Author: Jay Lehman

I hope our last few posts have opened your mind to the fact that Christians can approach science with a curiosity and a child-like wonder without giving up their faith.  Science and faith are not divorced parents who leave us in the spot of having to choose between one or the other.  Rather, they are like a strong marriage where disagreements arise, but eventually get worked out.  In a marriage, when two people are focused on the same goal, they usually find ways to work out their differences.  Likewise, my interest in science and my pursuit of faith have the same goal; seeking the truth.  The apparent differences between the two get worked out.

My advice to believers everywhere, and especially to young people, is do not be afraid of scientific discovery.  Do not be afraid to pursue a career in physics, biology, or chemistry.  Do not be afraid of the secular bias of your college professor.

Science, at its core, is about data, facts, and theories that are basically independent of a religious angle.  But scientists who do not believe in God will imply – or even forcefully require – that one interprets all science through a purely natural lens that excludes God.  I hope over these last few posts that I have whet your appetite to the idea that our latest discoveries in science actually make the most sense, have the least “something just happened”, when we include the Creator God in the picture.

Is the universe 13.8 billion years old?  I don’t know.  God has not specifically spoken on this subject.  But I find an order out of chaos, a beauty in the complexity of the Big Bang theory that could only have happened with God at the helm.  Going from the Big Bang to where we are today by only the natural march of time and chance is unfathomable.  It is literally impossible.

My friend Dr. Michael Guillen, former science editor of ABC News, has drawn the same conclusion.  As a young professor at Harvard University, he began to question how the incredible beauty and order and form of the universe from the smallest subatomic particle to the most massive galaxy could stay so consistently perfect without a creator.  Those questions inclined his heart and mind toward God.  Reading the Bible and believing the gospel took him the rest of the way.

So rather than fear scientific discovery, we should see the hand of God in all that we discover.  I like the way Professor John Lennox of the University of Oxford put it when I heard him speak at Park Street Church in Boston.  In the context of not fearing new discovery – whether in the fossil record, the Cosmic Microwave Background, or the human genome – he said, “The more we study and understand the universe, the more we recognize the genius of the God who did it that way.”

May you recognize and be encouraged by “the genius of the God who did it that way.”

There is an underlying current in some parts of the science world that Bible-believing Christians are not using our brains.  That we have turned off our curiosity.  That we ignore science and follow ancient myths.  We are accused of taking a “leap of faith” into the unknown by believing the Bible is true rather than following where science leads.

I see it as exactly the other way around.  The secular scientists are taking the leaps of faith – or should I say leaps of unfaith, since these leaps ignore the Creator and His infusion of order, design, and purpose into the universe.  Let me give you an example.

We have talked at some length about the super-squished time line of the Big Bang theory.  In the first billionth of a trillionth of a second the universe went from a singularity to a unifying superforce to the separation of the four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetic, the strong and weak nuclear forces) and the formation of elementary subatomic particles.  In the middle of this evolving stew, a very interesting battle was taking place.

In the blink of an eye, as matter began to materialize from the super dense state of pure energy, its mortal enemy antimatter arrived on the scene as well.  Based on the physics as we understand it, matter and antimatter were created in equal numbers.  Their mission was to quickly seek out and destroy each other.  Every matter particle that hits an antimatter particle was annihilated.  In short, all matter should have been destroyed.

Here is our atheist friend Dr. Lawrence Krauss, “All the matter would have eventually found the antimatter and they would have destroyed each other producing pure radiation and we would now have a universe – I was going to say we would now be living in a universe of pure radiation.  But we wouldn’t be living in such a universe because we wouldn’t be here.  There would be nothing but radiation.”

But we are living here.  We do exist.  Matter exists.  Matter unexpectedly won the battle over antimatter.  And the physics involved give us no reason why.  For some unknown and unexplained reason, “something happened” just after the Big Bang that tipped the balance in favor of matter in its war with antimatter.  Something that theoretical physicists do not have an answer for.  Because matter exists, the secular scientist has to take a leap of unfaith and just say “something happened”.

I don’t know about you, but I am a curious person and I do not like explanations like “something happened”.  It sounds too much like a child standing next to a broken vase.  Is “something happened” really the best we can do.  I think I know what happened.  God in charge is what happened.  God creating the heavens and the earth is what happened.  When matter won out, God had you and I in mind.  Believing that God is the reason matter won out is not a leap of faith.

Yes, it involves faith.  But I would not call it a leap.  I find it to be a perfectly reasonable and scientifically acceptable response to the evidence all around us.  The naturalists are the ones taking the leap; seeking a natural explanation for what only God could have done.

Be encouraged.  Your faith is reasonable.  True science is not its enemy.  True science puts us on the path of discovering how God did what He did.  And true faith is not a leap in the dark, it is a leap into understanding the world that God has created.

We now have a robust theory (the Big Bang) for the origin of the universe.  And we also have a scientific model for how it has progressed since.  But no matter how deep we drill down into our science world, we are missing the answer to one giant question:  Why?  Why is the universe here?  Why are you and I here?  Why did things develop this way?

It is interesting to me that while science may not know the why, scientists do know that something very special is happening here.  Let’s start by looking at one of the forces that was created and active in that first billionth of a second of the universe’s existence; the force of gravity.

Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist and popular figure in science news.  You may recognize Dr. Kaku and his flowing white hair from appearances on CBS This Morning, the website Curiosity Stream, or those Turbo Tax commercials.  In a documentary titled, How the Universe Works: Expanded Edition, Dr. Kaku says this about the origin of the universe, “We think that the original universe was a state of perfection; a single unifying force that existed at the instant of the big bang.”

Soon after the “instant of the big bang”, the force of gravity broke off from the unifying force with just the right properties to carry our universe through the ages to life as we know it today.  Again, here is Dr. Kaku, “If gravity were a little bit stronger perhaps we would have had a big bang which would stop and then it would re-collapse immediately into a big crunch.  Life would be impossible.  If gravity were a little weaker, then we would have a big bang that just keeps on going and the universe would freeze to death.”

Do you get the picture?  Gravity sprung forth from the unifying superforce at exactly the right strength to create galaxies, stars, and life itself.  I believe this “fine-tuned for life” points to a Creator.  I believe it points to God.  The universe is not a random accident.  And this uniqueness is recognized and understood by much of the science community.

Dr. Kaku, not a professing Christian to my knowledge, sees the same thing.  He concludes in the show, “So our universe in some sense is fine-tuned.  We are just right to have a universe that expands slowly making it possible to create DNA and life as we know it.”  Yes, just right to create life as we know it.

I believe that “life as we know it” is the “why”.  It is the why the universe is here.  It is the why you and I are here.  It is the why it developed this way.  God is the Creator behind the why.  God is the “perfection” that existed at the instant of the big bang.  And He created the universe, He created the earth, He created you and me to experience life as we know it.

With the Big Bang Theory in their pocket and a new array of instruments at their disposal, astronomers are hot on the trail of looking for Earth 2.0; an Earth-mass planet orbiting a Sun-like star at a distance similar to Earth’s orbit.  Or, to put it another way, the search is on for a rocky planet in a potentially habitable zone?  Will they find another Earth?

I don’t know.  I happen to think that we inhabit a unique place in the universe created by God as a dwelling place for mankind.  But my faith would not be shaken if Earth 2.0 exists.  What is more interesting to me is how many unique and life-giving features of our present Earth keep popping up during our search for life on other planets.  What we are discovering is that just finding another “rocky planet in a potentially habitable zone” may not be enough.

A recent issue of EOS magazine, the newsletter of the American Geophysical Union, (I am sure most of you have one lying on your coffee table even as we speak) detailed some of the latest developments in the search.  One of the foremost efforts is to find a planet with surface water, a life-essential as we understand it.

Now in our own solar system, both Venus and Mars are considered to be in the “habitable zone” based on their distance from the sun.  There is one small problem, however, to either of them being “habitable”.  Neither planet has liquid water on its surface.  Where did the water go, if it was ever there in the first place?

Regarding Mars, the latest theory suggests that the solar wind that interacts with the planets of our solar system would “strip away the atmosphere and water” if they were to exist on Mars.  Why?  Because Mars does not have a significant magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind.  Do you want to guess a planet in our solar system that does have a significant magnetic field protecting its atmosphere and water from the onslaught of the solar wind?  My guess is planet Earth.

Let me quote from the EOS article, “The study of the magnetic field and its interaction with the solar wind is an important element for understanding how Earth’s magnetic field might have protected our home planet over the millennia.”  Did they say “might have protected?”  I would argue it has positively protected life on this planet.  Who knew something as benign as the earth’s magnetic field could be so important to sustaining life?

Why does Earth have the required magnetic field for life and Mars does not?  Is that the random outcome of planetary evolution?  I think it is one small piece among hundreds of small pieces of evidence that God has created a planet where life as we know it can thrive.  Welcome to your unique and wonderful home, Earth 1.0!

I first heard Dr. Lawrence Krauss describe the Big Bang Theory regarding the origin of the universe on an afternoon radio program.  The topic was strictly scientific and there was no reference to God or religion.  Later, in my search for more information on the subject, I came across one of Dr. Krauss’ most popular books, A Universe From Nothing.

Did I read that right?  A Universe From Nothing?  With a title like that, I thought, “Wow, this guy must be a Christian.  Who else would pick that kind of a title?  Only a like-minded scientist who has discovered the incredible connection between what we now theorize about the first moments of the universe and what the Bible describes as God creating the world out of nothing.”  I could not have been further from the truth regarding Dr. Krauss’ religious affiliation – or more precisely – his lack thereof.

Dr. Lawrence Krauss is an atheist.  Dr. Krauss’ book is as much an anti-religious pamphlet as it is a science textbook.  His idea is that the universe came from nothing.  Exactly nothing.  No God.  No Creator.  No nothing.  And, in my opinion, he could not be more off base.

So how do two scientists look at the same Big Bang theory and draw such opposite conclusions.  It all starts with our presuppositions.  I believe in the supernatural.  I believe that a world exists outside of our five senses; a world we experience by our spirit and by God’s revelation.  In that world, the Big Bang theory of instantaneous creation fits what we would expect from a God who spoke the world into existence by the power of His word.  It is a world that theists – believers in God – are comfortable in.

Dr. Krauss, and many scientists like him, have created a world with no room for the supernatural.  It is a world of creation and order only dictated by natural processes.  And to be honest, it is a world that can be constructed from today’s theories and observations.  I just don’t find it to be the best fit for all that we experience and observe.  But it can be done.

As a Christian scientist, I am quite comfortable with both a supernatural beginning to our world and supernatural interventions that go against the natural flow.  I believe God has ordered the world such that it generally works along the lines of scientifically understood processes.  And that might lead one to conclude that it has always been this way.

But thinking along this path of every explanation being a natural one ignores the strong evidence that on many occasions God has supernaturally intervened in our world.  In pre-historic time with the creation of man and woman, in ancient time when He sent His Son Jesus to dwell with us, throughout history as God built His church around the world, and in future time when Jesus returns to earth.

The bottom line is this.  Don’t let the naturalists chip away at your faith.  They are the small thinkers, confining everything to a small box of natural processes.  They are living in a fantasy world of their own creation.  They reject the possibility that “something” coming from “nothing” might mean there is a “Someone”.  I have met the “Someone” as I think most of you have as well.

We are the big thinkers.  We are the ones embracing both tangible and intangible reality.  We are the ones willing to accept a supernatural intervention into our world.  So don’t let these smooth-talking naturalists have the last word.  Brilliant, but Godless, scientists may be able to unravel the scientific mysteries of the universe, but they are not the ones to look to for the complete theological picture.

Now another reason believing and non-believing scientists might go on divergent paths when faced with the same data has to do with our opinion about the earth.  To the skeptic, Earth is just one of billions of random planets.  But when they say this, they are ignorant of some pretty special features about our planet; features that make it uniquely tuned for life.  Something we would expect from our life-giving Creator.  We will talk about it next time as we search for Earth 2.0.