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THE NATURE OF GOD I am pleased to be invited to participate with my two colleagues, Dr. Ingrid Shafer and Dr. Tom Boyd, as we discuss the Nature of God. I guess my task is to present the scientific approach to the nature of God, and I will do my best to represent that viewpoint. As a believer in God, I do believe that there is a valid viewpoint for the existence of God, or as Ted Peters calls it, a Consonance. I recognize that there are several very vocal scientists who would deny the existence of God, or that God could ever have a place in the scientific viewpoint. I disagree with that perspective, as do a significant percentage of American scientists. Perhaps by way of background, I should describe the premises that modern science rests upon. Often this is referred to as methodological naturalism, or methodological nontheism. This position can be described by four statements that most scientists hold as the foundation upon which science stands. These four statements are: 1) Nature, whose reality we can substantiate, can be understood. (comprehensibility) 2) Given the proper set of circumstances, nature can be perceived in the same way by any number of observers. (repeatability) 3) Human reason is reliable and adequate to understand nature. (rationality) 4) Every effect has a cause. (causality) (Harrington 10) In fact, Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” How does methodological naturalism fit with these foundations? If one assumes that something outside of nature could influence or change the workings of the natural laws that govern the universe, then we could have effects that have no cause, or experiments that are not repeatable. The comprehensibility and rationality of the universe would be destroyed, and man would be enslaved by the whim and caprice of “beings” or “demons” beyond his reach. That is precisely the superstitious model of the universe that precedes the age of reason, and one to which science is loathe to return. Thus, it is axiomatic that what experiments we do, what effects we as scientists observe, must fit within the realm of natural law governing the universe. Einstein phrased it thus: “The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature.” (26) To view it in any other way is generally considered unscientific. Does this view of natural law affect the scientist’s view of the nature of God? I think it must. Such a perspective would typically prohibit the action of God in response to prayer, for example. Miracles, such as those recorded in scripture, would therefore violate the natural order of things, and thus must not be true. In this view, God can be a First Cause but not an intervening cause. God becomes impersonal, exemplified by words such as Truth and Beauty. God can be Creator but not sustainer of the universe. In general, this is a deistic view of God, in which God winds up the universe, sets it in motion, and then goes on vacation (or perhaps sets back and watches it with amusement). And yet, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is not distant or uncaring. He is clearly portrayed as a personal God, a Father who views us as his children. Can such a view be reconciled with the perspective of science? While Einstein would unequivocally say “No,” other writers have looked at things somewhat differently. For example, Robert John Russell suggests that science is far less deterministic than naturalism would presume. He writes: “For the past two to three centuries, we were given a choice between two understandings of special providence: (1) as the objective acts of God in nature and history to which we respond – but these acts can only be understood as divine interventions into the natural and historical world, or (2) as our subjective response to God’s acts – but these acts must be understood as uniformly the same in all events. My thesis is that this assumption no longer holds and we now have a third option. The old choice was based on classical physics and modern, reductionist philosophy. Today, because of changes in the natural sciences, including quantum physics, genetics, evolution, and the mind/brain problem, and because of changes in philosophy, including the move from reductionism to holism and the legitimacy of including whole/part and top/down analysis, we can now understand special providence as the objective acts of God in nature and history and we can understand these acts in a non-interventionist manner consistent with science. Whether God did, or does, act in specific instances remains an open question, of course, but it can no longer be ruled out automatically by the charge of interventionism.” [Emphasis in the original.] (79) The key to this change in many ways relates to the changes in our understanding of physics at the beginning of the 20th century. With the development of quantum theory, physics moved from a totally deterministic set of laws to laws that rested ultimately upon probability. For example, given a mole of U-238, we can accurately foretell the number of alpha-particle emissions that will occur in a fixed time period, but we cannot predict which of the nuclei will emit those alpha particles. Those nuclear decays are governed by the probability of quantum mechanics, and nothing in our understanding will make them totally deterministic. Russell suggests that this quantum indeterminacy provides a way for God to act without violating the order of natural law. His argument is that, at an atomic or molecular level, God can act within the probabilities that exist to bring about his will. In Russell’s words, “most of the broad, general characteristics of the macroscopic world are a function and result of the character of quantum events and God’s action as creator there.” (93) Personally, I am not especially thrilled by Russell’s suggestion. I think it smacks of a “God-of-the-gaps” approach rather than imbuing God with the power to do whatever He wishes with his creation. Yet, what Russell seeks to do is to reconcile the methodology of science with the reality of a personal God, one who does answer prayers and intervene in the lives of his believers. Perhaps it is significant that Einstein never was comfortable with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, which required that probability would govern action at the atomic or molecular level. Perhaps he saw this as the opportunity for divine intervention in the world. At any rate, Niels Bohr’s response to the famous Einstein saying, that “God does not play dice with the universe,” may have some relevance in our discussion tonight. Bohr is reported to have said, “Albert, you must quit telling God what to do.” And so, perhaps, should we. At any rate, whether one believes that a personal God who acts is consonant with the methodology of science or not, I do believe that science is not the correct vehicle to determine the redemptive nature of God. Yet, even in saying that, I believe that our natural world reveals to us much of significance about God, as even the apostle Paul said in the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans, “…since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made…” What we observe in nature does not hide God from us, but should help us to know at least some of his attributes. What do we see? Foremost, we see order in the universe. That order is a consequence of the natural laws, the physical laws that govern the entire universe. Physicist Stephen Barr, in his book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, points out that there is a deep and subtle symmetry underlying these laws. He makes the point that the four forces known in nature – gravitational force, electromagnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces – are all based on fundamental symmetries. He writes, “When we say that all these forces are ‘based on’ symmetries, we mean several things. Most profoundly, the very fact that there are such forces in nature is a consequence of these symmetries. If nature did not have these symmetries, it would also not have these forces…The structures of the mathematical laws governing these forces are to a large extent determined by their underlying symmetries. So much is this the case that modern fundamental physics is not so much driven by the search for new kinds of matter or new forces, but for the new and more powerful principles of symmetry that are suspected to lie beneath the surface of what is presently understood.” (102) Such would be the case with current explorations of string theory, as described by Brian Green’s best-selling book, The Elegant Universe, and the subject of a recent 3part NOVA miniseries. But what does this mean in our search for the nature of God? Barr concludes, “If symmetry is found in works of art of every sort and is an important element in what it is to be beautiful, and if as well the laws of nature are based on symmetries that are so sophisticated and so deep that while we may study them with the tools of modern mathematics they lie far above our mental powers to appreciate on an intuitive level, does that not suggest the mind of an artist at work that is far above the level of our own minds?” (104) Barr’s view is that the symmetries we observe that underlie the natural laws in physics suggest the existence of purposeful design rather than haphazard accident or random chance. And the elegance and subtlety of this design indicates a Designer who powers far exceed those of mere man. Barr again states, “If the ultimate laws of nature are, as scientists can now begin to discern, of great subtlety and beauty, one must ask where this design comes from. Can science explain it? That is not possible, for if science always explains design by showing it to be part of or a consequence of a deeper and greater design [i.e, a deeper and greater symmetry], then it has no way to explain the ultimate design of nature. The ultimate laws of physics are the end of the road of scientific explanation. One cannot go any farther in that direction.” (106) And hence comes the dilemma posed by presupposing naturalism: One cannot invoke any form of supernatural explanation for what one observes, yet the scientific explanation is inherently limited in its ability to explain where those laws arise. In many ways, science points towards what it cannot invoke. One cannot determine from a study of science whether the personal God displayed in the Bible exists. As we have seen, despite the premise of methodological naturalism that lies at the heart of modern science, Robert Russell has suggested a way that the action of a divine God could be consistent with our understanding of science, that is, that such action would not be viewed as a violation of the natural laws that govern science. At the same time, Russell states that whether such action has actually occurred is “an open question.” Similarly, Einstein in denying that God could or would act in the world, states that “the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science…” (26) So I believe that the question of whether God is a personal God who acts in this world is not an appropriate question to ask of science. But what science may be able to discern is the infinity of God, the depth of the mind of God, the aspect of order and symmetry that the laws of nature reveal to us. More than just Truth and Beauty, but certainly encompassing them as well, science may reveal to us “His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature.” References: Barr, Stephen M., Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, Notre Dame, IN: U. of Notre Dame Press, 2003 Einstein, Albert, Out of my Later Years, New York: Wings Books, 1996. Harrington, John, Discovering Science, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. Russell, Robert J., “Does the ‘God Who Acts’ Really Act in Nature?” Science and Theology, The New Consonance, Ted Peters, ed., Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. 77-102.