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WHY SCIENTISTS MUST BELIEVE
IN GOD: DIVINE ATTRIBUTES
OF SCIENTIFIC LAW 1
All scientistsâincluding agnostics and atheistsâbelieve in God. They have to in order to do their work.
It may seem outrageous to include agnostics and atheists in this broad statement. But by their actions people sometimes show that in a sense they believe in things that they profess not to believe in. Bakht, a Vedantic Hindu philosopher, may say that the world is an illusion. But he does not casually walk into the street in front of an oncoming bus. Sue, a radical relativist, may say that there is no truth. But she travels calmly at 30,000 feet on a plane whose safe flight depends on the unchangeable truths of aerodynamics and structural mechanics.2
But what about scientists? Do they believe in God? Must they? Popular modern culture often transmits the contrary idea, namely that science is antagonistic to orthodox Christian belief. Recitations of Galileoâs conflict and of the Scopes Trial have gained mythic status and receive reinforcement through vocal promotions of materialistic evolution.
Historians of science point out that modern science arose in the context of a Christian worldview, and was nourished and sustained by that view.3 But even if that was once so, twentieth-century and twenty-first-century science seems to sustain itself without the help of explicit theistic underpinnings. In fact, many consider God to be merely the âGod of the gaps,â the God whom people invoke only to account for gaps in modern scientific explanation. As science advances and more gaps become subject to explanation, the role of God diminishes. The natural drives out the need for the supernatural.4
FOCUSING ON SCIENTIFIC LAW
The situation looks different if we refuse to confine God to âthe gaps.â According to the Bible, he is involved in those areas where science does best, namely areas involving regular and predictable events, repeating patterns, and sometimes exact mathematical descriptions. In Genesis 8:22 God promises,
While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.5
This general promise concerning earthly regularities is supplemented by many particular examples:
You make darkness, and it is night,
when all the beasts of the forest creep about (Ps. 104:20).
You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth (Ps. 104:14).
He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
who can stand before his cold?
He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow and the waters flow (Ps. 147:15-18).
The regularities that scientists describe are the regularities of Godâs commitments and actions. By his word to Noah, he commits himself commitments and actions. By his word to Noah, he commits himself to govÂern the seasons. By his word he governs snow, frost, and hail. Scientists describe the regularities in Godâs word governing the world. So-called natuÂral law is really the law of God or word of God, imperfectly and approxiÂmately described by human investigators.
Now, the work of science depends constantly on the fact that there are regularities in the world. Without the regularities, there would ultimately be nothing to study. Scientists depend not only on regularities with which they are already familiar, such as the regular behavior of measuring apparatus, but also on the postulate that still more regularities are to be found in the areas they will investigate. Scientists must maintain hope of finding further or they would give up their newest explorations.
(I should say here that I am concentrating on the natural or âhardâ sciÂences such as physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and astronomy. To some extent similar observations hold for âhuman sciencesâ such as psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and sociology. But the study of human beings brings in additional challenges, because of the way in which oneâs overall underÂstanding of the nature of humanity vitally influences the investigation. In conÂcentrating of the nature of humanity vitally influences the investigation. on regularities, I am also putting into the background studies, such as the study of the past history of the large-scale universe [cosmology], the past history of life [paleobiology], the past history of the earth [historical geology], and so on. These studies rely on the assumption of regularities, but they also wrestle with understanding many unrepeatable events, such as the origin of the first cell, or the origin of the first humans. We will focus on the issue of uniqueness versus repeatability later [chapter 13]. And we will consider issues of origins in chapters 18 and 19.)
BELIEF IN SCIENTIFIC LAWS
Now just what are these regularities? For five years in a row a robin appears and builds a nest in the same bush. But in the sixth year no robin appears. Does this show a âregularityâ of the appropriate type? It might be a matter of coincidence. Scientists are concerned to observe robins and their nest-building. But in the long run they do not rest with observations of mere coinÂcidence. They want to know whether the recurrence is somehow constrained, whether it occurs according to a general explanatory principle.6 The princiÂples go by various names: ânatural law,â âscientific law,â âtheory.â Some of these regularities can be exactly, quantitatively described for each case (within small limits of error), while others are statistical regularities that come to light only when a large number of cases are examined together. All scientists believe in the existence of such regularities. And in all cases, whatever their professed beliefs, scientists in practice know that the regularities are âout there.â Scientists in the end are all ârealistsâ with respect to scientific laws.7 Scientists discover these laws and do not merely invent them. Otherwise, why go to the trouble, tedium, and frustration of experiment? Just make a guess, invent a new idea, and become famous!
These regularities are, well, regular. And to be regular means to be regÂulated. It involves a regula, a rule. Websterâs Dictionary captures the point by defining âregularâ as âformed, built, arranged, or ordered according to some established rule, law, principle, or type.â8 The idea of a law or rule is built into the concept of âregularity.â Thus it is natural to use the word âlawâ in describing well-established scientific theories and principles. Scientists speak of Newtonâs laws, Boyleâs law, Daltonâs law, Mendelâs laws, Kirchhoffâs laws.
All scientists believe in and rely on the existence of scientific laws.
UNIVERSAL APPLICABILITY OF SCIENTIFIC LAW
What characteristics must a scientific law have in order even to be a law? Again, we concentrate on the practice of scientists rather than their metaÂphysical musings. We ask, âWhatever their professed philosophy, what do sciÂentists expect in practice?â Just as the relativist expects the plane to fly, the scientist expects the laws to hold.
Scientists think of laws as universal in time and space. Kirchhoffâs laws concerning electrical circuits apply only to electrical circuits, not to other kinds of situations. But they apply in principle to electrical circuits at any time and in any place. Sometimes, of course, scientists uncover limitations in earÂlier formulations. Some laws, like Newtonâs laws, are not really universal, but apply accurately only to a restricted situation such as low velocity motion of large, massive objects.9 In the light of later knowledge, we would say that Newtonâs laws were always only an approximation to the real pattern of regÂularity or lawfulness in the world. We modify Newtonâs laws, or we include the specific restriction to low velocity within our formulation of the laws. Then we say that they apply to all times and places where these restrictions hold.
Thus, within the very concept of law lies the expectation that we include all times and all places. That is to say, the law, if it really is a law and is corÂrectly formulated and qualified, holds for all times and all places. The classic terms are omnipresence (all places) and eternity (all times). Law has these two attributes that are classically attributed to God. Technically, Godâs eternity is usually conceived of as being âaboveâ or âbeyondâ time. But words like âaboveâ and âbeyondâ are metaphorical and point to mysteries. There is, in fact, an analogous mystery with respect to law. If âlawâ is universal, is it not in some sense âbeyondâ the particularities of any one place or time? Moreover, within a biblical worldview, God is not only âaboveâ time in the sense of not being subject to the limitations of finite creaturely experience of time, but he is âinâ time in the sense of acting in time and interacting with his creatures.10 Similarly, law is âaboveâ time in its universality, but âinâ time through its applicability to each particular situation.
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES OF LAW
The attributes of omnipresence and eternity are only the beginning. On close examination, other divine attributes seem to belong to scientific laws. Consider. If a law holds for all times, we presuppose that it is the same law through all times. The law does not change with time. It is immutable. A supÂposed âlawâ that did change with time would not really be âthe law,â but one temporal phase in a higher or broader regularity that would account for the lower-level change. The higher, universal regularity is the law. The very concept of scientific law presupposes immutability.
Next, laws are at bottom ideational in character. We do not literally see a law, but only the effects of the law on the material world. The law is essenÂtially immaterial and invisible, but is known through effects. Likewise, God is essentially immaterial and invisible, but is known through his acts in the world.
Real laws, as opposed to scientistsâ approximations of them, are also absolutely, infallibly true. Truthfulness is also an attribute of God.11
The Power of Law
Next, consider the attribute of power. Scientists formulate laws as descriptions of regularities that they observe. The regularities are there in the world first, before the scientists make their formulations. The human scientific forÂmulation follows the facts, and is dependent on them. But the facts must conÂform to a regularity even before the scientist formulates a description. A law or regularity must hold for a whole series of cases. The scientist cannot force the issue by inventing a law and then forcing the universe to conform to the law. The universe rather conforms to laws already there, laws that are disÂcovered rather than invented. The laws must already be there. They must actually hold. They must âhave teeth.â If they are truly universal, they are not violated. No event escapes their âholdâ or dominion. The power of these real laws is absolute, in fact, infinite. In classical language, the law is omnipoÂtent (âall powerfulâ).
If law is omnipotent and universal, there are truly no exceptions. Do we, then, conclude that miracles are impossible because they are violations of law? In fact, miracles are in harmony with Godâs character. They take place in accordance with his predictive and decretive word. Through Moses, God verbally predicted the plagues that came to Egypt, and then brought them about. Through Godâs word spoken by the prophet Elisha, a spring of water was made healthy:
âThus says the LORD, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.â So the water has been healed to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke (2 Kings 2:21-22).
The real law, the word of God, brings forth miracles. Miracles may be unusual and striking, but they do not violate Godâs law. They violate only some human expectations and guesses. But that is our problem, not Godâs. Just as Newtonâs laws are limited to low velocity approximations, so the prinÂciple that axe heads do not float is limited by the qualification, âexcept when God in response to a special need and a prophetâs word does otherwiseâ (e.g., 2 Kings 6:5-6).
The law is both transcendent and immanent. It transcends the creatures of the world by exercising power over them, conforming them to its dictates. It is immanent in that it touches and holds in its dominion even the smallest bits of this world.12 Law transcends the galactic clusters and is immanently present in the chromodynamic dance of quarks and gluons in the bosom of a single proton. Transcendence and immanence are characteristics of God.
The Personal Character of Law
Many agnostic and atheistic scientists by this time will be looking for a way of escape. It seems that the key concept of scientific law is beginning to look suspiciously like the biblical idea of God. The most obvious escape, and the one that has rescued many from spiritual discomfort, is to deny that scienÂtific law is personal. It is just there as a...