I read something the other day from a website called the Big Think. It was an article where a man by the name of Michael Shermer, refutes ten of the arguments individuals use to argue for the existence of God. This also reminded me of an article I read a few years ago where the question posed was whether or not science was getting close to disproving God.
The point being made in the latter article is that as the realms of science increase and expand, the realm of God decreases—basically saying that the more we learn about the world we live in, the less the excuse of “God” can be used.
I’ve definitely heard this argument before as well. I have some friends that believe that God is only an answer to the extent of what we cannot answer by science. But as soon as science explains it, we can no longer use God as an answer. To do so means that we are stuck in denial and are disillusioned to “truth."
However, have we become so arrogant that we believe our epistemological abilities (our ability to know) to be perfect?
John Barrow, a well-known cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician, seems to not see our capabilities in this way: “There is no basis at all for supposing that human minds will someday be able to understand everything. It is quite possible that they will come up against limits to knowledge that human minds are inherently incapable of crossing.”
Richard Bauckham extends this point slightly further: “Now we can see far less accessible natural events on television wildlife documentaries. But we still cannot understand fully how the hawk migrates. Mystery remains. New species are still being discovered all the time.”
Bauckham states this in his book, God and Ecology. In the section of the book I quote from, he is observing the final passage of the book of Job where God asks Job questions about nature that we now can [sort of] answer by science i.e. “Do you [Job] know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer” (Job 39:1). Bauckham points out that thanks to wildlife documentaries, we can understand more of these events. We can observe goats being born or deer being calved. But mystery behind these feats of nature still remains.
We don’t even know the bottoms of our own oceans. We’ve only explored less than five percent of our oceans’ depths! Our universe is still expanding beyond our limits of understanding and yet we are only capable of sending a WALL-E-looking rover to Mars to take pictures. And we think we know enough about the workings of our universe to disprove God?
We can argue philosophical proofs all day long. We can refute the opposite side all the live-long day. But scientific knowledge can only get us so far. Yes, as scientific knowledge progresses and technology increases, we are able to understand more and more about the world we live in, but we are still learning more and more. New species of animals are being discovered daily. Just because science explains something does not mean we can disprove the existence of God.
Our capabilities to disprove God are only as strong as our presuppositions that God does not exist.
When doing scientific research, if you already believe God doesn’t exist, of course your research will conclude the same thing. It would be like saying, “See? I told you so!” You’re only proving what you want to see or expect to see. You may have learned something new about our universe but your scientific presuppositions are what truly define what your research concludes.
Naturally, this idea works both ways. My presupposition is that God does exist. So, when I read into scientific discoveries, of course I’m going to be affected by my presuppositions. Again, we can argue over either side all day long but ultimately, we must recognize who we are in the universe. We must admit our own futility in everything. We must admit that although we learn new things about our universe daily, none of that scientific research will ever be able to disprove God.
