Can Christians Use Good Science From Bad Scientists?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question:  Dear Tom and Dave, “It seems to me that growing numbers of scientists, most of whom are evolutionists, are recognizing the overwhelming evidence that the universe could not have come about randomly.  They are producing lots of information that is consistent with the biblical perspective, yet nearly all of them reject the biblical creator.  My question is, how should Christians utilize the excellent scientific information without endorsing the speculations of these former atheists now turned agnostics or New Agers?”

T. A. McMahon:

Dave, what I think this person is referring to is something called the anthropic principle where you have scientists who are recognizing that the universe may be fine tuned when they look at universal constants, when they look at the relationships of planets, of the axis of the earth, for example, which is 23.5 degrees.  If it were a little bit more we would have problems, if it were a little bit less we would have problems.  So, they are seeing what they would call an intelligent designer involved in the makeup of the universe from super clusters all the way down to the makeup of the atom.

Dave Hunt:

Look at the water molecule.  It’s incredible.  It does something that nothing else does and the importance of it in our bodies for cooling and so forth.  It’s the foundation of life.

T. A. McMahon:

So, how are we to handle this when these guys give us great information, but they say oh well, it couldn’t be the personal God of the Bible, it’s got to be some natural force out there.

Dave Hunt:

Well Tom, first of all, the universe hasn’t been here forever, it’s very simple, or the sun and the stars would have burned out by now.  So, whatever they are talking about they seem to find something within this universe, this anthropic principle.  That’s not going to help them because what about when the universe wasn’t here, how did the universe come into existence?  And, they all agree, I mean, almost every scientist now would agree, there was a beginning.  Well, that’s how the Bible starts, “In the beginning….”

T. A. McMahon:

But someone would say it’s a big bang, but that doesn’t work.

Dave Hunt:

Yeah, okay, so where did the energy for the big bang come from? Why did it bang right then? And how do you get a human brain out of a big bang?  You could get it out of a “Big Mac” just as well.  So energy, second law of thermodynamics, we’ve probably talked about it here briefly on this program, everything is running down like a clock—the law of entropy.  Now, you couldn’t have had energy hanging around out there forever to make a big bang.  It would have entropied before it banged.  So, you are driven, just by logic and by what we know of science to the conclusion there was a time when no thing existed—nothing, because material things were out.  So, there had to be a time—they would have all worn out by now.  There had to be a time when no thing existed.  That’s exactly what the Bible says.  Someone always, always, God introduces himself to Moses: I AM, I AM the ever existent one and it has to be.  This is not the god of the pagans, I mean, you compare the Bible with the writings of the religions down through history, it’s a joke!  But the God of the Bible is exactly what he must be, no beginning, no end and he is capable of creating everything out of nothing.  It’s not an extension of God; it’s not part of God like the pantheists would try to say, then God is part of the problem.  He’s running down like a clock, too.  So, I don’t have to even think about the anthropic principle, there is something more basic.  But, when I get to the more basic thing, then I realize that this, all of the ways in which this universe fits together, is part of the Creator’s design.  It had to be designed, he brought it into existence and you can’t escape it.  There is no way to get away from it.

T. A. McMahon:

Dave, one of the things I like about it—now some have said, well maybe scientists have turned us like corner here, you know, how many years ago were most scientists just materialists.  They didn’t even believe in the non-physical side of anything, spirituality or whatever and they were hard core for the most part, you know, there are exceptions but most of them were hard core evolutionists.  Now, they seem to be moving off that so, in one sense, we could say as Christians we read their material and they say, oh look, this fits right in with the God of the Bible.  Now, we don’t have to depend on their information to do that.  Psalms 19: The heavens declare the glory of God.  So, we can see the information that they present and say, praise the Lord.  This is God, the creator of the universe at work here and this is evidence that really supports that.  Not that we absolutely need it but it’s good stuff.

Dave Hunt:

There’s no such thing as a principle in matter and when you get into the DNA, which I guess we have talked a bit about, you’ve got the operating instructions in writing, coded, this is a language, this is information and even Einstein acknowledged there is no way that matter can create information.  We’ve got a Bible open in front of us here, each of us, there is print on pages, the ink and the paper did not originate the information that’s on there.  That points to a non physical intelligent source.  So, there’s no principle innate in matter out there in the universe.  It comes from an intelligent source who created it, who organized it and so forth.  So, they don’t want to acknowledge that.  You could take some of the information they come up with and use it to a certain extent but the simple logic that God has given us in our minds and what we know about the universe, you are driven, driven to the conclusion that it was created by God and we are accountable to him because if he brought us into existence we owe our life and existence to him.  That’s the problem with man, we have torn out of his hands the life he has given us to live for ourselves and we are accountable to God for that.