galaxies Once More Common?” Science News 142 (1992), p. 390). Physicists R.E. Davies and R.H. Koch recently published a paper on the necessary cosmic condition for the solar system to contain the elements essential for life (Davis/Koch “All the Observed Universe Has Contributed to Life” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, series 34 (1991) pgs. 391-403).54 John Maddox, “The Anthropic View of Nucleosynthesis” Nature 355 (1992), pg. 107.55 Robert H. Dicke, “Diracs Cosmology and Mach’s Principle,” Nature 192 (1961), p. 440.

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The star must form at just the right time in the history of the galaxy. If it forms too soon or too late, the mix of heavy elements suitable for life chemistry will not exist. The sun’s luminosity has increased by more than 35% since life was first introduced on earth. Such change is more than enough to exterminate life. But life survived on earth because the increase in solar luminosity was exactly cancelled out each step of the way by a decrease in the sufficiency of the greenhouse effect in earth’s atmosphere. The slightest “evolutionary accident” would have caused either a runaway freeze up or runaway boiling!

If the mean temperature of the earth’s surface warms just a few degrees, more water vapor and carbon dioxide collect in the atmosphere. This extra water vapor and carbon dioxide create a better green house effect in the atmosphere. This in turn causes the surface temperature to rise again, which releases even more water vapor and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, resulting in still higher surface temperature. (Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, p. 127) Naturalistic Materialism can offer no rational explanation of this phenomenon. Divine design is reflected at every turn of the cosmos!

Just Right Environment

Biochemists now concede, for life molecules to operate so that organisms can live requires an environment where liquid water is stable. This means that a planet cannot be too close to its star or too far away. In the case of planet earth, a change in the distance from the sun as small as 2% would rid the planet of all life. The slightest modification from too close would burn all life systems or from too far all systems would freeze.

The temperature of a planet and its surface gravity determine the escape velocity, a measure of which atmosphere gases dissipate to outer space and which are retained. For a planet to support life, it is essential for water vapor (molecular weight #18) to be retained while molecules as heavy as methane (molecular weight #16) and ammonia (molecular weight #17) dissipate.

The whole planet earth has just the right surface gravity and temperature, ammonia and methane; these disappear much faster than their escape velocities would indicate.56 The reason is that chemical conditions in earth’s upper atmosphere are indicative of “Fine Tuning”—work efficiently to break down both molecules.57

Chances for Finding Life-Support Planets

56 George Abell, Explanation of the Universe (NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964, pgs. 244-247, and John C. Brandt and Paul W. Hodge, Solar System Astrophysics (NY: McGraw Hill, 1964, pgs. 395-416).57 Charles B. Thaxton, W.L. Bradley, R. L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (NY: Philosophical Library, 1984, pgs. 43-46, 73-94); Crucial to this entire discussion derives from Einstein’s revolution (causality?); There is structure beneath the relativity. All is not relative but every historical event is contingent to non contingent. See Stanley Jaki’s response to Planck/Heisenberg’s continuum physics in his work, The Absolute Beneath the Relative; The Paradox of Obler’s Paradox; The Milky Way: An Elusive Road for Science; Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe; Planets and Planetarians; A History of Theories of the Origin of Planetary Systems; The Origins of Science and the Science of Its Origin; and Chance and Reality – all his work is indispensable!

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The parameters cannot exceed certain limits without disturbing a planet’s capacity to support life. Another crucial problem is that planetary formation cannot be fully observed. Most confining of all would be parameters such as the parent star mass and the planetary distance from its parent star, which eliminates 99.9% of all candidates. But all parameters must be kept within specific limits for the total time span needed to support life on a candidate planet. This increases the degree of confinement.

There is a plethora of other parameters, i.e., atmospheric transparency pressure and temperature gradient, other greenhouse gases, location of different gases and minerals and mantle and core constituents of different gases and minerals are currently being researched for their sensitivity in supporting life. Although it is possible even at this present stage in the research efforts to gather many of the planetary system parameters for life support and determine a crude estimate for the possibility that by natural means alone there would exist a planet capable of supporting life (e.g. the crucial issues are (1) the origin of life and consciousness and (2) an environment to continually support life and consciousness.

An Estimate of the Probability for Attaining the Necessary Parameters for Life Support58

Probability of Galaxy, Star, Planet,Parameter or Moon Falling in Required Range

Galaxy type .1Star location .2Number of stars .2Star birth date .2Star age .4Star mass .001Star luminosity relative to speciation .0001Star color .4Supernovae rates and proximities .01White dwarf rates and proximities .05Distance from star .001Inclination of orbit .8Axis tilt .3Rotation period .1 Orbit eccentricity .3Surface gravity (escape velocity) .001Tidal force .1Magnetic field .01Albedo .1Density .1Thickness of crust .01Oceans-to-continents ratio .2Asteroidal and cometary collision rate .1Atmospheric transparency .01

58 See the table on probability by Ross, on page 134.

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Atmospheric pressure .1Atmospheric electric discharge rate .1Atmospheric temperature gradient .01Carbon dioxide level in atmosphere .01Oxygen quantity in atmosphere .01Ozone quantity and location in atmosphere .01Oxygen to nitrogen ration in atmosphere .1Quantity of greenhouse gases in atmosphere .01Seismic activity .1Dependency factors 1,000,000,000Longevity requirements .0001

Probability for occurrence of all 33 parameters: 10-42Maximum possible number of planets in universe: 10/22

Much less than one chance in a quintillion exists that even one such planet would occur anywhere in the universe.

Considering that the observable universe contains less than a trillion galaxies, each averaging a hundred billion stars, we can see that not even one planet would be expected, by natural processes alone, to possess the necessary conditions to sustain life. Additional research indicates that only slowly rotating bachelor stars similar to the sun have the possibility of stable planets.

If a “divine design” is essential to explain the properties of super systems such as the universe, our galaxy, and the solar system, how much more of God’s creativity is necessary to explain systems as complex or organisms, including human beings. Regarding the enormous government expenditure in search for “extraterrestrial intelligence,” former Senator William Praxmire may have said it best—“We would be far more rational to spend the money looking for intelligence in Washington.”

The previous sections presented some of the available evidence for “divine design” in the universe, our galaxy, our stars, our planets, and the moon. But there is more amazing evidence that resides in living organisms.

Divine Design in the Building Blocks of Life

In the conflict between creation and chemical origin of the universe (10 to 37) many biologists have assumed that life has its origins by chemical force (10 to35). But the fine tuning necessary to build an independent functioning organism requires precise crafting such as people have never before imagined, precision to one part in a number so large that it would fill thousands of books to write it out.

At the heart of postmodern naturalistic evolution, many have typically assumed that plenty of time is available for natural processes to perform the necessary assembly. But discoveries about the universe and the solar system have shattered that assumption. The evidential data is now

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more specifically clear that life must have originated on earth quickly.59 Research indicates that life began, was destroyed, and began again many times during that era before it finally took hold.

Fully formed cells show up in the fossil record as far back as 3.5 billion years ago (?), and limestone, formed from their remains of organisms, dates back 3.8 billion years (?). The ratio of 12carbon12 to 13carbon13 found in ancient sediments also indicate a plenitude of life on earth for the era between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years(?). (Manfred Schidlenski’s article, “A 3,800 million year Isotope record of life from carbon to sedimentary rocks,” Nature 333 (1988), pgs. 313-318. Remember that time does not cause anything (Genesis 1.1ff). The critical decision of time came from a very late dating of the Genesis record, i.e., the early/late debate.) But that was an era of grave danger for life. Though the research is recent, it leaves no room for doubt (based on dating of lunar craters and a comparison of craters on the moon, Mars and Mercury) that earth and other bodies close to the sun experienced heavy bombardment by meteors, comets, asteroids, and dust in their early history.60

The Odds for a Supernatural Source of Complexity

Statistically, it is very unlikely to have “generating” complexity without supernatural input.61 The complexity of this category of reality is rationally beyond the chancistic origins of it all (Shapiro, p. 128). The odds of a chancistic origin of complexity is 1 to 10 trillion power. The time scale issue becomes completely irrelevant. The amount of time does not explain the origins of the chemical composition of “Life” with the creator of heaven and earth initiating the events. This position is far more rational than naturalistic evolution of “all reality.”62

Life molecules are composed of protein and nucleic acid. The proteins are built from 20 distinct amino acids, 19 of which must be oriented in a left handed configuration. It is crucial to note that most of these amino acids must be sequenced in a specific manner and to a specific length. In the natural world, over 80 distinct amino acids exist, 50% right handed and 50% left handed. The problem for life assembly is to select from the randomly oriented amino acids only those that are correctly oriented (step A to B), then to select out only the life specific amino acids (step B to C), then to bond the amino acids together into short chains (step C to D), then to bond the short chains together to make chains of the necessary lengths, typically, several hundred amino acids long (step D to E), and finally to select out those chains in the right order that have the amino acids in the proper sequence (step E and F). The whole process must be protected so that the rate of formation remains sufficiently above the rate of destruction.63

59 Early in 1992 Christopher Chyta and Carl Sagan published a review paper on the “Origins of Life” (synthesis or original molecules): An Inventory for the Origins of Life,” Nature 355 (1992), p. 125-132. Origins is plural for good reason.60 Kevin A. Moher/David J. Stevenson, “Impact Frustration of the Origins of Life,” Nature 339 (1989), p. 434); Norman H. Sleep, et al., “Annihilation of Ecosystems by Large Asteroid Impact on the Early Earth,” Nature 342 (1989), pgs. 139-142).61 Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, Robert L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (NY: Philosophical Library 1984, pgs. 69-98); Robert Shapiro, Origins (NY: Summit Books, 1986), p. 128).62 See Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box; his thesis was that man derived from complexity to simplicity versus the natural evolutionary claim from simple to complex.63 Hugh Ross, p. 140.

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Response of Naturalistic Atheists

Astronomer Michael Hart demonstrated in 1982 that even if you grant non theists their wildest scenario concerning the origin of life, it still fails. Let us suppose (very optimistically) that in a strand of genesis DNA there are no fewer than 400 positions where any one of the four nucleotide residues will do, and at each of 100 other positions either of two different nucleotides will be equally effective, leaving only 100 positions which must be filled by exactly the right nucleotides. This appears to an unrealistic optimistic set of assumptions; but even so, the probability that an arbitrarily chosen strand of nucleic acid could function as genesis DNA is only one in 10to90.64 Even in 10 billion years (?) the chance of forming such a string DNA spontaneously would be only 100-90 x 10/60 or 10-30. For each of 100 different specific genes [the minimum needed] to be formed spontaneously (in ten billion years (?). For them to be formed at the same time and in close proximity, the probability is much lower.65

RNA Research and Creation Momentary Despair

An epidemic of published material on the sciences momentarily lifted the need of naturalistic non theists. Their papers on RNA seemed a possible way around some of the complexities of life.66 For life to originate mechanically, three kinds of molecules would need to emerge spontaneously and simultaneously from inorganic compounds. Even the most optimistic of researchers agreed that the chance appearance of these incredibly complex molecules at exactly the same time and space was beyond the realm of mathematical possibility!

In 1987 an experiment demonstrated that one kind of RNA can act as an enzyme or catalyst, an agent to facilitate a chemical process. It can function like a protein, at least to a limited degree.67 The new research makes it harder to make “the origin of life” by strictly natural processes.68 Even Leslie Orgel, a leading proponent of RNA origins of life, admitted, “you have to get an awful lot of things right and wrong.”

This myth was exploded by Robert Shapiro at a meeting of the International Society for the Study of the Origins of Life at Berkeley University in 1986. Three hundred of the top origin-of-life researchers from around the world were present. Shapiro traced all the references to RNA

64 See page 850 in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary regarding nucleic acid.65 See Michael H. Hart, “Atmospheric Evolution, the Drake Equation and DNA: Sparse Life in an Infinite Universe” Physical Cosmology and Philosophy, editor John Leslie (NY: MacMillan, 1990, pgs 263-264). For realistic calculation on the odds of life assembly under natural condition see the works of Hubert Yockey, “An Application of Information in Theory to the Central Dogma and the Sequence Hypothesis” Journal of Theoretical Biology 46 (1974), pgs. 369-406; his “On the Information Concept of Cytochromes” Journal of Theoretical Biology 67 (1977), pgs. 345-376, his “A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 67 (1977), pgs 372-398); his “Do Overlapping Genes Violate Molecular Biology and the Theory of Evolution?” Journal of Theoretical Biology 80 (1979), pgs 21-26; and his “Self Organization Origins of Life Scenarios and Information Theory,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 91 (1981), pgs. 13-31. Yockey is a world renowned information theorist.66 M. Michael Waldrop, “Finding RNA Makes Protein Gives RNA World a Big Boost” Science 256 (1992), pgs. 1396-1397.67 Thomas R. Peck, “The Chemistry of Self-Splicing DNA and RNA Enzymes,” Science 236 (1987), pgs. 1532-1539).68 John Horgan, “In the Beginning” Scientific American (Feb. 1991), p. 119.

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synthesis to one ambiguous paper published in 1969.69 At the same meeting he went on to demonstrate that the synthesis of RNA under pre biotic conditions is essentially impossible. No one at the meeting challenged the soundness of his conclusion.

Proteins and nucleic acids demonstrate a considerable tolerance for substitutions of alternative amino acid and nucleotides at certain sites. In all the technical discussions, life still cannot possibly exist in the universe unless several sources of radiation exist at highly specialized levels.70 Tolerance for substitutions in life molecules should drive us toward, not away from, the conclusion of a “divine design”!

Late in the 1980s, on the ABC television program Nightline with Ted Koppel two astronomers and a science journalist declared that the discovery of life on Mars would provide virtual proof that life does originate and evolve and quite easily by natural processes. Since life was not found on Mars, the thesis that life is abundant throughout our universe, and therefore the thesis of spontaneous generation is once again in the dark shadows of despair. (Note the influence on science fiction of the implication of life throughout the universe, e.g. the movie “ET”.)

Naturalistic evolution maintains that “life” is abundant throughout our universe, abundant by “spontaneous generation.” These naturalistically inclined scientific gurus ignore vital facts about the transportability and survivability of earth life forms.71 There are enormous amounts of new data discovered by scientific research but they show the amazing vitality of God’s creation, not naturalistic evolution which was supposedly developed by spontaneous generation.72

Whether we examine the cosmos on its largest versus its tiniest scale, His handiwork is evident. Whether we work in discipline where simplicity and rigor predominate, e.g. mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry or other disciplines where complexity and information predominate, e.g. biochemistry, botany, and zoology, God’s finger prints are visible. (World views in conflict in our postmodern world: read carefully Acts 17 and Romans 10.18, “Their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the earth.”

Developments in Science and Technology and God’s Awesome Transcendence and Immanence

Creation is confined to a four dimensional box. Recent measurements of the cosmos suggests that God is not confined in our four dimensional world of our created cosmos. The scriptures describe certain attributes of God, e.g. the Trinity, the Incarnation of the creator into a four dimensional world of time, space, language and history. The scriptures affirm that the creator is sovereign and man is free to choose. If we are genetically and environmentally determined we 69 Robert Shapiro, “Prebiotic Ribose Synthesis: A Critical Analysis,” Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 18 (1988), pgs. 71-85, a case that remains unchallenged even in 2005.70 John Horgan, “In the Beginning”, p. 119; and Robert Shapiro, “Protometabolism: A Scenario for the Origin of Life,” The American Scientist (July/August 1992, pg. 387).71 Fred Hoyle/Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution From Space (NY: Simon/Schuster 1981, pp. 39-61; J. G. Shklovskil and Carl Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe (San Francisco, CA: Holden/Day, 1966, pp. 207-211; The item on meteorites came from a report of a computer analysis that was presented at the 20th Linear and Planetary Science conference (1989), in Huston, Texas.72 See esp. Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, Roger Olsen (all Christians) The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (NY: Philosophical Library, 1984).

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are not free. Our postmodern conflict concerning Openness theology, Arminius, and Calvinism are not real problems because God is transcendent, i.e., not bound to the four dimensions of time, space, history and language. When God created the universe, this was an act of self limiting grace, not a limitation that He developed beyond the four dimensions.

The four fundamentals that separate Christianity from all alternative world religions are (1) absolute origin of the universe; (2) Incarnation of the creator into a four dimensional world for our sakes; (3) Crucifixion—God’s holiness demands atonement for our sins; He provided it Himself by fusing holiness and justice; (4) His return into the space/time world which will realize the culmination of His purpose of creation in the new creation unpolluted by sin and evil (war, disease, death, etc.).

Though the Trinity is a mathematical absurdity in the context of just a four dimensional universe—length, width, height, time (which alone makes history possible versus monistic pantheism of most postmodern isms), in particle physics, all workable theories for unification of four dimensional forces of physics requires that a minimum of nine dimensions of space and time must have existed in the first 10-34 seconds following the creation.73

In this multiple dimensional universe, The Trinity becomes mathematically feasible, thus contradiction is transformed into “paradox” (e.g. Olber’s Paradox). Triangles turn into a cone. In three dimensions of space, it is possible in one context for a triangle to be equal to a circle and in another context, e.g., a piece of paper, for a triangle not to be equal to a circle. Therefore, three dimensional triangles are simultaneously equal and not equal to circles.74 In multiple dimensions of time it is possible that the existence of God as a trinity is rationally possible, i.e., a being simultaneously singular and plural.

How can God be sovereign and near at the same time?75 (Genesis 16.13; 28. 16; Deuteronomy 30.14; Psalm 34.18; 119.151; 145.18; Jeremiah 23.24; Acts 17.28, Romans 10.8) Perhaps an analogue can be found in Edwin Abbott, a 19th century teacher who published the book, Flat Land: A Romance of Many Dimensions in 1884, with notes by David W. Davies, Pasadena, CA. Only in the incarnation can God be visible (I Timothy 6.16), and Ross’ book, Above and Beyond Us. God’s spiritual dimension is not bound by the space/time context!

For example of what is possible in three time dimensions: God operates on a globe or sphere of time, the universe and all humanity could be confined to a line on the equator. God, from a

73 See Hugh Ross, Fine Tuning for Life in the Universe—Reasons to Believe (Glendora, CA); and Fine Tuning of Physical Life Support Body (same site). “The environmental requirements for life to exist depends quite strongly on the life form in question. The conditions for primitive life to exist, for example, are not nearly so demanding as they are for advanced life. Also, it makes a big difference how active the life form is and how long it remains in its environment. On this basis there are six distinct zones or regions in which life can exist.” (List of broadest to narrowest in his above work, Fine Tuning of Physical Life Support Body.” This discussion is at the heart of a Biblical world view; most works discussing world views are discussions of results of world view and not world view itself. There is an epidemic of works on world view while little discussion of what a world view is (e.g. a biblical world view must be macro/micro in explanatory power).74 Jeremy Bernstein, The Truth Dimension: An Informal History of High Energy Physics (NY: McGraw-Hill, 1989, pgs. 152-153).75 See esp. Hugh Ross, Above and Beyond Us (Pasadena, CA: Reasons to Believe, 1993, one hour video VHS cassettes.

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single point of time at the sphere’s North Pole, could drop perpendicular time lines to both our “past” and our “future,” simultaneously affecting both. The incarnation is an example of God’s extra dimensional realism as found in the New Testament.

How does this phenomenon fit His promise of being with us always (John 16.7)? Hear this beautiful message again for the first time in Philippians 2.5-9)—“Christ, (Jesus) being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name.”

Jesus Christ was fully God, sharing in all the power, all authority, and all the extra-dimensional capabilities God possesses. But for our sake, Christ lowered Himself and accepted the weakness and limitations of a human. He came into our dimensions to show us God, whom we could never otherwise picture, to give us an example of humility and to pay the price for our redemption. After fulfilling His purpose in coming, Jesus once again took up all the power, authority, and extra dimensional capacities that were rightfully His as God! The disciples gave up the tangible nearness of Jesus, but as a human He could only be in one place at a time, holding one conversation at a time, performing one miracle at a time, etc. He also needed to sleep and eat. He declared to His disciples that he would never leave them, never fall asleep on them, never walk away to take care of someone else’s need (Matthew 28.20). He could live in them, as well as beside them. The same powerful promise is made to every person who gives his or her self to Christ in obedient faith.

Barriers and Hindrances

The development in science over the past century provides amazing evidences that the creator has allowed us to discover, i.e., decode not encode reality! There are two large barriers to personal faith in Christ as Lord and Savior: (1) Intellectual barriers of misinformation and misunderstanding, and (2) Barriers which come from personal pain or stubborn rebellion lurking under the cover of “intellectual” objections. In a unique sense our Lord’s resurrection should be adequate evidence to bring us to His saving power, but after Hume’s critique of miracles and the development in the 19th century between Historicism and Positivism in the historical and scientific sense, we must note that the nature of The Scientific Method was exempted from the cultural, epistemological, hermeneutical relativism that gained dominate control in the academy by the first quarter of the 20th century is the result of the work of Einstein, Planck, Heisenberg, Crick, Monad, et al. This brought the insurgence of pantheistic monism into the Revisionist History, Anti Science revolution by mid 20th century. Now we dwell in the relativism/total contextualization of reality of the post modern academy. As these influences enter into multicultural/pluralistic, tolerant relativism, we have reached the apogee of the influence of Kant’s totally rational contextualization of human knowledge.

In our postmodern western civilization, where we have more wealth, the most discretionary time, the most education, and the most technology in all of previous generations/civilizations. How does Western civilization respond to these blessings? Our secularistic, humanistic, relativistic

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cultural maze declares that humans deserve all the credit; man has become ‘god’, i.e., “the captain of his own fate.” Since Nietzsche announced the Death of God, God has become progressively more marginalized and trivialized in our privatized postmodern culture. Where True Truth expressed in human language and Evangelism and Missions (preaching/teaching/doctrine/theology) are offensive to our academic agenda.

Mind, Brain, Machines, and Persons

At the heart of Postmodernism is the rejection of “The Person” (i.e., the Individual). All forms of Bioethics are grounded in the issue of The Nature of the Person. Christians should not fear the consequences of the neo biological revolution.76 The radical developments in brain science are perhaps the most crucial challenges when fused with micro physics and concern for the origins of “the universe.” How do nerve cells communicate? The activity of the cells is animated chemically under electrical control which communicates by spitting irritating fluids at one another! Electric currents flow in tight little loops from inside to outside and back inside cylindrical nerve fibers; as a result, by inserting into the living brain a very fine wire insulated almost to its tip, it is possible to pick up signals from individual nerve cells, and to study the meaning in which the rattle of impulses from particular cells is affected by incoming information from the eyes or ears, or by other ongoing activity.

The Brain as a System

What would it mean for “man” to understand the immensely complex system of the brain? No amount of information accumulated in text books understanding the human brain can ever mean building a completely detailed picture. The research in brain structures is primarily like all scientific research, or powers of description are far greater than our powers of prediction. The Canadian neurosurgeon, Wilder Penfield, claimed that there are widely uncommitted groups of cells, meaning that they are not tied to any single sensory or motor systems. Even in highly defined areas of the brain, e.g., vision, hearing, speech, many areas cannot be identified.77 There is an enormous data base concerning the brain mechanism and conscious experience. This is particularly true of the use of brain manipulation to modify behavior.

Problem of Information Capacity: Memory and Forgetting

How could the brain possibly have a sufficiently large repertoire of distinguishable states to represent and store the full gamut of all that goes on in our minds in the course of a lifetime? A marvelous example of information storage is based on the remarkable capacity of memories to have reproduced enormously long sequences. An orchestral conductor can carry an entire score of a work in his head, ready to be run off at will. At this juncture the computer analogue enters

76 See especially my paper, “The Counter Culture Meets the Neurophysical Revolution” “The Demise of the Person in Postmodernism;” and “Postmodern Confrontation: From Rationalism to Irrationalism” (II Corinthians 10.5).77 See Wilder Penfield and Lamar Roberts, Speech and Brain Mechanics (Princeton University Press, 1959.

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the debate. The brain’s capacity to do such a thing suggests that it is a reasonable assumption, i.e. that the capacity seems to be “just right.”

The enormous field of highly technical research gathering knowledge and understanding also entails a corresponding increase of the complexity of our responsibility toward our global fellows and the creator of the universe. None of these developments are taking us farther from the Christian view of men. Only within a Judaeo/Christian world view will He bring “good” rather than “evil” to mankind out of the enormous development of our knowledge of the brain.

Man, Imago Dei, Machine of Animal?

In the milieu of multi million fold complexity, the most difficult problem for the scientists is to decide what questions are worth asking about it. How can our minds get around such an astronomically complex system as a whole? For the design of intelligent experiments, as well as for the rational ordering of our observations, some kind of manageable compact conceptual framework is essential.

Since the time of Rene Descartes, the framework of the machine has been pressed into service. Early on, machinery concepts of a machine were cogs, cranks, et al. but now the complexity of the computer is a more realistic analogue. This question goes far beyond whether the brain activity obeys causal physical laws. The laws of physics and chemistry do not call the cooking process “mechanical.” The analogue of the brain as an analogue of a machine or an assembly of mechanical processes.

Descartes’ “doubt” is hardly an ingenious mechanistic explanation of brain function, based on the theory that nerves transmitted hydraulically.78 Further crucial issues are analogue computing, digital computing, binary digital principles are especially suitable for electronic implementation since digital machines are essentially general purpose symbol manipulations. The information storage is a question of size. Do computers think? Will advancement in technology confirm that one day computers might surpass human beings in all their capacities? Will computer capabilities be recognized as conscious agents in their own right?

Could an Automaton Have an “I” Story?

Can man be dragged down to the status of mere machines? This could only be if our brains are merely physical systems. The most that this area of development can do is to demonstrate the complexity of the brain.79 What is self awareness, i.e. consciousness, purpose, will, etc., if the 78 See R. Descartes, Philosophical Works of Descartes—Discourse on Method, Part V, Vol. I, Translated by E.S. Haldene/G.R.T. Ross (NY: Dover Publishing, 1955), p. 116); D.M. MacKay, The Application of Electronic Principles to the Solution of Differential Equations in Physics (Ph.D. Thesis, University of London, 1951; also his Analogue Computing at Ultra High Speed (Chapman/Hall and Wiley, 1962); his “The Use of Behavioral Language to Refer to Mechanical Processes” British Journal of Philosophy of Science XIII, 89-103, 1962); also F.J. Crosson, editor, Human and Artificial Intelligence (NY: Appleton, Century, Crofts, 1971); J.B. Smythies, editor, “Mechanism to Mind” Brain and Mind (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965, pgs. 163-200); A Mind’s Eye View of the Brain: Cybernetics of the Nervous System (Norbert Wiener and J.P. Schode, editors, Progress in Brain Research, 17 Elserier Press, 1965, pgs. 321-322.)79 Note especially the Turring Machine and Cybernetics, note 14; and M. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967).

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brain is nothing but a low grade computer? Characteristic slow changes of electrical potential can also be detected which precede or accompany purposive movement, and indicate when the purpose has been achieved.80 Overall brain function is directly dependent on the microstructure, or the microchemistry, of individual nerve cells.

How does the Christian view of “The Person” benefit from the “computer revolution,” since the mind/brain employs principles still undreamed of by the computer engineer? Much of postmodern brain research has liberated brain scientists from the shackles of reductionistic thinking that tended to go with the classical mechanical models. The self decision between either/or mechanistic and personal levels is unsupportable. There is no scientific integration between a specific biblical view of a person and naturalistic reductionism, i.e., mechanical model.

Man in the Image of God?

A crucial question is still—Where did we come from? Who am I? Where am I going? Will I survive death? In the 20th century a major source in the discussion derives from The Uncertainty Principle made famous by the physicist Werner Heisenberg. This does not solve the problem of “Free Will” or the study of “Responsibility.” This theory does not falsify the classical mechanistic model of all reality. As a result of Heisenberg’s theory, the official calculus of physics has ceased to be deterministic in the technical sense; it fails to predict precise outcomes even from an ideally defined situation. This revolution paradigm has been heralded by Eddington, as withdrawing the objection of physics to “free will.”

Three Deterministic Claims

If there is no creation, there is no creator, freedom, responsibility, purpose, inevitability of progress, and radically changing life decisions (conversion) are at stake in this debate. The biblical concepts of sin, salvation, redemption, faith are in the academy debate and rejection is in the hands of Freud, Darwin, Marx, et. al.

(1) All physical events have physical causes, i.e., scientific providence, prayer, determinism, or methodological determinism.

(2) All events in our space-time universe owe their being to the upholding creative will of God (e.g. the fatalism of Islam and radical Calvinism).

(3) The future, i.e. my future actions, is inevitable.

When we speak of the creative will of God we are not thinking of God as someone “in time” who looks forward into the future; we are thinking of Him rather as the One who utters into being the whole of our space-time, its past, present and future, just as Shakespeare uttered

80 E. Grunewald-Zuberbier, G. Brunewald, R. Jung (1978). Stem potential of the human precentral and parietal cortex during goal-directed movements, Journal of Physiology 285: 181-182; D. Regan Evoked Potentials in Psychology: Sensory Physiology and Clinical Medicine (Chapman/Hall, 1972; see articles in The Handbook of Sensory Physiology (R. Jung, vol. V 11/33 (Springer, NY: Heidelberg, 1973).

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into being the whole of The Tempest of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Could the old pre-Heisenberg physical determinism and post Heisenberg determinism account for God’s predestination and man’s freedom at the same time (e.g. Islamic fatalism)?81

Inevitability: Root-Unavoidable

The question—is it unavoidable by whom? Until we answer this question, this is to make an incomplete claim. The crucial issue is for whom? Some events are inevitable for everyone if they are inevitable for anyone. The rising or setting of the sun is so inevitable for anyone and everyone that its clock timetable can be published in our diaries. To call it inevitable without qualification means that whether anyone knows it or not, the time of sunrise at a given place has a determinate specification which, if we grant the presupposition on which it is based, anyone and everyone would be correct to believe and mistaken to disbelieve. Whether anyone is aware of it or not, there exists a specification of it which has an unconditional claim to the dissent of everyone. The center of this issue is how strong a logic of claim the specification allows. By calling its claim “unconditional” we mean that anyone believing the specification would be correct, and that nobody disbelieving it could be correct in what he believes, whether he or she knows it or likes it or not. This is what they will have to reckon with. Nothing can be done by anyone to allow it. The event it describes then is inevitable for all.

Is the Future Inevitable?

Does the doctrine of physical determinism or that of divine predestination have the logical consequence that my future is inevitable? The answer is contingent on the “us” of “inevitable.” If all we mean to ask is whether my future would be predictable for detached observers, the answer is clear. If my brain were as mechanically determined as the solar system, then there would exist in principle a “detailed specification” of what I am about to do, with an unconditional claim to the assent of detached observers. That is what they would be correct to believe, and mistaken to disbelieve, if only they knew it. We must never forget that image of our hundred thousand million nerve cells, or how impossible it would ever be to take stock of them all in practice with a view to making a complete prediction. What would follow, if in principle our brain processes could be completely predicted? Ultimately, it would certainly imply that whether anyone could predict it or not, my future had a determinate specification with an unconditional claim to the assent of everyone not involved in my situation.82

81 See D.M. MacKay, Science, Chance, and Providence, Chapter 3 (Oxford University Pres, 1978); and Clockwork Imago (IVP, 1974) and “Sovereignty of God in the Natural World” Scottish Journal of Theology, 21 1968, pgs. 13-26.82 A.S. Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (Everyman edition, 1935, p. 284); see the defense of “Interactionism: Mentalism,Yes;–Dualism, No (Neuroscience 5,1980) and K.R. Popper/J.C. Eccles, The Self and the Brain (Springs International, 1977; K.R. Popper, “Interdeterminism in Quantum Physics in Classical Physics,” British Journal of Philosophy of Science, I (1950), pgs. 117-133 and 173-195); D.M. MacKay, Freedom of Action in a Mechanistic Universe (London/NY: Cambridge University Press, 1967).

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Let us test the logic. Suppose that it is your brain we are talking about and that some super scientist has secretly produced a specification of its immediate future. Would we be correct to believe it and mistaken to disbelieve it, if only you knew it? Why not? The answer is to be found in terms of our original starting assumption. Everything in your experience, we assumed, must have its correlates in the brain story, that no change could take place in what you believe without a change taking place in that brain story. This “cognitive mechanism” with detailed description that a super scientist might give of its immediate future, could this description have an unconditional claim to your assent? Self awareness in this situation would be about a change in the state of the mechanism. There is present in this paradigm that the “outside observer” and an “inside agent” which cannot relate the same story about “your” future and be correct. The future always includes the future of my cognitive mechanism, whose state co-varies with what I believe and think. There cannot be a complete specification of my future with an unconditional claim to my assent.83

Is this claim “unconditional?” To claim that it is “open to me” to x or not x means in effect that unless I assent to the proposition, x will do x, in the manner we call “making up my mind;” x will not be done by me. Its accuracy as a description of my future depends on whether or not I assent to it. Whether or not I shall do x is in the precise sense up to me to determine! Even the strongest of specification of the immediate future of my brain with an unconditional claim to my assent, such that would be correct to believe and mistaken to disbelieve it if only I knew it. In this sense even total physical determinism would not imply that my future is inevitable for me. There is no complete story about my immediate future that could have an unconditional claim to my assent, even though my brain was as mechanical as the solar system. Therefore, “mind” capabilities cause the mechanical structure of my brain.84

This trek into the intricacies of the mind should be adequate to engage in the issues of how moral responsibilities, sin, and eternal life in Christ entail the whole man—body, soul, and spirit. Could we morally excuse ourselves on the ground that our brains are only a mechanical system? Therefore we are “without excuse” for our sins. Obviously, if our brain malfunctions, responsibility is diminished or abolished because the normal link between rational decision and action is weakened or overridden.

The biblical doctrine of determinism does not render my future inevitable. The sense in which God “determines” my future does not exclude, but rather requires, that I determine it also. It offers no rational excuse for my responsibilities for the choices by which I determine it. Understanding this issue would transcend Islamic “fatalism,” extreme Augustinianism/Calvinism and how “God can be sovereign” and “man be free.” We are free or we are not responsible for our decisions! We are free to decide but not free to determine the consequences of our decisions. God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom are fused!

Biblically, God created the ordered universe and sin disordered it. Could a sovereign creator have created a world where human rebellion could not have taken place? Yes, but He would have created machines/automatons, not human beings who are morally responsible and only the 83 See especially Donald M. MacKay, Op Cit.84 D. MacKay, Freedom of Action in a Mechanistic Universe, Op Cit.; Karl Popper, “Indeterminism in Quantum Physics and in Classical Physics,” British Journal of Philosophy of Science, I, 1950, pgs. 117-133 and 173-195; see especially Noam Chomsky, The Case Against B.F. Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity (Knopf).

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Incarnation/Atonement can solve this problem. We must never forget that God’s holiness demanded atonement. His incarnational love expressed at the cross met His moral demands for atonement.

Our conversion to Jesus Christ does not necessitate any violation of psychological laws, any more than our ability to determine our everyday actions requires a violation of the physical laws of the brain. Our conversion to Jesus Christ requires that our basic priority scheme ultimately is the gracious effort of our Sovereign Lord, Creator and Savior.

We cannot reorder our lives toward God without His gracious intervention (Colossians 1.17; Hebrews 1.3; Ephesians 3.11; and John 7.17. Then only can the gospel take hold of the whole man in body, soul, and spirit and give to each part of his own nature its exercise and reward.

The dignity of man is inseparably bound up with his power to communicate. Only in the creator/redeemer can we be together and relate the mechanistic and meaningful aspects of the process by which human beings communicate with one another. Communication is not always successful. We need to distinguish carefully between the “intended meaning” and the “received meaning” of communication.

Beliefs or meanings are not states of the brain; that would be a linguistic blunder. There must always be a ready correlate between the mechanics of communication if we are to communicate such concepts as meaning and belief. Unless their organizing system is the kind of plan envisioned by the originator, some failure of communication is inevitable.85 Only a total mechanistic naturalistic reductionism which would dismiss all theological/ethical statements as meaningless. The domain of religious discourse is particularly under the positivistic gun. How can conceptual blindness be removed? The meaningfulness of any message is dependent on the “repertoire of the receiver.” Freud’s projection theory made a lot of heyday concerning the subjective projections of the God image, i.e. via Freudian logic it was illusory.

This is, of course, a totally subjective denial of the existence of the creator of the universe. His projection of the father image does nothing logically to falsify the existence of the creator of the universe. It is obvious that the mechanistic analysis of communication offers in principle a sharp criticism of truthfulness and integrity then classical logical analysis of the manner in which information is expressed.

The total activity of my body, especially of any central system, involves my conscious thinking, activity and suffering, which are facts of experience. This brings up two questions: (1) how does a human organism come to acquire its personal meaning, and (2) what happens to this when the body is destroyed at death? How can the Christian position address our eternal destiny? The scientifically ridiculous doctrine of “panpsychism,” i.e. the relationship of human consciousness to panpsychism is a crucial issue (this was popularized by Teilhard de Chardin’s panentheistic position). Logically, this is like arguing that if a triangle is composed of three lines, there must be some degree of “triangularity” in each of the lines! Consciousness is not accumulated by enough matter in a sufficiently complex structure. What distinguishes human consciousness is

85 Most analysis can help us to see how superficial is the rejection by “Logical Positivists” of religion and language as meaningless (D.M. MacKay, “Language, Meaning and God,” Philosophy, 47 1972, pgs. 11-17.

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its peculiar “self-reflecting character.” Thanks to our internal communicative apparatus we can represent ourselves as well as other people and live articulately to ourselves. The question when a human organism becomes a person is thus logically distinct from the question when we become conscious. “At what point does the bodily activity signify a conscious agency?” The same misuse are entailed in what goes on in the brain when we are asleep and wakefulness, and the physiological basis of unconsciousness. We learn from experience to treat one another as conscious persons, as if consciousness were a matter of “mere convention,” but that it is this way that we become conscious persons, as a matter of fact. God is the giver of personal significance, not the mere social conventions of our conscious awareness of our environment (e.g. the phenomenon of death). As Christians, what is it to possess “life after death?” At death our physical remains lose their personal significance, and that is normally the end of our existence in this world of space and time (e.g. sleeping, unconsciousness, etc. and several crucial biochemical issues relate to The Person). The biblical promise is that we shall be “raised to life” in a fresh embodiment, perhaps radically different from our present one but bearing the same personal significance (I Corinthians 15, hope grounded in the fact of Christ’s resurrection). We must understand that mechanistic analysis does not destroy our personal significance as vulnerable, moral beings with an eternal destiny.86

Time and Dignity Derives from the Creator

For meaningful communication to escape “conceptual blind spots” we must assume that the receiver must have a repertoire for ready reception. Man’s truest dignity is to face up to his obligation towards the God of creation and communication. According to the linguist, Noam Chomsky, human beings even have some genetically conditional readiness for language, even in lower animals. This readiness can be amazingly specific but their linguistic capacity is not even remotely the capacity of human beings. Surely Augustine is correct when he said that “without God man is essentially incomplete, starved of something for which his genetic equipment prepares him.” “thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.”

Genetics do play a vital part in this communication mechanism. This part has brought a vital amount of fresh evidence on the essential part played by early experience in exercising the special purpose computing mechanisms that respond to various trigger features. Since under certain conditions this capability tends to atrophy, so experience as well as genetic induction is essential in that sense to the normal development of the repertoire. The ability of the human organizing system to adjust its own priorities corresponds to deadly barriers to realistic communication. Our natural pride can make God’s most loving and earnest appeals meaningless to us.

Developments in science soon made belief in God impossible with a bitter resentment of the deflation of human pride implicit in the Christian gospel. As long ago as the work of H.J. Muller in a collection of essays called The Humanist Frame affirmed that “once the theory of evolution 86 See my paper, “Conversion, Conviction and Discipleship: Commending and Defending the Christian Faith” (Critique of Postmodern Apologetics of Humility vs. True Truth); James Sire’s Program for a New Man: An Alternative to B.F. Skinner, Aldous Huxley, and Herbert Marcuse (IVP, 1903); Sear/Feldman, editors, The Seven Ages of Man: A Survey of Human Development, Body, Personality, and Ability Through Life (Los Altos, CA: Wm. Kaufman, 1964, 1973).

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was accepted only wishful thinking could avoid the logical conditions that man has created God in his own image.” (J. Huxley, editor, The Humanist Frame (Allen & Unwin, London, 1961, p. 402) Julian Huxley echoes the same idea. In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer need or reason for the supernatural. . . Evolutionary man can no longer take refuge from his loneliness by creeping for shelter in to the arms of a divinized father figure whom he has himself created.” (Ibid, pgs. 18, 19)

In this milieu God was marginalized and denied. Scientific knowledge became the new god instead of worshipping the creator of the universe. C.S. Lewis has a telling picture of the bankruptcy of atheistic humanism in the character of “Sensible” and “Humanist” in The Pilgrim’s Regress (London: Geoffrey Bles Press, 1943).

Blaise Pascal’s famous work, Pensees (Thoughts on Religion and Philosophy (translated by Isaac Taylor, John Grant (Edinburgh, 1894, pgs 9-10) contains some of the most penetrating analysis ever written of the predicament in which man leads himself by rejecting his creator’s authority over his priorities. The essence of self love is to love oneself, to be interested for nothing but oneself. This self love is inevitably full of defects and miseries. Reinhold Niebuhr brilliantly expresses this thought—“Religion is not as it is generally supposed an inherently virtuous quest for God; it is merely the final battlefield between God and man’s self esteem.” (R. Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man (Scribners, vol. I, NY, 1941, p. 213).

Christian truth confronts our postmodern “nothing buttery” (to coin Frances Schaeffer’s term) atheistic humanist assault on Christianity derives any plausibility it has from a confusion of two questions that must be kept separate: (1) Is Christianity palatable? (2) Is Christianity true? Postmodern unbelief marshals negative evidence concerning question one and then allows its readers to assume that because Christianity is unpalatable to the “natural heart” it must be rejected as untrue. Whether or not belief in the creator is palatable, if it is true a rational person must accept the claim. Imagine rejecting Galileo’s equations of “freely falling bodies” or Newton and Einstein’s mechanics because we do not understand them. In understanding anything “new” we must always possess “receiver structures” versus the new data or it will be meaningless. The Roman Epistle reveals our plight— What return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of these things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus our Lord. Romans 6.21-23

We must be quick to distinguish dignity from superiority whether measured psychologically or physically. Dignity is not to be identified with the “myth of equality” that denies any differences between people’s abilities. Our challenge is to prevent our inequalities from harming our dignity (II Corinthians 5.17-20)

Perhaps the brilliant remarks of Bruce Milne will direct a positive conclusion—

The prodigal will not be returned to the homeland merely by shouting our traditional clichés from the security of the father’s house. We need to go to the far country and address him there in the context of his self-understanding and

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experience. Our responsibility is not discharged by keeping him to come to terms with the far country or by convincing him that the swine’s husks are really an adequate diet for an empty, aching belly. We have to make him see his stink of the pigsty is hostility; but we will speak too of the homeland and the delight to assure him of the sheer staggering miracle of a Father’s mercy and forgiving grace, and of a renewed sonship and a new dignity and destiny in the family circle of God. Bruce Milne, “the Idea of Sin in Twentieth Century Theology,” Tyndale Bulletin 26 (1975), p. 33)

In God’s saving grace our dignity and destiny are fused in an answer to the questions—(1) Where do I come from? (2) Where am I going after death, and ultimately who or what is the origin of it all? In answering these questions we can dwell in the creation environment of what Donald M. MacKay calls “Comprehensive Realism,” i.e. the story within the story like Shakespeare’s The Tempest or A Midsummer Night’s Dream.87 Physical determinism has died a thousand deaths since Heisenberg’s “Indeterminacy Equations,” i.e. the classical doctrine of God’s predestination, i.e. that all events in our space-time are determined by the creative will of God’s rationality which leads to the conclusion that my future is inevitable!88

In a mechanistic worldview where everything is supposedly inevitable, what inevitable means is unavailable, but unavailable for whom? Some events are inevitable for everyone if they are inevitable for anyone. The rising or setting of the sun is so inevitable for anyone and everyone that its time table can be written in our diaries. We must not call all events inevitable without qualification means that whether anyone knows it or not, the time of sunrise at a given place has a determinate specification which anyone and everyone would be correct to believe and mistaken to disbelieve. Whether anyone knows it or not there exists a specification of it which has an unconditional claim to the assent of everyone. Possible inaccuracies of observation does not repudiate the logical claim the specification has. Specificity is not our choice or whether we like it or not. Nothing can be done by anyone to alter it. The event it describes then is inevitable for all.

Inevitability can be used in a looser sense, i.e. something is predictable by a restricted set of people. For example, taking a test in school when parents and teachers make claims concerning the results of the test, i.e. predict that the student will pass only after an examination of his or her performance, can the truth value of the parents’ or teachers’ prediction be verified or falsified. The logic of the first claim is one ting; the logic of the results are another. What is believed beforehand had nothing to do with the results. Thee is a difference between knowing and believing in the unconditional results. To call such events inevitable is logically quite misleading.

Is My Future Inevitable?

87 See MacKay’s, The Clockwork Image and his “Complimentarity in Scientific and Theological Thinking,” Zygon 9 (no. 3, pgs. 225-244).88 See MacKay, “the Interdependence of Mind and Brain” in Neuroscience, 1980; and Popper’s “Indeterminism in Quantum Physics and in Classical Physics,” British Journal of Philosophy of Science, I, 1950, pgs. 117-133 and 173-195.

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The ultimate question is would either the Doctrine of Physical Determinism or Divine Predestination have the logical consequence that my future is evitable? Are our brains as determined as the physical universe? If my brain was as mechanically determined as the solar system, then there would exist in principle a detailed specification of what I am about to do, with an unconditional claim to the assent of detached observers. This is what they would be correct to believe and mistakes to disbelieve, if only they knew it. There are a hundred million nerve cells and it is impossible to take stock of all or even most of them in order to make an exhaustive prediction, i.e. determined prediction of our brain processes.

According to mechanistic brain theory, there will be a corresponding entry in the brain story, such that no change could take place in what you believe without a change taking place in the brain entry, i.e. conversion, paradigmatic revolution, etc. No cognitive mechanism can give a detailed description of our immediate future. So this description could not have an unconditional claim to our assent. On the most physically determined presuppositions there does not exist a complete and detailed specification of my future with an unconditional claim to assent.

Self Fulfilling Predictions

Could the physical consequences of my belief be pre programmed to correspond to the state my brain is in any given moment? There is enormous data to precipitate doubt in the achievability of the proposal. This entire issue has enormous consequences for Christian morals. Can we be morally responsible if our universe is determined including our brain?

The biblical concept of determination of our created space-time by God is obviously different from the physical science concept of the determination of events by physical causes. The conclusion that it would make my future inevitable for me is shown to be illogical by the same arguments (see MacKay, ibid.).

If there is complete determinism, then our moral responsibility or our own sins would be reduced to the category of mechanical malfunction, rather like a breakdown of our automobile! This position is expressed not only by gross materialists but by all forms of humanitarianism. Criminals are not to be thought of as guilty (especially after Freud), they are just sick and their social-economic environment is responsible!

Our postmodern humanitarianism is morally degrading and logically fallacious. Sin is reduced to mechanical malfunctioning! Biblically, sin is something that I commit. What the Bible deems as sinful has no doubt some physical correlates in the working of the brain. There is no reason to suppose that it must involve malfunctioning at the mechanical level. Our computer analogue now enters the arena where faults are mechanical breakdowns, i.e. hardware faults where things go wrong at the mathematical level. Sin cannot be reduced to software faults in a program. A fault in the program means that even though every part of the machine is functioning correctly in an emergency of sense, it is not performing the required operations at the mathematical level. To reduce the brain to a machine would be to argue that sin is nothing more than a mechanical malfunction. Biblical talk of sin finds its roots in our rebellious self centeredness (pride), and the possibility of forgiveness can be rationally recommended only at the level and in the categories

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of our own experience as conscious agents who know what it is to choose and too often, to choose selfishly and deliberately. Only repentance (a change of mind) and conversion can change our behavior toward the will of God from our own self will.

We cannot remake sinful man by reprogramming the mechanical brain/nerve circuitry. Biblically, our conversion to God does not necessitate any violation of psychological laws any more than our ability to determine our everyday actions require a violation of physical laws of the brain. Biblical conversion requires the remaking of our basic priority scheme.

Death removes us once and for all from the present created order in which we have had our earthly embodiment. What we cannot do, however, is to remove us from all possibility of re-embodiment by our creator if He should so will it. When a computer destructs, all computational aspects have vanished forever.

Surely our individuality is more than a mathematical equation because of thinking, doing, and suffering. Nor can mathematical equations preclude new embodiment, i.e. resurrection of our individuality contra pantheism denies into the “One.” All scientific categories—such as psychologists, physiologists, biologists, physicists, et. al. directly confront the biblical doctrine of creation of the universe and man, the imago dei. But we cannot experience a re-ordering of our whole priority scheme of God, according with what Christ promised without gaining some first hand evidence as to the reliability of His promises and the authenticity of His claims as the maker of life (John 7.17) Here he associates the gospel of Jesus’ love and faith with eternal life and takes hold of the whole person—mind, body, and soul/spirit and gives to each its work and reward. Some vital implications of the preceding discussion are the implications of biochemical revolution.

Bioethics and the Biophysical/Chemical RevolutionsImago Dei and the Nature of the Person

The stem cell research issue in our recent election is the largest scientific issue. The Bush administration’s policy and government funded research using stem cells is limited to 12 per existing cell lines. Scientists cannot create embryos for stem cells. Senator John Kerry was one of 58 signers on a letter sent to the President urging the removal of research restrictions (e.g. February, 2004, the union of concerned scientists published a statement restoring scientific integrity in policy making. More than 4,000 scientists, including 48 Noble prize winners, have signed the declaration. It is an impasse to separate scientific research and bioethics.

Adult stem cells are uncontroversial since they can be obtained without the destruction of the embryo. There is an enormous research data that the promise of embryonic stem cells may have been oversold. There is vast new research data that in the currently highly charged political environment. These critical distinctions are lost as the stem cell debate has gotten absorbed into the abortion controversy. Abortion on demand is at the heart of our postmodern stem cell debate.

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All the technical developments in astrophysics and astronomy contribute to the cultural attack of the biblical worldview of the creation of the universe.89 All of our postmodern cultural dilemmas from the educational revolution to the attack on True Truth are divisive of alternative belief system, resulting in an apologetic stance of humility in the arena where all alternative belief and behavioral systems have equal standing in the universe of discourse. Therefore the rest of the world believes that Judaeo/Christianity (with its evangelism/missions) has no unique gospel for them and that the West is trying to dominate the oppressed nations. Nothing less than the total promise of God in Christ is at stake in the postmodern anti science debate, reaching every parameter of our universe. The Church is involved in a widespread effort to define a Christian worldview independent of the scientific areas of microphysics, logic, language, history and the computer revolution. The impact of these radical intellectual revolutions has reached hermeneutics, homiletics, worship style and the postmodern maze of communication and journalism.

Important references:

John Boslough, Stephen Hawking’s Universe (NY: Morrow Press, 1985).Nigel Calder, Einstein’s Universe (NY: Viking Press, 1979).F. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Four volumes, esp. From Descartes to Leibniz, Modern

Philosophy, The British Philosophers (Garden City, NY: Image).Wm. L. Craig, The Cosmological Argument From Plato to Leibniz (Barnes and Noble, 1980).Steve Fuller, Philosophy of Science and Its Discontents (NY: Guilford Press, 1993).James Gluick, Making a New Science (NY: Viking Press).S.L. Jaki, God and the Cosmologists (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1989).J.P. Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1989).R.H. Nash, Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas (Zondervan,

1992).H. Ross, The Creator and The Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century

Reveal God (Colorado Springs, CO: Nav Press, 1993).C. Sagan, Cosmos (NY: Random, 1980); also his four videos on the cosmos).

James D. StraussProfessor Emeritus

Lincoln Christian Seminary

89 See for implication in multiculturalism in every dimension of the academy Leon Wieseltes, “The Trouble with Multicultural Review” Dictionary of Virtue, Multiculturalism and the Bible for America’s Future by Richard Bernstein (New York Times Book Review, October 23, 1994, pg. 11; see my essays of Multiculturalism on the web site www.worldvieweyes.org/strauss-docs.html.

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