Does God Exist?
Evidence for the Existence of a Personal
God
by Rob Yule
Are We Alone in the Universe?
Are there aliens or intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe?
Despite the sceptical, scientific nature 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 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', said 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!
Evidence from Reason
My previous paper, surveyed the three classical arguments for
God's existence, demonstrating that the very structure of human
reasoning points to the existence of God. The Cosmological argument
moves from the fact that every effect requires a cause, to the
logical implication that the universe itself has a Cause. The
Teleological argument rests on the premise that orderliness
presupposes a purposeful and intelligent mind. Chance or randomness
can account for loss of order, but cannot explain how things come to
be orderly or significant in the first place. Finally, the
Ontological argument derives from our mind's ability to recognize
that God is the Greatest Being who can be thought of. This also
points to God's existence, since a Greatest Being who does not exist
is obviously less than a Greatest Being who does! Turning from these
rational or theoretical considerations, the present paper examines
empirical or observational evidence for the existence of an
intelligent, personal God.
Evidence from Reality
1. Evidence for a Beginning
The very nature of the universe itself 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, in order to escape the implication that it had
a beginning. If the universe has a beginning, it has an originator.
If it has an originator, it is dependent, not self-sufficient, and
we are accountable, not autonomous beings. This implication explains
the hostility towards the concept of a beginning expressed by
leading scientists like Sir Arthur Eddington, who said in 1931 after
the first empirical evidence for it was observed, 'Philosophically,
the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is
repugnant to me....I should like to find a genuine loophole.' (Nature,
127 [1931], p.450).
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. This is one of the
most dramatic stories in the history of science:
1. 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 (ie. 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 'Cosmological Constant') to get them to yield a
static, non-expanding, model of the universe.
2. 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 stars and galaxies appeared redder than they
should be, showing that they were moving away from the observer. The
clear implication was that the universe is indeed expanding,
therefore must have come from finite point, and had a beginning and
an originator. From this came the famous 'Hubble Constant', enabling
scientists to calculate the age of the universe from the velocity of
its recession (10-20 billion years was Hubble's calculation; now
narrowed to 13-15 billion years, but still vigorously debated).
3. 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 greatest mistake of his career; but he
never accepted the existence of personal God (see Hugh Ross, The
Fingerprint of God, [Orange, California, Promise, 2nd. ed.,
1991], pp. 58-59).
4. 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 a
very low temperature for this microwave radiation - only about 3º
Kelvin. More precise measurements in 1992 by the COBE (Cosmic
Background Explorer) satellite are enabling scientists to 'map' the
vast extent of the universe and confirm that it came from an
enormously hot big bang, out of an infinitely compressed mass
smaller than this full stop.
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 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).
2. Evidence for Design
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 limits 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 so finely tuned to support life that the only reasonable
explanation for this is the forethought of a loving, supremely
intelligent personal Creator whose concern for human beings explains
the fine-tunedness. 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, 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 - which would mean no
stars or planets would form, and there would be no habitat for life.
On the other hand, if it expanded too slowly, matter would clump so
effectively that the whole universe would collapse into a
super-dense lump before any solar-type stars could form.
What is even more amazing is how delicately balanced that
expansion rate must be for life to exist. It cannot differ more than
one part in 1055 from the actual rate.
Astrophysicist Hugh Ross compares the precarious nature of this
balance to balancing a million pencils on their sharpened ends on a
glass top desk with no external supports (The Creator and the
Cosmos, [Colorado Springs, Colorado, NavPress, 1993], pp.
109-10).
The second parameter of the universe to be measured was its age.
Ross explains: 'For many decades astronomers and others have
wondered why, given God exists, he would wait so many billions of
years to make life. Why did he not do it right away? The answer is
that, given the laws and constants of physics God chose to create,
it takes about twelve billion years just to fuse enough heavy
elements in the nuclear furnaces of several generations of giant
stars to make life chemistry possible. Life could not happen any
earlier in the universe than it did on Earth.' (op. cit., p.
110).
Turning from the universe as a whole to the Galaxy-Sun-Earth-Moon
System, Ross tabulates 32 basic parameters for life support. Only
two of these were known as recently as 1966. Research into them has
been largely carried out by atheistic scientists like Karl Sagan who
were determined to calculate the favourable natural conditions for
the origin of life. Without any one of these conditions life would
be impossible. Hugh Ross calculates the probability for all 32
parameters occurring simultaneously is one in 1042 -
less than one chance in one quintillion that even one such
planet should occur anywhere in universe (op. cit, pp.
129-34).
Just two of these parameters illustrate how finely balanced life
on earth is. One is what I call the freeze-fry factor: a change in distance
from the sun of as little as 2% would destroy all life on earth,
freezing if it was further away or evaporating if it was nearer all
the liquid water without which life is physically impossible.
Likewise 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 of one
thousand m.p.h.
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, a
well-known atheist astronomer, 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 comments, '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, says, '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 Ross, op. cit., pp.114-15).
Evidence from Rebellion
Paradoxically, further evidence for God's existence is provided
by the persistent desire of people to deny this Being which so much
rational and empirical evidence otherwise points to. Genuine
non-existence needs no comparable effort of denial. 'The real proof
of God is the agonised attempt to deny God', concludes philosopher
Erich Frank (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 other 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.' Most frequently, denial of God is
a rationalization for moral disobedience.
Rob Yule
© St Albans Presbyterian Church,
339 Albert Street, Palmerston North, New Zealand,
17 September 1995
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