The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel [47]
“I remember when I first began teaching a college course on the evidence for God, I got flack from some people who claimed that these kinds of arguments can produce an idol of the mind or make science a god. I felt a little reticent for a while—but no longer. I’ve come to an even stronger conviction that this is evidence that God has used to reveal himself to us.
“I look at the stars in the night sky or reflect on the structure and information-bearing properties of the DNA molecule, and these are occasions for me to worship the Creator who brought them into existence. I think of the wry smile that might be on the lips of God as in the last few years all sorts of evidence for the reliability of the Bible and for his creation of the universe and life have come to light. I believe he has caused them to be unveiled in his providence and that he delights when we discover his fingerprints in the vastness of the universe, in the dusty relics of paleontology, and in the complexity of the cell.
“So exploring the scientific and historical evidence for God is not only a cognitive exercise, but it’s an act of worship for me. It’s a way of giving the Creator the credit and honor and glory that are due to him. To attribute creation to a mere natural process is a form of idolatry to which we’re all prone. I don’t judge my naturalistic colleagues for being prone to that. That’s how I’m constituted as well. All of us have a tendency to minimize God, to think and behave as if we weren’t really immersed in his creation and that we aren’t ourselves the product of his unimaginable creative power.
“Looking at the evidence—in nature and in Scripture—reminds me over and over again of who he is. And it reminds me of who I am too—someone in need of him.”
For Further Evidence
More Resources on This Topic
Dembski, William. The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design. Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004.
McGrath, Alister. Glimpsing the Face of God. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans. 2002.
Meyer, Stephen C. “Evidence for Design in Physics and Biology.” In Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe, eds. Michael J. Behe, William A. Dembski, and Stephen C. Meyer. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1999.
——. “Modern Science and the Return of the God Hypothesis.” In Science and Christianity: Four Views, ed. Richard F. Carlson. Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000.
Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1989.
Witham, Larry. By Design: Science and the Search for God. San Francisco: Encounter, 2003.
5
THE EVIDENCE OF COSMOLOGY: BEGINNING WITH A BANG
Set aside the many competing explanations of the Big Bang; something made an entire cosmos out of nothing. It is this realization—that something transcendent started it all—which has hard-science types . . . using terms like ‘miracle.’
Journalist Gregg Easterbrook 1
Perhaps the best argument . . . that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas . . . being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his or her theory.
Astrophysicist C. J. Isham 2
My eyes scanned the magazines at the newsstand near my home. A beautiful woman graced Glamour. Sleek, high-performance cars streaked across the front of Motor Trend. And there on the cover of Discover magazine, sitting by itself, unadorned, floating in a sea of pure white background, was a simple red sphere. It was smaller than a tennis ball, tinier than a Titleist—just three quarters of an inch in diameter, not too much bigger than a marble.
As staggering as it seemed, it represented the actual size of the entire universe when it was just an infinitesimal fraction of one second old. Cried out the headline: Where Did Everything