Has Science Buried God? (A Critique of Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss)

In answer to the question “Has science buried God?” it must be said that not only has science not buried God, but in fact science is among the signs of God, and it is atheism that has buried science. The common belief is that science stands on one side and belief in God on the other, that the two are in conflict and have nothing to do with one another. This picture is far too simplistic. Let me give an example. Last year the Nobel Prize was awarded to the Scottish physicist Peter Higgs for predicting the elementary particle the Higgs boson. Peter Higgs is an atheist. A few years earlier the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to William Phillips, an American physicist who is a Christian. It is an interesting situation: both of these individuals have won the Nobel Prize in Physics, both are extraordinary physicists; what separates them is not science. What separates them is their worldview—one is an atheist, the other a Christian. The conflict that exists is not between God and science; the conflict that exists is between two worldviews: the theistic worldview and the atheistic worldview. The conflict between these two worldviews has existed since ancient times. If we go back to ancient Greece and study figures like Leucippus and Democritus—who put forward the idea of atomism—we find that they believed reality consisted of two things: atoms and void. Leucippus and Democritus tried to explain everything using atoms and void. They are the fathers of the school we today call materialism. In that same era there were figures like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle who spoke of the existence of God, the gods, or transcendence. They believed there is something more to the universe than matter and energy. In today’s academic world we encounter precisely these same two worldviews, especially at the University of Oxford where I teach. We have very good scientists who are atheists, and we have very good scientists who are religious. So the main question is not whether science and religion are compatible; the main question is: what does science point to? Does it point toward atheism—as my colleague Richard Dawkins claims—or does it point toward religious belief? I want to talk about this and address a number of ambiguities that I call “intellectual fog.” In these kinds of discussions there are many misunderstandings that prevent people from grasping what the debate is really about.

I am a mathematician, but I am not going to talk about logical proofs. Logical proof is only possible in pure mathematics and logic. What I want to talk about is evidence. This does not mean I want to talk about something that is conceptually weak. For example, I have been married for 46 years; I cannot prove to you mathematically that my wife loves me, yet I have built my life on that belief. I think the evidence is strong enough to commit myself to a shared life. So if we cannot provide a logical proof, that does not mean we have no evidence. When we look at the history of science, we find that the founders of modern science—Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton—all believed in God. This is a very important fact. When Joseph Needham spent years trying to understand, with the historical presuppositions of Marxism, why modern science did not arise in China, he could not reach a definite answer. In the end he stated that the only difference he could see between the Far East and the West is that the Far East did not have the concept of a “single creator of the universe” within its cultural life—a concept that sees the universe as an ordered whole created by a single being. In other words, there is a connection between the emergence of modern science and belief in God. C. S. Lewis says that people became scientific because they expected there to be laws in nature, and they believed in the laws of nature because they believed in a lawgiver. Alfred North Whitehead stated that modern science arose from the insistence of medieval thinkers on the rationality of God.

When I was debating Richard Dawkins about this, he would say either God exists or He doesn't; everyone in the Middle Ages believed in God, so it is not surprising that science emerged in a culture that believed in God. I reminded him that not everyone lived, or lives, in Western Europe, and that he had forgotten China, and I shared with him the same point I raised about Joseph Needham. Historians and philosophers of science generally believe that there is a profound relationship between faith in God as the rational intelligence behind the universe and the emergence of science. There is, of course, a logical reason for this. Belief in God did not hinder science but was the engine that brought it into being. I would like to state this more precisely. To do so, I will compare two figures: Newton and Stephen Hawking. Both are extraordinary physicists, and both taught at the University of Cambridge. The interesting point is that Newton discovered the law of gravity, and for him this was a reason to believe in God; Stephen Hawking, by contrast, believes that gravity is a reason not to believe in God. This is very interesting to me, and I am keen to examine what has happened and why this difference exists. Why does the discoverer of the law of gravity believe in God, and why does Stephen Hawking, the world's most famous living scientist, say that the law of gravity means we do not need to believe in God? I refer to the main argument of Hawking's book The Grand Design. In this book, he argues as follows: because the law of gravity exists, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. This is the core of Hawking's argument for denying the existence of God. Whereas Newton says science and God, Hawking says either God or science. I have heard many young people ask, why should I choose between God and science? Why does Hawking think I must choose? In my view, the first ambiguity is the ambiguity about the concept of God. The problem is not primarily scientific. I am Irish; when I was young and used the word God, many people thought I meant the God of the Bible who created the world and governs it. But this is no longer the case; we cannot assume that everyone understands what we mean by the word "God." Has science buried God? Yes and no.

Science has buried many gods. In the many debates I have had with my atheist friends, I have concluded that they think I believe in what is known as the "God of the gaps." The God of the gaps, simply put, means that wherever we cannot explain something, we say it is the work of God. For example, thunder and lightning occur, I become frightened, and then I say the god of thunder and lightning exists. But when I go to university, thunder and lightning are explained to me scientifically, and the god of thunder and lightning disappears. This is the God of the gaps, a God that science refutes. If you believe in the God of the gaps, you are forced to choose between God and science, because you have defined God in this way. Likewise, if your definition of God is that He explains everything as long as no scientific explanation has been provided, then by definition you must choose between science and God. This is one of the fogginesses in this discussion. People do not specifically say what they mean by "God" in these debates. As a scientist, if I am told to choose between the God of the gaps and science, I will of course say I choose science. But God is not the God of the gaps; He is the God of the whole show, meaning He is the creator of both the parts we do not understand and the parts we do understand.

Let me return to Newton. Newton, upon discovering the law of gravity, did not claim that I have the law of gravity and no longer need God. Instead, he wrote the book Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which is arguably the most important scientific book in history; in this book, he hopes that the discovery of gravity will persuade people to believe in God. In other words, the more his understanding of the world grew, the more his admiration for the God who created it in this way increased. We usually act this way. The more we understand engineering, the more we can admire a Rolls-Royce; the more we understand art, the more we can praise Rembrandt. Therefore, the more we understand nature, the more eager we are to admire the God who is its creator. Because God is not the God of the gaps, but the God of the whole story, the God who is the creator of what I understand and what I do not understand. Many think that I believe in the God of the gaps and therefore have an intellectual deficiency, because I do not make a choice between science and God. Certainly, if we have a wrong concept of God, we are forced to choose between God and science.

The next issue is the nature of "explanation." What is an explanation? What is a scientific explanation? Are "God" and "science" a single type of explanation? Richard Dawkins believes that God is no different from scientific explanations, so science must be preferred over God. Let me give an example. Why is the water in the kettle boiling? It is boiling because heat energy has reached the surface of the kettle, and this heat, through its effect on the water molecules, leads to the boiling of the water. Someone might say, no, the water is boiling because I want a cup of tea. This is nonsense. The water is boiling because of heating, and the water is boiling because I want to drink tea; these are two different levels of explanation. One explanation is at the scientific level, and the other is at the level of individual desires, agency, and intention. It is very clear that these two types of explanation are not in conflict and do not compete, but rather complement each other. In fact, scientism, that is, the idea that science is the only path to truth, ignores the fact that there is more than one level of explanation. The claim that God created the world does not conflict with science, just as saying that Henry Ford created the Ford car and its engine does not conflict with the laws of the internal combustion engine. If I told you that you must choose between Henry Ford and the laws of the internal combustion engine, you would say, "Don't joke, I choose both." Explanation has different levels: scientific explanations and explanations at the level of agency. Richard Swinburne, a colleague of mine at Oxford, says that science explains, but I posit God as the principle to clarify why science explains. One of the main arguments in Richard Dawkins's book The God Delusion is that if you posit God as the creator of the universe, then logically you must ask who created God? Then you must ask who created the God who created God? And this question repeats ad infinitum; Dawkins concludes from this argument that God does not exist. When I saw this argument, I was astonished, because a simple logical analysis shows that when we ask who or what created "A," it has a presupposition. The presupposition is that "A" was created, which is why we ask who created "A." If "A" was not created, then this question about it is meaningless. Dawkins thinks that by asking this question, he has eliminated God, whereas his question only applies to created gods. If we think a little, we realize that we do not need science to eliminate created gods; we all know that created gods, which we call idols, are nonsense. The main argument of religion is that God is eternal and everlasting; if something is eternal or everlasting and we ask who created it, we have committed a contradiction. Therefore, if we ask Dawkins's argument about God, it leads to a contradiction, but this question can be asked about created gods. In a debate I had with Richard Dawkins, I asked him, "You believe that the world created you; now let me ask you your own question: who created your creator, that is, the world?" I asked him this question in a debate eight years ago, and I am still waiting for an answer from him.

For atheists, reality is matter-energy; some of them propose multiple universes, but these days an idea is spreading: the fundamental reality is “nothing.” Listen to Hawking again: with the law of gravity, the universe can and does create itself from nothing. For a theist like me, the fundamental reality is God. Today in the world of thought we have reached an interesting juncture: the backdrop of existence is either God or nothing. These days I am teaching about “nothing,” which is the most fascinating of subjects. So the question is not whether a fundamental reality exists or not; the question is, which fundamental reality is it? Let me make a point about the logic of Hawking’s explanation: because the law of gravity exists, the universe can and does create itself from nothing. When I first read this, I said to myself, wait a minute—because something exists, it can create itself from nothing. But that is a contradiction. Another point is that he says “because of the law of gravity”; he does not say gravity exists. But if nothing exists to account for the law of gravity, what would the law of gravity even mean? This opens another door to ambiguity about the laws of nature. Newton’s laws of motion never caused anything in history to move; Newton’s laws of motion describe motion. The cause of the balls moving on a billiard table is not Newton’s laws of motion; the cause of their moving is that someone is striking them. Newton’s laws describe that motion. The idea that laws bring something into existence is a very strange idea, and of course we are all familiar with it. I was once talking with Peter Atkins, a well-known atheist physicist at the University of Oxford. I asked him what he thought created the universe. He replied, mathematics. I laughed; he asked why I was laughing. I said, Peter, I am a mathematician—has 1+1=2 ever put two pounds sterling in your pocket? I asked him what caused the economic crisis? Because some thought mathematics could produce money. Do you remember the financial crisis? We are all victims of this belief that mathematics can produce money.

Hawking thinks that the law of gravity is a cause and creates. His first example of a law is that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. But this law and order creates neither the sun, nor the east, nor the west; rather, it is a description of what occurs in nature. In my view, there is a kind of confusion at the philosophical level. Let me repeat: because of the law of gravity, the universe can and does create itself from nothing. If I tell you “A” creates “B,” what does that mean? It means if you have A, you will also have B. If I tell you “A” creates “A,” what does that mean? In my opinion, nonsense remains nonsense even if the most intelligent scientists write it. It is unintelligible; the idea of the creation of the world from nothing has led to the most futile statements I have ever read. Let me quote a well-known astrophysicist: “Because something is physical, ‘nothing’ must be physical, especially if you define ‘nothing’ as the absence of something.” This nonsensical statement belongs to Lawrence Krauss. In a book he wrote, he claims to have shown how the universe came into being from nothing, while he has achieved no such success. What he has done is redefine “nothing.” This is a very interesting exercise; most of us know what nothing means. If I say I went to a square in the city and saw no one, it does not mean I did not see a person named “No One,” but rather that I saw nobody. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to debate Alan Guth about the theory of “cosmic inflation.” I said that great confusion has been created among the general public regarding the word “nothing.” I asked him, when you use the word “nothing,” do you mean “nothing” in the philosophical sense, that is, in the sense of non-existence and the absence of substance? He replied, of course not, “the vacuum state” is not nothingness. The idea that space has a beginning—although there is no consensus among physicists on this idea—forces people to answer Leibniz’s question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” From the perspective of a religious person like me, there is a simple answer from one viewpoint: the universe exists because God is the cause of its coming into being. God is not “nothing,” but He is not physical; He is spirit. But if you ignore God’s intervention in creation, you encounter a major problem; you must explain how something came into being from nothingness. Some people, in this situation, resort to redefining nothing.

Let me return to explanation. I said that explanation has different levels. Let us talk about scientific explanations. What does the law of gravity explain? When I was first taught the law of gravity in school, I thought this law explained gravity. But it does not; no one knows what gravity is. The law of gravity allows us to calculate the effects of gravity, and that is extraordinary. It allows us to travel to the moon even without considering Einstein’s theory. But as Newton himself realized, the law of gravity does not tell us what gravity is. Richard Feynman once stated that no one knows what gravity or energy is. When we say science explains, many think that is it and no other explanation is possible. But not only is science not all possible explanations, but scientific explanations do not even provide all possible explanations within science itself. The law of gravity is extraordinary; I would have truly loved to have discovered it myself, but unfortunately, that did not happen; Newton did it. He did an extraordinary thing. But the law of gravity does not tell you what gravity is. These days we hear a lot of people saying, we have a scientific explanation and there is no need for God. This statement, for the reasons I mentioned regarding explanation, is not accurate.

Apart from my wife, I am in love with languages and mathematics. Pure mathematics is itself a language and lies at the extreme end of the spectrum of languages, and it is the most beautiful of languages. Mathematics is used to understand nature, but human languages are used for communication. We are generators of language. Moreover, there is a text in our DNA. We are also able to understand the universe through the language of mathematics. This is extraordinary. Einstein says the only incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. Eugene Wigner, the Nobel laureate in physics, in his work speaks of a mathematician who is thinking in his own mind and arrives at formulas that apply to the external world; how is such a thing possible? How does a series of abstract concepts in the human mind relate to the external world? Wigner himself says this is irrational. But this position depends on your worldview. I want to say that the greatest sign of God is language, at all its levels. At the level of DNA, the fact that we humans have language, are rational, and can tame the universe with mathematics. I often ask my colleagues at Oxford, with what do you do science? They say, what do you mean? I say, I mean inside your head. They often want to say the mind, but with a little caution they say with my brain, because many of them do not believe there is a distinction between mind and brain. Then I say to them, tell me about the brain with which you do science. What is your brain? Many of them give an answer similar to this: the brain is the end product of a mindless, unguided process. Then I ask, why do you trust your brain? If you knew that your computer was the end product of a mindless, unguided process, you would never trust it. This is not my argument; it is Darwin's argument.

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John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford

Translation by Zahir Bagheri No'parast

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"Da li je nauka sahranila Boga?" Predavanje - John Lennox ETF Beograd 31 10 2013

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