Thinking Christianly about Science

Thinking Christianly about Science
Dr. Ard Louis Department of Physics University of Oxford

Cross-cultural, broad-brush talk
Christian sub-culture(s) Scientific sub-cultures culture is often “caught” not “taught” Words Customs Traditions Behaviour Beliefs Values Assumptions Gebed: Heer, dit is een moeilijk onderwerp waarover veel van Uw kinderen sterke gevoelens hebben. Help mij om niet meer of niet minder te zeggen dan U zou willen. Laat mijn woorden to opbouw en niet tot afbreken zijn. mijn achtergrond met HG classic evangelical -- high view of scripture as the inerrant inspired word of God Indian student and Holy Spirit joke about Englishman, German, Frenchman, Italian quite good ( quite good v.s. really quite good suspenders and braces lots of stories ... I come from a particular scientific culture, but my work is interdisciplinary, and so I often have to cross cultures PhD in theoretical physics, but last 8 years in chemistry department, now working a lot on biologically inspired problems Broad-brush approach -- choose good examples to illustrate (a la Nicky Gumbel) -- hopefully better than my HS talk Finally, I am a critical realist -- critical because from a reformed background: our minds are easily fooled -- realist because I think there is a real world out there -- not postmodern, although I appreciate that our knowledge is always mediated etc..

Biological self-assembly
Keiichi Namba, Kyoto about 10 times as many bacteria in your gut as cells in your body 1014 v.s 1013 Keiichi Namba, Osaka Biological systems self-assemble (they make themselves) Can we understand? Can we emulate? (Nanotechnology)

Virus self-assembly viruses
Self-assembled from identical subunits (capsomers). Characteristic number T. Capsid T: 12 pentamers, 10(T - 1) hexamers. 4/23/2017 4

Self-assembly of “computer viruses”
Monte-Carlo simulations: stochastic optimisation 5

Self-assembly with legos?
I pinch myself that I am paid to do this ... 6

Christian reaction: Fear?
Science has proven: There is no God

Science and faith? Big, fun! questions:
Is there a God? Is there more to life than this? How do I obtain reliable knowledge about the world? Some Christian and Islamic writers seem unwilling to examine deeply held beliefs, presumably because they are afraid that this kind of thing is bad news for faith. Well, maybe it is -- for intellectually deficient and half-baked ideas. But it doesn’t need to be like this. There are intellectually robust forms of faith -- the kind of thing we find in writers such as Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, and C.S. Lewis. They weren’t afraid to think about their faith, and ask hard questions about its evidential basis, its internal consistency, or the adequacy of its theories Alister McGrath in Finding Dawkins’ God, Blackwell (2004)

OUTLINE What does the Bible say about the natural world?
Thinking about science and certainty The Origins debate ...

The Bible B] The Bible, as originally given, is the inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God. Christians must therefore submit to its supreme authority and sufficiency, both individually and corporately, in every matter of belief and conduct. South East Gospel Partnership DB

Biblical or cultural? Wise men at birth -- wrong
Three wise men? No evidence Angels with wings -- no evidence Did the angels sing? No evidence -- they were praising God In a stable? -- no evidence, only inferred through the manger Snow? Probably not in winter

Interpreting the Bible
What kind of language? What kind of literature? What kind of audience? What kind of context? The antidote to bad interpretation is not no interpretation, but good interpretation, based on common sense guidelines G. Fee and D. Stuart, “How to Read the Bible for All It Is Worth”, Zondervan (1993), p17

God reveals himself through nature
Romans 1:18 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. NOTE -- that refers to the world as we see it today Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Psalm 8: 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

Psalm 19: 1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Psalm 8: 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

Psalm 8: 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? Milky way is a spiral galaxy Our solar system revolves around the galactic center with an orbital period of about 240 million years. The spiral arms are also rotating, in the same direction but more slowly. Therefore, the solar system catches up to and moves through the spiral arms. In our galaxy there are 100,000 million stars, like our sun. our galaxy is one of 100,000 million galaxies. In a throwaway line in Genesis, the writer tells us, "he also made the stars" .. Gen 1:16 Such is his power Milky way: 100 Billion stars Universe: 100 Billion galaxies "he also made the stars" .. Gen 1:16

Science allows us to look deeper into nature and see new aspects of God’s Glory.

Thinking Christianly about the natural world....
Wonder and Worship Fearfully and wonderfully made ... Francis Collins Director, National Human Genome Research Institute, USA “The work of a scientist in this project, particularly a scientist who has the joy of also being a Christian, is a work of discovery which can also be a form of worship. As a scientist, one of the most exhilarating experiences is to learn something….that no human has understood before. To have a chance to see the glory of creation, the intricacy of it, the beauty of it, is really an experience not to be matched. Scientists who do not have a personal faith in God also undoubtedly experience the exhilaration of discovery. But to have that joy of discovery, mixed together with the joy of worship, is truly a powerful moment for a Christian who is also a scientist” See also his book “The Language of God” (2006) Our microscopes and telescopes

Alps, where I was skiing a few weeks ago .. Although we may understand the processes by which these mountains are formed -- the relentless pressure of continental plates raising them up and the incessant friction of water and wind grinding them down -- we nevertheless instinctively praise God, who made them to glorify Himself (e.g. Psalm 148) Francis Collins -- from 11 June 2006 Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients. “They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting, puzzling and unsettling.” He decided to visit a Methodist minister and was given a copy of C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which argues that God is a rational possibility. The book transformed his life. “It was an argument I was not prepared to hear,” he said. “I was very happy with the idea that God didn’t exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could not turn away.” His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.” Austrian Alps “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.” -- Francis Collins on his conversion.

God created and sustains the world
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” Gen 1:1 “All things were made by him, and without him ws not anything made that was made” John 1:3 “For by him [Christ] all things were created … and in him all things hold together” Col 1:16,17 “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory … sustaining all things by his powerful word” Heb 1:3 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created”, Rev 4:11 Genesis makes many strong theological statements that were in sharp contrast with the dominant “science” of the day, which was a kind of astrology. For example, pointing out that the stars were made by God, and were therefore not “gods” who controlled our day to day life, now seems obvious, but it would have seemed “unscientific” to people of the day. Colossians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

Biblical language of creation
He makes springs pour water into ravines; it flows between the mountains; the wild donkeys quench their thirst Psalm 104: 10,11 (praising God’s creation) "Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? Job 38:39-41 For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates (bara’) the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name! Amos 4:13 “Natural” processes are described both as divine and non-divine actions 2 perspectives on the same natural world This is one of many examples where the Bible speaks of “natural” processes, but describes them as divine actions.

‘Science’ studies the “Customs of the Creator”
If God were to stop “sustaining all things” the world would stop existing Donald MacKay, The Clockwork Image, IVP “An act of God is so marvelous that only the daily doing takes off the admiration” John Donne (Eighty Sermons, #22 published in 1640) “Miracles” are not God “intervening in the laws of nature”: they are God working in less customary ways Prof. Donald Mackay was a physicist who later moved into neuroscience, where he made many important early contributions. His book, The Clockwork Image (IVP, 1974) is an excellent introduction to the idea that God sustains the universe, with a helpful analogy of “Dynamic Equilibrium”. The above is not a direct quote, but a summary of his ideas. Another excellent little booklet, if you can get your hands on it, is “Science,Chance, and Providence”, the text of his 1977 Riddel Memorial Lectures. Published by Oxford University Press, (1978) John Donne ( ) was dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, known as a spell binding preacher, but also a “metaphysical poet”. I include this quote to illustrate that the idea of God working sovereignly through nature was held by many earlier Christians.

Interpreting the Bible
What kind of language? What kind of literature? What kind of audience? What kind of context? All truth is God’s truth, so, properly interpreted, science and the Bible cannot contradict

Bible is not a science textbook
The whole point of scripture is to bring us to a knowledge of Christ --- and having come to know him (and all that this implies), we should come to a halt and not expect to learn more. Scripture provides us with spectacles through which we may view the world as God’s creation and self-expression; it does not, and was never intended, to provide us with an infallible repository of astronomical and medical information. Cited in Alister E. McGrath, The foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion (Oxford, UK ,Blackwell 1998) p 124 John Calvin

The Bible... The Bible: God created the world
Nature attests to God’s qualities (Rom 1, Psalms) God sustains the universe Biblical language of Divine action (God sent the rain) Bible is not a science textbook, but ... world has a beginning stars, sun, and moon are not Gods etc... Colossians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

OUTLINE What does the Bible say about the natural world?
Thinking about science and certainty The Origins debate ...

Science/Religion and the conflict metaphor?
“Science and religion cannot be reconciled ... Religion has failed, and its failures should be exposed. Science, with its currently successful pursuit of universal competence … should be acknowledged the king” --Prof Peter Atkins, Oxford U, in 1995 P.W. Atkins, from an essay called “The Limitless Power of Science” in Nature’s Imagination, ed. J. Cornwell, (OUP, 1995). Atkins is a professor of Chemistry at Oxford, and a writer of excellent textbooks that I recommend for my students. He is also a good source for outrageous quotes about the all sufficiency of science. You might say I was putting up a straw man, but unfortunately many people think he speaks for science.

“I don’t know any historian of science, of any religious persuasion or none, who would hold to the theory that conflict is the name of the game between science and religion, it simply isn’t true.” --Prof Colin Russell, Open University, UK This quote is taken from the video Encounter, put together by Christian Students in Science. Russell is a well respected historian of science, especially on Chemistry. Wrote a nice book on Faraday called Michael Faraday: physics and faith, Oxford University Press, New York, 2000.

Pervasive myth (Emperor has no clothes?) Scientists are about as religious as the general population (e.g. Oxford Physics) e.g. Galileo example far more complex Really about Aristotle/Greek cosmology “Galilieo Connection”, Prof Charles Hummel, IVP (1986) There are good books on the Galileo (and Kepler and Copernicus) by Owen Gingrich. See also and for discussions, and for an extended bibliography.

Christian origins of science
Science has deeply Christian roots. Uniformity Rationality Intelligibility See e.g. books by Stanley Jaki; R. Hooykaas; e.g. China Royal Society, the word’s first scientific society. Founded in London July 15, 1662, many were Puritans Stanley Jaki, a Benedictine Priest, Professor at Seton Hall, and Templeton Prize winner, has written extensively on this topic. See, for example, The Saviour of Science, (Eerdmans, 2000) Another classic book is Religion and the Rise of Modern Science, (Eerdmans, 1972) by R. Hooykaas, who was professor at the University of Utrecht, my alma mater

Founders of Royal Society
“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent being.” Sir Isaac Newton This quote is from Principia Mathematica Isaac Newton wrote extensively on theology, especially about prophecy. However, his theology was rather heterodox. For example, later in life he began to doubt the trinitarian nature of God. Nevertheless, he was, I believe, deeply motivated by Christian belief. The best biography on Newton is probably Never at Rest : A Biography of Isaac Newton by Richard S. Westfall (Cambridge University Press, 1983), see also the shorter The Life of Isaac Newton by the same author (CUP, 1994). For a recent discussion of his faith, see the web page

Founders of Royal Society
Wrote “The Wisdom of God Manifested in Works of Creation”, governor of the “Corporation for the Spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England Sir Robert Boyle( ) Robert Boyle, often called the father of modern chemistry. A good source for information is

Mechanism v.s. Meaning Conflating mechanism and meaning is origin of most confusion why is the water boiling?

Nothing Buttery humans are collections of chemicals:
enough Fe for 1 nail enough P for 2000 matches enough Cl to disinfect a swimming pool enough fat to make 10 bars of soap 33

enough Fe for 1 nail enough P for 2000 matches enough Cl to disinfect a swimming pool enough fat to make 10 bars of soap 34

enough Fe for 1 nail enough P for 2000 matches enough Cl to disinfect a swimming pool enough fat to make 0.1 bars of soap 35

Scientism “The cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be”
Carl Sagan, Cornell U “The most important questions in life are not susceptible to solution by the scientific method” Gilbert Harman --- Inference to a best explanation Critical realism Polkinghorne Sagan’s famous opening line for the popular science show Cosmos seems innocuous enough, but is in fact an outrageous declaration of scientism. When I was studying for my PhD at Cornell, where he was on faculty, I attended a seminar by Sagan in which he made more or less the following argument: In the past people used a pendulum to determine the sex of an unborn child. Now we can predict eclipses to astonishing accuracy thousands of years in the future. Therefore, we should turn back religion, which is superstition, just like the pendulum story, and embrace science, which can explain everything. I remember thinking that this seemed a rather silly and simplistic argument, but was too intimidated to say anything about it. This type of scientism, or radical materialism, is strongly criticized by Newsome. The quote above comes from his essay “Life of faith, life of science”, which will be published in a proceedings of the Science and the Spritual Quest conference ( At present, the Newsome’s essay is available at Here’s another quote: “From a religious point of view, both the core assumption of natural science and the resulting method are fine as far as they go. Conflict arises when the additional assumption is introduced that the scientific process is the only reliable way to acquire truth that is meaningful and universal. This radically materialistic proposition is, of course, fundamentally incompatible with most traditional forms of religious belief and practice. At one fell swoop, it dismisses the existence of God, the possibility of divine revelation to humanity, any notion of universal grounding for right action (ethics), or any possibility that humanity can participate in a reality that trancends itself---none of which is testable by scientific method or required for understanding the mechanics of nature.” Bill Newsome, Stanford U. 36

Limits of Science? Science is a great and glorious enterprise - the most successful, I argue, that human beings have ever engaged in. To reproach it for its inability to answer all the questions we should like to put to it is no more sensible than to reproach a railway locomotive for not flying or, in general, not performing any other operation for which it was not designed. -- Sir Peter Medawar, The Limits of Science, (Oxford University Press, Oxford (1987)) 37

God of the gaps? “God of the Gaps” was coined by Charles Coulson in his book Christianity in an Age of Science, 25th Riddell Memorial Lecture Series, (Oxford University Press, 1953 ). Coulson was one of the great theoretical chemists of the past century, famous for his development of valence theory. He was also an active Methodist minister, as is Norman March, who was his successor at Oxford. I often hear Christians say: “Isn’t X amazing -- scientists don’t understand ...”, Similarly, I hear people saying -- now we do understand Y, therefore we no longer need God. At the popular level, the perception that “Design” by God mainly relates to things that appear to be miraculous is very common. Cardinal Newman in “The Idea of a Christian University” critiques Archdeacon Paley’s Natural Theology that couldn’t have happened by “natural means” --> God into the gap “When we come to the scientifically unknown, our correct policy is not to rejoice because we have found God; it is to become better scientists” Prof. Charles Coulson, Oxford U 38

Newton and the planets “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent being.” Sir Isaac Newton This quote is from Principia Mathematica Isaac Newton wrote extensively on theology, especially about prophecy, much of it rather heterodox. For example, later in life he began to doubt the trinitarian nature of God. Nevertheless, he was, I believe, deeply motivated by Christian belief. The best biography on Newton is probably “Never at Rest : A Biography of Isaac Newton” by Richard S. Westfall (Cambridge University Press, 1983), see also the shorter The Life of Isaac Newton by the same author (CUP, 1994). For a recent discussion of his faith, see the web page John Hedly Brooke, Science and Religion , CUP 1991, p147 For, as Leibniz objected, if God had to remedy the defects of his creation, this was surely to demean his craftmanship

Newton and the planets 18th century Orrery from a London coffee house, used to show the perfection of the orbits, which reflect God’s perfection

Leibnitz objects “For, as Leibniz objected, if God had to remedy the defects of his creation, this was surely to demean his craftmanship” John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion, CUP 1991, p147 Newton thought that God might have to occasionally intervene to stabilise the solar system. John Hedly Brooke, Science and Religion , CUP 1991, p147 For, as Leibniz objected, if God had to remedy the defects of his creation, this was surely to demean his craftmanship

Immediatism: Leibniz objects
“And I hold, that when God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God” Newton thought that God might have to occasionally intervene to stabilise the solar system. John Hedly Brooke, Science and Religion , CUP 1991, p147 For, as Leibniz objected, if God had to remedy the defects of his creation, this was surely to demean his craftmanship And I hold, that when God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God (cited in Colin Brown “Miracles and the Critical Mind”) And I hold, that when God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God Leibniz -- Clarkson letters (cited in Colin Brown “Miracles and the Critical Mind”)

Laplace and Napoleon Mécanique Céleste (1799-1825)
Napoleon: Why have you not mentioned the creator? "Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.” Although this quote “I have no need for that hypothesis” is sometimes taken as a statement of atheism, in fact Laplace ( ) was a practicing Roman Catholic and most likely meany simply that he thought that he had solved the problem of the stability of the planets without the need for a divine intervention. see also

Chaos and the planets Our understanding of the Solar System has been revolutionized over the past decade by the finding that the orbits of the planets are inherently chaotic. In extreme cases, chaotic motions can change the relative positions of the planets around stars, and even eject a planet from a system. The role of chaotic resonances in the Solar System, N. Murray and M. Holman, Nature 410, (12 April 2001) The origin of the observed stability of the solar system is very subtle problem, related to resonances etc... It needed the development of a new mathematical paradigm that would have been almost impossible for Newton, Laplace, or their contemporaries to anticipate. It would have been easy for Christians in Newton’s day to have pointed to the apparent instability of the solar system as “proof” that God must be involved. Later, when Laplace offered his counter arguments, Christians could have argued, perhaps showing why Laplace might be wrong, and eventually they would have won. Had this grown into an tradition (as say anti-evolutionary agitation has) then we might still find a remnant who would argue (rather pedantically) that the stability has still not been proven in a rigourous mathematical sense, which is of course true. I am indebted to Loren Haarsma for pointing this illustration out to me:

Populism and Paley God only present through interventions?
God present in the whole thing? - (providence - sustains all things ... Col 1:15) Natural laws -- customs of the creator Miracles -- God working in un-customary ways always for a theological purpose

Arguments from science:
Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics Fine-tuning in cosmology

Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics
Quantum Mechanics + Relativity = Antimatter Schrödinger equation (Quantum Mechanics) + Energy-Momentum (Special Relativity) = Dirac Equation (1928) Electrons Positrons (antimatter) discovered 1932 See also: “The applicability of mathematics as a philosophical problem”, Mark Steiner HUP (1998); E. Wigner "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences," in Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, vol. 13, No. I (February 1960) See also the work of Polkinghorne, e.g. “Beyond Science” CUP or Canto In many ways the “design” here elicits wonder, similar to that experienced when viewing mountains, or the stars etc Thus science helps us to better appreciate the wonders of creation, it extends our ability to view spatial design -- from the smallest atoms, to the mysterious creatures of the ocean depths, to the distant galaxies -- as well as temporal design -- think of the amazing age of the universe, and our own very brief sojourn, “a few seconds before midnight”. See also: “The applicability of mathematics as a philosophical problem”, Mark Steiner HUP (1998); E. Wigner "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences," in Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, vol. 13, No. I (February 1960)

Science and Beauty A Scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living. Henri Poincaré 1854 – 1912 48

Fine Tuning and the Anthropic Principle
“The universe is the way it is, because we are here” – Prof. Stephen Hawking, Cambridge U If the [fine structure constant] were changed by 1%, the sun would immediately explode -- Prof. Max Tegmark, U. Penn “Just Six Numbers” by Sir Martin Rees The Hawking quote comes from a paper with C.B. Collins, so really both authors should be quoted, but I only list Hawking, following the “Matthew Principle” (see N.D. Mermin, Boojums all the Way Through for the source of this “principle”). The quote by Tegmark is at from the Philadelphia Inquirer, 04/06/2002 Many authors have written about the Antropic Principle, including J.D. Barrow and F. Tipler The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, (Oxford University Press, 1986). Polkinghorne is also very clear on this topic, I recommend Beyond Science: The Wider Human Context (CUP) for a simple introduction, and he has written many other books that touch on this topic as well. See also for a recent conference report.

We are made of Stardust He C via a resonance
Sir Fred Hoyle, Cambridge U “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics .. and biology” His atheism was “deeply shaken” This quote comes from the November 1981 issue of the Cal Tech alumni magazine, where Hoyle wrote: “Would you not say to yourself, "Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would.... A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.” (Hoyle F., "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections", in Engineering and Science, November 1981, p12). See also (O. Gingerich, "Dare a Scientist Believe in Design", in J.M. Templeton ed., Evidence of Purpose: Scientists Discover the Creator, Continuum: New York, 1994, pp24-25) Hoyle( ) is also know for his advocacy of the “Steady State” model of the universe, a position he defended in part because he was unhappy with the way the Big Bang theory points to a beginning, and therefore suggests a “beginner”.

Fine Tuning and the Anthropic Principle
Fine tuning is not a proof of God, but seems more consistent with theism than atheism Note the difference with “God of the gaps” We seem to have three choices'... We can dismiss it as happenstance, we can acclaim it as the workings of providence, or (my preference) we can conjecture that our universe is a specially favoured domain in a still vaster multiverse.’ If this multiverse contained every possible set of laws and conditions, then the existence of our own world with its particular characteristics would be inevitable.” Sir Martin Rees (just 6 numbers) -- John Leslie firing squad argument Again, I recommend books by Polkinghorne for a more sophisticated discussion of these points.

Tapestry arguments and inference to the best explanation
The Golemization of Relativity, David Mermin, Physics Today 49, p11 April 1996 Science is a tapestry -- you can pick at a few strings, but that doesn’t break the whole cloth Why do I believe in Jesus Christ? tapestry argument: If we are to understand the nature of reality, we have only two possible starting points: either the brute fact of the physical world or the brute fact of a divine will and purpose behind that physical world John Polkinghorne, Serious Talk: Science and Religion in Dialogue, (1995). Oma I was a PhD student at Cornell, working with David Mermin’s great text book collaborator Neil Ashcroft, when Collins and Pinch wrote their book -- Pinch was on the floor just above us. Mermin is one of my heroes -- he writes beautifully, I recommend for example his book “Boojums all the way through” . I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen- not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory,Harper Collins, San Francisco (2001).

Witnessing to scientists
To first order just like everyone else To second order, more likely to be interested in apologetic arguments Worldview issues are key here -- Often open to idealism (e.g. Ard’s career talk)

Summary of first part What does the Bible say?
Good interpretation is key: God created and sustains the world God reveals himself through nature (Natural Theology) Not a science text book, but … Thinking about science and apologetics = mainly philosophy/world view issues: Conflict metaphor for history Mechanism and meaning Nothing buttery Scientism and the limits of science God of the gaps and miracles Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics Fine-tuning and anthropic principle Tapestry arguments and inference to the best explanation

History of life on earth
Does where we come from determine who we are and how we should live? OUTLINE Origin of life? Defining words: Evolution Modern themes in evolutionary theory Christian approaches to biological complexity YECS Progressive creation (concordism) Theistic evolution (biologos) Intelligent Design (ID) Interpretation of Genesis 1-3

earth forms from accretion disk Grandeur of God? humans -- last 2 seconds of 24 hr day not unlike astronomy: the heavens declare the Glory of God - Psalm 19 What is man that you are mindful of him? Psalm 8 In our galaxy there are 100,000 million stars, like our sun. our galaxy is one of 100,000 million galaxies. In a throwaway line in Genesis, the writer tells us, "he also made the stars" .. Gen 1:16 Such is his power To put this into perspective, animals didn’t appear until the last 2 hours -- dinosaurs went extinct in the the last 20 minutes -- anatomically modern humans -- the last one or two seconds .... recorded history, about last 0.1s -- your lifespan, the last millisecond Earth's history can be divided into five major time units called eras. The first two eras (the archean and the proterozoic) will be grouped together and called the: Precambrian. The next three eras are the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. These three eras are further divided into units called periods. For example, the Mesozoic era contains the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. or the Paleozoic ends with the Permian period Many of the geological time periods end with mass extinction. The Permian-Triassic extinction event wipes out about 90% of all animal species; this fourth extinction event is the most severe mass extinction known. Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event in 65 wipes out 50-80% of all species If it were one 24 hour day, then last 2 seconds humans appear..... Psalm 8: 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

Late Heavy Bombardement
4-3.8 Billion years Brutal: some impacts probably vaporized the sea. Any life wiped out

First fossils? First chemical evidence for fossilized life to 3.5 Billion years ago -- evidence is C12 enrichment -- Hopanes from cyanobacteria (microbes responsible for generating Oxygen) found 2.5 Billion year old shale Life is very choosy about its biochemistry -- from the millions of known small organic molecules, cells only employ a few hundred Hopanes -- polycyclic hydrocarbon molecules - elegant 5-ring molecules is only know from biochemical processes of cellular life concentrates in the membranes.

Origin of life Cambrian Explosion what happened here? Origin of life?

Origin of life The problem of the origin of life has much in common with a well-constructed detective story. There is no shortage of clues pointing to the way in which the crime, the contamination of the pristine environment of the early earth, was committed. On the contrary, there are far too many clues and far too many suspects. It would be hard to find two investigators who agree on even the broad outline of events. Leslie Orgel (1998) Orgel in Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 23, 491 (1998)

Aside: Defining Evolution
Evolution as Natural History the earth is old (+/- 4.5 Billion years) more complex life forms followed from simpler life forms Evolution as a mechanism for the emergence of biological complexity generated by mutations and natural selection (note: most Christians agree that God created this mechanism) Evolution as a “big picture” worldview (scientism) George Gaylord Simpson: "Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned. He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material." or Richard Dawkins: "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” If you want to go “gloves off” then surely it is the scientism of the “big picture” that you should attack? 61

Language: Random or stochastic?
Random mutations and natural selection... Stochastic (Monte Carlo) optimisation e.g. used to price your stock portfolio ..... 62

Lego blocks or clay? Evo-Devo Lego Blocks: pax6 sonic-hedgehog
shaven-baby tinman Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom. S.B. Carroll (Blackwell Science 2005) 63

Why so few genes? Mycoplasma genitalium (483) E.coli (5416)
(300 minimum?) E.coli (5416) S. cerevisiae (5800) Mycoplasma genitalium, a procaryote, has the smallest genome of an independent organism -- it can cause Escherichia coli, the most popular model procaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the most popular simple model eucaryote; it is a a species of budding yeast (Baker’s yeast) Drosophila Melanogaster is one of the most popular models for genetics The roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, is very important for laboratory studies in development -- Pristionchus. pacificus (Sommer et al) is very similar to C. elegans (but lives in beetles) -- has many more genes. Why? The roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, the staple of laboratory studies in development, contains only 959 cells, looks like a tiny formless squib with virtually no complex anatomy beyond its genitalia, and possesses just over 19,000 genes. The general estimate for Homo sapiens - sufficiently large to account for the vastly greater complexity of humans under conventional views - had stood at well over 100,000, with a more precise figure of 142,634 widely advertised and considered well within the range of reasonable expectation. Homo sapiens possesses between 30,000 and 40,000 genes, with the final tally almost sure to lie nearer the lower figure. In other words, our bodies develop under the directing influence of only half again as many genes as the tiny roundworm needs to manufacture its utter, if elegant, outward simplicity. Drosophila Melanogaster (13,500) C. elegans (19,500) & P. pacificus (29,000) H. sapiens (22,000) 64

Why so few genes? We share 15% of our genes with E. coli
“ “ % “ “ “ “ yeast “ “ % “ “ “ “ flies “ “ % “ “ “ “ frogs “ “ % “ “ “ “ chimps what makes us different? 65

Gene language Why are there so few genes?
complexity comes from the interactions gene networks systems biology transcriptional network for yeast: Saccharomyces cerevisiae 66

Gene language [Genes] are trapped in huge colonies, locked inside highly intelligent beings, moulded by the outside world, communicating with it by complex processes, through which, blindly, as if by magic, function emerges. They are in you and me; we are the system that allows their code to be read; and their preservation is totally dependent on the joy that we experience in reproducing ourselves. We are the ultimate rationale for their existence. Denis Noble -- The Music of Life: Biology Beyond the Genome (OUP 2006) [Genes] swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. Richard Dawkins -- The Selfish Gene (1976) 67

Contingency v.s.``deep structures’’: Re-run the tape of evolution?
“Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay.” In evolution, there is no direction, no progression. Humanity is dethroned from its exalted view of its own importance S.J. Gould: “Wonderful Life”; (W.W. Norton 1989) When you examine the tapestry of evolution you see the same patterns emerging over and over again. Gould's idea of rerunning the tape of life is not hypothetical; it's happening all around us. And the result is well known to biologists — evolutionary convergence. When convergence is the rule, you can rerun the tape of life as often as you like and the outcome will be much the same. Convergence means that life is not only predictable at a basic level; it also has a direction. Simon Conway Morris “Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe”; (CUP, 2003) 68

Convergent Evolution? "For the harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number, and the heart and soul and all poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept of mathematical beauty." (On Growth and Form, 1917.) D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (May 2, 1860–June 21, 1948) was a biologist and mathematician and the author of the 1917 book, On Growth and Form, an influential work of striking originality. Nobel laureate P. Medawar called On Growth and Form "the finest work of literature in all the annals of science that have been recorded in the English tongue"[1]. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Thompson has been called "the first biomathematician" by Simon Singh[2] He died in St. Andrews, Scotland. On Growth and Form The central thesis of On Growth and Form is that biologists of his day overemphasized the role of evolution, and underemphasized the roles of physical laws and mechanics, as determinants of the form and structure of living organisms. Transformations on crocodilian skulls Enlarge Thompson pointed out example after example of correlations between biological forms and mechanical phenomena. He showed the similarity in the forms of jellyfish and the forms of drops of liquid falling into viscous fluid, and between the internal supporting structures in the hollow bones of birds and well-known engineering truss designs. His observations of phyllotaxis (numerical relationships between spiral structures in plants) and the Fibonacci sequence has become a textbook staple. Thompson's illustration of the transformation of Argyropelecus Olfersi into Sternoptyx diaphana by applying a 70° shear Utterly sui generis, the book never quite fit into the mainstream of biological thought. It does not really present any single central discovery, nor, in many cases, does it attempt to establish a causal relationship between the forms emerging from physics with the comparable forms seen in biology. It is a work in the "descriptive" tradition; Thompson did not articulate his insights in the form of experimental hypotheses that can be tested. Thompson was aware of this, saying that "This book of mine has little need of preface, for indeed it is 'all preface' from beginning to end." The huge (1116 pages in an edition currently in print), well-written, and extensively illustrated tome has enchanted and stimulated generations of biologists, architects, artists, and mathematicians, and, of course, those working on the boundaries of disciplines. Perhaps the most famous part of the work is Chapter XVII, "The Comparison of Related Forms." He explored the degree to which differences in the forms of related animals could be described by means of relatively simple mathematical transformations. Convergent evolution in mechanical design of lamnid sharks and tunas Jeanine M. Donley, et al. Nature 429, (6 May 2004) 69

Convergent Evolution North America: Placental Sabre-toothed cat
South America” Marsupial Sabre-toothed cat 70

Convergent Evolution compound eye camera eye 71

Convergent Evolution? Each of these mammals has a long, sticky, worm-like tongue, no teeth to speak of and scimitar claws. Each has bulging salivary glands, a stomach as rugged as a cement mixer and an absurd, extenuated, hairless snout that looks like a cross between a hot dog and a swizzle stick. Despite their many resemblances, the three creatures are unrelated to one another; the spiny anteater, in fact, lays eggs and is a close cousin of the duck-billed platypus. What has yoked them into morphological similitude is a powerful and boundlessly enticing process called evolutionary convergence. By the tenet of convergence, there really is a best approach and an ideal set of tools for grappling with life's most demanding jobs. The spiny anteater, pangolin and giant anteater all subsist on a diet of ants and termites, and myrmecophagy, it turns out, is a taxing, specialized trade. As a result, the predecessors of today's various ant hunters gradually, and quite independently, converged on the body plan most suited to exploit a food resource that violently resists exploitation. Enormous number of examples ... from proteins to vision up to societies to intelligence. Are rational conscious beings an inevitable outcome? “ The principal aim of this book has been to show that the constraints of evolution and the ubiquity of convergence make the emergence of something like ourselves a near-inevitability. SCM, “Life’s Solution”, (CUP 2005) pp328 72

Christian approaches to emergence of biological complexity
Origins: does where we come from determine who we are and how we should then live? Christian approaches: Young Earth Creation Science Earth is about 10,000 years old Genesis 1,2 are historical in the modern sense mainly in the last 50 years Progressive Creationism Earth is old Complexity came about through miracles Varied views on exegesis of Genesis Theistic Evolution Complexity came about through normal processes of God Genesis 1,2 are theological (framework view --prose poem) Intelligent Design All the above views are strictly ‘creationists’ and believe in intelligent design Capital ID is a more recent movement, could be YECS, PE, or TE. 73

The Bible and creation The Bible: God created the world
Nature attests to God’s qualities (Rom 1, Psalms) God sustains the universe Biblical language of Divine action (God sent the rain) Bible is not a science textbook world has a beginning stars, sun, and moon are not Gods etc... Colossians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. 74

YECS GOOD LESS GOOD http://www.answersingenesis.org/
Motivated by desire to uphold scripture easiest to rationalise with Genesis great at popularisations Good understanding of the dangers of evolutionism LESS GOOD characterised by heated rhetoric and false dichotomies: But can't we be Christian evolutionists, they say. Yes, no doubt it is possible to be a Christian and an evolutionist. Likewise, one can be a Christian thief, or a Christian adulterer, or a Christian liar! Christians can be inconsistent and illogical about many things, but that doesn't make them right. -- HM Morris, 1980, King of Creation, pp.83-84 Reinforces conflict metaphor Often fast and lose with quotes and science Disconnected from scientific community and tapestry arguments very hard to reconcile with science (Avaroism?) Ken Ham, Henry Morris, Duane Gish, Jonathan Safrati from Tony Lane: Avaroism (from Muslim philosopher) Islam was faced with the impact of Aristotle before. Avaroism accepts Aristotelian philosophy without integration. as a philosopher you believe that the world is eternal as a theologian you believe that the world was created in finite time a group in Paris took this on later, and denied the harmony of faith and reason. Held to a viewpoint of "*double truth*" Many Christians hold to this as well, no attempt is made to integrate them. Before we rush to condemn, we should recognise that this is a necessary survival strategy. But as a long term strategy it is hopelessly inadequate. It is also widely used by Christians in their academic world.

Advice from Augustine It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, while presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, taking nonsense. We should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn .... If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well, and hear him maintain his foolish opinions about the Scriptures, how then are they going to believe those Scriptures in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead St. Augustine Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although _they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram: translated by J.H. Taylor, Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, volume 41. (Emphasis added)

Advice from Augustine In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in the Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines our position, we too fall with it. We should not battle for our own interpretation but for the teaching of Holy Scripture. We should not wish to conform the meaning of Holy Scripture to our interpretation, but our interpretation to the meaning of Holy Scripture. Cited in Alister E. McGrath, The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion (Blackwell, Oxford, UK 1998), p 11

Progressive Creationism/Concordism
GOOD Motivated by desire to harmonise scripture with science often accepts most of Natural History easier to rationalise with scripture than TE a “middle way”? LESS GOOD No one clear scheme -- doesn’t solve some thorny questions (like death before fall) Not always as easy to reconcile with science Hugh Ross, Norman Geissler

Theistic Evolution/Biologos
GOOD Motivated by desire to harmonise scripture with science easier to rationalise with science dominant view among professional scientists and theologians LESS GOOD More difficult to harmonise with scripture doesn’t solve some pressing questions (like death before fall) Sometimes misses the dangers of “evolutionism” Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, B.B. Warfield, Henri Blocher

What kind of literature?
Genesis 1-2:3 Phrases that occur 10 times: 10 times “God said” (3 for mankind, 7 for other creatures) 10 times creative commands (3 x “let there be” for heavenly creatures, 7 x “let” for world below) 10 x To make 10 x According to their kind Phrases that occur 7 times (heptads) “and it was so” “and God saw that it was good” Genesis 1-2:3 Phrases that occur 3 times God blessed God created God created men and women Other numerical patterns: Intro 1:1-2 contains 21 words (3 x 7) and conclusion (2: 1-3) contains 35 words (5 X 7) Earth is mentioned 21 times and “God” 35 times -- see e.g. H. Blocher “In the Beginning”, p 33 or E. Lucas “Can We Believe Genesis Today” , p 97

FRAMEWORK VIEW SHAPED Day 1 The separation of light and darkness Day 2 The separation of the waters to form the sky and the sea Day 3 The separation of the sea from dry land and creation of plants INHABITED Day 4 The creation of the lights to rule the day and the night Day 5 The creation of the birds and fish to fill the sky and sea Day 6 The creation of the animals and humans to fill the land and eat the plants Bara only used in v 1, 21 and is for sea monsters Genesis 1 The Beginning 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. 6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. 9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. 14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. 20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. 24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." 29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Day 7: The heavens and earth were finished and God rested 81

Gen2: more patterns: These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. Chiastic structure (C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4 P&R (2006)) When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. A completely different emphasis!

More like Revelation than like Luke But very clear in its teaching e.g. God created the world Creation is good I Tim 4: 1The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

More like Revelation than like Luke? But very clear in its teaching e.g. God created the world Creation is good Man is made in God’s image Mankind (adam) has fallen into sin A promise of redemption (seed of woman) MANY! More things No problems with perspecuity on doctrine

Is it chronological? "Now what man of intelligence will believe that the first and the second and the third day … existed without the sun and moon and stars?” Origen : First Principles, 4.3 “On this subject there are three main views. According to the first, some wish to understand paradise only in a material way. According to the second, others wish to take it only in a spiritual way. According to the third, others understand it both ways, taking some things materially and others spiritually. If I may briefly mention my own opinion, I prefer the third” Augustine of Hippo ( ) De Gen. ad litt VIII, 1. (on the literal interpretation of Genesis)

Jewish Commentators “…the sages agree that the creation of this earth and sky was a single divine event and not a series of distinct occurrences spread out over six or seven days N.M. Samuelson, “Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation”, CUP (1994) p115 “The text does not point to the order of the [acts] of creation … the text does not by any means teach which things were created first and which later [it only] wants to teach us what was the condition of things at the time when heaven and earth were created, namely, that the earth was without form and a confused mass” Rashi ( ), “Commentary on Genesis” Many more examples, e.g. Maimonides ( ) etc…

Writers of “the Fundamentals”
One of the original “Fundamentalists” There is not a word in the Bible to indicate that in its view death entered the animal world as a consequence of the Sin of man. When you say there is the “six days” and the question whether those days are meant to be measured by the twenty-four hours of the sun’s revolution around the earth -- I speak of these things popularly. It is difficult to see how they should be so measured when the sun that is to measure them is not introduced until the fourth day. Do not think that this larger reading of the days is a new speculation. You find Augustine in early times declaring that it is hard or altogether impossible to say what fashion these days are, and Thomas Aquinas, in the middle ages, leaving the matter an open question. The Christian View of God and the World (Edinburgh, Andrew Elliot 1904, p 197) quote 2 -- from Hugh Ross “A matter of days”, p 30 James Orr

Strong internal hints at “elevated prose”, more like Revelation than like Luke Two separate narratives (tablets) Numerical patterns Thematic patterns A common understanding of church fathers, early Jewish commentators and early Evangelical leaders. Main theological teachings are crystal clear (perspicuity) Physical interpretation less so -- there science can take a “servant role” and help you decide. We must be very careful not to import our own cultural biases into interpretation Word bara v 1 v 21 sea creatures and v sn over literal interpretation misses key points

Aside:Emergence of Humans?
e.g. at what age is a child spiritually responsible to God? John Stott on “Homos Divinus” Advice from C.S. Lewis When the author of Genesis says that God made man in His own image, he may have pictured a vaguely corporeal God making man as a child makes a figure out of plasticine. A modern Christian philosopher may think of the process lasting from the first creation of matter to the final appearance on this planet for an organism fit to receive spiritual as well as biological life. Both mean essentially the same thing. Both are denying the same thing -- the doctrine that matter by some blind power inherent in itself has produced spirituality. (C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock Eerdmans (1970), p 46) Because some people will feel worried -- particularly those exposed to populist Christian teaching .... Lewis on same page: Does this mean that Christians on different levels of general education conceal radically different beliefs under an identical form of worlds? Certainly not. For waht they agree on is the substance, and what they differ about is the shadow. When one imagines his God seated in a local heaven above a flat earth, where another sees God and creation in terms of Professor [Albert North] Whitehead’s philosoph [loosely, process theology], this difference touches precisely what does not matter.

Advice from Billy Graham
"I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God.” - Billy Graham quoted by David Frost Source: Book - Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man (1997, p ) quote taken from

Origins and biological complexity
Science is fun Nature is full of self-assembling things Science and Faith - big, fun questions Origins … lots to still figure out

earth forms from accretion disk Grandeur of God? humans -- last 2 seconds of 24 hr day not unlike astronomy: the heavens declare the Glory of God - Psalm 19 What is man that you are mindful of him? Psalm 8 In our galaxy there are 100,000 million stars, like our sun. our galaxy is one of 100,000 million galaxies. In a throwaway line in Genesis, the writer tells us, "he also made the stars" .. Gen 1:16 Such is his power To put this into perspective, animals didn’t appear until the last 2 hours -- dinosaurs went extinct in the the last 20 minutes -- anatomically modern humans -- the last one or two seconds .... recorded history, about last 0.1s -- your lifespan, the last millisecond Earth's history can be divided into five major time units called eras. The first two eras (the archean and the proterozoic) will be grouped together and called the: Precambrian. The next three eras are the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. These three eras are further divided into units called periods. For example, the Mesozoic era contains the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. or the Paleozoic ends with the Permian period Many of the geological time periods end with mass extinction. The Permian-Triassic extinction event wipes out about 90% of all animal species; this fourth extinction event is the most severe mass extinction known. Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event in 65 wipes out 50-80% of all species If it were one 24 hour day, then last 2 seconds humans appear..... Psalm 8: 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

Late Heavy Bombardement
4-3.8 Billion years Brutal: some impacts probably vaporized the sea. Any life wiped out

First fossils? First chemical evidence for fossilized life to 3.5 Billion years ago -- evidence is C12 enrichment -- Hopanes from cyanobacteria (microbes responsible for generating Oxygen) found 2.5 Billion year old shale Life is very choosy about its biochemistry -- from the millions of known small organic molecules, cells only employ a few hundred Hopanes -- polycyclic hydrocarbon molecules - elegant 5-ring molecules is only know from biochemical processes of cellular life concentrates in the membranes.

Origin of life Cambrian Explosion what happened here? Origin of life?

Origin of life The problem of the origin of life has much in common with a well-constructed detective story. There is no shortage of clues pointing to the way in which the crime, the contamination of the pristine environment of the early earth, was committed. On the contrary, there are far too many clues and far too many suspects. It would be hard to find two investigators who agree on even the broad outline of events. Leslie Orgel (1998) Orgel in Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 23, 491 (1998)

Advice from Schaefer Francis Schaefer
We must take ample time, and sometimes this will mean a long time, to consider whether the apparent clash between science and revelation means that the theory set forth by science is wrong or whether we must reconsider what we thought the Bible says. Francis Schaefer Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1975), 24.

Intelligent Design (capitalised)
heterogeneous movement -- will focus on ID centred at Discovery Institute some key publications and people The Mystery of Life’s Origin (1984) Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, Roger L. Olsen Evolution, a Theory in Crisis (1986) Michael Denton Darwin on Trial (1991) Philip Johnson Darwin’s Black Box (1996) Michael Behe (CT book of the year) Icons of evolution (2000) Jonathan Wells No Free Lunch (2001) William Dembski

What is ID Intelligent agency, as an aspect of scientific theory making, has more explanatory power in accounting for the specified, and sometimes irreducible complexity of some physical systems, including biological entities, and/or the existence of the universe as a whole, than the blind forces of. . . matter.’[1] That is, intelligent design is a better explanation for entities exhibiting complex specified information (CSI) than are appeals to the inherent capacities of nature (i.e. chance and/or physical necessity). ID suggests that the world contains objects that exhaust the explanatory resources of undirected natural causes, and can only be adequately explained by recourse to intelligent causation. (definition from Peter S. Williams) taken from Intelligent Design Theory – An Overview Peter S. Williams (MA, MPhil) [1] Beckwith, Francis J, Law, Darwinism, and Public Education: The Establishment Clause and the Challenge of Intelligent Design, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), p. xiii.

Irreducible Complexity
Michael Behe (1996) Bacterial flagellum, immune system, etc... are too complex to have evolved This result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science ... The discovery [of intelligent design] rivals those of Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schroedinger, Pasteur and Darwin.”

Complex Specified Information
William Dembski CSI -- information that could not have come there by chance alone? e.g. when we see a statue v.s. weathered rock “Law of the conservation of information”

Intelligent Design Philosophical issues: Theological issues:
Definition of science (demarcation) ? Problems, but why not follow the evidence? Theological issues: when/why does God intervene? miracles? Newman/Barth critique

ID and Christians Major issues is -- why these miracles?
Miracles occur to serve God’s redemptive purpose Origin, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin etc... “And I hold, that when God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God” Leibnitz e.g. what is the Biblical rationale for supernatural action aiding the creation of the flagellum?

Intelligent Design (capitalised)
GOOD Looking at complex questions in science/philosophy counteracting evolutionism middle road, broad church? LESS GOOD Detached from scripture doesn’t solve some pressing questions (like death before fall) very political William Dembski, Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, Paul Nelson

Summary Origins questions are complex
Immediatism Anti-traditionalism Populism ….. Our common enemy is philosophical naturalism The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism, Philo 4, 2 (2000) by Quentin Smith “The justification of most contemporary naturalistic views is defeated by contemporary theist arguments” “Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism, most influenced by Plantinga’s writings, began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians. “ This book, followed seven years later by Plantinga’s even more impressive book, The Nature of Necessity, made it manifest that a realist theist was writing at the highest qualitative level of analytic philosophy, on the same playing field as Carnap, Russell, Moore, Grünbaum, and other naturalists. Realist theists, whom hitherto had segregated their academic lives from their private lives, increasingly came to believe (and came to be increasingly accepted or respected for believing) that arguing for realist theism in scholarly publications could no longer be justifiably regarded as engaging in an “academically unrespectable” scholarly pursuit. Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism, most influenced by Plantinga’s writings, began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians.

Calvin on using science
As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that Galileo had any direct knowledge of Calvin's writings. Nevertheless his understanding of the nature of the language used by the Bible when referring to the natural world is the same as Calvin's as the following quotations from the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina show. B1. These propositions set down by the Holy Ghost were set down in that manner by the sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to the capacities of the common people, who are rude and unlearned. (p. 181) B2. It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned. (p. 182) B3. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words. (p. 182f) B having arrived at any certainties in physics, we ought to utilize these as the most appropriate aids in the true exposition of the Bible and in the investigation of those meanings which are necessarily contained therein, for these must be concordant with demonstrated truths. (p. 183) The first two quotations express the same 'accommodation' understanding of biblical language as Calvin adopted. The third recognises that, as a result of this, the literal sense of the biblical text may sometimes be at variance with the scientific understanding of the natural phenomenon described. In the final quotation Galileo makes the point made by Prof. McKay that one reason why biblical interpreters should take scientific knowledge into account is that it will help them to recognise when the biblical writers are using the language of appearance or cultural idioms, and so help them avoid the kind of misinterpretation made by those who condemned Galileo. lehttp://

1: Isis Jun;91(2): B. B. Warfield ( ). A biblical inerrantist as evolutionist. Livingstone DN, Noll MA. School of Geosciences, Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The theological doctrine of biblical inerrancy is the intellectual basis for modern creation science. Yet Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield of Princeton Theological Seminary, the theologian who more than any other defined modern biblical inerrancy, was throughout his life open to the possibility of evolution and at some points an advocate of the theory. Throughout a long career Warfield published a number of major papers on these subjects, including studies of Darwin's religious life, on the theological importance of the age of humanity (none) and the unity of the human species (much), and on Calvin's understanding of creation as proto-evolutionary. He also was an engaged reviewer of many of his era's important books by scientists, theologians, and historians who wrote on scientific research in relation to traditional Christianity. Exploration of Warfield's writing on science generally and evolution in particular retrieves for historical consideration an important defender of mediating positions in the supposed war between science and religion.

James Orr One of the original “Fundamentalists”
There is not a word in the Bible to indicate that in its view death entered the animal world as a consequence of the Sin of man. When you say there is the “six days” and the question whether those days are meant to be measured by the twenty-four hours of the sun’s revolution around the earth -- I speak of these things popularly. It is difficult to see how they should be so measured when the sun that is to measure them is not introduced until the fourth day. Do not think that this larger reading of the days is a new speculation. You find Augustine in early times declaring that it is hard or altogether impossible to say what fashion these days are, and Thomas Aquinas, in the middle ages, leaving the matter an open question. The Christian View of God and the World (Edinburgh, Andrew Elliot 1904, p 197) quote 2 -- from Hugh Ross “A matter of days”, p 30

C.S. Lewis When the author of Genesis says that God made man in His own image, he may have pictured a vaguely corporeal God making man as a child makes a figure out of plasticine. A modern Christian philosopher may think of the process lasting from the first creation of matter to the final appearance on this planet for an organism fit to receive spiritual as well as biological life. Both mean essentially the same thing. Both are denying the same thing -- the doctrine that matter by some blind power inherent in itself has produced spirituality Does this mean that Christians on different levels of general education conceal radically different beliefs under an identical form of worlds? Certainly not. For waht they agree on is the substance, and what they differ about is the shadow. When one imagines his God seated in a local heaven above a flat earth, where another sees God and creation in terms of Professor [Albert North] Whitehead’s philosoph[loosely, process theology], this difference touches precisely what does not matter. (C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock Eerdmans (1970), p 46) same page: Does this mean that Christians on different levels of general education conceal radically different beliefs under an identical form of worlds? Certainly not. For waht they agree on is the substance, and what they differ about is the shadow. When one imagines his God seated in a local heaven above a flat earth, where another sees God and creation in terms of Professor [Albert North] Whitehead’s philosoph [loosely, process theology], this difference touches precisely what does not matter.

Westminster Theological Seminary
The Westminster Confession's doctrine of the clarity of Scripture (1:7) goes hand in hand with its inspiration, infallibility, and authority. Yet it implies that not all parts of the Scriptures are equally clear or full. Here we must follow Calvin's great motto that where God makes an end of teaching, we should make an end of trying to be wise.(11) With Augustine and E. J. Young, the revered teacher of our senior faculty members, we recognize that the exegetical question of the length of the days of Genesis 1 may be an issue which cannot be, and therefore is not intended by God to be, answered in dogmatic terms. To insist that it must comes dangerously close to demanding from God revelation which he has not been pleased to bestow upon us, and responding to a threat to the biblical world view with weapons that are not crafted from the words which have proceeded out of the mouth of God.

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