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God, science, everything, and nothing

Image by Lumina Obscura from Pixabay

How much can science tell us about God, the universe, and the nature of nothing? Rafi A. from Germany writes:

CMI’s Shaun Doyle responds:

Dear Rafi,

Thanks for your email. I have interspersed my responses in between your comments (which I’ve coloured green) below.

They’re correct—big bang theory doesn’t necessarily imply that everything came from nothing. For a start, that assumes that big bang theory speaks about the origin of everything. However, there’s no way to verify that scientifically. The big bang may speak to the earliest stages of everything we can scientifically observe, but it would be folly to equate ‘everything we can scientifically observe’ with ‘everything there is’ without some sort of philosophical argument for that equivalence.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Indeed, we can point to evidence against the equivalence. For instance, can I scientifically observe someone else’s mental states? I can scientifically observe (something of) their brain states when they have mental states, but does that guarantee that mental states can be equated with or reduced to brain states? Not at all. For instance, does a thought have a size and shape? What is its precise location in the brain? And I’m not talking about the brain state that is correlated with or causes the thought; I’m talking about the thought itself.

Second, philosopher J.P. Moreland notes another unique feature of mental states that brain states don’t have—intentionality:

“At least many mental states have intentionality—ofness or aboutness—directed toward an object: a sensation is of the lamp, a belief is about London, a desire is for ice cream. But brain states, such as a group of neurons firing together, just happen by being caused by stimuli. They are not of or about anything. They just are.”¹

My point here is not to prove that God is the ultimate grounding for mental states (though arguments like that can be run). My point is much more modest—to show that there are features of this world that are not scientifically observable. Mental states are plausibly one such thing. We can observe scientifically the causes in the brain of a specific conscious state. We can observe scientifically what must be happening in the brain before that state can obtain and function in one’s life and behaviour (see Does your brain make your decisions before you do? and Memory, the brain, and the soul). But we can’t scientifically observe the conscious state itself, or the kinds of properties that characterize it.

It depends on what you mean by “anything in science”. If by that you mean ‘anything that is scientifically observable’, then no, there isn’t “anything in science” in that sense that can exist infinitely and create anything. But then, as I pointed out above, neither are our thoughts. And yet I know for certain that at least I have them.

But, if by “anything in science” you mean ‘anything relevant to science’, then the answer may be yes. Why? God is plausibly relevant to science, and He is infinite and can create anything. God is plausibly relevant to science since He provides a potential explanation for e.g. the origin of life.

The possibility of absolute nothingness is a philosophical question. That doesn’t mean it’s unimportant, since science isn’t the only way to know things (Science and secularism … and Scripture?). Scientific notions of ‘nothing’ tend to be mathematical tools that presuppose the existence of specific scenarios describable by our laws of nature (In the beginning God created—or was it a quantum fluctuation?). In other words, they are not a complete absence of being—they aren’t literally ‘nothing’.

‘Nature’ and ‘the universe’ are typically taken to be synonymous concepts. And the ‘physical laws’ are merely descriptions of the way nature works (Defining arguments away—the distorted language of secularism), so they don’t exist if the universe doesn’t exist. That is, they must only come into play with the beginning of the universe. For more on quantum fluctuations and the universe’s beginning, see In the beginning God created—or was it a quantum fluctuation?

The universe really is complex. God didn’t make a universe that would be easy for our minds to master. Proverbs 25:2: “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” However, the sort of complexity imagined by some who would like to be rid of God is likely fictitious.

First, the bigger and more complex the universe is, the harder it is to explain away its fine-tuning for life by chance (The universe of the lone brain).

Second, consider Psalm 8:3–4:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

And 1 Kings 8:27:

“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”

Image by Maike und Björn Bröskamp from Pixabay

Reflecting on these passages, the enormity of the cosmos underlines for us God’s utter immensity. Even the universe, as vast as it is, can’t box in God! And yet, we’re so tiny. Miniscule motes on a lone planetary fleck in the enormous celestial void. Does it make God feel vast? No doubt!

But that isn’t the problem. The problem is that our size relative to the cosmos doesn’t just make God seem inconceivably huge, it makes us feel infinitesimally tiny. And people often assume that our relative size correlates with our relative significance. Indeed, some have even constructed this into an argument against any sort of God who cares about us (Why did God make such a big universe?).

But all this does is show just how far-removed certain atheists’ expectations of God are from what the Bible teaches. While the Bible teaches God’s sheer immensity, it also puts us right at the heart of God’s plans. This is seen most clearly in Jesus’ Incarnation. But as strange as this disjunct might seems to be, it reflects precisely the God of Isaiah 57:15:

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”

God freely chooses to come down from His “high and holy place” to care for us ‘motes of dust’. A powerful way to communicate His desire to care for the least, last, and lost is to make a vast cosmos in which we’re alone on a minute mote in the immense celestial void. Even the heavens can’t contain Him, but He cares for us so much that He sends and sacrifices His eternal Son to make us a part of His family.

Kind regards,
Shaun Doyle
Creation Ministries International (NZ)

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