Atheist Universe: Chapter 2
Initially Posted: January 29, 2007
Contents:
2. Origin of the Universe: Natural or Supernatural?
3. God of the Gaps: Does the Universe Show Evidence of Design?
4. The “Miracle” of Planetary Clockwork
5. The “Miracle” of Life on Earth
6. Can Genesis Be Reconciled with Modern Science?
7. “Miracles” of Christian Perception
9. Christian Fundamentalists and the “Danger” of Internet Porn
10. Was America Really Founded upon Christian Principles?
11. “Intelligent Design”: Christianity’s Newest Cult
2. Origin of the Universe: Natural or Supernatural?:
Mills repeats his philosophical objections to the First Cause arguments in this chapter as well on page 68. Therefore, I direct the reader back to the analysis of the preceding chapter. Mills calls the “Law of Cause-Effect” or the “Law of Causality” a “philosophical and theological plaything.” He also claims it provides no explanation for any scientific problem or question.
There are numerous flaws with these assertions. First, to deny the Law of Causality is to deny rationality. Dr. Norman Geisler and Dr. Frank Turek explain that “The very process of rational thinking requires us to put together thoughts (the causes) that result in conclusions (the effects).” 1 Second, the science enterprise rests on the Law of Causality. Francis Bacon, the father of modern science, stated: “True knowledge is knowledge by causes.” 2
Next, Mills repeats his arguments from chapter one against creation ex nihilo regarding quantum physics (“vacuum fluctuation”) and Stephen Hawking, and the mass-energy conservation law . The reader may review the responses to each point provided in the chapter one section of this review, if the reader desires. Mills then concludes the universe, in some form, has always existed —this conclusion is not warranted by current cosmogony research, and it opposes the current cosmogony consensus. Consider the statements below made by some astronomers and a theoretical astrophysicist:
Astronomer Fred Hoyle: “At first sight one might think the strong anticlerical bias of modern science would be totally at odds with western religion. This is far from being so, however. The big bang theory requires a recent origin of the Universe that openly invites the concept of creation, which so-called thermodynamic theories of the origin of life in the organic soup of biology are the contemporary equivalent of the voice in the burning bush and the tablets of Moses.” 3
Radio astronomer Arno Penzias : “Well the steady state theory turned out to be so ugly that people dismissed it. The easiest way to fit the observations with the least number of parameters was one in which the universe was created out of nothing, in an instant, and continues to expand. Physicists normally would like a model in which there are no external parameters. So what we find—the simplest theory—the one that the astronomers normally espouse, is a creation out of nothing, the appearance out of nothing of a universe.” 4
Arno Penzias also commented: “Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say ‘supernatural’) plan.” 5
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington: “Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me…I should like to find a genuine loophole.” 6
Theoretical astrophysicist Stephen Hawking: “Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang.” 7
Mills also alludes to the oscillating universe concept towards the end of this chapter. However, this concept suffers from many scientific problems. Go here for more information.
Endnotes:
1. Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2004), 75.
2. Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2004), 75.
3. Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983), 237.
4. Arno Penzias, interview with author, May 4, 1994, quoted in Fred Heeren, Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God. Revised Edition (Wheeling Illinois: Day Star Publications, 1997), 156.
5. Arno Penzias in Cosmos, Bios, and Theos, ed. Henry Morgenau and Roy Abraham Varghese (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1992), 83, quoted in Hugh Ross, Creation as Science, 51.
6. Eddington, “End of the World,” 450, quoted in Hugh Ross, Creation as Science, 50.
7. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, The Isaac Newton Institute Series of Lectures (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 20, quoted in William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, God? A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 8.