Are there aliens or intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe? Despite the sceptical, scientific temper of our age, people have a perennial fascination with this subject:

• The Swiss hotelier, Eric von Daniken, has made millions from books like The Chariot of the Gods, claiming that the ‘gods’ of human history were alien visitors from outer space.

• Pioneer 10, launched on 2 March 1972, the first man-made object to leave the solar system, carried a plaque for communication with intelligent beings should any be encountered on its odyssey.

• NASA has spent millions on its Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme - recently expanded as the High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS) - using the huge radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. ‘It would be nice if they sent something obvious, like the digits of pi’, remarked a woman scientist on the programme (National Geographic, January 1994, p. 39). Former United States Senator William Proxmire said the money (US $100 million p.a.) would be better spent looking for intelligent life in Washington!

 

The very nature of the universe points to the existence of a Creator. There have been persistent attempts to deny this since Aristotle in the 4th century BC put forward the view that the universe was eternal, to avoid the implication of a beginning. For if the universe has a beginning, it has a Beginner. If it has a Beginner, it is dependent, not self-sufficient; and we are accountable, not autonomous beings.

Throughout the 20th century scientific research about the origin of the universe has steadily accumulated evidence that the space-time universe did indeed have a beginning. The following are the main episodes in this dramatic story in the history of science:

Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (1915) suggested that the universe is simultaneously expanding and decelerating, as though from a giant explosion. His original equations of General Relativity imply that all matter, energy, space and time expand outwards from a single point of origin; that is, they point to an expanding universe. But Einstein’s dislike of the theistic implications of a beginning point was so deeply ingrained that he introduced a ‘fudge factor’ into his equations (the so-called ‘Cosmological Constant’) to get them to yield a static, non-expanding, model of the universe.

In 1929 the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, working on the 100 inch telescope at the Mt. Wilson observatory in California (then the largest in the world) discovered a phenomenon known as ‘redshifts’. Certain galaxies appeared redder than they should be, showing that they were moving away from the observer. The clear implication was that the universe is expanding, must have come from a finite point, and had a beginning. From this came the famous ‘Hubble Constant’, enabling scientists to calculate the age of the universe from the velocity of its recession (Hubble’s calculation had a wide margin of error; current research has narrowed this to 15.3 plus or minus 1.6 billion years, but it is still being investigated and debated).

Only in 1931, after the publication of Hubble’s law of redshifts, did Einstein grudgingly accept the evidence for a beginning, acknowledging that by not trusting his original equations of relativity he had made the ‘biggest blunder’ of his career; but he never accepted the existence of a transcendent personal God (see Hugh Ross, The Fingerprint of God, 2nd ed. [Orange, California, Promise, 1991], pp. 58-59).

In 1965 two Bell Telephone Labs scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, cleaning their giant microwave antenna, found a background noise that they could not eliminate. It took them some time to realise that they had accidentally discovered the residual radiation remaining from the ‘Big Bang’, the original ‘explosion’ which marked beginning of universe. Their measurements indicated that this microwave radiation now had a very low temperature - below 3º Kelvin.

More precise measurements in 1992 by the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) satellite enabled scientists to measure the background radiation - now called Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) - more precisely, discovering tiny ripples indicating where galaxy clusters and galaxies would first have started to form in the early universe. It is now known that we can all hear the CMB. It comprises 1% of the static on our television screens!

So overwhelming is the astronomical evidence for a beginning and for the existence of a transcendent Creator that even an agnostic astrophysicist like Robert Jastrow, founder and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, sees clearly what it implies: ‘For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.’ (God and the Astronomers, [New York, Norton, 1978], p. 116).

Christians believe that God is not only transcendent and powerful but also personal and caring. Now that astronomers and physicists can measure many of the quantities and characteristics of the universe, the indications of intelligent design which it displays are being openly acknowledged. Scientists are discovering that the characteristics of the universe, of our galaxy, and of our solar system are very finely tuned to support life.

The only reasonable explanation for this exquisite degree of fine-tunedness is the forethought of a loving, supremely intelligent personal Creator. The term ‘Anthropic Principle’ (from the Greek anthropos, ‘human being’) is being widely used by scientists and philosophers to describe this ‘just right’ universe, which seems to have been delicately prepared and ordered to the extraordinarily narrow band of variables within which human life is possible.

The first parameter to be measured was the universe’s rate of expansion. Comparing this rate to the physics of galaxy and star formation, astro-physicists found that if the universe expanded more rapidly, matter would disperse so efficiently that none of it would clump to form galaxies - no stars or planets would form, and there would be no habitat for life. On the other hand, if it expanded more slowly, matter would have clumped so effectively that the universe would collapse into a super-dense mass before any solar-type stars could form.

What is amazing is how delicately balanced the universe’s expansion rate must be for life to exist. It cannot differ more than one part in 10⁵⁵ from the actual rate (Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, 2nd ed. [Colorado Springs, Colorado, NavPress, 1995], p. 116). If it differed by a mere one part in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000 you and I would not be here. That is so precise that it has been compared to throwing a dart across the entire universe and hitting the bullseye on the dartboard!

In the last thirty five years there has been extensive research into the extremely narrow variables or parameters within which life can exist. This research has been largely carried out by atheistic scientists, like Karl Sagan, who wanted to find favourable natural conditions or habitats for the spontaneous origin of life somewhere in the universe. Here are just three examples:

If farther, Earth would be too cool for a liquid water cycle.

If closer, Earth would be too hot for a liquid water cycle.

This is what I call the ‘freeze-fry factor’: a change of only 2% in distance from the sun would destroy all life on earth, freezing if it was further away or evaporating if it was nearer all liquid water, without which life is physically impossible.

If longer, daily temperature differences would be too great

If shorter, atmospheric wind velocities would be too great

The earth’s rotation period cannot be changed by more than a few percent. If the planet took too long to rotate, temperature differences between day and night would be too great for life to survive. On the other hand, if it rotated too fast, wind velocities would rise to catastrophic levels - as on the planet Jupiter where a ten hour rotation period generates winds that can reach 265 mph (425 km/h)!

If farther, Earth would be exposed to meteorite, asteroid and comet bombardment.

If closer, gravitational forces would disrupt Earth’s orbit around the sun.

It has just recently been discovered that Jupiter, with its immense size, protects Earth from the kind of meteorite bombardment depicted in the film Armageddon. Jupiter is Earth’s defender. With its great mass, 318 times greater than Earth’s, and its resultant massive gravity, it intercepts asteroids and other space junk that might otherwise cross Earth’s orbit and collide with our home planet as it journeys through space (Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe [New York, Copernicus, 2000], pp. 235-42). It turns out Greek that mythology was wrong. Jove does not hurl thunderbolts at us; it protects us from them!

Some 55 of these basic parameters for life support have now been discovered. Without any one of them life on Earth would be impossible. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross has calculated the probability of all 55 occurring simultaneously to be less than one in 10⁶⁹ - ‘much less than one chance in one hundred billion trillion trillion trillion’ that even one such planet would occur anywhere in the universe (‘Big Bang Model Refined by Fire’, in William Dembski, ed., Mere Creation: Science, Faith and Intelligent Design [Downers Grove, Ilinois, InterVarsity Press, 1998], pp. 371-82). No one in their right mind would bet on a horse against those odds, or enter a lottery with such remote chances of winning!

Faced with such overwhelming evidence of fine-tuning in the universe many contemporary cosmologists and astrophysicists are accepting that the universe must have a designer.

Fred Hoyle, the well-known atheist astronomer, has expressed his irritation that ‘a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology.’ Paul Davies has been more honest in abandoning his earlier atheism, and concedes that the laws of physics ‘seem themselves to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design.’

Astronomer George Greenstein says, ‘As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?’

Tony Rothman, a theoretical physicist, comments, ‘When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it’s very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it.’ (Quotes from Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, pp. 121-4).

Paradoxically, perhaps the greatest evidence for God’s existence is provided by the continued desire of people to deny a Being to which so much rational and empirical evidence points. Genuine non-existence - like fairies, or Santa Claus, needs no comparable effort of denial. German philosopher Erich Frank rightly concludes, ‘The real proof of God is the agonised attempt to deny God.’ (Philosophical Understanding and Religious Truth, [London, Oxford University Press, 1949], p. 43).

Given that the evidence for God’s existence is so overwhelming, its denial must be seen as an essentially irrational phenomenon, an act of folly or rebellion, just as the Bible describes it (Psalm 14:1, 53:1, Romans 1:18-23). Denial of God usually arises from non-rational factors, as Aldous Huxley (in Ends and Means) once candidly admitted: ‘I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning. . . . For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.’

All too often denial of God is not based on rational grounds, but is a rationalisation for moral disobedience. Usually, as Huxley illustrates, this is because we want sexual freedom, or power over others. How much wiser to accept the evidence for God’s existence, gratefully acknowledge our Creator, and joyfully surrender our lives to his service.

© 2001, Robert M. Yule

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