Science – Page 2 – Recovery In Christ Ministries

September 10, 2023September 14, 2023

The Purpose of Evil, and Suffering (Part 1)

photo of brown bare tree on brown surface during daytime

Is it just me? Tell the truth. Am I the only Christian, who has, at times, lost his peace, and grew discouraged and disillusioned, over the way God has chosen to carry out His master plan?

I know that we are not supposed to question God. I know that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and that His ways are not our ways. I know that God’s thoughts and ways are so much higher than ours that it is hard for us to even formulate meaningful questions about why He has chosen to implement His master plan, in the way that He has. Nevertheless, indulge me, and please bear with me, as I ask such a question, and attempt to explain one of the most troubling aspects of God’s master plan. (Romans 9:20; Isaiah 55:8-9)

The Scriptures provide a bird’s eye view of God’s master plan and we, as Christians, are supposed to accept our lot in life, and trust that the Captain of our Salvation is working all things together for our good. Nevertheless, we are also supposed to be honest with God, ourselves, and with each other. (2 Peter 1:2; Ecclesiastes 5:18; Hebrews 2:10; Romans 8:28; Acts 5:4; Psalm 15:2; Ephesians 4:25)

I accept the life that God has given me, but I still pray and ask Him to deliver me out of the various afflictions that come upon me, and the many unpleasantries I encounter. (James 5:13) Sometimes God delivers me, and sometimes He does not. At the end of the day, however, I trust that God is using everything that happens in my life for my eternal good. (Romans 8:28)

Setting the Stage

The famous American theoretical physicist John Wheeler, who coined the terms, “Black Hole“and “Worm Hole“, among many others, once said, “It from Bit (his book) symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.” John Wheeler also said that when he was young, he thought that everything was made of atoms, later, he came to understand that everything was made of energy fields, but, now that he is old, he realizes that everything is information.

Wheeler and others came to realize that everything that exists is information, and this is exactly what the Bible has taught for thousands of years. Robert Jastrow, who was a famous American astronomer and planetary physicist, put it this way, “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.”

This band of theologians tells us that God spoke the universe into existence. (Genesis 1:1-2:3) God’s thoughts, sent forth as words, stretched out the fabric of space-time. God’s thoughts, sent forth as words, created the four fundamental forces: The gravitational force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and the strong nuclear force. God’s thoughts, sent forth as words, created the fundamental particles that carry or interact with the fundamental forces, such as photons, up and down quarks, W and Z bosons, neutrinos and the Higgs boson, in order to create matter. God’s words created the much theorized, and yet all elusive “ether” that forms the very fabric of space-time. The ether is information, and this divine thought matrix creates the laws of physics, which govern everything in the material realm. From time to time, however, God thinks thoughts, and speaks words that supersede the normal protocols of the laws of physics, to perform miracles that testify of His providence.

Here is the bottom line: Information from the mind of God, is everything. (Hebrews 11:3) Information from the mind of God is the stage, information from the mind of God is every prop on the stage, and information from the mind of God is everyone, who acts out His divine drama. Information from the mind of God sometimes interacts with information from human minds and these interactions influence energy fields and particles, and produce counterintuitive effects, and these strange effects have led to some very bizarre interpretations of quantum mechanics.

Lights, Camera, Action

God’s thoughts, sent forth as words, configured matter into microscopic cities (cells) that contained molecular factories and molecular machines, which built proteins. The microscopic cities got their instructions on how to operate from tiny packs of information (the DNA) that God put in them. God designed the environment inside the microscopic city to ensure that it formed a context, which extracted meaning from (interpreted) the semantic information contained in DNA. The semantic information directed the building of more proteins, and shuttled them to locations to build a scaffolding on which even more proteins were deposited to form a root structure and an above ground body, in an organism that we call a plant.

Guided by the instruction set, the instruction set, in the plant copied itself, and encased itself in a detachable nodule (a seed). When this seed fell to the ground, and decayed in the soil, it released its information and this information built molecular factories that utilized the nutrients in the soil and the energy from the environment to perfectly replicate the plant.

After God created these special living organisms, He created something even more special. God spoke, and sent forth His thoughts, and the information that comprised His thoughts arranged energy and matter and formed microscopic cities (cells) with molecular factories that replicated, to form bodies of flesh. The fleshly bodies (the animals) interacted with the environment, and with each other in ways that were far more complex than the plants. Like the plants, the animals also possessed a seed that allowed them to replicate themselves.

The animals roamed the earth searching for energy deposits, and they interacted extensively with other animals. Some animals banded together to search for energy deposits, and some animals were” lone rangers”. Unlike the plants, however, the animals didn’t bury their seed in dirt, so that it would release its information and energy and extract nutrients from soil, they planted it in the opposite sex of an animal just like itself. As a male animal planted its seed in a female animal, the energy and information in the male’s seed planted itself in a package of biological soil (the female’s egg) and the energy and information found in both the seed and the soil interacted and built microscopic cities with factories that were driven by molecular machines that replicated themselves (divided) and constructed an animal of the same kind.

God encoded special information (instincts) in animals that gave them the ability to interact with each other and the environment in unique ways to survive, and reproduce. Interactions between instinct, brain, body and environment produced energy flow patterns in the brain and body, giving them each a unique physical soul. The animal soul is not spiritual or eternal, it is a temporal biological device that empowers an animal to interact with the environment and with other animals and with humans, and we call the patterns of interactions, the personality of an animal. Anyone, who does not think that animals have personalities, has not met my cat.

After God released the information that created space-time, energy, matter, nonliving things, plants, and animals, He created the “crown jewel” of the universe. God used the same kind of microscopic cities, molecular machines and factories to create the body of His crown jewel, which is why the crown jewel possesses some animal attributes, but He also set the crown jewel apart from the animals in a very special way. God took dirt from the ground and formed it, and blew His Own breath into it, imparting His own likeness and image into His crown jewel. Then, God gave Adam a helpmate, so he would not be alone. God put Adam to sleep and brought forth Eve from his body, and they were supposed to rule and subdue the whole earth.

God gave man attributes that enabled him to rule over and subdue the earth, and everything in it. Like God, man is a relational being, who can extend love, grace and mercy to others. Man has free will, and he looks inside himself, and examines his own thoughts and actions. Man has a conscience, knows right from wrong, and has a sense of justice. Man is creative. Man has an analytical mind and is capable of abstract thought. Man has language that allows him to communicate complex information, and transmit it across the boundaries of space-time.

Here is, by far, the most important distinction between animals and man: God breathed His breath into man. God is a Spirit, so when He breathed His breath into man’s nostrils, man became a living spirit. A spirit being is an eternal being that never ceases to exist. Plants and animals die, and cease to exist, but when a man’s body dies, his spirit goes to its next destination. And since man is a spirit being, he can communicate and fellowship with God.

Houston, we have a Problem

God planted a garden that had everything that the plants, animals, and man needed. God gave man one law to obey, which was that he could eat anything in the garden, except for the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God warned Adam and told him that if he ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would surely die. Adam and Eve could have eaten from any tree in the garden, including the Tree of Life, but the crafty serpent temped Eve, and she ate the forbidden fruit, and unfortunately, Adam followed her.

When Adam chose to disobey God’s commandment, he was rejecting God’s sovereign rule, and declaring himself to be an autonomous being. Adam and Eve died spiritually and their union with God was severed and their conscience sprang to life, and they knew good and evil. Knowing that their disobedience was evil, and that they were naked, they made garments from fig leaves to cover their nakedness, so they would not be ashamed and self-condemned.

Adam and Eve had been God conscious, but now they were self-conscious. When God came to visit with Adam and Eve, in the garden, they quickly realized that the garments that they had made for themselves were inadequate, so they hid from God. Graciously, God killed an animal and clothed them with its fur. Death entered the world, and blood covered their sins.

Everything changed that day.

God announced a solution for Adam and Eve’s spiritual death. God proclaimed the Gospel in its seed form. God said Eve’s Seed would crush the head of the serpent, and only suffer a bruised heel. (Genesis 3:15) Even though God had warned them not to sin or they would die, they believed the Gospel, and Adam named Eve,” the mother of all living“, which showed that in spite of their death sentence they believed that they would live to produce offspring.

Adam and Eve’s faith in the Gospel afforded them a limited superficial fellowship with God through sacrifices, and it saved them from the fate of being eternally separated from God. Even though Adam and Eve were “saved” and had limited fellowship with God, they had broken the law, and would have to suffer the earthly consequences of their disobedience.

When Adam rebelled against God and broke His law, God set entropy into motion. Over time, entropy transformed every ordered system into a disordered system. Entropy attacked non-living things, and living things, and slowly brought their highly ordered systems into disorder. Consequently, over time, non-living things decayed and disintegrated, and living things died.

From this point forward, every self-declared sovereign agent (human being) desired to establish his own kingdom, and this brought them into conflict with one another and produced enmity between them, which is the source of most of the conflicts between men that ultimately produces war. This is also the origin of the enmity between man and God. Man wants to rule his own life, and he resents and resists God’s sovereign right to rule over him.

The world was a different place now. Nonliving things decayed. Plants were infected with the enmity that man loosed within the earth, and thorns and thistles began to choke out the plants that man ate to stay alive. Animals were also infected with the enmity that man loosed within the earth, and they began to attack and kill each other, and attack and kill men. Men began to exploit, enslave and kill each other in a competition to establish their own kingdoms. Men began to hate God, because they didn’t want to abdicate their throne and bow to Him.

God saved Adam and Eve from spiritual and eternal death, but they would still have to suffer the consequences of their rebellion, here on the earth. Adam and Eve would have to suffer in a fallen world, and eventually die. God had no choice, He had to keep His word. Adam and Eve had to die, so He drove them out of the Garden of Eden, and He placed guards around the Tree of Life, in order to prevent them from defying Him and eating its fruit and living forever.

A Sad, Sad World

Adam and Eve now lived in a world ruled by entropy, enmity, and death. Work, conflict, pain, suffering, sorrow, sickness and death was now Adam and Eve’s lot in life. And since we all came from the loins of Adam and Eve, work, conflict, pain, suffering, sorrow, sickness and death is our lot in life too. This is why the Scriptures say the day of our death is better than the day of our birth, because we are born into this fallen world, where we will work, come into conflict with others, experience pain, suffering, sorrow, and get sick and die. (Ecclesiastes 7:1) It’s a sad, sad world, but regrettably, it’s the world our parents (Adam and Eve) chose for us.

Often people, who reject the reality of God, do so on the basis of “the problem of evil“. The argument goes something like this: If there is a God, who is both all-powerful, and all-loving, then why would He allow people to commit horrible crimes against each other, and murder each other in horrific ways, why would He allow horrific accidents, horrific weather events, and horrific diseases to maim people and take their lives? If this God has the power to stop all these horrific things from happening, but He does not, He is not truly all-loving. Or if this God can not stop these horrible things from happening, He is not all-powerful. So, this proves that the Christian God, who is supposedly all-loving, and all-powerful does not actually exist.

This is a very powerful argument. It is a powerful argument, because it is so troubling, and because it affects everyone. No one wants to be in pain. No one wants to suffer. No one wants to grieve. No one wants to get a disease. No one wants to die. Yet, all these things happen to both, believers and unbelievers. It is a very persuasive argument for the unbeliever, because it reenforces his worldview of cosmic, chemical, and biological evolution, where there is no meaning, or purpose behind our existence, only random accidents. It can be troubling for believers too, because we know that God loves us, and His Son shed His blood for us, to take away our sins, and give us eternal life, so why would He allow us to suffer, get sick and die?

A troubling question

I offered a general outline of how God’s thoughts and words created everything, because I wanted to emphasize the fact that He could have thought different thoughts and spoke different words, and by doing so, created us differently and created a different universe.

God could have created us, in a way that ensured that we would never rebel against Him. God could have designed a universe in which we forever lay naked under shade trees, eating fruit, drinking wine and reproducing. God could have designed our lives to be never-ending parties.

Instead, God created us, in a way that pretty much ensured that we would rebel against Him, and that we would live in a sad, sad world full of conflict, pain, suffering, disease and death.

Why?

December 23, 2014

Outrageous Faith

Everyday,on my way to our thrift store, I pass by a large necropolis (a city that houses the dead), i.e., a graveyard. Yesterday, as I passed the large, and very expensive marble edifices, which inform the living about, who resides in this somber city, I contemplated on the day that I would become one of its citizens . Suddenly, I found myself echoing the Apostle Paul’s words, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)

I did not allow myself to sink into a pit of despair, where I would surrender all the joy of life, and prematurely join the dead. Instead, my faith pulled me back up to the solid ground of hope. See, since the Apostle Paul said that to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord, I have a hope (an unshakable expectation) that when my body dies, I will leave it, and be in the presence of Jesus.

Moreover, I hope for (I fully expect, and look forward to) that day when the bodies of all the saints, who reside in graves, will suddenly spring to life, and the saints, who still walk the earth, will be called up to meet the Lord in the air. Of course, I am speaking of the rapture.

As I passed the graveyard, and put my faith into action, I suddenly realized how silly this must sound to the people of the world, who are without faith, and consequently, without this hope. Most of the people of the world have put their faith in science. So, they fully expect that they will become permanent residents of the necropolis.

I get it: To a worldly person, my faith is outrageous.

What about the faith of the worldly people?

Science can not explain where the molecular machines that build proteins come from, because these machines are made up of the very proteins that they are suppose to build. Moreover, science can not explain where the information, which drives these molecular machines came from. There is no law, chemical affinity, electrical affinity or physical necessity that governs nucleotide placement.

Something arranges specific nucleotides in specific positions, in order to generate the complex patterns that make up our DNA. A small percentage of our DNA codes for proteins, the rest controls the processes of life, and how we adapt to our environment.

The microevolution of an organism, or the adaptation of an organism to its environment, is governed by the organism’s genome (its DNA). Environmental conditions can switch off, or switch on, certain genes, in order to initiate control processes, and/or protein synthesis, which can help a particular organism survive in a particular environment. This adaptation, however, is limited by the organism’s genome, which means that a finch can grow a larger beak, but it can not grow large teeth, and slowly morph into a massive dinosaur.

These microevolutionary events happen way, way downstream from the embryonic development phase, which means that they can not produce massive changes in an organism’s body plan. That is, they can produce a larger beak, but they can not turn a bird into a dinosaur. If mutations (random changes in nucleotide placement) could change body plans for the better, and make them selectable, they would have to occur within the DNA that regulates the embryonic development of an organism. What science has discovered, however, is that mutations within the embryonic developmental DNA always produces disabled organisms or destroys them altogether.

In short, life is a mystery. Science does not know how life began, or how it diversified into the forms that we see today, including man.

If science does not know what life is, or where life came from, how does it know that a man’s spirit doesn’t give life to his body? How does science know that a man’s spirit does not go anywhere when his body dies? How does science know that Yahweh is not the giver of life, and that He is able to make a dead body live again?

Science does not know, because science deals with the category of objects, and man is in the category of subjects. Subjects can explain objects, and how they interact with each other, but subjects can not explain themselves in terms of objects, and their interactions. This is why science has no answer for what consciousness is, and how it comes into existence, i.e., science cannot answer the “hard problem”.

A person’s theology, informs his philosophy, and his philosophy influences how he assigns meaning to scientific facts. The scientific facts are all we really know for sure. My theology, and philosophy places the scientific facts within a framework that explains the mystery of life. The theology, and philosophy of a worldly person ends with questions, and promises to answer them tomorrow.

Tomorrow may never come: The necropolis will expand today.

Christianity says that I will never become a citizen of the necropolis, but, it is possible that my body could for a short time. Scientism says that I will become a permanent resident of the necropolis.

So, which faith is outrageous?

Well, Christianity explains the mystery of life, and scientism does not. So, it seems to me, that scientism is the most outrageous faith.

January 18, 2014June 24, 2014

Take your Pick

In 1 Timothy 6:20-21, Paul told Timothy to, “keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” In other words, Paul told Timothy to hold on to Scripture, and avoid the false science that opposes it, because some have embraced this false science and erred from the faith.

Our universe is enormous, and everything in it is complex. Science is the pursuit of knowledge about our universe through the collection of empirical evidence of energy and matter. Science observes how energy and matter interact, and boils these interactions down into laws, which are deterministic or probabilistic in nature.

We can visualize a deterministic law like this: When I throw a deck of cards into the air, they will fall to the ground–every time. We can visualize a probabilistic law like this: When I throw a deck of cards in the air some will land face up, and some will land face down, and it is possible to calculate the probability of x number of cards landing face up or face down.

Science does not end with the collection of empirical evidence, the formulation of laws, or the testing of laws in experiments.

No, this is the beginning of science.

Science advances through logical inference. A logical inference is a logical conclusion, explanation or judgment that is based on empirical evidence. There are two types of logical inferences: deductive and inductive. A deductive inference is a logical procession from the general to the specific, and an inductive inference is a logical procession from the specific to the general. A deductive inference can be proved to be right or wrong; however, an inductive inference cannot be proved to be right or wrong; hence, an inductive inference is said to be weak or strong.

Why is this important? It is important because the scientific models for the origin of the universe, the earth, the animals and us are based on inductive inferences that cannot be proved or disproved!

In our culture, scientists have a lot of authority. Scientists are respected because they have the intellectual resources that are needed to analyze empirical evidence and make logical inferences about reality. The problem is that our reality is a very big reality, and no one scientist can analyze it completely. At best, a scientist may become an expert in one or two fields, but there are thousands of other fields. This means that the world’s scientists must come together and paint a picture of reality for us non-scientists.

Here’s the problem with this: Where science ends, philosophy begins, and where philosophy ends theology begins. A person’s theology governs his philosophy, and a person’s philosophy guides the logical inferences that he or she makes about the empirical evidence that is collected from the universe.

Why is this a problem? It is a problem, because, in our day, a lot of scientists are atheists. Since these scientists have chosen to believe that God does not exist, they have adopted a philosophy called materialism. The philosophy of materialism excludes anything supernatural and includes only energy and matter as causal agents. These scientists focus on the empirical evidence that supports their belief (their theology) and make logical inferences that support their philosophy.

As a whole, the scientific community has agreed that God does not exist, and embraced materialism. The scientific community uses their logical inferences—that are based on their theology and philosophy—to paint a picture of a universe without God. The empirical evidence, and the methods of collecting it are too complex and technical for the public to understand. So the scientists filter the evidence, and collection methods through their theology and philosophy in order to come up with logical inferences that culminate in a model the public can understand.

Since the underlying “science” is so technical, the average person cannot sort through it to separate the empirical evidence from the biased theological and philosophical presuppositions, in order to formulate his or her own logical inferences and arrive at the truth. Consequently, the public simply accepts the scientists’ conclusions, because the scientists are a lot smarter than they are.

When the information that the scientists present to the public does not line up with the Scriptures, most Christians will reject it. Some misguided, but well-meaning Christians, will try to integrate this information into their understanding of the Scriptures by playing with words and their meanings. A few Christians, who do have scientific backgrounds, will sort through the information and separate the empirical evidence from the theological and philosophical presuppositions and arrive at the truth.

But any Christian Scientist, who dares to challenge the atheist scientists and their “public machine,” by examining the empirical evidence and offering logical inferences that point to God or the spirit realm is dismissed as an irrational “religious person.” These intellectual “dogs” are then thrown under the academic table where they have to wait for “crumbs of funding” to fall there way so they can support their position.

In sum, in the scientific community, believing in God and the supernatural realm is the “kiss of death”.

But, is it really irrational to believe what the Scriptures say about God and the supernatural realm? No, in fact, it is no more irrational than believing that there is no God or supernatural realm.

The scientific community looks at the expanding universe and infers that a big bang occurred billions of years ago and formed the universes. The scientific community says that the big bang formed the earth. The scientific community says that life emerged from energy and matter and differentiated, through the process of evolution, to create animals, and man is the highest animal. Can they prove that it happened this way? No. Can they collect empirical evidence and make logical inferences that support their position? Yes.

The Scriptures say that God spoke the universe into existence. The Scriptures say that God created the earth. The Scriptures say that God created the animals according to their kind, and formed man in His image. Can we prove that it happened this way? No. Can we collect empirical evidence and make logical inferences that support this position? Yes.

Invariably, when a Christian scientist says that God spoke the universe into existence, the secular scientist will ask where God came from, and what forces He used to create the universe. Of course, God did not come from anywhere, He has always existed, and He spoke the universe into existence. These are not scientific answers, however, and so the secular scientist charges the Christian scientist with the intellectual crime of invoking “God of the gaps” explanations to support his weak philosophical position.

Likewise, when the secular scientist says that a quantum fluctuation created “virtual particles”, which morphed into the elementary particles, and a super-dense point of these elementary particles exploded and formed all the matter in the universe, the Christian scientist may ask how the “virtual particles” that this energy flux produced endured long enough to morph into elementary particles? And exactly what forces morphed the short-life virtual particles into long-life elementary particles? Moreover, since space-time and the universal quantum field, which permeates it, did not exist prior to the Big Bang, how could there possibly have been a quantum fluctuation in space-time that produced the Big Bang?

The secular scientist may say that this universal quantum field did not come from anywhere, it has always existed. And some yet undiscovered forces acted on the virtual particles, and morphed them into elementary particles. These responses are not scientific, however, so the Christian scientist charges the secular scientist with the intellectual crime of invoking “naturalism of the gaps” or promissory materialism to support his weak philosophical position.

This same old intellectual dance is repeated over and over. The concepts are a little different when we debate the origin of earth, animals and man. In the end, however, science cannot settle origin questions. Here’s the bottom line: origin questions can only be answered by faith. The atheist chooses to believe that God does not exist, and puts his faith in quantum fluctuations. A Christian chooses to believe in God, and puts his faith in Him.

Science is unable to peek through the curtain (the Horizon), or analyze the conditions of mass, energy, time or gravity, as they approach it (the Singularity). Here’s the bottom line: We all have faith in something or Someone, and Who, or what we put our faith in is a matter of our heart, not our intellect. We see what we want to see, and our heart determines what we want to see.

A Christian has surrendered sovereignty over his heart, and life to Jesus. Hence, he wants to see God in His creation, because that validates the lifestyle he has chosen. In contrast, an atheist holds on to sovereignty over his heart, and runs his own life. Thus, he wants to see multiple universes in which there is no God because that validates the lifestyle he has chosen.

This is why we focus on the empirical evidence and logical inferences that support our worldview and minimize or reject those that do not. If we did not, we would be miserable because we would be living a conflicted life. Moreover, a Christian’s, faith would be ineffective because of their double-mindedness. (James 1:7) This is exactly why Paul told Timothy to hold to Scripture and avoid false science.

What is false science? Empirical evidence is evidence that we can perceive with our senses. This is not what Paul is calling false science. What Paul is calling false science is the logical inferences that unbelievers draw from the empirical evident, which do not line up with what the Scriptures say, because of the underlying theology and philosophy that the unbeliever has accepted as truth.

Contrary to what people claim, we are not witnessing a war between science and religion. We are witnessing a war between Yahweh’s Kingdom and the Kingdom of Darkness. We are witnessing a war between two supernatural kingdoms over the hearts of earthly men and women.

The war started in Eden when Eve put her faith in her senses and collected empirical evidence about the forbidden fruit and drew logical inferences that conflicted with God’s instructions (His Word.) The Serpent tricked Eve and she gave her heart to him and put her faith in his instructions, and Adam followed her so that he would not be alone.

What about you? Are you afraid of being alone? Are you afraid of being called an ignorant religious person and being kicked out of the scientific community?

The atheist has faith…faith in energy and matter, and that there is no God. A Christian has faith…faith that there is a God, and that He created the universe.

At the end of the day, it’s all about the heart, and the heart produces faith…..faith in our senses…..or faith in God…so when the Holy Spirit calls, take your pick.