You again raise the issue of science and what it tells us about the world and us, and what it tells us about the existence or non-existence of God. This is a topic that fascinates you as it does many other people. There are many wrong impressions about science and about God, and during our discussions, hopefully, some of them will be dispelled

The first thing that I want to comment on is the question of the proof of God’s existence. Interestingly, this is a question that has arisen fairly recently in history – in the ancient world, it was an accepted fact that the gods did indeed exist.

There have been various attempts to prove that in fact God exists but all of these attempt have failings and are not satisfactory in proving the existence of God. For every argument offered there is a counter-argument and the issue cannot be finally and totally resolved. The other thing to remember, and this is something that I have raised with you in the past, is that science really has no say in this question because the subject matter of God’s existence is beyond the boundaries of science. We can use logic and philosophy to discuss questions of theology but science cannot be brought in on these arguments.

The problem, in the question whether God exists or not, lies in the fact that any question that we pose where God may be the answer, there is an alternate explanation possible leaving us with uncertainty. There are many questions to which God is a possible answer but there are other answers possible, as well. For example, when something is claimed to be the occurrence of a miracle, there is always the possibility of a natural alternate explanation. When some fortuitous event occurs, we may ascribe it to God but there are other explanations possible. Nothing is definitive and final, and so we are always left with ambiguity and questions instead of final answers.

There is, however, one question we can ask for which the answer is not ambiguous. If you look at the expansive universe around us, we can ask, although we rarely do – why is there something at all? Why is there a universe? The answer to this cannot be given by science. Neither can nature answer this question but the fact remains that there is something. This is the one question to which the best and only answer is – there is something which causes the universe to be because the reason for the universe’s existence does not lie with the universe and it must therefore lie outside the universe. And that something, which is outside creation, we call God.

Tied to the question we have just dealt with is another observation that we have all seen and there is no doubt about its validity. Whatever might have been otherwise than it is, such as the world we live in, might also not exist. You see, anything that can change, can change to the nth degree so that it does not exist. This is what we call contingency and the world, and the universe, are contingent. The idea of the world being different from what it is, is often raised in science so it is not an irrational possibility.

Everything that occurs in the world is merely change – there is no real creating anything new and this is encapsulated in one of the most famous laws in science – matter/energy (these are now seen by science as the same ‘stuff’) cannot be destroyed or created; it can only change its form. So you see we are driven back into the question that if nothing can be created by nature, how is it that something exists? We could just ignore this question and simply say that this is the way things are and that is all. However, this is a very unsatisfactory position and one that is totally inimical to science because science addresses questions seeking an answer and simply falling back on the position that this is the way it is and the matter ends there, is totally contrary to the way that science operates.

The other point is that causes in nature do nothing but shuffle around what is already there in terms of converting something into something else. Nature cannot address the question of being in terms of creating something or why the universe even continues to be. What upholds the universe and keeps it from ‘disappearing’ since, as we stated before, anything that changes, can change to the utmost degree by simply disappearing?

In the past you raised the question of the Big Bang theory and does that not prove that the universe was created because it had a beginning and therefore there is a God? This is a common view but it really does not hold up when scrutinized more closely. The Big Bang theory arose from the fact that the universe is presently expanding (and there is other supporting evidence such as background radiation that has been detected) with the galaxies moving away from each other at a tremendous velocity. It we were to project into the past, everything would coalesce into a tiny particle which exploded approximately 14 billion years ago giving us the universe that we observe. Just as an aside, consider the size of the above particle, the dot ending the previous sentence and divide this dot into a billion parts. And then repeat this division another billion times, and so on and so on. This particle cannot be visualized by us because of its extremely small size and yet, this whole huge universe comes from that and this is what our best science teaches us. We will see that our universe is indeed a very strange thing. But, I’ve drifted away from my main point.

The Big Bang theory does not explain where this extremely tiny point comes from. So you see, the Big Bang theory is not really about creation because it assumes that there was something already there – even if very small – and this something gave rise to the universe that we live in. We arrive at this point by observing the behavior of the universe and the best evidence that we have at present is that the universe arose from a massive explosion approximately 14 billion years ago. But where did that ‘primeval egg’ come from science cannot answer.

I may summarize the points that I am trying to make by the following. Science cannot and will not be able to give us answers to some questions which pertain to the universe and why it exists. The power of science lies in the fact that it attempts to give us a remarkably coherent picture of nature in that it explains the mechanistic functioning of many parts of the universe. By giving us a consistent and coherent picture of the universe, science lays the groundwork for believing in the existence of God. Any god whose existence we could ‘prove’ beyond a doubt would not really be God but an invention of our minds and therefore would fall far short of what faiths teach about God. The other point that I want to make is that science cannot talk about how we should behave. Science can legitimately talk about how the universe operates but it must remain silent about how we should behave. Science cannot talk about what is right or what is wrong. This is simply the way the operating rules for science are set out and it is illegitimate for some to make all kinds of statements about God and science and morality.

Logic and philosophy bring us to a certain point but they cannot bring us any further. They show us that it is reasonable to think that God exists. But what kind of God, they cannot help us here. And it is true that if we could ascertain all we need to know about God through logic and philosophy, this would mean that this would be sufficient for us. But we see that there is a limit to what our thinking can bring to us. This shows that we need revelation, we need God to communicate with us so that we can know that He is a benevolent God and not a despot who rules through sheer power devoid of any love or care for humanity. So you see, the importance of the Bible is to teach and reveal truths about God that we would not be able to ascertain in any other manner. The Bible is not some benighted book that has nothing to say to the modern scientific world but it is in fact a book very necessary to answer some very important questions as to what God is like. Without this book, our knowledge of God would be very inadequate. If reason were sufficient for me to know everything about God, God would have no need to reveal Himself. Reason alone cannot make the bridge between an infinite being of infinite power to a being who is merciful, providential, caring and morally good. In order to bridge this gap, we need faith which acts as a complement to rational knowledge about God.

So you see, faith is not just some optional factor – it is crucial for our relationship with and knowledge of, God. And faith is not derived from rational thinking or logic – it may be supported by them – but it is, in the end, a gift which we need to be open to accept.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas