The God Question


The fools says in his heart, "there is no God." (Psalms 14:1, Psalms 53:1 NIV)

Earlier this month, Time Magazine ran a cover story entitled "God vs. Science." The story featured a debate between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins, with Dawkins arguing against the "God hypothesis" and Collins for.

This topic has been in the news more than usual lately. Dawkins recently published a new book, The God Delusion," which shows why he thinks God does not exist, and why religion has been a deleterious influence throughout human history. Also recently published is a book by Daniel Dennett entitled "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon." Obviously, this book also comes down on the side of "no God." Finally, there is the recently published book by Christian Geneticist Francis Collins, "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief." I've only read the last of these three books so far (I'm still deciding whether to read Dawkins' or Dennett's books), but I have read "The Blind Watchmaker" by Dawkins, and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"" by Dennett, so I suppose I have some notion of where both of these men stand on this question.

As someone trained in physics (though not currently a practicing physicist) and as a Christian, I am of course very interested in this debate, and definitely excited by Collins' book and his advocacy for Christian belief while also understanding and practicing science. One of the most exciting notions set forth by Collins is that he believes in God (and in fact appears to be an Evangelical Christian), while also accepting the "theory" of evolution. This is a rare combination, especially in the US, and exciting to me because I have long thought that evolution is the best explanation we have for the origin of species, while also believing in God. In Evangelical circles, that's a pretty lonely position to be in, and so I'm delighted to find support for that position by one of the nation's premier scientists. I will have more to say about this conflict in a later post.

For now, I want to say why I believe the atheists are wrong. My argument owes a lot to Collins, and in turn to C.S. Lewis. If you don't want to be convinced, of course nothing I write (or that Collins or Lewis writes) will be able to convince you. That's exactly the nature of the problem, because it's an exercise in faith. I will only say that I think the atheistic position takes as much faith as the theistic one, and probably the atheists have to explain away more evidence than the theists do.

It comes down to this: each of us has, inside us, a notion of right and wrong. Although we are all self-centered, we are uncomfortable with that fact, and most of us want to be known for being generous and able to think of others. Now, I grant that many humans are monumentally selfish and appear to have no qualms about it. But the fact that the rest of us looking on think that the behavior of these individuals is despicable just proves the point I'm trying to make here: that humans have an inborn sense of right and wrong, and we are often uncomfortable with our bad behavior, especially if it is exposed.

Where does this sense come from? The atheists would have you believe that it's taught to us by our parents or by our culture. I grant you that many aspects of behavior are taught (or not), but I still think that there is something innate in us that is there to be taught. The thing is: this notion appears to be universal across cultures and throughout history.

I think this ability to be ashamed of our bad behavior is a signpost that points us to the existence of the Moral Law, and to the Lawgiver Himself. Atheists strain to find a way to explain this moral sense by evolutionary principles, but those explanations only go so far, and it turns out to be simpler (in the Occam's razor sense) to ascribe this sense to a Creator.

I'm not very eloquent in my argument, I'm afraid. Read the Time article, where (I think) Collins demolishes Dawkins even though Dawkins gets the last word. Better yet, read Collins' book, which is just about the most complete explanation of how belief in God makes sense and how such belief can coexist with acceptance of evolutionary theory. If you must, read the books by Dawkins and Dennett, but bear in mind that they are not automatically right because they argue from a scientific point of view. The fact is, science is great at finding explanations for physical phenomena, but it absolutely stinks at answering the big question of why we are here.

Posted: Thu - November 23, 2006 at 12:16 PM        

©