God comes knocking at the door of science

November 11, 2024 62 Reactions

Science at the Doorstep to God: Science and Reason in Support of God, the Soul, and Life after Death
by Fr Robert Spitzer SJ | Ignatius Press | 2023, 299 pages

Are all scientists really atheists? What can science do and what can it not do? Can it at least help understand whether the universe needs an intelligent creator? Can it throw light on the human soul as trans-physical, capable of surviving bodily death?

Fr Robert Spitzer believes it can, by offering a combination of converging arguments, as St John Henry Newman does in The Grammar of Assent. Author of Evidence for God from Contemporary Physics and articles about astrophysics and cosmology, Fr Spitzer has navigated the connections and disconnections between faith and science in a balanced and wise way, rather in the spirit of Fr Georges Lemaȋtre, proposer of the Big Bang, of whom he has much to write in this book. He shows that eight recent studies confirm the existence of an intelligent creator of physical reality as well as a trans-physical soul which survives bodily death

Did the universe have a beginning?

Fr Spitzer begins by asking whether science points to a beginning of the universe. There have been many theories about the cause of our universe: infinite or finite multiverses, a bouncing universe that waxes and wanes, of which our universe is just an interlude, a string of universes, and an infinite steady state quantum cosmology, which also would predate “our” universe, initiated by the Big Bang.

All of these theories, however, either require a beginning anyway, or else are incompatible with the facts, according to the best scientists in the area, whose arguments Spitzer rehearses in detail, but readably for the layman.

So was the Big Bang really the beginning?

All the indications are that it was: you can’t have an expanding universe without a beginning; entropy would long ago have killed our universe if it were infinite, and so, if physical reality had a beginning, prior to which there was nothing, we are left with a “something” beyond physical reality which can cause it all, that is, create it out of nothing. Sounds familiar?

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Life, the impossible

How about the extraordinary and unlikely fine-tuning which was needed for life to emerge? Sir Fred Hoyle, an adamant atheist, after discovering the need for exceedingly precise fine-tuning in the resonance levels of oxygen, carbon, helium, and beryllium needed for carbon bonding and carbon abundance, concluded that “some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom”.

Spitzer’s most challenging chapter rehearses the background and subsequent development of this point. Spitzer looks long and hard at all of the other options, and comes to the conclusions that it is “virtually impossible” for life to have emerged: the creator (or whatever) would have had to aim at a tiny (1/10^10/123 ) volume of the available space. This figure is so unimaginably small (the denominator has so many figures if it were written out the solar system could not contain it) that most physicists agree that it is impossible to hit it. Low entropy, the cosmological constant, the ratio of mass to energy straight after the Big Bang also point to an “impossible” achievement. But it has been achieved; so how did it happen?

Many hypotheses have been tried; string theory, cyclic or bouncing cosmologies, the multiverse... All of them cause the problems that they were trying to solve: they require a beginning, they are unobservable, and actually make it impossible in principle to observe what we actually are observing and to be what we actually are: carbon-based intelligent life forms. We really do need an “unrestricted transphysical/transmaterial conscious intelligence” to ground our universe.

Can we disprove God?

Impossible. Neither observable evidence nor intrinsic contradiction could ever manage that, since the God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam is beyond observation, unlike the “god” which is denied by Richard Dawkins & Co. But, more positively, can God’s existence be proved? Spitzer offers a basic Aquinas-style demonstration: there must be a unique and unrestricted uncaused reality at the basis of the whole of reality, or else there would be nothing at all, since everything else depends on it here and now. Such a reality will be spiritual, completely intelligible and unrestrictedly intelligent, aware of the what, why and wherefore of all caused realities.

Is human intelligence all that special?

A central theme of the book is an analysis of near-death experience, as evidence for a trans-physical soul. Spitzer uses peer-reviewed studies which offer a well-judged and careful analysis of the facts. We have evidence of blind people being able to see perfectly and identify surroundings; terminal lucidity in Alzheimer and hydrocephalic patients with almost no cerebral activity, leading to the question: “is the brain really necessary?”

Could we have simply evolved materially to being intelligent animals? For Noam Chomsky, for instance, this will not work. We need to communicate knowledge, with declarative sentences. The once fashionable behaviourism is not at the races when it comes to this phenomenon, involving complex declarative sentences which associate subjects with predicate/object with multiple words between them, etc. Behaviourists just can’t cope with long sentences.

Another argument for the trans-physical soul: for Thomas Nagel, atheist author of What is it Like to Be a Bat?, there is a subjective “feel” about being an organism which goes beyond the actual organic make-up of the being. Facts about self-consciousness, therefore, are further facts about our world, over and above the physical facts. There is something about consciousness that requires a trans-physical principle, since we can also reflect on ourselves, project ourselves into the future and have an awareness of our own inner world, distinct from the outer world we are inhabiting; even higher primates are unable to do this.

Transcendent experiences

Spitzer’s final chapter deals with religious experience, conscience, and the transcendental desire for perfect truth, love, goodness beauty and being/home are all matters which paint a picture of a truly material, carbon-based being, which still cannot be completely explained in a material way.

He concludes that when you take into account the beginning of the universe, the impossible fine-tuning for life, the fact that the world cannot explain itself, scientifically accepted near-death experiences, the irreducibility of self-consciousness and the transcendent religious, moral and aesthetic experiences it gives rise to, there is a converging series of indications of God and the soul which it is difficult to ignore. Science is at the doorstep to God, as Fr Spitzer claims, and the more we are able to reflect on its findings the more open we become to God’s existence and the reality of the spiritual soul.

If there is a God, the next question is: does He matter? What do you think?

Rev. Patrick Gorevan is a priest of the Opus Dei Prelature. He lectures in philosophy in St Patrick’s College Maynooth and is academic tutor at Maryvale Institute. He has written on the early phenomenological movement, virtue ethics and the role of emotion in moral action.

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Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-15 14:37:44 +1100

Why wasn’t god just a lot clearer?
Bruce Atkinson commented 2024-11-15 13:10:37 +1100

To Emberson Fedders, you wrote:
“Or, the stories were written by a bunch of Middle-Eastern Bronze-Age goat herders who knew absolutely nothing beyond their patch of scrub.”

Chuckle. Yes, this is as atheists would posit, not wanting to believe in God. But IF there really IS a God who communicates to His chosen prophets (who then communicates to others), then we had best listen closely and believe. And figure out which kind of language genre the Lord is using.
Bruce Atkinson commented 2024-11-15 13:03:44 +1100

Mr. Siemer,
In answer to your question:.
There are many genres of writing associated with the Bible. Much of the Old Testament is law, moral teaching, history, proverbs, poems (psalms), allegory, etc. Some of the Bible is hard to determine which genre is being used… or it may be a combination, partly history and partly allegory. Regardless of the genre, Christians and Jews regard it as all true.

The most obvious metaphorical parts are found in the apocalyptic literature (e.g., Daniel in the OT, Revelation in the NT) and of course in the parables of Jesus.
God obviously uses figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, and analogies here and there. For example, no one expects the prophet or apostle is meaning to be literal when he writes of God’s people as sheep and the devil’s people as goats and wolves in sheep’s clothing. There are many instances of these kinds of metaphors in both OT and NT.

The question that pertains to us here is how much of the Creation story is meant to be metaphorical and how much is meant to be taken literally. One thing is certain (at least to me), and that is at least some element of the metaphorical is involved in the “seven days”. Whenever long period of time are involved, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8)… and this itself is metaphorical… meaning that a “day” to God could be any length of time according to our limited human measurement system.
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-15 11:01:13 +1100

“For example, our own measurement of time is always associated with the relationship between the earth and the sun and the moon, that is years, months, and days. But it is interesting that the first “day” was defined as such by God before the sun was even created. God is in no way dependent on our limited perspectives on time measurement. A “day” is as long or short as He decides it will be. And we have no idea of whether the earth has sped up or slowed its rate of rotation (days) or its revolutions around the sun (years). The same goes for the movement of the moon. These possibilities could greatly change our concepts of time measurement with regard to cosmology and the ancient genesis of our planet Earth.”

Or, the stories were written by a bunch of Middle-Eastern Bronze-Age goat herders who knew absolutely nothing beyond their patch of scrub.
Jürgen Siemer commented 2024-11-15 07:26:53 +1100

Bruce, do you have any evidence or any hint provided by the text in the bible, that we should or must interpret the bible metaphorically?
Bruce Atkinson commented 2024-11-15 01:50:34 +1100

On Time. Where we easily go wrong in our hermeneutic efforts to interpret the early chapters of Genesis has to do with the issue of time. Living simultaneously in the eternal past, present, and future, God is not limited by our chronological, linear view of time. This is why God can easily prophesy through His chosen prophets. He is all-knowing and prescient; He knows exactly what has occurred in the past and what will occur in the future. He knows all the causes and effects. Exactly. And as the scriptures point out, to God “a thousand years is as a year and a year as a thousand years” (Psalms 40:8, 2 Peter 3:8). I believe that the scriptures could have said a billion years and it would have been just as true. God’s perception of time is different than ours.

For example, our own measurement of time is always associated with the relationship between the earth and the sun and the moon, that is years, months, and days. But it is interesting that the first “day” was defined as such by God before the sun was even created. God is in no way dependent on our limited perspectives on time measurement. A “day” is as long or short as He decides it will be. And we have no idea of whether the earth has sped up or slowed its rate of rotation (days) or its revolutions around the sun (years). The same goes for the movement of the moon. These possibilities could greatly change our concepts of time measurement with regard to cosmology and the ancient genesis of our planet Earth.

And as Jürgen Siemer has correctly noted, “… how do you calibrate a dating method when you do not have an object with a known age? Specifically, how do you calibrate methods that are supposed to provide dates for very long ages, say in the hundred of thousands of years?” Clearly, you cannot. Hence, when it comes to measuring time associated with many thousands of years in the past, our scientists are entirely dependent on guesswork (untestable hypotheses and theories).

Both the issues regarding the limitations inherent in the scientific measurement of time and also Bible interpreters getting the literary genre wrong (literal/historical vs. metaphorical) often interfere with our correct interpretation of passages such as the Genesis creation narratives. Hence, unnecessary conflict occurs even within the body of Christian believers. It would be much better… that is, more honest, if we just humbly admitted our actual ignorance about long spans of time in the past.
Bruce Atkinson commented 2024-11-15 01:45:31 +1100

Why the is cosmology and stories of Creation in the Bible so general and metaphorical?
If I were asked by a five-year-old about where babies came from, what would I say? (I happen to have some well-written picture books for his age on the subject— which helps to get grownups like me off the hook.) But it is clear how we should do it: we must keep the information at his developmental level of comprehension. We keep it simple but true and we gloss over a lot of the details, almost to the point of deception — because intellectually he will not be able to understand it and emotionally he just isn’t ready to deal with all of the ramifications.

Now let’s generalize this principle to God and His immature human creations, especially over thousands of years in the past when the OT ideas were originally received and then later written as scripture. This developmental principle is why we find the creation stories in the book of Genesis to be so simple and unscientific; they are true in generality but have none of the specific details that many of us would like to see.
Jürgen Siemer commented 2024-11-14 23:04:03 +1100

Steven, you have mentioned the potassium-argon dating method below.

Are you aware that rocks that formed from the latest Mt St.Helens eruption had been sent to various Laboratories to get them dated using the potassium-argon-method? The potassium-argon method starts ticking when argon is encapsulated in the rock formed from lava.

At the time of the analysis, the rock from St.Helens was 10 years old, because the world had been witnessing the eruption. Well, there were laboratories giving ages of more than 300,000 years.

And how do you calibrate a dating method when you do not have an object with a known age?

Specifically, how do you calibrate methods that are supposed to provide dates for very long ages, say in the hundred of thousands of years?
Jürgen Siemer commented 2024-11-14 17:47:13 +1100

Steven,
C14, the radiocarbon, has a half-life of 5700 years. So the radiocarbon method reliably works only for a couple of thousand years. But why do we find c14 in diamonds, that are said to be much older?

The fossil record is taken from sediments, and they are found exactly ordered in strata you would get in a big sedimentation event. And what Charles Darwin predicted, all those intermediary fossils, eg between us human and our supposed common ancestors with the apes: where are they? Never found or false claims and later debunked. The fossil record and the big sediments we find everywhere are effectively pieces of evidence for a global flood and against evolution.

The DNA-clock: a couple of years back, I need to check my archive, there was an article in science, that stated that the mitochondrial DNA was pointing to max 300 generations. Eve could indeed be Eve. Besided: in our DNA, we accumulate basically only damage, loss, and errors. If what many researchers state concerning the age of the human life and the age of life was true, we would not be here, we would have already died out.

And there is nothing, really nothing there to explain the gain of information needed from simple to more complex life forms.

When the American astronauts went to the moon, they left mirrors there, so that for the last 30 years the distance between earth and the moon can be measured accurately. Strange result: the moon recedes too fast, which means, working back, there is not enough time for moon and earth to co-exist peacefully.

The rivers bring salt into the oceans at rates we can calculate. So, why is there not much much more salt in the oceans?
Bruce Atkinson commented 2024-11-14 01:17:13 +1100

To Steven Meyer,
I think Gorevan would have explained this more accurately if he had taken the time (this article is short): “There are apparent coincidences in the structure of the cosmos we cannot explain.” He would likely say (and I agree) that there are things that we cannot explain WELL. They remain mysteries. Of course, human beings can erroneously explain anything.
As a psychologist, I know that people can explain absolutely anything if they put their imaginations in gear. There are mentally ill and low IQ people who explain common sense realities irrationally and/or ignorantly. So your point that this statement is not true is in fact pointless; it is a “burn the strawman” argument. And I bet that Gorevan and Spitzer would agree with me.

BTW, I like the theological definition of “coincidences”… as instances of God preferring to work anonymously.
A spiritual paraprosdokian: There are two great principles of life that God teaches us: 1) Never reveal everything at once.

Miraculous coincidences prove to the world which people have faith in Him and which people do not. These ‘coincidences’ reveal who they really are. This reality is explained more fully here:
https://www.virtueonline.org/our-enigmatic-inscrutable-god-theologians-explain-why
John Smith commented 2024-11-13 15:56:10 +1100

Steven Meyer
I think you will have to find another reason not to read the book. Its references are recent, a bibliography of over 200 publications, the majority publish in the last 20 years.
This book addresses the existence of God, not the matter of whether Jesus Christ was God. That is a question which demands attention once the former proposal is accepted.
Bruce Atkinson commented 2024-11-13 14:44:44 +1100

I highly recommend the following article which explains the proper relationship between the Bible and science… at least for Christians.
https://virtueonline.org/science-and-bible-relationship-revisited
Steven Meyer commented 2024-11-13 13:38:43 +1100

What irritates me about Rev. Patrick Gorevan’s drivel is its essential dishonesty.

It insinuates, without explicitly stating, the following:

1) There are apparent coincidences in the structure of the cosmos we cannot explain

2) The scientific community is shaking with fear because of this..

3) Therefore Christianity is true

1) is correct.

2) is simply untrue

3) is a non-sequitur
Steven Meyer commented 2024-11-13 13:16:22 +1100

John Smith,

I shall not bother with this book because it looks like a rehash of debates within the scientific community dating back to Archibald Wheeler’s comments in the 1950s.

In the “Emperor’s New Mind” (1989) Roger Penrose calculated the probability of the universe’s entropy being so low as 1 in 10^10^123 (a one followed by 10^123 zeroes)

There’s nothing new in all this.

In any case, even if you conclude that all these improbabilities mean the universe must have had a creator, it does not mean that the creator got incarnated as an itinerant preacher man who went around performing miracles.

In other words, this contributes nothing – as in zero – to demonstrating the proof of the Christian faith.

If you disagree then please explain to me why you think all these cosmological puzzles demonstrate the truth of Christianity.

Why?
John Smith commented 2024-11-13 10:13:08 +1100

Please . Would someone read the book and then comment. The author uses Newman’s informal inference reaching its conclusion using multiple sets of independently probabalistic evidence from cosmology, philosophy and medicine. Why should scientists comment further? They already have contributed. For example Stephen Hawking’s last paper (with Thomas Hertzog) – eternal inflation and the infinite multiverse are extremely unlikely.
Steven Meyer commented 2024-11-13 07:50:24 +1100

1) I communicate regularly with a number of scientists. Not only are they not “shaking”, they aren’t even aware of this story.

2) I have seen nothing of this in any scientific literature.

3) Creationism as described in Genesis and similar creation myths has been about as thoroughly falsified as is possible for origin theories. We have radioactive dating methods (eg uranium-lead, potassium-argon, rubidium-strontium, and radiocarbon to name but a few) the fossil record, the molecular clock on DNA, actual examples of speciation, cosmological observation such as the ages of stars and galaxies etc, etc. Not only do we have a mountain of evidence falsifying Genesis but it’s growing almost daily.

4) Whether the universe has a creator is an open question. The notion that this creator got incarnated as an itinerant preacher 2,000 ago sounds like a fairy tale and most likely is.

Jurgen Siemer et al are deluding themselves if they think the scientific world is “shaking” because of all this. Many things shake the world of science. This is not one of them.

If you want an example of a discovery that really has shaken up at least one branch of science here it is:

Chemists broke a 100-year-old rule to make extremely unstable molecules
https://www.livescience.com/chemistry/chemists-broke-a-100-year-old-rule-to-make-extremely-unstable-molecules

This is the sort of stuff that shakes up science. Not fairy tales.
Jürgen Siemer commented 2024-11-13 01:58:41 +1100

Emberson you are stating that Genesis resembles or is taken from other stories found elsewhere.

How do you know? Maybe these other stories represent or incorporate some memories from Genesis?
Trotsky Lives! commented 2024-11-12 20:36:02 +1100

To the best of my modest knowledge, the Hebrew stories of creation, the flood, the Ten Commandments, etc. resemble accounts in neighbouring Middle Eastern cultures. But the resemblances are less striking than the differences. The God of the Hebrews is one and omnipotent and unnamed, completely above the Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian gods.
Columban Devine commented 2024-11-12 20:22:44 +1100

Thanks Fr Pat. And to both hot and cold commenters.
Peter Sammons commented 2024-11-12 20:06:13 +1100

I notice the incipient “Godism” in this, from a priest of Opus Dei. “The God of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam”. Are these three one God? If so, this ‘god’ surely has some questions to answer.
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-12 18:11:04 +1100

Genesis 1 is taken from the Sumerian myth about Namma, the entity that separated the waters into those above and those below. It is the foundation of the story of the Jewish/Christian god creating the heavens and earth.

Adam and Eve is based on the Sumerian story Enki and Ninhursag. The idea that God made Eve from the rib of Adam was based on a mistranslation of the phrase Nin-ti (which means ‘to make live’ but also ‘the lady of the rib’.

The story of Noah was plagiarized from the Sumerian Utnapishtim.

Even the 10 Commandments come from the laws of Ma’at and were written during the Old Kingdom 2600-2100BC.

The Legend of Sargon the Great is the basis for the story of Moses.

I could go on, but as Steven Meyer has pointed out, I don’t think it would make much difference.
Jürgen Siemer commented 2024-11-12 18:03:35 +1100

If your are interested in the view of a scientist, who is not shaking but standing firm, I recommend to search for John Lennox, a mathematician from Oxford.
Jürgen Siemer commented 2024-11-12 17:54:01 +1100

Interesting that we have atheists who are experts in theology and ancient scripts here discussing.

Catholicism is based on a) scripture, b) tradition and c) the interpretation of scripture by the church.

However: tradition or Interpretation cannot reject or invalidate scripture.

Tradition means it must be based on ancient oral Tradition, Tradition cannot invent new doctrines, just because we like these new views today.

And please show me proof that your ancient pagan methodologies are older than genesis.
Jürgen Siemer commented 2024-11-12 16:17:54 +1100

Emberson, I know a PhD in physics personally, a very intelligent man, who is “shaking”, and he told me that there are more.
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-12 12:06:56 +1100

Indeed, Steven Meyer, you are correct.
Steven Meyer commented 2024-11-12 11:57:40 +1100

Emberson Fedders

Most people believe what they want to believe. No point in arguing with Jürgen Siemer on this point.

BTW biblical literalism is not, probably never was, part of Catholic theology. The doctrine of “Scriptura Sola” is a Protestant invention.
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-12 11:01:48 +1100

“They are shaking because they have to concede that Genesis has unexpectedly become a valid hypothesis, that has not been rejected yet.”

No, they really aren’t.

Genesis is just a story in an ancient book. They are not even original stories. They mostly been plagiarized from much older mythological traditions.
Jürgen Siemer commented 2024-11-12 03:07:12 +1100

There are scientists, who realize that the foundations of their worldview is shaking, because they realize various problems, such as:
Where are the dark (called dark, because nobody has seen or measured the) matter and dark energy?
Why is the origin of life from some random interaction of certain molecules not possible?
Why have we not found any sign of intelligent life outside of earth in spite of having scanned the sky with radio telescopes for many years?
Why do the oceans not contain more salt in spite of allegedly being billions of years old?
Etc etc.
These scientists are not shaking because they are searching for God.
They are shaking because they have to concede that Genesis has unexpectedly become a valid hypothesis, that has not been rejected yet.

Thanks a lot for the article!

That is an interesting subject.
Steven Meyer commented 2024-11-11 16:11:20 +1100

Emberson Fedders wrote:

“Look, we will never learn how the universe is created. That will be forever beyond human comprehension. But to think that a bunch of Bronze-age farmers living in the Middle East has the answer seems rather hubristic.”

That’s a fair summary.

I find pieces like this quite irritating. But, in the end, people will believe what they want to believe. I’m resigned to that.

I often wonder whether the people who churn out this sort of stuff believe it themselves.
Emberson Fedders commented 2024-11-11 14:35:37 +1100

I think the issue here is that Christians think THEIR god exists and is utterly plausible. Problem is, that god is just one of the many thousands that have been created by humans over the tens of thousands years of humans’ existence.

There is nothing remarkable, or even original, about the Christian god. Just have a look and see how basically every major story from the bible was plagiarized from an earlier mythical creation story.

Your paragraphs about life simply make a whole bunch of assumptions that have the underlying belief that there is a god. That is not evidence that there is a god. And where did you come up with the number for the chances of life? It is seemingly a number plucked out of thin air.

The Drake equation, which is more recognized, suggests life could occur in one in every 100 million worlds. Considering there are literally billions of stars in just our galaxy, there is an excellent chance that life exists out there.

“How about the extraordinary and unlikely fine-tuning which was needed for life to emerge? Sir Fred Hoyle, an adamant atheist, after discovering the need for exceedingly precise fine-tuning in the resonance levels of oxygen, carbon, helium, and beryllium needed for carbon bonding and carbon abundance, concluded that “some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom”.”

This is not evidence for any of the gods. It is simply extraordinary and unlikely. But not impossible.

Look, we will never learn how the universe is created. That will be forever beyond human comprehension. But to think that a bunch of Bronze-age farmers living in the Middle East has the answer seems rather hubristic.

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