Seeing God Through Science: Exploring the Science Narrative to Strengthen and Deepen Faith in the Creator

Seeing God Through Science

Exploring the Science Narrative to Strengthen and Deepen Faith in the Creator

Barry David Schoub

Seeing God Through Science

Exploring the Science Narrative to Strengthen and Deepen Faith in the Creator

Copyright © 2019 Barry David Schoub. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Wipf & Stock

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-8712-9

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-8713-6

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-8714-3

All scriptural quotations are taken from the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, with kind permission of the Jewish Publication Society.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Search for Truth

Chapter 2: Science and Meta-Science

Chapter 3: Design and Frontiers

Chapter 4: The Human Organism and the Human Soul

Chapter 5: Non-Predicate Theism

Chapter 6: Divine Revelation

Chapter 7: Addressing Atheism, Theism, and Science

Chapter 8: Epilogue

Bibliography

With deepest gratitude to my Creator.

This book is dedicated in great affection to my dear wife Barbara on the occasion of our golden wedding anniversary, and to our dear children, Wendy, Richard, and Peter, and their families.

Preface

I have for several years contemplated writing a book on my personal approach to the oft contentious subject of science and religion. I am neither a professional theologian nor am I a professional philosopher. What has motivated me to put pen to paper is a more than four-decade career that I have enjoyed as a professional biomedical scientist, as well as savoring a deeply meaningful life as a practicing member of the Orthodox Jewish faith. As Lord Bertrand Russell famously said: "Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don’t know. Perhaps, then, it is my background in science (that, I guess I do know), which might sanction my foray into the uncertain sphere of the philosophy of religion—uncertain because there appears to be no general clarity on what philosophy or religion" truly mean. Certainly, it is very clear to us scientists what science means, and what it defines and explains. However, pleas have been made, an example of which I have mentioned in the introductory chapter, for science to look to philosophy to broaden itself beyond its hard, cold facts. More than that, I have felt that science also needs to broaden itself into the realm of theology.

Synchronizing religion with science is becoming relatively uncommon in the modern hyper-secular society and even rarer in the academic scientific community (more usually it is the asynchrony of science or religion). In the many years that I have participated in scientific meetings, rubbing shoulders with my colleagues from around the globe, religion and science would, on not a few occasions, become a topic for tea-time discussion, as my Orthodox Jewish dietary requirements, and my avoidance of work or travel on Saturdays, declared my religious observance. I have, indeed, found it sad that science and scientific knowledge form the paramount tool for non-belief. The statistic which I quote in the introductory chapter of the book of only 7 percent of members of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States believing in a deity, reflected the similar experience I encountered with my own scientific colleagues. I remain, nevertheless, a fervent science patriot. It is indeed difficult not to be overawed with the achievements that twenty-first-century science has made to advance our understanding of the universe, as well as to vastly improve the quality of life of humankind.

It is certainly true that eminent scientists such as Francis Collins (The Language of God, Free Press, 2006) and John Polkinghorne (Science and Religion in Quest of Truth, Yale University Press, 2011), and theologians such as Jonathan Sacks (The Great Partnership, Schocken, 2012), have produced books of great value, substantiating a highly successful symbiotic relationship between science and religion. So why yet another publication on this subject? What ideas can be added to these publications, as well as to the many debates and discussions on the subject, much of which is widely available to the public on the internet? I aim to demonstrate in this book a somewhat different nuance to the more directed approach which these other authors have taken regarding the symbiotic relationship between science and religion. Firstly, I have focused much of my discussion directly on what science reveals, i.e., the science used by atheists to support their claims for the non-existence of God. Nevertheless, it is this science which contributes to the very evidence to support belief in God. The staggering integrated complexity and the overwhelming beauty of the universe, which science reveals, and which continues to be revealed with ever-increasing grandeur, compellingly generates the questions of meaning and purpose. However, meaning and purpose are questions which atheists prefer to avoid; and yet, it is these very questions which thinking humans seek to have answered.

There is a further important feature of the scientific enterprise which I will elaborate on in the book—that of meta-science, i.e. the characteristic pattern of the unfolding of scientific knowledge. This very distinctive pattern repeats itself over and over again with each scientific breakthrough, and in every scientific discipline. Each onward step is followed by the further forward shift of the knowledge frontier. This Sisyphean disposition of science, which I will elaborate on in the book, runs counter to the hubris of the materialist, scientism-oriented non-believer, that science will eventually answer all reality and, therefore, there is no need to resort to any supernatural belief. There is, however, a consideration which needs to be borne in mind in relation to any exclusive admiration of science—that science is a human construct, and the history of scientific achievement reflects what the limits are to what it can reveal. By definition, science operates only within the universe of natural phenomena and, even within natural phenomena, meta-science seems to indicate that there also is, and will continue to be, a limit to the extent of scientific discovery, even within the natural world. It is therefore inapplicable to utilize scientific agencies to explore and investigate the supernatural being.

Manipulations of language and anthropomorphic fallacies are often favored ploys used by atheists to discredit religious faith, but humans are not able to assign attributes to God. Anthropomorphic allusions in the Bible and omni- (omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent) references to God, serve only to utilize human language to make what God communicates to humankind, understandable. They do not qualify any Divine attribute. I have formulated the term non-predicate theism to affirm this cardinal concept. This idea is analogous to the apophatic theology of the early Christian religion and the negative theology of Maimonides in the Jewish religion, but it has now regained its importance in the modern scientific era.

It behooves me to request two indulgences from my readers of this book. Firstly, there is some degree of what is unavoidable gender insensitivity. I tried as far as possible to use the gender-neutral terms of human or humankind. However, in some cases, especially when referring to biblical texts, I have followed the convention of using the male pronoun for references to God and, of course, in quotations, I have remained faithful to the original words used. Secondly, as mentioned above, I am of the Orthodox Jewish faith, and much of the text is oriented to this religion. However I do hope that non-Jewish religious readers would be able to transpose these ideas appropriately into their respective faiths.

Barry D Schoub

Johannesburg, South Africa

2019

Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks to my wife Barbara for proofreading the manuscript and valuable suggestions.

Introduction

A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.

—Albert Einstein, Letter to Robert Thornton

In an article published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA entitled Why Science Needs Philosophy, Laplane and colleagues make a plea for establishing and promoting communication between philosophers and scientists.¹ The increasing specialization of the science of today stands in danger of losing its constituent of the deep reflection which it needs to innovate concepts and visionary ideas. The person of the scientist-philosopher who, in the past, melded the two domains of thought, may now be receding into history, to the detriment of modern science. The pressure to publish and to produce data is in danger of fashioning many scientists into technologists, engineers, and artisans, rather than seekers of knowledge who probe, innovate, and reflect on the information that science research provides. The pressure to produce data, which is so characteristic of the modern scientific enterprise, compromises the ability to look beyond the material. Entering into the science-religion debate, defenders of non-belief have a propensity to restrict intellectual probing to within the physical realm only. The constructs of philosophy are undoubtedly of great value in broadening the capability of the scientific method, and dialogue between philosophers and scientists is undoubtedly mutually beneficial.² As science would benefit from philosophy, and philosophy benefit from science, so would theology benefit from science and, I would venture to propose, the reverse would also be of great value. Regrettably, in the modern era as great a rift as there is between philosophy and science, there is an even greater schism between science and theology. There is little doubt that the physical focus of modern science makes the concept of theism even more in need of defense.

Why defend theism? Should theism be defended merely because of the knock-on benefits to human society? However, in the religion-atheism debate, there is little that is more contentious than this point of dispute. Atheists will be very quick to point out that throughout the history of humankind, most blood has been spilled in religious wars. Furthermore, in more recent times, the weaponization of religion has graphically exemplified the depravity of religious violence when used to serve political goals through terrorism. (On the other hand, it could be pointed out that the most horrific genocidal conflicts of the twentieth century, under Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot, were not driven by religion.) There can be no doubt that the concoction of religion and politics produces an incendiary mixture.³

Does religion benefit society? The costs of society’s ills in the affluent developed world which are due to the rejection of religion, and which has accompanied modernization and secularization, has been well documented.⁴ The psychological benefits of religion to the individual, and the sociological benefits of religion to society, will undoubtedly engender its own debate between believers and nonbelievers. (Epidemiological studies demonstrating a significantly reduced mortality in religiously observant communities may, perhaps, be more relevant to today’s self-interested pragmatic individual.)⁵ However, these considerations do lie outside the ambit of this volume and will not be discussed further. The scope of this book will focus on investigating the essential truth statement of religious belief, which is basically divisible into three components:

1. Does God exist?

2. Did God create the world?

3. Does God control and govern the world?

Pondering on the complexity, the beauty, and the synchrony of the world we live in, we seek answers to where all of what we see and experience came from. Why does this all exist? And what does all of this mean? To many thinkers, modern science may well provide the complete answers to satisfy these inquiries. Why there are droughts, earthquakes, and plagues is now largely understandable; how matter is constituted, what lies beyond the Milky Way, and even how the human species came about, are all becoming more transparent with the enormous progress of the modern scientific enterprise. At the same time, the creed of scientific humanism (or secular humanism) is being offered to serve as an alternate to religion. Science and humanism are dispensing with the need to search for the existence of God, and instead purport to utilize human reason for logical inquiry, and ethical norms for structuring society. All of this is based on a naturalistic explanation of the world, and reality as defined through scientific knowledge.

This book will posit a contrary interpretation of science. It will aim to demonstrate that science and religion are far from being in conflict with each other. Indeed, it is the very science narrative itself, which is a divine gift to humankind, and which furnishes humans with the fundamental evidence for the existence of the Creator—who lies outside the naturalistic world he created. What science has achieved is to develop the framework of those questions that plead for a meaningful response to those inquiries which lie beyond nature. These are the questions of the origin, the meaning, the purpose, and the governance of a universe revealed by science. In addition to details of the grandeur and the complexity of the universe unveiled to humankind by science, it is also the very process of scientific exploration itself, i.e., meta-science, which generates its own questions. The answers to these questions provide further compelling support for belief in a reality that lies beyond the naturalistic world of science.

It is clear that religion in the developed world, which is inadequately supported by an intellectual foundation, is becoming progressively more vulnerable to non-belief, largely proportional to the veritable explosion of modern scientific knowledge. The question has even been asked whether religion can survive the inexorable march of science.⁶ There are, in fact, some claims that the fastest growing religion in the West, particularly in Western Europe, is no religion. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, the religiously unaffiliated — referred to as the nones—accounted for 16 percent of the world’s population.⁷ In the Americas and Europe the nones constituted the second largest religious group, making up a quarter or more of the population. In the United Kingdom and Germany a National Geographic study predicted that religion would fade from relevancy as the world modernizes and countries such as France, Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia "will soon have majority secular populations."⁸ The manifest progress of atheism is best illustrated by studies of the religious affiliation in the youth. A study commissioned by the Benedict XVI Center for Religion and Society, published in 2018, found that 70 percent of young adults (aged 16 to 29) in the United Kingdom, 64