This is a question I struggled with a lot as a teenager. I wanted to believe in God, but I also wanted to make sure he really existed. You see, when I was younger, I was scared that God was a figment of my imagination. All my experiences of God could be chalked up to confirmation bias or mental illness. As a child, it seemed more likely to me that I was having a break with reality than that God was real and cared about me.
So I did a lot of research. I wanted to know what the arguments for and against God were. I watched a lot of YouTube videos. I read a lot of essays. Often, I discovered people who argued there was a scientific argument either for or against God. Here were some of their arguments and counter arguments...
The gaps in the theory of Macro-Evolution :: The proofs of evolution up to this point
Fine Tuning/Intelligent Design :: Multiverse Theory
Problem of the creator of God :: God has no beginning, so he has no creator
The vastness of space :: the power of God
I was desperate for a clear answer provided by science. I wanted physical, tangible evidence that didn't come from the Bible, the biographies of Christians, the testimony of people I knew and trusted, or my own experience.
And then one day I realized something: people have been attempting to use science to prove or disprove God for thousands of years. Every new scientific discovery that comes out, there's always at least two groups of people:
1. The people who say "Aha! That proves it! That proves God exists! Because how could anyone besides God come up with something so beautiful?"
2. The people who say "Aha! That proves it! That proves God doesn't exist! Because why would God design something so nonsensical?"
It happened when the Heliocentric model of the solar system became accepted. People wouldn't accept the model at first because it would supposedly mean that humans weren't the center of the universe. And yet, there are still Christians today.
It happened when people traveled into space. Nikita Khrushchev claimed "Why are you clinging to God? Here Gagarin flew into space and didn't see God." When in fact, Yuri Gagarin was himself a baptized Russian Orthodox believer and remained a believer after his trip to space.
It happened with the popularization of Multiverse Theory. People said that if it was true it would give us an explanation for how we exist without needing to resort to God. The next question then would be "what started the 'Multiverse Engine' in the first place?".
This is where the famous God of the Gaps fallacy comes from. Every new set of scientific unknowns becomes an excuse for Christians to claim physics cannot explain the universe by itself.
And then I realized something else. Why was I looking for a physical proof for something that doesn't obey the laws of physics?
Think about it. Putting aside the fact that science doesn't really "prove" anything, only demonstrate when something is likely... If God exists (and I believe he does), then he must have created physics. He's demonstrated repeatedly in all known accounts about him that he can choose to ignore physics at his leisure. In fact, unless you believe in physics, the miracles of Christianity have no value. A person has to believe in physical reality that obeys consistent laws in order to be amazed that those laws have been broken.
Theists and atheists can chase the rabbit hole of finding a physical proof for or against God until the death of the universe. But I believe they will never find it. If God exists, he designed the universe. He doesn't have to do what it says. And it seems like he wanted the universe to be relatively self-sustaining, just like he designed people. If he wanted us to be unable to avoid him in this universe, he would've made himself a little bit more obvious. They will never find him that way.
If science could prove or disprove God, God wouldn't be God. Science would be God. But it's not.
No comments:
Post a Comment