Is there really a Christian God, or are we just deluding ourselves? This is the question that I have been wrestling with in a new way over the past few months. As a man who has spent his entire working career in ministry (9 years since graduating college) this is extremely unsettling. Doubt is normal. Exploring the reasons for our belief is normal. I have experienced both of these in the past 10 years. But this doubt is different. I’ve explored doubt before without my faith shaking. I’ve always felt God and Christianity are the most plausible and reasonable belief. I’ve never feared asking the tough questions because if God is true – and I’ve believed He is – then any honest question that finds resolution should find resolution in a way that accounts for that God. In the last month, however, I have found that the answers I have previously known are now ineffective in quelling the doubt I feel. God is silent in showing up in those questions. Further, I fear that perhaps in all the answers and questions I have had in the past I have simply deluded myself into accepting answers which really are insufficient. Are we Christians just fooling ourselves? I’ve begun wondering about the alternative views outside of God and that has led me to realize that there are valid arguments out there – at least at first glance. My skepticism has grown to a point that has me doubting skeptically almost all Christian views…and even non-Christian views at times.
As a result of this doubt I have taken a number of weeks off of direct ministry work in order to ground myself in study and reflection. I have one month…4 weeks in addition to the side work I have done previously. In this time, I need to explore what I believe and why. This blog will be one place to process my thoughts as I debate the reality of God and the arguments for His existence.
20 comments:
i'm listening.
I am praying for your journey that God will show Himself in a way that is without a doubt him. I pray that over the next 30 days you find more answers than questions and that your faith grows stronger than ever! I love you!
mike, thanks for being so transparant through this -- i know it can't be easy.
also know that brian & i are here for you to talk with (whether about important stuff or just to have fun) no matter what. no judgments. nothing about our friendship has changed.
this is long...i apologize in advance:
you’ll have to forgive me if this is a bit disjointed – I’ll try to keep it as coherent as possible, but you have to remember I’m trying to think & write between feedings, laundry, diapers, and the hokey pokey…
anyway, I’ve been thinking over the past few hours &, being a nerd at heart, you have really inspired me to study up on this topic again – it’s been several years & it’s about time that I put my brain to use on something other than creative ways to mask the odor of poopy diapers.
so…here’s what I’ve been looking at today: the “design argument” for the existence of God.
it was first really publicized by William Paley, who used the idea that the design of a watch implied a watchmaker, or a designer. basically, design in man-made things point to a designer, so the design of living things also implies a designer, God.
Isaac Asimov (who was staunchly anti-creationist) said, “In man there is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe.” This, according the Paley, proves that there is a designer.
Dr. Michael Denton, a non-christian scientist & medical doctor, said, “In practically every field of fundamental biological research ever-increasing levels of design & complexity are being revealed at an ever-accelerating rate.”
Richard Dawkins (one of the most outspoken evolutionists of our time) admits to this problem: “We have seen that living things are too improbably and too beautifully ‘designed’ to have come into existence by chance.” Where the Christian would put “God” in the place of chance (since chance is improbable), Dawkins puts the “blind forces of physics” and natural selection. He calls it a “blind watchmaker” in rebuttal to Paley’s intelligent designer. But then he goes on to say that “the more statistically improbable a thing is, the less we can believe that it just happened by blind chance. Superficially THE OBVIOUS ALTERNATIVE TO CHANCE IS AN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER” (emphasis mine). He finds a way to reject the designer, though, by saying that the first beings were simple enough to have come into existence by chance & mutations and natural selection happened gradually to produce life as we know it today.
There are some problems with his ideas, though.
natural selection only operates on the information that is ALREADY contained in the gene – it does not produce new information (it only rearranges, sorts and separates information).
so we are left with the question of mutations. can they produce new info? Dr. Lee Spetner says, “All point mutations that have been studied on a molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it.” The theory of evolution demands millions of mutations which add information, and according to scientific research there may not even be one that does that. Dr. Werner Gitt is another scientist who has looked into this and is in agreement with Spetner’s research.
the faith of Christians is that there is a creator God who is beyond time who designed the universe in all its complexity. this is logically defensible according to the scientific evidence regarding the complexity of living things.
the faith of the atheist is that information and order can arise from disorder by chance – which goes against much scientific evidence.
eek.
sorry this got long – I get excited when I get to do nerdy things! plus, the boys are refusing to sleep & it’s a good way for me to get my mind off of their crying!
you'll have to forgive me for this posting insanity, but i have really gotten into this studying & it gives me something somewhat intellectual to do (and keeps me away from daytime tv).
feel free to ignore me if you want to, it just seems a shame to spend my morning on this and then not share it...
As far as criticisms of the design argument go, it seems (in my research) that the most common ones stem from David Hume’s criticisms of it. Some of which are much better than others, but I wanted to take a look at them.
1st, he says that we cannot prove that one thing “causes” anything else – only what are trends through history – therefore we cannot make a causal claim on the universe because it only happened once and we can see no pattern of what happens.
Perhaps I cannot prove that God created the universe – in fact, I don’t see how we can prove anything that would take thousands or billions of years to reproduce in a lab experiment (if we could do that at all). However, I can see that, over the history of my life & my understanding of science, that no matter of any kind has ever spontaneously come into existence all on its own.
He says the watch/watchmaker analogy is a weak one. According to Hume, just because the universe works like a machine does not mean it can be compared to one.
Why not? I ask. Aren’t all analogies weak? Don’t they all break down at some point? They are used to illustrate an idea, not prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Next, Hume asks why we can so easily tell the difference between what was man-made (intelligently designed) and what is natural, if the natural also had a designer.
Even modern supporters of Hume find that this argument is a bit weak. Clearly, when we look at a watch, we are seeing the whole created thing. When we look at a rock, we are only seeing a part of the entire creation. If we were to just see one piece of the metal that makes up a watch, we might not immediately recognize it as a created object either.
Hume goes on to assert that we cannot assume that the whole of nature is ordered, when we see only a small part of it.
With the benefit of modern science, though, we can see that the more we study, the more we break things down and look at them, the more structure and order we find, not less.
He says that even if there is order, there is no reason to attribute this order to a rational being. Hume uses the analogy of the order bestowed on the offspring of trees and animals without the tree or animal knowing the order that is being passed on.
Again, Hume’s supporters see the flaws in this argument. He uses a weak analogy to try to debunk the idea of design, and then turns around and uses his own weak analogy (universe being compared to a tree) to attempt to bolster his argument.
Besides, he (and I) are looking at the tree with a presupposition: he supposes that there is no God, and therefore the tree’s “passing on” of order is the result of the tree and nothing more; I suppose that there is a God, and so I see the designer or the tree & its reproductive systems as aware of (and the designer of) the order which is “passed on.”
The last of Hume’s criticisms of the design argument for the existence of God, in my humble opinion, seems more to support it than go against the idea. He says that even if the universe is intelligently designed, the design argument doesn’t prove that the designer is the Judeo-Christian God.
The fact that he even goes in this direction with his statements makes me wonder. If the design argument is so inherently flawed, why would he even need to make this point? If I believe the sky is purple, why would I need to qualify my belief with the statement, “Well, even if it is blue, that doesn’t mean…”? It seems to weaken his point.
Regardless of whether or not it weakens his point, the idea of the design argument is to prove the existence of God. Whether that Creator is the God of the Bible or something else is a topic for a different discussion.
Looking forward to reading about the journey, and supporting it however I am able. God bless you in this pursuit of truth.
Thanks to all of you for your encouragement and comments. Keep them comming. I THRIVE on the feedback.
Meg, nicely stated. If that's what you do between caring for the boys, you have me outdone. Your "nerd at heart" response is certainly speaking my language. Keep it comming. I think I may address some of these things in a future post rather than here. For now, let me just say that this is one topic I am looking into quite extensively. Your point of no "beneficial mutations" is one I look forward to researching more.
Prior to this struggle I could not understand why any intelligent individual would believe in natural causes for what exists (i.e. evolution). I've sense understood more of the viewpoint and criticisms against intelligent design, but am nowhere near saying I therefore reject Intelligent Design. I am in process with it and will continue to welcome the input.
mike -- i'm looking forward to hearing in later posts what you have found on these ideas.
i'm working on researching a couple of other arguments for the existence of God & will let you know if anything else interesting crops up -- i'm sure it will.
in the meantime, here are a couple of links about the idea of mutations adding information:
spetner's explanation of his research: http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199909/0480.html
another site defining mutations (not super-helpful, but interesting): http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/mutations.html
a site addressing the problems with mutations causing increased complexity & with many links to other sites: http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/mutations.html
i don't think there's going to be a water-tight answer on this one, since the creationist sites & scientists are defining things differently than the evolutionist ones are.
one thing i think is pretty clear, though, is that the question is not whether or not certain mutations are "beneficial" but whether or not new, more complex genetic material arises from these mutations. that would have to be the case frequently, in my opinion, to explain evolution, since human beings have a much, much more complex genome than a bacterium.
My prayers are always with you hunny, I love you
mom
Michael, while I was visiting and we had talked for a short bit about your struggles I got to thinking how tramatic this is for you. You have lived your life with God as your main focus since you were a teenager. God is not only in your dailey life but your work life also. I wish I could take away all your pain and your doubts. I wish as your mother I could give you some great wisdom to solve all your doubts, but you know as well as me--like that will ever happen :)
You have been my hero for so many years, you are the reason for my strong belief in God, after all God gave me the most precious of gifts, HE GAVE ME YOU. I will cont my prayers for you and your journey. know that I love you with all my heart, and I have great ears if you ever need to just talk.
love ya babe.
mom
Yes, mom, you are right. This is a big deal since so much of my life is staked in it (my marriage is founded on my faith, my career, my goals and focus in life, etc). It's something I do not take lightly. It is both scary and exciting - in the sense that this could be a next stage in closeness with God, or it could be a life change that will literally alter all that I know. Thanks for your comments.
Ok, so I really dont think on "deep" terms at all, but I was wondering if someone believes in evolution, why are we not evolving now? Why would have evolution slowed down or stopped?
Maybe that is silly, but...?
Mike, you and Kevin are both an inspiration to me to look deeper and ask the hard questions. I appreciate you sharing your struggles with us. Thank you for being a friend to us.
Jill
Oh, and I forgot...
You have the best blog name EVER! It makes me chuckle.
“We are invited, brethren, most earnestly to go away from the old-fashioned belief of our forefathers because of the supposed discoveries of science. What is science? The method by which man tries to conceal his ignorance. It should not be so, but so it is. You are not to be dogmatic in theology my brethren, it is wicked; but for scientific men it is the correct thing. You are never to assert anything very strongly; but scientists may boldly assert what they cannot prove, and may demand a faith far more credulous than any we possess. Forsooth, you and I are to take our Bibles and shape and mould our belief according to the ever-shifting teachings of so-called scientific men. What folly is this! Why, the march of science, falsely so called, through the world may be traced by exploded fallacies and abandoned theories. Former explorers once adored are now ridiculed; the continual wreckings of false hypotheses is a matter of universal notoriety. You may tell where the learned have encamped by the debris left behind of suppositions and theories as plentiful as broken bottles.”
C.H. Spurgeon.
Mike Norden
Mike - great quote from Spurgen. I'm going to post some thoughts on the reliability of Science shortly.
Jill - You underestimate yourself! You question gets deep. Are we evolving today? From my limited understanding, evolutionists will debate it due to a number of factors. For those that say no 1. We are better at addapting our environments to our needs now and therefore, not as needy of biological evolution for adaptation, 2. Medical advances have caused (in essense) a lack of need for certain types of evolution or a removal of anything that seems "different," etc.
However, there are other examples that we are evolving: Differences in races, in intellects, etc. Others say that there is high likelihood that some change or some mutation will occur in humans that will change them substantially, regardless of our ability to adapt, but that this will take time (I'd like to have a power like on Heroes). There are also a number of examples from other species such as plants and what are called "ring species" (look it up on Google).
Again, all of this is pretty debatable in regards to evolving across species (macroevolution).
Finally, here are two opposite view articles that I found. I am not endorsing them as their sources are questionable, but it gives some further reading which I found quickly:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2002/feb/03/genetics.research
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Humans-Are-Evolving-Now-Faster-Than-Ever-73169.shtml
We are thinking beings, and there is nothing wrong with using your intellect to discover what you believe. Even the disciples doubted. The disciples who saw Jesus' miracles with their own eyes, who sat at his feet and heard his every word, who watched him die, and who saw his resurrected body. Even they had doubts. They wanted to touch his hands and see him eat fish... I will pray that you will come out on the other side of this period of your journey with stronger faith in Him. In the meantime, I will enjoy reading your thoughts here.
another novel for you!
okay – so I’ve been looking into the cosmological argument for God’s existence a bit more. josh did a great job introducing in on Sunday, but I really felt the need to understand all the arguments a bit better. most of the stuff he said was vaguely familiar to me – I even heard William lane craig speak about it when I was in college – but I just didn’t feel like I had much of a grasp on all the details. and since I’m such a nerd, I can’t stand to repeat anything without really knowing what I’m talking about.
I found that there are really 2 different cosmological arguments for the existence of God. 1. the Kalam cosmological argument 2. the cosmological argument from contingency
the cosmological argument from contingency goes back as far as plato, Aquinas, Leibniz. it states that everything that is “contingent” (not necessary) has a cause of its existence. the universe is contingent, therefore the universe has a 1st cause, i.e. God.
something is considered “necessary” if it could not possibly have failed to exist. something is “contingent” if it could have failed to exist. the universe is considered contingent for several reasons. first, it is made up of entirely contingent parts. you and I are contingent. the city of denver is contingent. the earth as we know it is contingent. even our galaxy could have formed in a way that the stars and planets we know would not be here. it is contingent. also, to say that the universe is necessary (not contingent) is to say that its non-existence is impossible. most impossibilities involve logical contradictions (for example, a square circle). there is no logical contradiction in the idea of the universe not existing. the universe, then, appears to be contingent.
because the universe is contingent, it requires an explanation. the existence of necessary things does not require explanation – their non-existence is impossible.
the explanation of the contingent universe is that there exists a necessary being on which its existence rests – a creator, a designer.
the Kalam cosmological argument is the one which josh expounded upon in the forum on Sunday. it states that everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence. because the universe has a beginning of its existence it has a 1st cause.
supporters of this argument use both science and math to prove that the past, the universe, is finite. mathematically speaking, there are 3 ways.
1. the impossibility of an actual infinite. potential infinites exist. they are purely conceptual. we can imagine a thing as being infinite. but actual infinites pose problems. there is the Hilbert’s Hotel paradox: there are an infinite number of rooms with an infinite number of guests staying in them. so, all the rooms are full & not another guest can be accommodated. but if a new guest arrives, everyone can be moved down a room (room 1 occupant goes to room 2, etc) so that room 1 is now free and available to accommodate a new guest. it’s a paradox because it is not possible for a hotel to be able to accommodate new guests and at the same time not be able to accommodate new guests. but if the rooms are infinite, that would be exactly what happens. the same concept could be applied to infinite moments in the past.
2. the impossibility of an actual infinite created by successive addition. if one begins with a number and repeatedly adds 1 to it, one will never arrive at infinity. the past is created by successive addition, therefore it cannot be infinite.
3. the impossibility of an actual infinite that has been traversed. if I went on a journey to a point in space that was infinitely distant, I would never get there. infinite space cannot be traversed. the past has been traversed, therefore the past cannot be infinite.
science can also prove that the universe is finite. the big bang theory for how the universe was formed is a beginning. hubbel’s observation that the universe is expanding and becoming less dense means that, traced back through time, the universe becomes closer together & more & more dense, implying a beginning time.
since the universe is not infinite, it had to have a cause. logically, that cause cannot be subject the same principle as the universe – therefore it has to be an infinite cause. a creator or designer who is outside of the realm of time.
in regard to the articles about human "evolution," it is pretty sketchy as far as any species becoming anything else. to postulate that the mingling of races, etc. is evidence of evolution is like saying that the existence of a "puggle" (poodle/pug mix) or other breeds that didn't exist 100 years ago is evidence that dogs are evolving into something much more than simple housepets. a dog is still a dog. it's never going to achieve the much superior intellect of a cat. no matter how hard it tries.
It's been 2 days since that post about Hume & such...I thought I'd break up what I've been doing into 2 posts (to spare everyone). The previous, and now, this. be prepared.
Dr. Francis Crick, Nobel Prize Winner & co-discoverer of DNA: “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of live appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.”
All the study of science that had to go into my trying to understand the cosmological argument for the existence of God led me to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (I will hereafter refer to it as 2LOT, so I don’t cramp my fingers typing that word). A lot of creationists use this as an argument against the possibility of evolution, but there seems to be quite a bit of controversy surrounding that idea. So, naturally, I had to look into it.
(I feel like this is a bit disjointed, but I had to spend so long researching this on so many different sites before I felt like I had something coherent to put together, that it was difficult to make it flow. I’ll do my best. Sorry if it’s choppy.)
There are many ways to define or break down what the law says:
• The entropy of an isolated system which is not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.
• over time, the useable energy in the universe is becoming less and less
• left to themselves, chemical compounds ultimately break apart into simpler materials – outside forces can increase order, but only temporarily
• a universal law of decay
• over time, differences in temperature, pressure, & density tend to even out in a physical system that is isolated from the outside world
• out of order, chaos will be created
Physicists insist that 2LOT is “only about heat transfer,” but in chemical contexts it is acceptable to express it in terms of entropy, and entropy changes imply changes in randomness. Changes in randomness implies an inherent direction which a process will take (without outside intervention) . One cannot divorce the implications from the law.
Because of 2LOT we do not expect simple molecules to become complex in a random fashion. However, naturalistic evolution requires that atoms organize themselves into increasingly complex & beneficial arrangements.
Evolutionists would cite a few examples to prove that certain things can become more ordered, and therefore, an increase in biological complexity from a bacterium to a human could occur. They reference the snowflake, the seed to tree or fertilized egg to baby process, or thermonuclear fusion.
The Snowflake (crystallization). Here, the structure goes from simple to complex. Does this prove that 2LOT isn’t true or doesn’t apply to evolution? Crystallization happens to specific elements at specific times and under specific conditions. It is intrinsic to the atomic structure of the element or compound being considered – it is already built in. It is NOT random. It happens EVERY TIME under the prescribed conditions. That’s not what has to happen for evolution to occur.
Thermonuclear Fusion. The increase in complexity demonstrated here is at the expense of a tremendous loss of heat at light, which then diffuse as per 2LOT. Also, the reactions are specific and take place in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, with the same elements, under the same conditions. Atomic fusion, like crystallization can be considered a matter of the design of the elements involved. It is NOT random.
Biological increase in complexity: seed to tree or fertilized egg to human. There is certainly an increase there, but the design is ALREADY present in the DNA, along with whatever is “sparking” the change. This is NOT evolution, but development that is pre-programmed within each creature.
Scientists say, that just like monkeys pounding out Shakespeare on a typewriter, it is possible for an organism to have a decrease in entropy or an increase in complexity. This is called Maxwell’s Demon. Harold Bum, a Princeton physicist, breaks down the probability (and plausibility) of such a thing really happening. If we assume the presence of an abundance of amino acids, assume the proper catalysts are present, assume favorable temperature & moisture conditions (side note from me – we are already assuming an awful lot here, and we all know that to assume makes a you-know-what out of “u” & “me”). If we assume all those things, then the chances of getting a polypeptide of just 10 amino acids would be only 1 in 10 to the 20th power. Assume all of those favorable conditions last until 1 protein is made (approx. 10 thousand atoms in a protein). Millions of proteins are still required for the next step toward life. Even if complex amino acid chains could be produced, 2LOT tells us that since they are reversible chemical processes, they would begin to break down over time.
Is it possible for evolution to occur, going against 2LOT? Sure, anything is possible. But do I think it’s PLAUSIBLE. Not based on what research I’ve found on the subject.
Kelly, welcome to the conversation and thanks for your kind words.
Meg, do your kids just sleep all day? Where are you getting this time? ;-)
Let me go ahead and give you here the arguments I'm looking at and possibly going toward since you are getting ahead of me a bit (this is not a guarantee I will get to all these or take the time to blog them)...
- Cosmological Arguments
- Design Arguments (Intelligent Design/Evolution)
- Arguments based on Mind, Morality, and Meaning
- Reliability of Scripture
- Miracles and Resurrection
- Who was Jesus really
- Where is God today? (problem of Evil, prayer as probability, Validity of Religious experience)
Don't hesitate to keep going on your thoughts, I just may wait for a main entry to address some of them so they don't get buried in these comments. I love that this is giving you a chance to stimulate that brain.
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