Participants: Clifford Goldstein
Series Code: CFTF
Program Code: CFTF000008
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00:21 Hi, Clifford Goldstein here
00:24 Welcome you to Contending for the Faith 00:27 This is part of a series called Faith and Science 00:30 Where we look at questions of well, Faith and science 00:35 And these are important topics to look at 00:38 especially together, because even in the 21st century 00:43 faith remains an important aspect 00:46 an important part of peoples lives 00:49 Though there have been through the ages 00:51 all sorts of prognostications 00:53 about how faith was going to disappear 00:56 from the earth... and all that 00:58 this is hardly the case 01:00 human beings are, at the core 01:04 not just physical beings 01:06 but spiritual beings as well 01:08 we all have spiritual natures 01:11 even if everyone doesn't recognize it as spiritual 01:18 but there's something in us 01:20 that tends to grasp and reach out 01:23 for more than just what we are 01:26 or what we could see 01:28 there's an innate sense in us 01:30 of a reality that transcends the here and now 01:35 well anyway that's a very broad 01:38 definition of the concept of spirituality 01:42 and in many cases though this need 01:44 is expressed by what is commonly known 01:47 as faith or religion, and these have 01:51 certainly not, especially in some parts 01:53 of the world died out as been predicted 01:57 ok it still remains a very important 02:01 force in our lives. I believe that as long as 02:05 human beings exist on earth 02:07 we will be spiritual beings 02:10 In fact if I read my Bible correctly 02:13 my understanding is that spirituality 02:16 is going to exist and be a major 02:18 factor even to the final events of earth's history 02:22 But alas, that's a whole other matter entirely 02:26 at the same time though 02:28 as relevant as faith is 02:30 science has been and is still 02:33 very relevant and flourishing 02:35 It's a powerful force in our lives 02:38 and rightly so I think many many 02:41 human beings alive today 02:43 one degree or another have had their lives 02:46 impacted by science 02:48 Most likely anyone here too 02:51 listening to my words right now 02:53 are looking at my getting torqued out 02:55 face are enjoying many of the fruits 02:58 and benefits of science 03:00 Please our lives are changing at a rapid pace 03:04 due I think more to science than 03:06 than anything else in the world 03:08 Fact if we stop to think about it 03:11 how science has and is impacting your life 03:15 I would say that uh.. that technology has 03:20 no doubt really impacted our lives 03:23 in very very, in very very powerful ways 03:27 and though we can debate whether 03:30 its been positive or negative 03:31 I think, and that's not where I wanna go 03:34 though I think from most points its been positive 03:37 that's my, my point. My point is 03:40 that religion, like faith, remains a 03:43 that science like faith remains a 03:47 very powerful force in human existence 03:50 and that's why I've been doing this series 03:53 to begin with. Because we have 03:55 two potent forces in the world today 03:57 Faith and Science 03:59 and sometimes they work in powerful 04:01 harmony with each other 04:02 Ok since the advent of what we call science 04:05 which was actively the term scientist 04:09 itself was coined by a man named William Yule 04:12 in 1834,there has been very little discord between the two 04:17 despite the idea that all through the centuries 04:20 science and faith have been clashing 04:23 That is kind of a myth 04:24 In fact, I don't want to back down 04:27 bog down into this now 04:28 but some have argued that it was 04:31 only in the context of faith only in the context of belief 04:36 in a divine creator that science 04:39 could've arisen in the first place 04:41 ok and that's because there is this foundational idea 04:45 in Science that there is a rational 04:48 a rational world out there to discover 04:52 and I use that term very broadly 04:55 because in the quantum the area of quantum physics 04:59 the word rational takes on a whole new meaning 05:04 it's not the way we traditionally understood it 05:07 anyway, it was thought at the heart of all science 05:11 lies the idea that the universe is orderly 05:15 because if it weren't, if it were all chaos and confusion 05:19 then how could we really do science? 05:21 The earliest scientists sometimes called natural 05:24 philosophers worked from the idea that they were 05:27 discovering the handiwork of God 05:30 one 20th century Welsh scientist John Halton wrote: 06:03 But the question is why should the world be orderly? 06:06 or rational enough to be subject to our scrutiny 06:10 to begin with? The mere idea of this has 06:13 that this is how it is has made science possible 06:18 And for many reason, for many people the only reason that it 06:22 is orderly or can be orderly is because God had created 06:28 No question, the idea that from the start 06:32 closed minded religionists have been hampering the 06:36 pursuit of truth through science 06:38 is really it's a modern myth 06:41 and the truth is really much much more complicated than that 06:48 for many people, myself included 06:52 science has made if anything has made us marvel at the power 06:57 at the power of the creator God 06:59 David wrote 'the heavens declare the glory of God 07:03 David wrote this. This was a man that didn't have a clue 07:07 about the size and the grandeur and the majesty of the cosmos 07:13 He never looked through a telescope 07:15 He never saw an island galaxy 07:17 Science has opened up so much grandeur, so much complexity 07:22 so much wonder, to me it all shouts with undeniable power 07:27 about the reality of God 07:29 And I guess it did to Paul too 07:33 who wrote the following. Listen to this 07:38 This is Paul, don't blame me 08:16 No question. Science and faith have worked very well together 08:23 But not always. And this is what I wanted to look in today 08:27 as one area where they haven't 08:29 at least not in recent times 08:31 and this has to do in the area of origin 08:34 the origins of the universe and the origins of humanity 08:38 Because they are of course, linked 08:40 Here's where there's been a great divide between science 08:44 and, and faith. Particularly Biblical faith 08:47 And that's what I wanna look at in this program 08:50 You know for most of human history 08:55 people could look around at the created world 09:00 and see evidence of a creator or creators of some kind 09:05 I mean it's just uh uh our world itself screams 09:10 seems to scream out design 09:12 we could see it in the flowers we could see it in the trees 09:15 we could see it in the animals we could see it in the cell 09:18 we could see it in human beings and fish, cats and butterflies 09:22 in the atom and the carbon molecules 09:25 everywhere we can see it 09:28 you know by analogy my iPhone sure looks designed, doesn't it? 09:34 Well in the same way my dog, my big old German Shepherd 09:39 she looks designed too. In fact I think there's a lot more 09:43 design and more intricacy in my dog than in my iPhone 09:47 Thus, I look at my dog and I see design 09:51 And design almost by the very term itself design 09:56 means that somewhere out there there was a designer 10:01 There's a name for this argument 10:03 it's called the Teleological argument from the Greek word 10:07 Telos which means purpose or in purpose 10:11 Things are designed for a reason 10:13 ok, the design is built in. So whatever it is an octopus eye 10:19 an Eagle's wing, a cell wall, a human nose, all are designed 10:24 because they have a goal, a purpose, a teleo 10:28 The octopus eye is there for the octopus to see 10:31 The eagle's wings are there so the eagle can fly 10:35 a cell wall for all the purposes a cell wall has 10:39 such as holding the cell together 10:41 and the human nose is there so that humans can smell 10:46 All these are a Telios, they are a purpose ok. That's what they 10:54 were designed for. Well that's been one argument for God 11:00 And there's another argument and it goes back a long way as well 11:05 It's been called the cosmological argument 11:09 And the essence of the argument is this 11:12 is that nothing that was created had created itself 11:18 Again, nothing that was created created itself 11:23 Notice I said nothing created as opposed to something uncreated 11:30 created itself. There is a big difference here 11:33 and one we should not miss. Anything that once didn't exist 11:38 but then came into existence had to come into existence 11:43 from something before it, something that preceded it 11:47 and also created it. That's just simple down to earth logic 11:53 common sense. Something that does not exist 11:56 cannot create itself, because to create itself 12:00 it would have to already exist 12:02 and if it already existed, then it couldn't didn't create itself 12:06 instead something else had to create it 12:10 and whatever created it, that was created by something else 12:15 and something else created it before and you go on and on 12:19 and you keep going back till you get something that always 12:25 existed something that always was and what else who else could 12:32 that be but God. The God depicted in the Bible 12:35 And without Him nothing made, nothing created none of those 12:41 things that were made, created were created without Him 12:46 So you see there's a radical difference, a radical 12:50 distinction between what always existed, what always was 12:54 and what came into existence 12:57 and God the creator always was 13:01 and He's radically different from the creation 13:05 that which once didn't exist but now does 13:09 Anyway, this had always been a powerful argument 13:13 for the creator, for the one who created all things 13:18 that once didn't exist but now do 13:21 Now what's fascinating is that science in recent years 13:27 has taken paths that it claims 13:30 pretty much refutes both these arguments 13:34 and that's what I want to look at 13:36 the claims of science that it can refute these arguments 13:40 if that were true, then two of the oldest and I think most 13:44 powerful arguments in favor of God's existence 13:48 are then refuted by science 13:52 And for many people, as I've said before on other shows 13:56 if science says something, if science refutes something 14:00 about their faith what is that person but to do 14:03 but to accept what science says 14:06 that's at least the argument that many believe 14:09 and I want to look at that idea as well 14:11 because if you've been following this series 14:14 you'll know just how false and misleading 14:17 that whole concept really, really is 14:21 Anyway, what I want to start out with is 14:24 the Teleological argument, the argument from design 14:27 Now you might think it would be more logical to start out with 14:30 the cosmological argument and then come to that but 14:33 I think you'll see why I want to take the paths that I am 14:38 Now the argument from design 14:40 As I said, for most of human history 14:44 people looked around the world and saw design 14:47 they saw beauty, they saw what looked like Telios 14:51 a Telios and so they just didn't believe it was all thrown 14:55 together by chance. They thought this was evidence of God 14:59 Well then along comes old Charlie Darwin and the 15:03 theory of evolution and soon many people, for many people 15:07 the whole idea of design, the whole idea of a Telios 15:12 was being cast aside. Things only look like their design 15:17 they merely give the appearance that they are designed 15:21 But they aren't, Instead we are taught through a long process 15:26 of natural selection and random mutation 15:29 all that life that exists today came into existence 15:34 it's all we were assured products of these two cold and 15:38 unconscious, purposeless forces Random mutation and natural 15:43 selection. I mean this is where science has taken us 15:47 At least according to how many people understand science 15:51 The whole idea of design or I should say conscious design 15:55 was being thrown out despite the rather obvious fact that 16:00 every living thing from a single celled critter to a human being 16:05 sure looked fantastically complex 16:09 However also in the past 30 some years 16:13 a new phenomena has risen 16:15 they're called anthropic coincidences 16:18 they're from the Greek word anthropos 16:20 but notice the other word coincidences 16:22 that's kind of a loaded word. But that's a whole other issue 16:26 But I don't want to get into it 16:27 But anyway the point is that science is finding these 16:31 incredible fine tune in nature 16:35 There's all this fine tuning. It's often been described like 16:39 this, Imagine a machine with 30 dials on it 16:43 only these dials are refined down to tiny little 16:47 billionth, you can turn a knob to the billionth 16:50 Now these dials represent the crucial fundamental constants 16:55 that are needed for nature and they're all there 16:59 in a certain way. If one of these dials were tweaked 17:01 even the slightest bit, life we know couldn't exist. 17:06 hence they get the word anthropic for man 17:09 Ok and its the whole idea that the whole universe is created 17:13 for man or mankind. Anyway 17:15 the problem with the anthropic coincidence, 17:19 or the problem that these things bring up 17:22 is that these numbers just seem too small, too fantastic 17:28 to have happened by chance alone 17:31 I mean these scientists see these mind blowing ratio 17:35 and suddenly the idea of this occurring by chance 17:39 becomes mathematically impossible 17:41 It just doesn't seem possible 17:43 how this could, these ratios of these dials, 17:47 for these fundamental constants the slightest tweaking 17:50 and life, human life couldn't exist 17:54 ok, it becomes mathematically impossible 17:57 Well, it seems that science has come to the rescue again. 18:04 in a way that can explain this amazing anthropic coincidences 18:10 coincidences without a creator 18:12 Ok that's a concept that arose and it's called the multi verse 18:18 This is opposed to the Universe 18:23 Yes, uni - one universe. The Multiverse means that 18:27 that there are many universes. Yes we are now being told that 18:31 our universe, this vast cosmos 18:34 that we can barely wrap our minds around 18:37 this is just one of an impossibly infinite number of 18:42 universes out there. Now I'm not even going to try to fake 18:46 understanding, you know saying that I understand the 18:49 theoretical physics behind it 18:52 But there is this idea now, presently popular 18:55 which talks about how our universe has been expanding 18:59 when it was first created. They call it inflation and supposedly 19:04 there is some theoretical evidence for it 19:07 And the idea is that as the universe expanded and created 19:11 it just got so big that it started to spawn other bubble 19:15 universes which inflated into more universes 19:18 and on and on and on this kind of internal creation inflation 19:23 creating we're told an infinite number of universes 19:28 This is right now the theory du jour 19:32 what it will be like you know in ten years, who knows? 19:36 The fact is that we have not seen any physical evidence 19:39 of these, of even one more universe 19:41 we barely know what's in ours It's speculation 19:45 at the highest level. But now, whether this inflationary model 19:51 is correct, I don't know 19:52 But really, and whether or not it leads to other universes 19:56 I don't know. I tend to be very skeptical 19:59 But whether it does or not, its now being touted 20:03 as a way out of the Teleological argument 20:06 I mean if you have an infinite number of universes 20:09 out there, then its not unlikely that one of them 20:12 could end up like ours as finely tuned as it is 20:15 for human beings. Look at it like this. 20:19 If someone shuffles a deck of cards one time 20:23 what are the odds that they're going to pull out 4 aces 20:26 in a row if they do it one time? 20:29 Well I don't know, it's pretty slim 20:31 But however, if they shuffle the cards billions and billions 20:35 of times, then sooner or later someone is bound to pick 4 aces 20:40 you know it's not impossible. In fact it's probably likely to 20:44 happen. Well that's the argument with the multiverse 20:48 Ok. Now this theory wasn't as far as I know designed 20:54 specifically to respond to the question of, wasn't devised 20:59 devised specifically to respond to the question of design 21:02 you know. But it's sure been used by some to try to answer it 21:07 Sure, the bottom line is it might be hard 21:10 to understand how one universe like ours could turn out as 21:15 fine tuned as it did to make human life here 21:19 But on the other hand if you have billions of universes out 21:23 there like ours, then surely its likely that something like ours 21:28 would turn up. Anyway that's what's happening here in science 21:32 here science being used to try and justify 21:36 really what is a metaphysical position 21:39 A philosophical assumption that is not scientific 21:43 I have said before that we need to understand that 21:46 not everything coming under the name of science 21:49 really is science. In fact I would argue that it can never 21:53 only be science. There are pre there are philosophical 21:57 pre suppositions always involved 22:00 Anyway, the bottom line is even if one accepts this multiverse 22:05 even if one accepts that there are really millions and billions 22:09 and maybe an infinite number of universes out there 22:13 then we still got the question how did the multiverse 22:17 get started. I mean 22:24 How did the process start that allowed for these 22:27 infinite number of universes to be created, to begin? 22:31 Well they claim they have an answer for that as well 22:36 And that answer is that listen to this: 22:40 that nothing created the universe! 22:44 or if you will, nothing created the multiverse 22:49 I'm not kidding you! There's a popular theory now 22:52 spouted by all sorts of scientific luminaries 22:56 the popular theory spouted by them is that our universe 23:01 and hence all the universes arose out of nothing at all 23:08 and really, in many ways that's the most logical argument 23:11 these people have if you're gonna reject 23:14 the idea of a creator God 23:16 American physicist Lawrence Krause wrote a book 23:20 called "A Universe From Nothing" 23:24 I read it and he goes to great lengths to argue that our 23:28 universe or even the multiverse all arose out of nothing 23:33 In his best selling book assured history of nearly everything 23:39 Author Bill Bryce wrote the following: 23:54 Evident proof huh? 23:56 What a powerful and self evident self truth that is 23:59 Surprising that it took humans this long to come up with it 24:03 Even the man considered by many the greatest scientist alive 24:07 Stephen Hawking has argued the same thing 24:11 Hawking wrote "because there is such a thing as 24:14 the law of gravity, the universe can and will create itself 24:19 out of nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is 24:23 something rather than nothing 24:25 why the universe exists, why we exist" 24:29 Now as silly as all this is 24:32 there's a logical reason for this argument 24:36 and it has nothing to do with science 24:39 Remember when we talked about the cosmological argument? 24:43 Nothing created itself. Anything that once didn't exist 24:47 but came into existence had to come from something before it? 24:50 and then something before it and on and on and on 24:53 and then you get back to finally something that 24:57 always existed and who or what else could that be 25:00 but the God of the Bible 25:03 He alone doesn't need an explanation for how He got there 25:08 and that's because He always existed 25:11 Now, the only other option 25:14 the only other source of our origins 25:16 that doesn't need an explanation 25:19 would be the idea that if nothing created the universe 25:24 right? If nothing created the universe, 25:27 if nothing is the source of all existence 25:30 then there's no deeper explanation 25:33 After all it is nothing. So there is no need to assume 25:37 anything before it that could explain where it came from 25:40 nothing in nothing that doesn't mean anything prior to 25:45 explaining Thus, the idea of nothing as an alternate, as an 25:50 alternative to an eternal existing God really is the only 25:57 logical and rational alternative. And that's because 26:02 only two things in the cosmological argument don't need 26:06 anything to explain where they came from 26:10 The first ok, only two things don't need anything to explain 26:15 The first thing is an eternal existing God 26:20 nothing explains it because God was always there 26:23 He always existed. 26:25 so the first thing that doesn't need an explanation 26:28 to explain Him is the eternal existing God 26:32 The second thing is Nothing 26:36 Nothing does not need an explanation either 26:41 So which do you think is more logical? 26:48 Nothing created the universe 26:50 or a self existing God created the universe 26:57 Now, the reason I bring these two points up 27:02 the multiverse and nothing 27:04 Is really to show this idea of pure, of science 27:09 as purely rational and objective is a myth 27:12 And in these two cases we could see where science 27:16 exceedingly speculative science 27:19 is at time bordering on what I would deem science fiction 27:25 we're seeing it being used to promote 27:27 what's definitely a non scientific agenda 27:31 in this case it's the whole idea to refute God's existence 27:36 Again, I don't think these were conjured up for this purpose 27:40 or maybe they were but they're used 27:42 being used to promote that agenda 27:45 so look at the extremes... 27:47 either that science is using us to get away from God 27:50 life arose from nothing or from an infinite number of universes 27:55 wouldn't a supernatural creator be a logical explanation 28:00 as opposed to these other scientific options? |
Revised 2015-02-26