IS IT IRRATIONAL TO BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING?

AND TWO OTHER QUESTIONS

Michael T. Griffith

2000

@All Rights Reserved

Is It Irrational to Believe in God?

A 1997 poll conducted by Professor Edward Larson of the University of Georgia revealed that 40 percent of working physicists and biologists have strong religious beliefs.

Professor Charles H. Townes, Nobel Prize winner in physics: "In my view, the question of origins seems always left unanswered if we explore from a scientific view alone. Thus, I believe there is a need for some religious or metaphysical explanation if we are to have one."

Professor Werner Arber, winner of the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine: "How such already quite complex structures [molecular organisms] may have come together, remains a mystery to me. The possibility of the existence of a Creator , of God, represents to me a satisfactory solution to this problem."

Professor Christian B. Anfinsen, Ph.D. in biochemistry from Harvard and a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry: "I think only an idiot can be an atheist."

Professor Henry Margenau, Emeritus Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and Natural Philosophy, Yale University: "Theories like the Big Bang, black holes, quantum theory, relativity, and the Anthropic Principle have introduced science to a world of awe and mystery that is not far removed from the ultimate mystery that drives the religious impulse. . . . What, then, is the answer to the question concerning the origin of the innumerable laws of nature? I know of only one answer that is adequate to their universal validity: they were created by God."

Professor Ulrich Becker, Professor of Physics, MIT: "How can I exist without a creator? I am not aware of any compelling answer ever given."

Professor Robert Naumann, Professor of Chemistry and Physics, Princeton University: "The existence of the universe requires me to conclude that God exists."

Professor Arthur Schawlow, Professor of Physics, Stanford University: "It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. . . . I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life."

Professor Wolfgang Smith, Ph.D. in mathematics from Columbia University, and Professor of Mathematics, Oregon State University: "To me personally nothing is more evident, more certain, than the existence or reality of God. I incline in fact to the view that the existence of God constitutes indeed the only absolute certainty. . . ."

Professor Walter Thirring, Director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics and a professor at the University of Vienna: "Scientists who devote their lives to exploring the harmony of the world cannot help seeing in it some divine plan."

Professor Thomas C. Emmel, Ph.D. in Population Biology from Stanford University and Professor of Zoology at the University of Florida (Gainesville): "To me, the concept of God is a logical outcome of the study of the immense universe that lies around us. My readings in science and my professional pursuit of science have simply confirmed further to me that there are ultimate questions that we as scientists cannot answer. . . . To me, God exists as the Supreme Being who started this creation that we call the universe. . . . The evidence is all too pervasive for me to think otherwise."

Professor P. C. C. Graham, Emeritus Professor of Protozoology at the University of London: "By faith and by appreciation of scientific necessity, God must exist."

Can Science Explain the Origin of Matter and of Life?

Professor Eugene Wigner, Nobel Prize winner in physics and Emeritus Professor of Physics at Princeton University: "The origin of the universe is a mystery for science, surely for the present. It is a disturbing mystery."

Frederick C. Robbins, M.D. in Pediatrics from Harvard Medical School and a Nobel Prize winner in physiology and medicine: "No matter how deeply we probe scientifically, I doubt if we will be able to discover the ultimate answers."

Professor Jeffrey Steinfield, Professor of Chemistry at MIT: "I have become convinced that at some level physical reality must be more complex than our conscious minds are able to comprehend."

Professor John E. Fornaess, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University: "Where matter came from is also unknown. It is also unknown where consciousness came from. . . . We don't have any idea where the basic ingredients of the university came from."

R. T. Brinkmann, California Institute of Technology: "[the high probability that the early earth's atmosphere contained oxygen would] preclude biological evolution as presently understood."

Klaus Dose, Institute for Biochemistry, Mainz, Germany: "[the collective efforts of scientists over the last 40 years to explain the origin of life] lead to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confusion of ignorance."

Dr. R. Merle d'Aubigne, Chairman of the Orthopedic Department at the University of Paris: "The origin of life is still a mystery. As long as it has not been demonstrated by experimental realization, I cannot conceive of any physical or chemical condition [that would make evolution possible]. . . . I cannot be satisfied by the idea that fortuitous mutation . . . can explain the complex and rational organization of the brain, but also of lungs, heart, kidneys, and even joints and muscles. How is it possible to escape the idea of some intelligent and organizing force?"

Does Evolution Posit or Require "Miracles"?

Sir Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winner and avowed atheist: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going."

Loren Eiseley, anthropologist: "After chiding the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort, could not be proved to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past."

Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith, three doctorates in the field of science: "Present-day biology has also discovered a magic wand which solves all biological and chemical problems with one wave of the wand. Does the origin of the most complicated machinery of a protein molecule need explanation? Do we need to explain how optical isomers are formed? Do we wish to know why the wings of certain butterflies are decorated with eagle's eyes? The magic wand called chance and natural selection will without exception explain all these miracles. It explains the origin of the most complicated biological machine--the enzymatic protein molecule. The explanation is fabulous--machines are formed of their own accord, spontaneously, just as the waving of a magic wand would demand. The same wand explains the billions of telenomical electrical contacts in the brain. It explains the most infinitely complicated wiring of the computer called the brain."

Pierre-P. Grasse, an evolutionary scientist and author of the book EVOLUTION OF LIVING ORGANISMS: "We repeatedly hear that chance is all powerful. Statements are insufficient. Evidence must be produced. . . . Directed by all-powerful selection, chance becomes a sort of providence, which, under the cover of atheism, is not named but which is secretly worshipped."

Dr. Robert E. Clark, Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Cambridge University: "If complex organisms ever did evolve from simpler ones, the process took place contrary to the laws of nature and must have involved what may rightly be termed the miraculous."

Randy Wysong, D.V.M. and an instructor in human anatomy and physiology: "Evolution requires plenty of faith: a faith in L-proteins [left-handed molecules] that defy chance formation; a faith in the formation of DNA codes which if generated spontaneously would spell only pandemonium; a faith in a primitive environment that in reality would fiendishly devour any chemical precursors to life; a faith in experiments [i.e., origin of life experiments] that prove nothing but the need for intelligence in the beginning; a faith in a primitive ocean that would not thicken but would only hopelessly dilute chemicals; a faith in natural laws including the laws of thermodynamics and biogenesis that actually deny the possibility for the spontaneous generation of life; a faith in future scientific revelations that when realized always seem to present more dilemmas to the evolutionists; faith in probabilities that tenuously tell two stories--one denying evolution, the other confirming the creator; faith in transformations that remain fixed; faith in mutations and natural selection that add to a double negative for evolution; faith in fossils that embarrassingly show fixity through time, regular absence of transitional forms and striking testimony to a world-wide water deluge; a faith in time which proves only to promote degradation in the absence of mind; and faith in reductionism that ends up reducing the materialist arguments to zero and enforcing the need to invoke the supernatural creator."

Bibliography

Ankerberg, John and John Weldon, DARWIN'S LEAP OF FAITH: EXPOSING THE FALSE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION, Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1998.

Johnson, Phillip E., DEFEATING DARWINISM: BY OPENING MINDS, Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1997.

Moreland, J. P., editor, THE CREATION HYPOTHESIS, Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994. Contributors to this book include scientists with advanced degrees in mathematics, physics, geology, chemistry, physics, biology, and geophysical science.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Michael T. Griffith holds a Master’s degree in Theology from The Catholic Distance University, a Graduate Certificate in Ancient and Classical History from American Military University, a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from Excelsior College, and two Associate in Applied Science degrees from the Community College of the Air Force.  He also holds an Advanced Certificate of Civil War Studies and a Certificate of Civil War Studies from Carroll College.  He is a graduate in Arabic and Hebrew of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and of the U.S. Air Force Technical Training School in San Angelo, Texas.  In addition, he has completed an Advanced Hebrew program at Haifa University in Israel.  He is the author of five books on Mormonism and ancient texts, including How Firm A Foundation, A Ready Reply, and One Lord, One Faith.