In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Christians are often asked by skeptics to prove God’s existence scientifically. Our answers are seldom satisfying to the non-believer and often frustrating to the Christian offering them. We show the order of the universe as evidence of His planning and intellect. We point to the universe itself to show it must have a cause. But, these attempts so often fall short and we blame ourselves as poor representatives for our Lord.
It turns out the non-believer is asking for something very unreasonable. He’s asking for physical evidence, scientific evidence of a non-physical Being. That’s the core reason for the frustrations of both the believer and skeptic. Science is wonderful. It has provided so many answers over the centuries, but it is not the be all and end all.
Trying to prove God’s existence scientifically is what philosophers call a category error. We do this all the time in figures of speech. We say “my car doesn’t want to start.” But, my car is incapable of “wanting”. It’s not in the “wanting” category.
A Category Error is when something in one category [God] is represented as belonging to another category [the physical universe]. It’s irrational to try and use one category to explain another unless the spiritual realm steps into it as Jesus did when He took on human form.
Jesus told us of the spiritual world. He said God exists, that He loves us, and that He would pay the price for our sins so we might enter His realm and join Him forever. But why should people have believed Him? He may have been just another itinerant preacher telling stories.
The difference, of course, was that Jesus gave physical proof of what He claimed by combining the spiritual with the physical. He used the superiority of the spiritual to heal, to walk on water, to change lives. Likewise, some of the most powerful evidences of God’s existence are the changed lives of His followers. We call these anomalies in nature “miracles.”
Because science won’t look outside the box, outside the physical universe, it can’t deal with many things Christianity has the answer for. J.P. Moreland gives some examples of these in his book, Scientism and Secularism:
- Science alone cannot explain the origins of the universe. It believes there was an origin but can’t explain even the existence of matter, where did it come from. Examination shows it’s not eternal. And if energy and matter are interchangeable as Einstein said, where did the energy come from as well?
- Science alone cannot explain the fundamental laws of nature. There are laws keeping nature in check. Those laws are not physical. So, where did they come from and how do they govern physical matter?
- Science alone cannot explain consciousness. Consciousness is a mystery to science. They can measure it, observe it, even see the evidence of it working , but they can’t tell us how molecules in motion [the origin of life/evolution] became conscious and arrived at E=mc2.
- Science alone cannot explain objective moral values. Why does the most pious priest and the most backward native both agree torturing babies for the fun of it is wrong? How did they arrive at the same morality if there is only the material world? Where does morality come from then?
- What science cannot explain, philosophy and theology can. Theology tells how God is responsible for all the items listed above, yet science will discount that answer because it limits its area of study to the physical.
Scientists take these issues as matters of faith. They have faith that someday a woman in a white lab coat will solve these issues and show science as supreme over the metaphysical. They’re wrong, though, because none of these involve the examination of the material world. If a scientist stands on his faith, a faith in science alone, disappointment will be the result.
“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.”
NASA scientist, Robert Jastro, in his book God and the Astronomers
Believers Armed and Dangerous 