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God and the Bible

19th September 2012, sjh, hej

 

5) Science

Possibly one of the most influential people who defined the modern scientific method, is Isaac Newton. Natural Philosophy was a combination of observation of the natural world and theory about that observation. Isaac Newton in his work on Optics had shown a method of objective observation of the natural world and pointed out that he would not infer causes. Newton, however, was of the opinion that his own work showed God as cause for forces in the motion he observed in the Universe. No-one has shown otherwise. No one has answered Newton's point that there has to be a currently acting cause of the huge force holding planets and moons in circling motion. As Newton pointed out such an ordered force could not arise from nothing, and it is not a historical force, but a current force, acting moment-by-moment, even now.

Unfortunatly some started writing philosophy about natural philosophy (and Newton's and others findings), and began to define science as the observation of the material world. Some came up with the idea that the universe was governed by mechanical laws.

Observation

The most sucessful science has been the observation of currently occuring phenomena. It has resulted in extraordinary advances since the objective method of experiment and observation became dominant (mainly intially in England). Everything from telecommunication to nano-particles, to advances in medicine. Because of the success of repeatable experiment, science now favours theory based on repeatable verifiable results.

Experimental science confirms Bible observations of day-to-day repeating phenomena, in the few instances where the Bible makes such observations. The langauge may be different, but the substance of the observations is the same. An example observation is,

Nahum 3:17: Your crowned are as the locusts, and your captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun arises they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. KJV

In addition modern observations confirm the value of the Law of Moses, especially in relationship to hygiene. Hygiene has practical effects on human life. Merely following the law would have prevented the extremely high mortality in giving birth in Europe that was experienced for hundreds of years until doctors began washing their hands properly between dead patient and women giving birth. The Jewish population was more advanced of the Europeans they lived amongst because of the Bible's Law.

Newton referred to a Cause, but did not include that into the scope of his observations. Modern science has many explanations of mechanisms of natural events, but tends to fail in explaining causes. Earthquakes and destructive storms are a case in point. There are good descriptions for the mechanisms of these phenomena, or how they happene once they begin, but there has been little advance on the ultimate causes of these things. In effect they don't know why the concentration of energy should be in one place and why it's not more uniform.

If the issue of Causes is a problem for regularly observed events in science, the problem of 'Origins' is even greater. Fundamentally any explanations about 'origins' fo eny phenomena is about events in the past that are not occurring now. They are not repeatable, and they are not testable. There is the science of Forensics, but forensic conclusions are far less certain than, say a laboratory experiment on the growth of an organism.

When scientists are talking about origins of the universe or of life, they are talking about history. As such it belongs to teh disciple of history and should be judged by the same standards as the examination of what happened in other history, as say for example, the settlement of America. In historical study both archealogical evidence and any written evidence is used. Sources closest to the evensts not withstanding bias, are more valued. When there is a lack of evidence of any sort, the result is speculation. An expert's speculation may not be any more valuable, than another who has an interest in the area or field of study.

Some thoughts on the Speculation of Origins

Due to the Bible's claims in Genesis there is no half way position on origins. The New Testament speaks of events as literal history, and as examples that may be applied to our lives. More that it is states with authority that Jesus was literally descended from Adam, through his mother Mary.

Those studying Darwin have noted that with God in the process only the right variations occur, which is creationism, and not natural selection. (Himmelfarb, G, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution. Garden city NY Doubleday Anchor 1959, 329-30). The point is that the whole theory rests on events occurring without a Creator as divine intervention. If there is any intervention at all the theory fails.

The Evolutionary paradigm is more about a world view than about forensic science. The reason for its success is that people want to believe it, not because its true but it makes them feel unconcerned about breaking God's laws (which have been a kind of social pressure in Anglo-Western society). For this reason the supporters of the theory have maintained many scientific 'proofs' even when found to be untrue or lies.

There are now many vocal scientists supporting Creation or Intelligent Design as support who Evolution, and they have the stronger evidence. They have as evidence a Law: The law of biogenesis. Louis Pasteur made the observation that living things can come only from other living things by reproduction and that life cannot arise from non-living material.

Evolution presupposes that all life, of itself, came from building blocks. All agree there has been biological change (little 'e' evolution). This was observed by as variation within Biblical 'kinds' even before Darwin, and is the the foundation of animal and plant breeding. In fact creationists are amoung the leading researchers in this area. But Evolution proposes that all living creatures descended from a common one and the variation was the result of natural selection on random genetic mutations.

If there is, in analogy, 'programmed' variation, and it seems there increasing evidence there is some, the problem for Evolution is that it is established that for a program to exist and function it requires a non-material aspect 'information', which in turn requires both an author and a recipient.

The discredited icons of evolution equal a kind of mythology.

Though many fossils are found the amount of fossil evidence for human ancestors is very small, often consisting of a bit of skull or teeth. There is not enough evidence to form a theory on. A paleo-anthropologist has analysed Evolutionary narratives and found they have much in common with the structure of 'folk tales' and nothing in common with experimental science methodology.

The Evolutionary theory is now in such crisis with regard to the evidence there is even a theory called “punctuated equilibrium” to explain the very obvious fossil gaps. This theory asks even more, postulating that radically new species developed rapidly in isolation and turned up suddenly. But this theory has been criticised much by Evolutionists, even though it fits the fossil record well, as it doesn't help in providing an explanation.

Due to the many dead ends Evolutionary science is moribund, and increasingly outpaced by experimental developments. The scientists breaking new ground now may be creationists, as they often were, or intelligent design proponents, as the case for design has been supported by increasing amounts of evidence.

Once an evolutionist could have had some kind of blind acceptance of the idea and hoped for evidence to appear but hard results from experimental science, have discredited every possible theory so far. In addition the probability of evidence for the idea ever being found is now approaching virtually impossible. As the evidence mounts for interconnected design, it's easier to have an evidence based faith in the idea of a Designer than in blind chance.

There's just so much more evidence for design than there is for chance.

The first Christians spoke always of the evidence. Their faith was based on many eye witness accounts of a resurrection. This came out from a Hebrew culture where every step of the way, the God of the nation had given evidence of his power, that people from other nations could see.

Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." KJV

It is sobering to think on it and write down, no matter what you belive, what solid evidence do you have for what you believe? As the world is full of ideas, many of them contradictory, if you can't think of any evidence why is what you believe better than another's idea?

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