God's Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty (11 page)

In both the Judeo-Christian tradition . . . and the
scientific
worldview, time began when the universe came into existence, either through divine creation or the Big Bang. God, therefore, would have to exist outside of space and time, which means that as natural beings delimited by living in a finite universe, we cannot possibly know anything about such a supernatural entity. The theist’s answer is an untestable hypothesis.
²⁰

Ironically, Shermer goes on to propose multiple untestable hypotheses about why there is something rather than nothing. The critical mistake in
logic
Shermer makes is limiting how we can know something to be true by testing only. There is no way for us to repeat and experimentally test such a one-time event. However, the universe can be observed, its properties
ascertained, and its theoretical implications, including the existence of a causal, personal Agent beyond space and time, be put to rigorous scientific testing. Therefore, the theory that provides the best explanation is believed to be true.

Another mistake Shermer makes is to assume that just because we as humans are limited by our finite existence, the Creator is not limited by space and time and can choose to make Himself known to His creation. The way the Creator does this is the subject of the remaining chapters. Allan Sandage, winner of the Crawford Prize in astronomy (equivalent to the
Nobel 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.”
²¹

C
OULD THE
U
NIVERSE
P
OP
INTO
E
XISTENCE?

Now we come to a very critical point in deconstructing the skeptics’ attempt to eliminate the need for God. If everything that exists came from nothing, then the first trace of anything would have had to appear suddenly. One of the most celebrated scientists of our day who espouses this is Stephen Hawking. Hawking has been an undeniable force in the arena of theoretical physics. However, in his latest work, ironically titled
The Grand Design
, Hawking emphatically stated that the universe could literally pop into existence without God, ultimately as a consequence of the laws of nature. “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. . . .
Spontaneous creation
is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists,
why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”
²²
This belief derives from the quantum theory that describes how particles (such as protons) appear and disappear without apparent cause. This is in contrast to Newton’s
laws of physics
, which assert that objects were set in motion because they were influenced by other objects. The central claim of some in physics is that the quantum theory eliminates the need for a cause. The first episode of the Discovery Channel program
Curiosity
was titled “Did God Create the Universe?” It dramatically illustrated Hawking’s assertions about the possibility of
spontaneous creation
of the universe, without the need for God.

What could cause the spontaneous appearance of a universe? At first it seems a baffling problem. After all, in our daily lives things don’t simply materialize out of the blue. You can’t just click your fingers and summon up a cup of coffee when you feel like one, can you? You have to make it out of other stuff, like coffee beans, water, perhaps some milk and sugar. But travel down into this coffee cup, through the milk particles, down to the atomic level, and right down to the subatomic level, and you enter a world where conjuring something out of nothing is possible, at least for a short while. That’s because at this scale particles such as protons behave according to the laws of nature we call quantum mechanics. And they really can appear at random, stick around for a while and then vanish again, to reappear somewhere else. Since we know the universe itself was once very small, smaller than a proton in fact, this means something quite remarkable. It means the universe itself in all of its mind-boggling vastness and complexity
could simply have popped into existence without violating the known laws of nature.
²³

To the average observer, it seems as if the discussion is over. If science shows that everything could simply
pop
into existence without apparent cause, then God as a needed First Cause is rendered unnecessary. However, in their rush to eliminate the need for causality, atheist scientists fail to mention that without the laws of nature, nothing would take place at all. This reminds me of the scene in
The Wizard of Oz
where the curtain is pulled back and Dorothy and her three friends behold the Wizard himself. The veil of intended mystery is torn down. The Wizard frantically says, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
²⁴
In a way, the atheist wants you to ignore these laws behind the universe and simply accept they are there and quit asking about where they came from.

The world consists of things, which obey rules. If you keep asking “why” questions about what happens in the universe, you ultimately reach the answer “because of the state of the universe and the laws of nature.” . . .

Theologians sometimes invoke “sustaining the world” as a function of God. But we know better; the world doesn’t need to be sustained, it can simply be.
²⁵

So where did the laws of physics come from? They must be assumed in order for particles to pop into existence.

In any case, even in a universe with no
miracles
, when you are faced with a profoundly simple underlying order, you
can draw two different conclusions. One, drawn by Newton himself, and earlier espoused by Galileo and a host of other scientists over the years, was that such order was created by a divine intelligence responsible not only for the universe, but also for our own existence, and that we human beings were created in his image (and apparently other complex and beautiful beings were not!). The other conclusion is that the laws themselves are all that exist. These laws themselves require our universe to come into existence, to develop and evolve, and we are an irrevocable by-product of these laws. The laws may be eternal, or they too may have come into existence, again by some yet unknown but possibly purely physical process.
²⁶

So there is either an eternal set of laws or an eternal lawgiver
.
Notice that Krauss is faithful to his dogma of naturalism and asserts that the laws of physics could “possibly” be the result of a “purely physical process.” However, the laws themselves point in a different direction.

T
HE
F
INE
-T
UNING OF THE
U
NIVERSE

One of the most astonishing pieces of evidence for the existence of God is called the
fine-tuning
of the universe. This refers to the incredible calibration of a vast number of variables that had to have precise values to allow for a life-permitting universe such as our own. Only if a Designer had specifically created our universe with the intention of supporting life would we exist. This evidence is so compelling for the presence of an intelligent designer that
atheists, such as Dawkins, admit it’s a problem. “The physicist’s problem is the problem of ultimate origins and ultimate natural laws. The biologist’s problem is the problem of complexity.”
²⁷

U
NIVERSE
S
TARTER
K
IT

When I was growing up, there were knobs on radios and TVs that helped you fine-tune the sound and picture. You can imagine the tuning of a piano or an instrument as another example of the necessity to calibrate something to a precise position for it to function properly. Astrophysicists tell us that there were dozens of physical constants (such as gravity) and quantities (such as entropy) that had to be carefully adjusted (fine-tuned) in order for there to have been a life-producing universe.

Imagine you have a universe starter kit, and it comes with dozens of knobs that must be precisely set. Maybe it looks like a sound board at the back of a concert. The ranges for many of these knobs are not between one and one hundred, but between one and one trillion. Each knob must be precisely set, or you don’t have a life-permitting universe.

One reaction to these apparent enormous coincidences is to see them as substantiating the theistic claim that the universe has been created by a personal God and as offering the material for a properly restrained theistic argument—hence the fine-tuning argument. It’s as if there are a large number of dials that have to be tuned to within extremely narrow limits for life to be possible in our universe. It is extremely unlikely that this should happen by chance, but much more likely that this should happen if there is such a person as God.
²⁸

These values include the strengths of the fundamental forces of gravity, the strong nuclear force (which holds the nucleus together), the weak nuclear force (which governs radiation), and the electromagnetic force (which governs the attraction of opposite charges to one another). Other quantities range from the charge of an electron to the expansion rate of the universe. Some values must be set within modestly tight ranges. For instance, if the neutron mass were 0.1 percent more massive, the universe would not have sufficient heavy elements essential for life, or if it were 0.1 percent less massive, all of the stars would have collapsed into black holes.
²⁹
Likewise, if the strong nuclear force were just 2 percent weaker or 0.3 percent stronger, the universe would lack sufficient quantities of essential elements.
³⁰

Other values are far more precisely set. Hugh Ross described in
The Creator and the Cosmos
the example of the ratio of the number of electrons to the number of protons in the universe: “Unless the number of electrons is equivalent to the number of protons to an accuracy of one part in 10
³⁷
or better, electromagnetic forces in the universe would have so overcome gravitational forces that galaxies, stars, and planets never would have formed.”
³¹
In total, Dr. Ross has identified hundreds of details that required fine-tuning in relation to the
laws of physics
, our galaxy, the sun, the moon, and planet Earth.
³²
The point cannot be stressed enough: from the beginning the universe was engineered by a fantastic intellect that is beyond human comparison. Great minds like Sir Isaac Newton understood the mathematical order the universe displayed. However, no mind has conceived the level of precision that existed from the very start. Oxford
mathematician
John Lennox would say that we are using “realms of precision far beyond anything achievable
by instrumentation designed by humans.”
³³
These facts are often glibly dismissed by naturalists in favor of wild speculation on unproven theories devoid of experimental support. For intelligent people to dismiss such overwhelming odds proves no amount of evidence can overturn their predetermined stance that there is no God.

As a clear example, Victor Stenger wrote in an encyclopedia entry about the
anthropic principle
, “In short, much of the so-called fine-tuning of the parameters of microphysics is in the eye of the beholder, not always sufficiently versed in physics, who plays with the numbers until they seem to support a prior belief that was based on something other than objective scientific analysis.”
³⁴
Regardless of the evidence pointing overwhelmingly to an Intelligence that fine-tuned nature, Stenger’s worldview blinds him from seeing that evidence.

A
NTHROPIC
P
RINCIPLE

The name
anthropic principle
stems from the Greek word for human beings, male or female:
anthropos
. The term was introduced on the five-hundredth anniversary of Copernicus’s discovery that the earth was not the center of the solar system but orbited the sun instead. The principle in essence states the universe was designed for conscious life to emerge.

To better understand the implications of the concept, let me use a popular analogy. Imagine you arrive at a hotel room and all your favorite things are there already: your clothes, your favorite foods, pictures of your family. It would be safe to say that someone knew you were coming to that room and prepared it for you. That’s what the anthropic principle suggests. The universe was made with humans in mind
.
“The universe in some sense must have known
we were coming.”
³⁵
Sir Fred Hoyle noted the amazing unlikely appearance of life in its most basic elements, such as carbon.

Would you not say to yourself, “Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule.”? Of course you would. . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.
³⁶

Paul Davies, a physicist as well as an
agnostic
, echoed the sentiments of Hoyle:

Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth—the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient “coincidences” and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if “a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics.”
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