| As human residents of planet earth,
we naturally are driven to figure out who we are, why we
are here, and where we are going when our life in this world
is over. We are also driven to understand the mysterious
nature of life itself, particularly when it comes to the
curious mix of good and evil that exists all around us. Moreover, as rational and logical beings,
we should endeavor to where the evidence itself naturally
leads us. Philosophical or theological prejudice should
ideally play little or no role here, because it is the objective
accuracy of our conclusions that is ultimately of paramount
importance to everyone. We will derive little or no benefit
if we mindlessly choose to believe whatever we want to believe
about the nature of life. On the other hand, if the evidence
itself naturally leads us to the cosmic doorstep of a Supreme
Being, we shouldn't shy away from this conclusion for narcissistic,
self-motivated reasons, either. For many years now people of all races
and tongues have believed that modern science has effectively
disproven the existence of God. I myself believed this until
I was in my third year of college, when I took an organic
chemistry class. It was at this point that I realized, in
a sudden burst of insight, that the facts of modern science
actually point decisively in the opposite directionnamely,
to the existence of a "Supercalculating Intellect" who has
deliberately crafted the universe to support life. Later, when I began to dig deeper in this
matter, I was astonished to learn that the idea of God was
actually an integral part of the history of science. I learned
that most of the founding fathers of the modern scientific
movement were in fact theists or deists themselves; and
moreover, that the very impetus to do science was originally
based on the conviction that a Divine Law-Giver had deliberately
established a set of universal laws that were knowable to
humans. I was even more astonished to learn that
a significant historical misrepresentation of the nature
of science has taken place in our modern age. The ostensible
aim of this insidious historical revisionism has been to
rationalize God out of the scientific matrix altogether.
The facts of history, though, speak for
themselves. For instance, we've been led to believe that
Nicholas Copernicus somehow "dethroned" humanity from the
center of the universe by his heliocentric discovery that
the earth revolves around the sun, instead of vice versa.
This theistically neutral discovery has actually been elevated
to the level of a formal scientific principle, which states
that there is nothing special about the earth at all. This
Copernican Principle has been recited ad infinitum by
a litany of scientists and philosophers, but the remarkable
fact of the matter is that this conclusion is based on a
serious falsehood, as there is no necessary, or even likely,
connection between the earth's geographical location in
the solar system and its overall degree of specialness in
the universe. Indeed, Copernicus himself was a thoroughgoing
anthropocentrist, and he even based his discovery on his
anticipation of how an Intelligent Designer would have crafted
the solar system. The same thing can be said for Charles
Darwin as well, whom the history of science has misrepresented
to be an arch atheist. He was actually nothing of the kind.
Like his grandfather Erasmus before him, Darwin was a deist,
and he even based his theory of evolution by natural selection
on his religious conviction that God Himself had established
the various laws by which the process of evolution itself
operates. All Darwin really wanted to show is that God didn't
create the biosphere instantaneously by miraculous fiat.
Darwin instead was convinced that God brought about life
by the interposition of "secondary causes," which are the
naturalistic factors that led to the rise of life by natural
evolutionary pathways. But this is a long way from being
a genuine atheistic position. Indeed, Darwin's theory bears
a striking resemblance to the creation story in Genesis
One, in which the earth itself (and not God directly)
is said to have brought about life in six major "days,"
or stages. But this is identical to the most fundamental
definition of evolution, which is merely "change with respect
to time." Remarkably enough, as I continued to follow
this line of evidence, I was even more astonished to learn
that there appears to be a constraining set of logical principles
surrounding human nature, which makes the temporary existence
of evil on this planet inevitable, regardless of how much
power God is deemed to possess. These logical constraints
do not appear to be rooted in the metaphysical nature of
things, as process theists believe. Instead, they seem to
be rooted in the Human Essence itself, such that they would
only apply in our world as long as the human race is desired
to exist. Although this is a moderate anthropocentric
view (because it allows for the possible existence of intelligent
life elsewhere), this doesn't necessarily render it false
or "unscientific." To the contrary, the latest scientific
evidence has revealed three powerful empirical observations
that surprisingly support this doctrine of moderate anthropocentrism. To begin with, moderate "anthropic" cosmology
has revealed that the underlying structural "recipe" for
human life in fact permeates the entire known universe!
In this limited structural sense human beings are located
at the "center" of the known universe after all. The human brain is also widely acknowledged
to be the most complex physical structure ever discovered.
In terms of sheer structural complexity, then, the human
brain can also be considered to exist at the "center" of
the known universe as well. Finally, the faculty of human consciousness
is generally believed to be the most advanced functional
property yet to be observed in the cosmos. In terms of pure
functional sophistication, then, the property of human consciousness
can also be considered to exist at the "center" of the entire
known universe. These realizations are strongly supported
by the many intriguing "anthropic coincidences" that have
been discovered by modern cosmologists. These "coincidences"
reveal a stunning degree of "fine-tuning" in the support
of life, such that some of the most die hard atheistic scientists
are now "jumping ship" over to a theistic point of view.
The six books that have spanned my research
career document all of the above topics in common-sense,
easy-to-read language. I am now convinced, on a purely logical
and empirical level, that an all-powerful Deity is in
fact responsible after all for designing the universe to
be life-supporting. I am also convinced that the problem
of evil will eventually be resolved forever at some point
in the distant future (probably in the Afterlife), when
the innermost character structure of human beings is finally
able to reach the spiritual wholeness that was ultimately
intended by the Creator. You might also enjoy reading Michael's
latest article.
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