Transcendental Questions: Why are we here? How did life come to be?
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Transcendental Questions:
How did the universe and the life in it come to be?
“Transcendental” refers to matters that lie beyond practical experience and cannot be discovered or understood purely by reasoning. Such questions can’t be answered without looking at the universe in detail.
Humans have always looked up at the stars and wondered, “Where did stars come from?” and “Why are we here?” Science didn’t really have information detailed enough to address these questions until the 1970s or 80s. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer wrote Signature in the Cell (https://a.co/d/h41pP21 2009) and Return of the God Hypothesis (https://a.co/d/e1qKuRQ 2021) to address the implications of three discoveries:
1) Evidence from cosmology suggests that the material universe had a beginning (Big Bang).
2) Evidence from physics showing that the universe has been “finely tuned” to support life.
3) Evidence from biology establishes that large amounts of new functional genetic information have appeared in our biosphere to make new forms of life possible.
These books total 1179 pages. This article summarizes Dr. Meyer’s demonstration that our detailed knowledge of cosmology and biology show that intelligent design is the most logical explanation for the detailed order of the universe and for the vast amount of genetic information and information processing needed for living cells to reproduce.
Reproduction is a requirement for evolution to happen, of course, because evolution works only by increasing reproductive success to spread favorable mutations. Dr. Meyer shows that neither the universe nor the life in it could have come about purely by chance. Both require intelligent, directed design.
Intelligent Design is in opposition to “Materialism,” the belief that the universe and everything in it came about through the random interaction of matter and energy over billions of years. Dr. Meyer shows that materialism cannot explain what caused the matter and energy to exist in the first place. He also shows that random interaction cannot explain the existence of life even if given billions of years to make it happen.
Early Views
The information Dr. Meyer presents was collected using scientific methods that originated in Western Europe.
Science requires enough agricultural productivity to permit scholars to spend all their time thinking. There had to be enough technology to create experimental apparatus, and there had to be system of writing which included numbers so that experimental results could be shared and preserved. God Hypothesis, p 21
“. . . the material necessities for conducting science existed in many well-developed cultures. The Egyptians erected great pyramids, palaces, and funerary monuments. The Chinese invented the compass, block printing, and gunpowder. The Romans built great roads and aqueducts. And the Greeks had great philosophers, some of whom studied nature extensively. Yet none of these cultures developed the systematic methods for investigating nature that arose in Western Europe between about 1500 and 1750.” God Hypothesis, p 21
Dr. Meyer explains why the Greeks never developed the “scientific method.”
“Although the Greek philosophers thought that nature reflected an underlying order, they nevertheless believed that this order issued from an intrinsic self-existent logical principle called the logos, rather than from a mind or divine being with a will. [The Passion of the Western Mind, p 47] For this reason, many Greek thinkers assumed that they could deduce how nature ought to behave from first principles based upon only superficial observations of natural phenomena or without actually observing nature at all.” God Hypothesis, p 22
The Greeks believed that it was necessary for God to have created the universe in a way that operated according to their principles of logic. Aristotelian reasoning from their principles which showed how God had to have created the universe blocked scientific progress. Aristotle insisted that the universe was eternal, God could not create new species, God could not have made more than one planetary system, God could not give planets noncircular orbits, and placed many other limitations on God. God Hypothesis, p 23
The Biblical creation account freed thinkers from such “necessitarian thinking.” Unlike the Greeks, Biblical theologians believed that the operation of nature came from the will of a rational God.
“the order in nature was the product not of logical necessity, but of rational deliberation and choice, what the Scottish theologian Thomas Torrance calls “contingent rationality.” God Hypothesis, p 23
“modern science was specifically inspired by the conviction that the universe is the product of a rational mind who designed the universe to be understood and who also designed the human mind to understand it.” God Hypothesis, p 24
As scientists learned more and more about the “laws of science” which determined how the universe and the living creatures in it functioned, God was reduced to explaining the few remaining ideas that science had not yet addressed. Secular scientists were confident that this “God of the gaps” would disappear.
Richard Dawkins’ book The Blind Watchmaker (1986) argued that updated Darwinian Theory could explain the “appearance of design” in biological systems without requiring a designing intelligence. His later books River out of Eden (1995) and The God Delusion (2006) made two points: God Hypothesis, p 29:
1) The universe “has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose,” only “blind, pitiless indifference.” Dawkins, River out of Eden, p 133
2) Since (in his view) neither life nor the universe revealed any evidence of actual (as opposed to apparent) design, atheism or materialism provided a more “parsimonious” explanation of the world. If there is no evidence of actual design in the universe, and thus no evidence of design by God, why continue to believe in such a being? God Hypothesis, P 29
Atheistic scientists have argued that science and faith in God have been in conflict since Copernicus and Galileo. This is demonstrably false. Signature shows on page 146 that Sir Isaac Newton ascribed the observed order in the solar system to God:
“Though these bodies [stars and comets] may, indeed, persevere in their orbits by the mere laws of gravity, yet they could by no means have, at first, derived the regular position of the orbits themselves from these laws. . . [Thus] this most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1689. This work is known as Principia for short.
Gravity operated the solar system but Sir Isaac recognized that his laws could not have initialized it. He knew that his equations didn’t necessarily describe what planets do. In Principia he wrote, “I design only to give mathematical notion of these forces, without consideration of their physical causes and seats.”
Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life in 1859. He argued that over millions of years, natural selection would spread favorable mutations and create the many life forms we see today. He believed that explanations involving an “immaterial mind” were not proper scientific explanations.
“What he questioned in his attack against his rivals was not just their ability to explain the evidence, but rather the scientific legitimacy of any theory that failed to offer a materialist cause for observable phenomena. Thus, Darwin dismissed Owen’s explanation of the similarity of anatomical structures in different animals by reference to the ‘plan of creation’ saying, ‘But that is not a scientific explanation.’” God Hypothesis, p 61
Darwin spoke of “the appearance of design” when describing life forms which he was convinced had come about through chance. His arguments against intelligent design led to the abandonment of any thought of divine creation or intelligent design being involved in the origin or development of life.
“Thus, by the early twentieth century, science seemed to support, if it could be said to support anything, a materialistic worldview, not a theistic one.” God Hypothesis, p 63
Cosmology suggests that the universe had a beginning for which science can’t find a cause
The universe exists and had a beginning, but experts can’t agree on why it exists. What started it?
Cosmologists claim that the universe is expanding. The mass of the universe doesn’t have enough gravity to halt the expansion and cause the universe to collapse back on itself. Given this ongoing and irreversible expansion, the universe does not fit any “steady state” model and must have had a beginning. The beginning must have had a cause, but there is no materialistic explanation for the existence of matter and energy.
“Before matter and energy exist, they cannot cause, nor be invoked to explain, the origin of the material universe. Instead, positing a materialistic process to explain the origin of matter and energy assumes the existence of the very entities – matter and energy – the origin of which materialists need to explain. . . . Laws of nature describe how nature operates and how different parts of nature interact with one another; they don’t cause the natural world to come into existence in the first place.” [emphasis in the original] God Hypothesis, P 418
Physics shows that the universe is “finely tuned” to allow life
In addition to the difficulty of explaining how the universe originated, physicists must explain why the universe is so finely-tuned to permit life. The laws of physics operate according to a number of constants whose values must be precise to 10 or 12 decimal places for life to exist. For example, the proton and electron have certain sizes and electric charges. If they were any bigger or smaller, the universe could exist, but life could not.
“. . . the fundamental forces of physics have just the right strengths, the contingent properties of the universe have just the right characteristics, and the initial distribution of matter and energy at the beginning exhibits just the right configuration to make life possible. These facts taken together are so puzzling that physicists have given them a name – the fine-tuning problem.” God Hypothesis, P 131
Dr. Meyer spends an entire chapter discussing the various values which are essential to life and quoting physicists who abandoned atheism because, as the British physicist Paul Davies put it in 1988, “The impression of design is overwhelming.” God Hypothesis, p 139 referencing Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint, p 203
“. . . the laws of physics cannot explain their own fine tuning or the fine tuning of the initial configurations of mass-energy at the beginning of the universe.” God Hypothesis, P 418
Even BioLogos, a group which has strenuously objected to design arguments in biology, concedes that design seems to be present in the origin of the universe.
“Some critics charge that invoking God as the fine-tuner is a return to the God of the Gaps. But there does not seem to be any way to explain the detailed properties of the laws of nature from within science” God Hypothesis, p 419 quoting “Are gaps in scientific knowledge evidence for God?”
“The laws of nature are our descriptions, typically framed in mathematical terms, of what nature ordinarily does. . . . they have no objective existence in the universe independent of our minds. . . . they are not ‘things’ or entities in nature that exist independently of the universe and certainly not things that can cause events in the world; still less would they cause the origin of the universe itself.” God Hypothesis, p 432
Microbiology shows that a living cell needs enormous amounts of genetic information to reproduce
Darwin observed natural selection changing the beaks of finches on Galapagos and reasoned that this random process, given enough time, could lead to the observed variety of living creatures. Natural selection works only on entities that reproduce. It cannot account for the origin of the first living cell that could reproduce.
Intelligent designers can change living things. We’re experimenting with the mechanisms of life. We haven’t been able to build a living cell from scratch, but we have experimented with simplifying the genome to determine the minimum complexity of a cell that can metabolize and reproduce.
Proteins are very complicated molecules and we keep discovering new ones all the time. “Proteins are essential for life, and the human body has over 100,000 different proteins performing many different functions.” from https://www.genomicseducation.hee.nhs.uk/genotes/knowledge-hub/proteins/ The simplest known cell has 482 different proteins, Signature p 201.
Cells make proteins by copying samples they already have, the simplest cell needs a sample of each of its 482 proteins in order to reproduce. The cell also needs DNA which stores information on how to copy the proteins and it needs a mechanism to read the program in the DNA and carry out the steps needed to make the proteins. Your PC would be useless without the software and the software would be useless without the PC to run it. A cell needs both an astonishing amount of information in the DNA and a complicated chemical mechanism to follow the instructions in the DNA to make the proteins needed for life at low temperatures!
Signature discusses probability. Suppose you flip a fair coin 10 times and record the outcomes. Whatever the series is, the probability of getting that precise sequence is the same as the probability of getting 100 heads in a row, namely, 1 in 10**30. The probability of getting any sequence of 100 flips is the same, so even if the probability of getting a working cell through random processes is low, could it happen given millions or billions of years?
There are an enormous number of combinations of the molecules that produce proteins. Only a very few produce proteins that will “work” in the sense of helping a cell metabolize and reproduce. The question is, could random processes that do not themselves have any goal produce enough proteins and the mechanism to manage them to create just one simple cell that could reproduce? How many opportunities for such an event to occur has the universe had?
A roulette wheel has 1 chance in 1,444 of getting 2 Red 16s in a row. If the croupier makes that many spins in a week, he’ll likely see that occur. The number of times an experiment can be tried is called “probabilistic resources.” The question is, has the universe had enough probabilistic resources since the Big Bang to have produced a living cell?
After a chapter of calculations, Dr. Meyer concludes that the probability of getting just one protein by chance can be compared with the chances of finding one marked atom out of all the atoms in the galaxy by undirected search.
Believe it or not, the odds of finding the marked atom in our galaxy are markedly better (about a billion times better) than those of finding a functional protein among all the sequences of comparable length. (Signature page 211)
A simple cell needs ~ 400 proteins very close to each other to live and reproduce.
The probability of producing the proteins necessary to build a minimally complex cell - or the genetic information necessary to produce these proteins - by chance is unimaginably small Signature Page 213.
Why Are We Here?
A consensus is emerging that random processes couldn’t have produced life:
“When it comes to the origin of life on this earth, there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation (evolution). There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved 100 years ago, but that leads us only to one other conclusion: that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds (personal reasons); therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance.” George Wald, winner of the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize in Science, in Lindsay, Dennis, “The Dinosaur Dilemma,” Christ for the Nations, Vol. 35, No. 8, Nov. 1982, pp. 4-5, 14.
Dr. Meyer summed up reality as revealed by modern science eloquently:
“Our beautiful, expanding, and finely-tuned universe and the exquisite, integrated, and informational complexity of living organisms bear witness to the reality of a transcendent intelligence – a personal God.” God Hypothesis, p 448
This article is a more complicated explanation why it is simply impossible for the first living cell to have been formed from the primordial soup by random processes no matter how many billion years we assume:
Thermodynamics shows that the universe is winding down to a simple state where there are no temperature differences to provide the energy to support life. To know why you are here in this world, you must know God personally because He will guide you into His truth:
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. John 16:26a
The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord..Psalms 111:10a
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. James 1:5
The False Religion of Evolutionary “Science”
Dr. Meyer presents overwhelming evidence that biological life is far too complicated for any possibility that billions of years and trillions of random chance events could produce even the simplest functioning cell.
Belief in evolution is a religious affection. Evolutionists like George Wall who is quoted above admit that clinging to evolutionary “creation” helps believers ignore the only other option – God whose infinite abilities allowed Him to create the universe in all its complexity and perfection. Thinking about God as designer and creator means that they will have to account to God for everything they do:
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: Hebrews 9:27
In addition to showing us more and more of His power as scientists dig deeper into the details of His creation, God has given us written testimony in the Bible. There are two views of the creation of the material universe: 1) astronomers say that the earth is an insignificant minor planet off near the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, 2) the Bible puts the earth in the center of the universe with everything else revolving around it.
Galileo challenged the Biblical “Geocentric” view to remove the earth from its special place in the universe. This view became untouchable received wisdom without any scientific proof at all. As Einstein put it,
“…nor has any physical experiment ever proved that the Earth actually is in motion.”[1]
Einstein also wrote that he assumed that the earth moved without any evidence: “Even this simple idea [the earth as the center of the universe], so clear to everyone, was not left untouched by the advance of science. But let us leave this question [whether the earth orbits around the sun or the sun orbits the earth] for the time being and accept Copernicus’ point of view [that the earth moves around the sun].”[2]
The scientific evidence for a stationary earth in the middle of the universe has become overwhelming.[3]
Astronomers Labor to Deny God’s Existence
God arranged creation so that there can be no proof whether He exists or not. He formed His universe so that there can’t be scientific proof whether the earth or the sun moves. The simple experiment that put the earth in the unmoving center of the universe is discussed here[4]. It caused great upset because modern science is based on the idea that the earth goes around the sun. One scientist called geocentrism “a depressing thought.”[5] Admitting that science took a wrong turn in the 1600s is “unthinkable.”[6] Unfortunately for secular scientists, all their data shows both God’s power and His deity just as the Bible tells us:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Romans 1:18-21
The more they learn about creation, the more they’re bothered:
Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) Romans 2:15
Evidence that God put the unmoving earth in the center of the universe is so strong that it takes a great deal of effort to explain the data while claiming that the earth goes around the sun. Harvard professor Richard Lewontin explained why scientists defend heliocentrism against so much compelling geocentric evidence:
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel[7] us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal[8] world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.[9] Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.[10] [emphasis added]
Romans 1:18-21 above explains why scientists work so hard at denying God. Rom. 1:20 tells us that what astronomers see demonstrates God’s power and His divine nature. The Times of London called Einstein’s theories “an affront to common sense.”[11] The Times saw the “patent absurdity” of materialistic explanations that help secular scientists think that they can deny God’s involvement in creating the universe.
Their data show enough about God for them to know His power. Romans 1:21 shows that they foolishly allow their hearts to be darkened even thought their consciences tell them what’s right and what’s wrong:
Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another; Romans 2:15
John chapter 8 tells how Jesus showed the Pharisees that they, too, ignored what God told them about Himself. They did not have the detailed astronomical data today’s scientists try so hard to misrepresent, but they had the Old Testament in which God had revealed Himself to them. Chapter 8 starts with them wanting to stone a woman and ends with their wanting to stone Jesus, the only begotten Son of God.
Today’s scientists rely on their academic credentials; Pharisees relied on their descent from Abraham:
I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. John 8:37
Science defunds anyone who doesn’t accept their idea that everything came through random chance.
Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. John 8:21
I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. John 8:24
After Jesus died on the cross, God raised Him from the dead and took Him back to heaven. The Pharisees did not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior; they died in their sins and went to Hell instead of to Heaven. That is what God has in store for unbelievers who ignore the Biblical warning against relying on “science:”
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: I Timothy 6:20
Which Side Do You take?
God gives you the same choice He gave the Pharisees and modern scientists – will you choose to serve Him or will you try to ignore the evidence He has given you? The first step is to admit that you’re a sinner:
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23
Most people admit that they’ve lied occasionally and that they’ve taken things that didn’t belong to them, if only cookies mother told them not to eat. Most people have also used either God’s name or Jesus’ name as a curse when frustrated or angry. This means that almost everyone is a lying, thieving, blasphemer.
God can’t let you into Heaven unless you acknowledge your sin and ask Jesus to wash your sins away with the blood He shed when He died on the cross to take the punishment you deserved because of your sins.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23
And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. Romans 11:6
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Romans 4:5
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:9-10
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10:13
That’s really all there is to it. Nobody deserves to go to Heaven. All of us deserve the punishments of Hell because of our sins, but Jesus gave His blood to clean us. God gave the Pharisees the Old Testament to reveal His power to them; they ignored the Bible and Jesus’ message. God gave scientists the evidence of His creation to show His power, and they’re doing their best to ignore their data. What of you?
God gave you a conscience to show you what is right and what is wrong:
Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) Romans 2:15
“Work of the law” means that everyone has enough of Moses’ law “written in their hearts” by God to know right from wrong. Your conscience shows you that you have sinned against the law of God. Instead of letting others excuse you from having to repent because of a prayer, you must admit your sins, turn away from your sins, and call on the name of the Lord in the same way as the thief on the cross:
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. 40But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? 41And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. 42And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. 43And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. Luke 23:39-43
The thief met the conditions of Ro. 10:9-10. He believed in his heart in the evil of his sins. Saying that he was receiving the proper punishment for his sins was the “confession unto salvation” of Ro. 10:10. He then called on the name of the Lord. In asking Jesus to remember him “when thou comest into thy kingdom,” the thief showed that he believed that Jesus would rise from the dead. Jesus accepted him into Heaven.
All God asks is that you repent of your sins, believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, and say so publicly. Rom. 4:5 above shows that God accepts you as righteous if you believe that. It’s up to you.
[1] Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, New York, New American Library, 2nd revised edition, 1957, p. 73.
[2] Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, New York, Simon and Shuster, 1938, 1966, pp. 154-155.
[3] https://ia800603.us.archive.org/18/items/GallileoWasWrong/Gallileo%20was%20wrong.pdf
[4] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-earth-does-not-move.html#MME
[5] Donald Goldsmith, The Evolving Universe, Menlo Park, CA, The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, 1985, p. 140.
[6] Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, New York, Avon Books, Harper Collins, 1984, p. 110
[7] Denying compulsion is a fib – the fastest way to be defunded is to speak favorably of geocentrism. The James Webb telescope shows that the Big Bang is wrong, but Big Bang Believers control all the money and won’t fund ideas which seek to replace it.
[8] Perceptible by the senses or through immediate experience
[9] They’re recycling the Gnostic idea that salvation is available only to a select few who possess mystic “knowledge” (gnosis).
[10] “Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review of Books, 1/9/1997, pp 28, 31
[11] Einstein: The Life and Times, p. 101.
posted by Bill Taylor at 8:45 AM
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