From Paul Morris, "Religion and Science: Cosmology as an Example.

" Restoration Quarterly, Volume

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

A very great deal more truth can be known than can be proven.
Richard Feynman, Physics Nobel Laureate

Around 1700 the physical sciences or natural philosophy1 replaced religion as the dominant

intellectual influence in the West. That position of preeminence has held until the last decade when its

place was probably taken by technology, more specifically information technology. Still, at the

foundation of that technology lay the physical sciences and their influences persist. Our modern

worldviews are permeated with presuppositions from those very sciences. Many of our most pressing

ethical problems arise from the advances of science and technology. Many scientists and theologians

suggest that we will not be able to adequately approach these problems unless we have a serious and

healthy view of the relationship between our religion and the natural sciences.

Not much is heard from the pulpits of the Restoration Movement. That is both good and bad. Bad

because we are ignoring an extremely important element that influences the society and thus the

context of our theology. Good in the sense that too often what is said is wrong. This is understandable

since the science is usually very technical. There are two ways to approach this difficulty: (1) learn

about science through the philosophy of science; (2) learn the relatively simple science stories that

relate science and religion.

The purpose of this paper is to pursue the second alternative, to survey the views of the

relationship between Christianity and science and to look at the status of this relationship at the

beginning of the twenty-first century by telling the story of cosmology, the first scientific enterprise.

Ways of Relating Science and Religion

There are several ways of viewing the relationship between religion and science but the simplest and

most widely used taxonomy is that of physicist/theologian Ian Barbour. 2 Barbour is generally credited

with being the father of the contemporary movement trying to reconcile Christianity and science.

1 The terms “physics” and “chemistry” did not originate until the nineteenth century; natural philosophy
was the appropriate designation. Likewise, biology and geology were referred to as natural history.
2 Ian G. Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, Volume 1 (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1990), Chapter 1.
A. Conflict (Warfare)

This is by far the most common way of looking at religion and science. Each is seen as trying to

usurp and conquer the domain of the other. The two most common examples of this "warfare" are the

Galileo-Catholic Church conflict and the evolution-creation controversy. The warfare metaphor became

popular in the late nineteenth century with the publication of two books: (1) John William Draper, History

of the Conflict between Science and Religion (1874); (2) Andrew Dickson White A History of the Warfare
of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). Both writers held deep-seated grudges against
segments of Christianity, Draper almost exclusively with Roman Catholicism and White against

Christianity in toto. Twentieth century scholarship3 has largely discredited the warfare metaphor, but

the idea remains embedded in popular understanding.

It is interesting that the two ends of the theological spectrum tend to share this view. As Barbour

says, "They both claim that science and theology make rival literal statements about the same domain,

the history of nature, so one must choose between them."4 Scientists, who are Christians and not

fundamentalist, believe that both parties are misusing science. The biblical literalist uses theology to

make scientific claims. Defenders of this position would include "scientific creationists" (or young earth

creationists - YEC) such as Henry Morris and Duane Gish. The scientific materialist (atheist) begins with

science and uses it as the basis of a materialistic worldview. This view was defended by the late Carl

Sagan, biologists Richard Dawkins and Jacques Monod, and sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson. From the

point of view of contemporary philosophy of science, both of these moves are improper.

B. Independence

In the early twentieth century, two philosophical and one theological movements led to a view of the

relationship between science and religion as one of absolute separation. Each is completely autonomous

over its own realm. Science deals with nature and religion deals with God, morality, and the human self.

The movements were existentialism, logical positivism, and Protestant neo-orthodoxy. For many this

sets up an uncomfortable dualism between the self and its place in nature. Also, many scientists are

uncomfortable with the radical transcendence of God in relation to the creation. The separation of the
realms precluded any form of natural theology.

3 See Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan, 1925) and David C.
Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, "Introduction" in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (eds.), God and
Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1986).
4 Barbour, 4.

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C. Dialogue

The "Independence" model seemed to allow science and Christianity to peacefully coexist until

August 6, 1945, the bombing of Hiroshima. Previously, science had been viewed as morally neutral but

that now seemed an impossible position to sustain. The director of the Manhattan Project, J. Robert

Oppenheimer claimed, "Physicists have now tasted sin." With the rapid expansion of science-based

technologies in the last fifty years, it seems that the moral neutrality of science is an untenable position

to hold.

Science is not only telling us more and more about our physical bodies but also about our mental

makeup and thus raises many questions about our personal autonomy and thus our responsibilities as

human beings. Sciences such as quantum mechanics, the theory of the microscopic realm, and

cosmology are pushing us to the limits of science and raise as many metaphysical as physical questions.

How does the scientist deal with these moral and metaphysical questions?

The "Dialogue" proponent claims that we cannot responsibly maintain separation between science

and religion. There are boundary points or limit points where the domains of science and religion overlap.

If we are to deal successfully with our problems arising from science-based technology, a dialogue must

be setup and maintained between the two domains. I have found that most scientists who are

conservative Christians and who think about these kinds of questions are most comfortable approaching

science and Christianity in this way.

D. Integration

The most radical of the positions seeks an elaborate metaphysics that is informed by both

contemporary science and a religious tradition. Science becomes much more important in determining

theology than in any other relationship. Teilhard de Chardin5 and process thinkers,6 such as Charles

Hartshorne and John Cobb, Jr., are the primary proponents of this position.

Most Christians who are scientists are uncomfortable with this position for two reasons. (1) The

elaborate metaphysics can too easily degenerate into a form of scientism where science is weighted

much more than the religious tradition. (2) The emphasis upon the natural sciences tends to neglect the

personal experience of God to person and person to person relationships that is such an integral part of

Christianity.

5 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1959).
6 John B. Cobb, Jr. and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology: An Introduction (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1976).

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 Brief History of Western Cosmology to the Twentieth Century

Cosmology, as used by the ancient Greeks, was a term descriptive of everything that existed,
including physical, spiritual, and divine entities. This is synonymous with what today we would call

worldview. The common contemporary use of cosmology refers only to the physical universe.
All ancient civilizations possessed a cosmology. The Old Testament Hebrews viewed the universe in

terms of a flat earth, hemispherical firmament cosmology borrowed from the Babylonians. The

Babylonians and Egyptians developed many mathematical and technological skills, but in the last analysis

they were not scientists, but priests paying homage to their mythic universe. The first attempts to

produce more systematic cosmologies based on observation and reasoning are usually attributed to the

Ionians (in what is present day Turkey) around 600 BCE.

The most important of the Greek cosmologies was that of Plato and Aristotle. I will describe their

hybrid cosmology. It was based on a spherical earth at the center (geocentric) {1}.7, 8 The universe was

two-tiered {2} with earth being an imperfect realm of phenomena and the heavens perfect {3} and

unchanging {4}. Plato’s philosophy was greatly influenced by mathematics. Supposedly, over the

entrance of his Academy we the words, “Let no one enter who is ignorant of geometry.” Plato’s god was

“a great geometer,” and as such, it was “reasonable” to believe that god would make the paths of the

heavenly object circular {5}, the perfect geometrical shape. Plato’s student Aristotle argued that the

heavenly objects were immaterial, a condition of perfection, and made of a perfect element he called the

aether or the quintessence. The heavenly objects (sun, moon, five planets, and the fixed stars) were
each attached to an intangible, immaterial sphere and moved in circular paths. Aristotle also argues that

the universe is finite {6} and bounded and that outside is the residence of his god, a god ultimately

responsible for all motions, particularly the motions of the heavenly spheres; thus the name primum

mobile.
When we see the objects moving in the heavens, according to a geocentric position everything

should simply move across the sky. All is well except for the planets. The planets wander, i.e.,

periodically stop and move the other way. This is called the problem of retrograde motion.9 In the

second century CE, the Alexandrian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy used a system of circles on top of

circles to save the Platonic/ Aristotelian system and his success is very impressive. Although extremely

7 The philosophers of this period knew that the earth was spherical, in fact Eratosthenes actually came
up with a relatively accurate circumference for the earth. There were also beliefs in non-geocentric
universes. Pythagoras believed that both the earth and the sun moved about a central fire. Aristarchus
argued for a heliocentric universe.
8 The numbers in brackets indicate essential elements of the Platonic/Aristotelian cosmology.
9 See any introductory astronomy text for a more detailed explanation.

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complex, this scheme was able to successfully predict many astronomical phenomena, such as lunar and

solar eclipses. It served as the basis for navigation until modern times. Whereas the original

Platonic/Aristotelian system ideally required only twenty-seven spheres, the new Platonic/ Aristotelian/

Ptolemaic (PAP) system required eighty-eight. PAP was the dominant picture for almost fourteen

hundred years.

In the mid-sixteenth century Nicolas Copernicus published On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres

(1542) where he argued that God would have created the heavens to work in a much less complex way.

Copernicus believed that God would put the sun at the center of the universe (heliocentric) and the

resulting heavenly motions would be much simpler. There was absolutely no scientific basis for this

belief, in fact the predominance of evidence at the time was against such a view. For example, what

could make a massive earth move at, as we know today, about 65,000 mph? What about birds as they

try to fly from tree to tree? They would be left in outer space as the earth flies out from underneath

them and this does not happen. Although the Copernican view was not immediately widely accepted, it

did cast doubt on the PAP belief in geocentrism {1}.

In 1572, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, now working in Prague, discovered what he called a

nova (new star). Today we know that Brahe actually saw a supernova, the cataclismic death throes of a
star. What was important was the discovery of change in the heavens {4}. Brahe’s brilliant protégé

Bavarian Johannes Kepler, using observational data collected by Brahe, demonstrated that the planets

move in elliptical (oval) rather than circular orbits {5}. Kepler worked within a Copernican framework.

In 1611, the Italian Galileo Galilei published The Starry Messenger, a book describing his observations

of the heavens using the newly invented telescope. Among his discoveries was that the moon’s surface

had hills and valleys just like the earth. This indicated to him that erosion had occurred and that erosion

indicated an imperfect surface {3}.

In 1686, Isaac Newton published his magnum opus, The Mathematical Principles of Natural

Philosophy.10 This brilliant work contains a development of the calculus, the three laws of motion, and
the law of universal gravitation. Consider gravitation. Newton’s law says that all masses in the universe

attract all other masses. As the old story goes, what happens to the apple as it falls from the tree is the
same thing that happens as the moon orbits the earth; each is falling and the change in motion of each is

produced by gravitation. The physics of the earth is the same as the physics of the objects in the

heavens; there is no two-tiered universe {2}. Further, Newton argues that with the attraction of all

10 This book and Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species are the two science books which have had the
greatest impact on mass culture.

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masses a finite universe would collapse to the center; it has not collapsed to the center, therefore, the

universe must be infinite {6}.

By now, the Newtonian world machine (NWM) had replaced PAP cosmology. The NWM was

materialistic, mechanistic, mathematical, and deterministic - and extremely successful. Over the next

two centuries, two new planets were discovered and mathematical and scientific discoveries exploded. In

1890, the British scientist, Benjamin Thompson (Lord Kelvin), told one of his students not to go into

physics because everything there was to know about the physical universe was already known.

Physics had replaced theology as the queen of the sciences.

God, Newton and the Universe

In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas took the newly recovered teachings of Aristotle, logic,

and PAP cosmology and synthesized them into Scholasticism. Dante’s Divine Comedy gives an excellent

picture of the resulting synthesis of theology and science. Angelic spheres were superposed on

corresponding celestial spheres, providing the motive force (e.g. Angels/Moon, Archangels/Mercury,

Seraphim/outer sphere, closest to god). The cosmologist Edward Harrison’s description:

The medieval universe was saturated with meaning. It placed human beings in the most
conspicuous of all places, at the center of events, on a stage with the spotlight beamed on
them as the leading actors in a drama of cosmic proportions. Blessed by religion, rational-
ized by philosophy, and verified by geocentric science, the medieval universe gave meaning
to life on Earth. Most persons then living could grasp the essentials of the medieval
universe and felt impelled to worship its Creator.11

Human beings were the focus of God’s love in this cozy, finite universe. Other than the lack of scientific

support for the Copernican position, there were religious arguments against it. Joshua and the

commanding of the sun to stand still seemed to argue against the Copernican position. The “coziness”

and “human focal point” of the universe were lingering problems as the transition between PAP and NWM

took place. As one example, the idea of living in an infinite universe was troubling to many people,

including Blaise Pascal, a devout Catholic, mathematician, and natural philosopher: "I feel engulfed in the

infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I am terrified. . . the

eternal silences of the infinite spaces alarms me."12

The pantheon of great names in the rise of modern science are almost exclusively from the Judeo-

Christian tradition: Nicolas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal, René

Descartes, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Joseph Priestley, Michael Faraday, and James Clerk Maxwell all

11 Edward Harrison, Masks of the Universe (London: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1985), 74.
12 Blaise Pascal, Pensées (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1931), 61.

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sought to “think God’s thought after Him.” The sciences and religious faith can coexist and the history

of science backs up that belief. The natural sciences have been aided by Judeo-Christian influences,

influences such as the beliefs that nature is contingent, intelligible, orderly, relatively autonomous and

that reality has some intrinsic unity as God’s creation. From the beginnings of the Christian era to the

late 18th century, an operational faith in God as Creator certainly was an important factor in the

development of the sciences. Some historians have claimed that Christianity was a necessary condition

for the rise of science; I think that is too strong of a claim, but Christianity certainly was conducive to

the activity of science.

As successful as Newton’s physics was, he still saw the need to include God as an active participant

in his universe. In a calculation of planetary orbits, Newton discovered that his laws described orbits that

were unstable, i.e., the planets would spiral into the sun. The planets had obviously not done that, so

Newton suggested that God constantly intervened to keep the orbits stable. Years later, it was

discovered that Newton had actually made a mathematical error and, in fact, the planetary orbits were

stable and the intervention of God in this case was unnecessary. This is an example of the so-called god-

of-the-gaps. As science progressed during this period, more and more natural explanations were

discovered to replace god-of-the-gaps solutions. By the early nineteenth century, Simon-Pierre Laplace

was able to tell Napoleon that he had no need for the hypothesis of God in his description of heavenly

motions in The Celestial Mechanics.

Michael Buckley13 has chronicled the rise of atheism during the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries. He makes a very strong argument that the rise of modern science and its successes

contributed to an evolution of religious thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through the

following stages:

1. defense of orthodoxy,

2. rationalization of orthodoxy,

3. Christian deism,

4. 'scientific deism',

5. skepticism,

6. atheism.

The last three raise the question about the need for a God who has any involvement in the operation of

the universe at all.

During the middle ages, purpose was inherent in the natural world. An acorn fell to earth so

that a new oak tree might rise. Rain came so that crops might grow and people might be fed. A

13 Michael Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven: Yale University Press).

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profound change in thinking came with the scientific revolution. Now an acorn fell because of the force

of gravity. Rain came because of the interaction of warm and cold air fronts, high and low pressure

areas. Teleological “explanations” gave way to mechanistic descriptions. The universe was like a

clockwork, a “world machine.” Recognition of God’s immediate activity in the world began to fade. God

was the deist mechanic who started the universe and is now no longer involved. It is not a big step from

here to the belief that there is no need for God, to atheism. None of the successes of science logically

denied the validity of religious experience or the existence of God, yet it marginalized such claims in the

minds of men. Atheism became a popular alternative during the 19th century, although many well-

known scientists remained devout Christians: Michael Faraday, Benjamin Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Sir

George Stokes, James Clark Maxwell, Max Planck, J. W. Strutt (Lord Rayleigh).

William Paley’s popular eighteenth century design (teleological) argument, simplified, goes as

follows: Walking in the moor, I find a stone. Its presence could be accounted for by pure chance (storm,

wind, etc.). If however I find a watch (highly ordered), I must assume a designing intelligence has been

present. So it is with the universe, we find a complex, highly ordered system (planets, eyes, etc.) which I

can only assume is designed by a Great Designer - God.

There have been many objections to this argument and I want to mention two here. (1) The

form of Paley’s argument depends too much on the clockwork worldpicture. With the advent of Darwin’s

theory of evolution in the nineteenth century, a more appropriate worldpicture seemed to be an organic

one. (2) In Paley’s argument, the problem of the god-of-the-gaps is prominent and with more and more

natural explanations God is pushed to the periphery. Design was unpopular after Darwin until the later

part of the twentieth century.

The view of the relationship between science and religion during this time was that of “Two

Books,” the “Book of Revelation” and the “Book of Nature.” Galileo describes this in a stolen aphorism,

“The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go.” 14

This view would fit nicely into Barbour’s “Independence Model.” The examples above all illustrate the

successes of Newtonian physics or natural philosophy in opening the “Book of Nature.” The “Book of

Revelation” became less and less important because it was not a scientific document and was thus

subject to error. The best term to describe the prevailing attitude at the end of the nineteenth and the

beginning of the twentieth centuries is scientism. Science was the religion of the day because it had

supposedly given us certainty, that which Descartes strove so hard to attain. It had pressed the

question whether or not God was needed on a day to day basis if at all and the answer seemed to be a

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resounding “No!” All disciplines sought to find the “laws” of their subject matter just as Newton had

uncovered the laws of matter in motion. From a Christian perspective today, science was taken much

too seriously.

Western Cosmology from the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

The story of astronomy and cosmology in the twentieth century is a fascinating tale. In 1905 Albert

Einstein demonstrated how wrong Lord Kelvin had been in 1890 by introducing one of the two

revolutionary developments of the century in physics, the special theory of relativity (SR). The theory is

called special because it does not deal with all situations. Einstein set out to extend the domain of the

theory and arrived at the general theory of relativity (GR) in 1916. GR turns out to be a theory of

gravity and predicts that the universe is dynamic. This is contra Newton, whose universe was static.

What does this mean? A static universe is one in which the galaxies remain at about the same distances

from one another. A dynamic universe would be either expanding or contracting. As radical a thinker as

he was, Einstein had grown up in a Newtonian universe and believed that it was static and, thus,

something was wrong with his theory. To emend this shortcoming he added a term called the

cosmological constant that produced the desired static universe.

In 1929 in California, Edwin Hubble discovered that, in fact, the universe is expanding, i.e., the

galaxies are moving away from each other. The cosmological constant was not needed at all because the

universe was in fact dynamic. Einstein later called his corrective term the biggest mistake he ever made.

What is remarkable about this for the theoretician is that a mathematical theory can tell us something

about the universe that we did not know. GR also tells us about the possible natures of the universe. It

could be one of two types: (1) infinite and unbounded (like Newton’s, but dynamic rather than static);

(2) finite and unbounded.15

In the early 1930s, George LeMaitre, a Catholic priest, extrapolated backward from the expansion of

the universe to a possible beginning. He called his theory the “primeval atom” or lovingly “the cosmic

egg.” The age of the universe is estimated to be between 12-16 billion years. This scientific model has

14 Cited by Ernan McMullin, “Science and Scripture,“ in Peter Machaman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Galileo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 306. Galileo “borrowed” this quote from
Cardinal Baronio.
15 This second possibility is truly remarkable and is difficult to understand without an understanding of the
curvature of space and space-time. We are three-dimensional beings and cannot directly fathom a
fourth spatial dimension. We can however take analogies from lower dimensions and try to apply them
to the higher dimension. Take for example the surface of a sphere that is a two-dimensional surface
curved in three dimensions. This surface is finite and as long as we stay on the surface we encounter no
places where we can go no further. This is an example of a finite but unbounded two-dimensional space.

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had similar reactions from the extremes of the religious spectrum - biblical literalists and atheists.

Rejection! The fundamentalists reject it because it disagrees with their literal interpretation of

Genesis 1. The atheists reject it because the theory posits a beginning and an absolute beginning is an

anathema to the atheist because it raises the possibility of a Beginner. The term “big bang,” now applied

to the theory, is in fact a derisive term given to the theory by the astronomer Fred Hoyle, an atheist

(along with Herbert Bondi and Thomas Gold). In the 1940s, a competing theory was developed called

the steady state theory. The proponents of this theory were atheists, including Hoyle. They so strongly

objected to the “big bang” theory that they incorporated elements into their theory that rejected one of

the sacred beliefs of scientists, the conservation of energy. Remember the name of Fred Hoyle.

Two developments led to the promotion of “big bang” cosmology and the elimination of the steady

state theory as a viable alternative. First, we know that the universe is composed of about seventy-five

percent hydrogen and twenty-five per cent helium. The “big bang” theory along with our current theory

of elementary particles explains the abundance of helium in the universe; no other competitor has been

able to do this. Elementary particles are those entities that make up the atom.

Second, in the late 1940s detailed analysis of the theory describing the early stages of the universe

revealed that there should be an echo from later stages of the “big bang” in the form of background

radiation. Engineers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson serendipitously discovered this cosmic background

radiation in 1965. The steady state theory could not account for either the relative abundance of
hydrogen and helium or the cosmic background radiation and thus is no longer taken seriously.

The “big bang” theory today stands as the dominant theory in cosmology. It is not a perfect theory,

but astronomers and cosmologists believe that all of the known problems can be dealt with. All of the

discoveries of the last thirty years in astronomy have come from within the context of the “big bang”

theory.

One of the truly unexpected outcomes of GR was the prediction of the existence of black holes, an

object whose mass is distributed in such a way that it produces gravitational effects such that nothing,

not even light, could escape once within a certain distance from the black hole. Physicists and

astronomers believe now that the existence of the bizarre objects has been confirmed. From the point

of view of the theoretical physicist, the successful predictions of the theory are truly remarkable.

God, Einstein and the Universe

Scientism continued into the twentieth century and was “the received view” in the form of logical

positivism [LP]. Einstein’s SR and GR and his contribution to quantum theory should have taught
scientists the tentative nature of scientific theories, i.e., we can never get a true scientific theory or, at

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least, know that we have. The intellectual hubris of a Lord Kelvin was unwarranted. Despite Einstein’s

contributions, LP claimed that only those things that could be empirically verified could count as

meaningful. Thus religion, ethics, and aesthetics do not count as knowledge and are “nonsense,”

misappropriating, I think, the early Ludwig Wittgenstein’s term. The influence of LP continued in

philosophy of science until the late 1950s, early 1960s when it was successfully challenged

independently by Stephen Toulmin, N.R. Hanson, and Thomas Kuhn. Many scientists held the LP position

and this is a partial explanation of the reticence to talk about religious issues in the context of science.

The real excitement in relation to science and God, began about thirty years ago with the confluence

of a resurgence of interest in astronomy and cosmology and the challenge to LP. Whatever your view of

the “big bang” theory, whether you accept it or consider it to be silly and absurd, there have been some

beneficial effects for theism in that it has forced many scientists to consider the possibility of a creator

God because of the prospect of an absolute beginning.

Astrophysicists R. H. Dicke (1961) and Brandon Carter (1974) have suggested that quite small

variations in any of the fundamental specifications of our world would have rendered it anthropically

sterile, i.e. human life would not be possible. The universe would have a boring and unproductive history

as far as the existence of human life. This idea was given the rather pretentious sounding name

anthropic principle.16 Some thirty of these “fine-tunings” have been discovered.

1. If the gravitational force constant were larger, stars would be too hot and would burn up too

quickly to allow life to exist. If smaller, stars would be too cool to allow the ignition of nuclear

fusion and life could not exist. [This constant determines how rapidly an object falls in a given

gravitational field.]

2. If the electromagnetic force constant were larger, there would be insufficient chemical bonding

and the molecules for life could not form. If smaller, few electrons would be held in orbit and

again there would be insufficient chemical bonding. {This constant determines how strongly

electrons are held to the nucleus in an atom.]

3. If the expansion rate of the universe were larger, there would be no galaxy formation, no stars,

no planets, no life as we know it. If smaller, the universe would collapse before stars could form

16 Weak Anthropic Principal (WAP): We see the universe the way it is because if it were different, we would
not be here to observe it. Is this trivially true? Some have suggested that it is just a vacuous tautology,
something like, “We are here because we are here.” Strong Anthropic Principal (SAP): Because there
appear to exist such a large number of remarkable and apparently disconnected “coincidences” which
conspire to allow life to be possible in the Universe, the Universe must give rise to observers at some
stage of its history. The importance of this principle is a controversial topic. The logician-

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 and again there would be no life. This is extremely sensitive to one part in one hundred trillion -

conservatively. What does this mean? Consider one trillion one-dollar bills stacked vertically.

(Do not worry about problems of stability or gravity.) The stack would reach past the moon.

Multiply that distance by one hundred. Now take one dollar away or add one. It does not make

much difference! This is how much the expansion rate can be changed an still allow for human

life.

These are just a few of the thirty such “coincidences” and most of them are remarkably sensitive in that

there is a very small range of values that allow for life to exist. Given a panel with thirty “cosmic knobs,”

each allowing a determination of one of these fundamental specifications, there is an extremely low

probability that someone could “dial up a universe” and that universe have life come to be as we know it.

This is referred to as the “fine-tuning” of the universe. Cosmologists Bernard Carr and Martin Rees

(1974): “Nature does exhibit remarkable coincidences and these do warrant some explanation.”17

It is natural to ask why the world should be so special. The putative explanations can be grouped

into three general classifications:

1. One possible world. Perhaps there is in fact only one possible world; it is an illusion that

Theory of Everything (TOE). There are many strong objections to this position;18 but even if

there weren’t it would surely be rather remarkable that the only possible universe was a fruitful

one.

2. Many realized worlds. The “coincidences” would not be such if there were in fact an infinite
number of universes, each with different “knob” settings, with all possible combinations of

fundamental constants. Then it would not be surprising that at least one of them would have

the right numbers to produce us. This is the most popular view among atheists. This position

comes in various forms:

a. Oscillating universe - a universe comes into being with a “big bang,” expands, stops

expanding, contracts, and ends in the opposite of a “big bang,” a “big crunch.” This

process continues ad infinitum.

b. There are many independent (parallel) universes existing simultaneously.

c. There are many independent universes existing successively.

mathematician Martin Gardner has suggested, tongue in cheek, a new position, the Completely Ridiculous
Anthropic Principle.
17 Bernard J. Carr and Martin J. Rees, “The Anthropic Principle and the Structure of the Physical World,”
Nature 278 (12 April 1979): 605-12.
18 One of the seemingly insurmountable difficulties is that the theory would eventually have to explain
itself.

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 d. There are different laws of physics or fundamental specifications past the horizon (what

we can “see”) of our universe.

3. There is only one universe and it appears fine-tuned because it is the creation of a Creator God.

All of these are metaphysical guesses, not science, except for possibly (2d). The introduction of a

Creator God is a metaphysical speculation of equal coherence with the other possibility but it has greater

economy of universes, if that were a consideration.

Some scientists see as their ground in life what Bertrand Russell referred to as “the firm foundation

of unyielding despair” with the universe and life as nothing but “the accidental collocation of atoms in

motion”:

The more the universe seems incomprehensible, the more it seems pointless. Nobel laureate
physicist Steven Weinberg19
Hawking is attempting to understand the mind of God. And this makes all the more unexpected
the conclusion of the effort, at least so far: a universe with no edge in space, no beginning or
ending in time, and nothing for a creator to do. Astronomer Carl Sagan20
Despite these rather predictable responses, Theodore Roszak observes that the universe is no longer on

their side.21

It is encouraging to me, as a scientist and a Christian, to see so many scientists embracing the third

alternative. Remember the atheist Fred Hoyle? He discovered one of the thirty “coincidences” and

subsequently observed:

I do not believe that any scientist who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference
that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences
they produce inside the stars. If so, then my apparently random quirks have become part of a
deep laid scheme. If not then we are back again at a monstrous sequence of accidents.22
[Emphasis added.]

This is truly amazing - not the typical thoughts of an atheist. During most of the twentieth century, a

scientist could risk her professional reputation speaking of religious ideas qua scientist. This has all

changed in the last twenty years due to the discoveries in astronomy and cosmology and their

metaphysical implications. Other atheists and agnostics have weighed in with expressions of wonder

that can be interpreted as being at least sympathetic to a theistic position. The universe begs for “Why”

19 Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Basic
Books, 1977), 149.
20 Carl Sagan in the introduction to Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black
Holes (New York: Bantam Books, 1988).
21 This and the Bertrand Russell quotes appear in Theodore roszak, “What a Piece of Work is Man:
Humanism, Religion, and the New Cosmology, Network: The Scientific and Medical Network Review
(December 1999): 5.
22 Fred Hoyle, Religion and the Scientists (London: SCM, 1959).

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questions. Look at a response from someone with nothing invested in either position, e.g. an agnostic

such as astronomer Robert Jastrow:

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.23

Consider this sampling of opinions from those who are sympathetic to theism:

The medieval theologian who gazed at the night sky through the eyes of Aristotle and saw
angels moving the spheres in harmony has become the modern cosmologist who gazes at the
same sky through the eyes of Einstein and sees the hand of God not in angels but in the constants
of nature . . . 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.24 Tony Rothman, theoretical
physicist

I conclude from the accidents of physics and astronomy that the universe is an unexpectedly
hospitable place for living creatures to make their homes in. Being a scientist trained in the
habits of thought and language of the twentieth century rather than the eighteenth, I do not claim
that the architecture of the universe proves the existence of God. I only claim that the archi-
tecture of the universe is consistent with the hypothesis that mind plays an essential role in its
functioning.25 Freeman Dyson, theoretical physicist

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 so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?26 George Greenstein, astronomer

The present natural theology position is modest; it does not attempt to prove God’s existence. We

must have humility with our efforts and not approach the apotheosis of science as scientism did in the

late 19th century. Science can do its job well, but I am doubtful that science can tell us about the

personal nature of God. The story of cosmology serves as a demonstration that modern science can be

conducive to a belief in God.

Concluding Observations

Some would say the story I tell is based on GR which is just a theory, not facts. Admittedly, it is

tentative but not all theories are equal. Quantum mechanics is responsible for approximately fifty-six per

cent of the GNP of the United States. To the theoretician that is a very impressive theory, as is GR since

23 Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: Norton, 1978), 116.
24 Tony Rothman, “What You See Is What You Beget,” Discover 8(5) (May 1987): 99.
25 Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), 251.
26 George Greenstein, The Symbiotic Universe: Life and Mind in the Cosmos (New York: William Morrow,
1988), 27.

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its rather unexpected, if not bizarre, implications have born out to be true. If success is the standard for

knowledge, it is not difficult to see why physics is the queen of the sciences.

The success of physics, and I think the other natural sciences, require that they be taken seriously.

Theology, because it is the basis of our spiritual and moral life, must also be taken seriously. Consider

these questions from the common domain of science and religion. Can we adequately deal with ethical

question arising from the advance of science without an understanding of both? How do we deal with

such questions as abortion, cloning, mercy killing, stem cell research, the construction and use of

weapons of mass destruction, organ transplantation and use of artificial organs, artificial intelligence, just

to mention a few, without knowledge of both the related science and theology? Do we need to reconcile

the religious and the scientific accounts of the beginnings of life? Can we accept the total rejection of

scientific theories that seems necessary to sustain a “young earth” belief? Does science have anything

to say to religion about the existence of the universe? What is the nature of both scientific and religious

knowledge? Is one superior? Should so-called postmodernism inform us about science and theology or,

as many scientists and philosophers suggest, should science and theology help inform us about the more

extreme claims of postmodernism? These are the kinds of questions that face us today and which would

naturally arise out of Barbour’s Dialog Model.

Most scientists in our fellowship believe that the Churches of Christ have never taken science

seriously; and if science and religion/theology are really inextricably connected, as Dialog suggests, are

we really taking religion and theology seriously? It is time in the Restoration Movement for theologians

and scientists to enter in discussions about the relationship between science and religion. If our faith is

well-based and dynamic, we should not fear but eagerly anticipate an honest exploration of these issues.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Paul Morris
Professor of Physics and Philosophy
Abilene Christian University

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