Transcript Document 7204563

Genesis 1-3 from a
scientist’s viewpoint
Ard Louis
www-louis.ch.cam.ac.uk/postgrad/
www.cis.org.uk
www.faraday-institute.org
www.cpgrad.org.uk
Department of Physics
University of Oxford
Crossing cultures?
Words
Customs
Traditions
Behaviour
Beliefs
Values
Assumptions
• Many scientific and
religious sub-cultures
• scientists v.s. “normal”
people
• culture is often “caught”
not “taught”
• We need the global
church
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?
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 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
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 nondivine actions
• 2 perspectives on the same natural world
‘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
•
•
Whether by “ordinary” or “extraordinary” ways, God is in charge.
Science can only study the “ordinary” or “customary” ways that God
works.
Genesis 1-3
Genesis 1:1-2:3
Genesis 2:4-25
In the beginning God created the skies
and the earth. The earth was without
form and void; And the Spirit of God
was hovering over the waters.
Day (yom) one: God created day and
night
Day two: God made the sky
(firmament) between the waters
Day three: God made dry land and
vegetation
Day four: God made Sun and Moon
(greater and lesser lamps) & he also
made the stars (sic!)
Day five: God made Sea creatures and
flying creatures
Day six: God made Land animals.
God made Mankind (adam) Male&
Female in God’s image
Day seven: God rested from his work.
•In the day (yom) that the Lord made
the earth and the skies before any
vegetation or rain.
•God formed the man (adam) out of
the dust of the earth (adama)
•God planted a garden eastward in
Eden, where He put the man
•God made out of the ground every
tree grow that is pleasant to the sight
and good for food. The tree of life
and the tree of knowledge of good and
evil were also in the garden
•God took man and put him in the
garden of Eden to tend and keep it.
•God commanded the man not to eat
of the tree of good and evil “for in the
day (yom) that you eat of it you shall
surely die.
Genesis 1-3
Genesis 1:1-2:3
Genesis 2:4-25 cont.
In the beginning God created the skies
and the earth. The earth was without
form and void; And the Spirit of God
was hovering over the waters.
Day (yom) one: God created day and
night
Day two: God made the sky
(firmament) between the waters
Day three: God made dry land and
vegetation
Day four: God made Sun and Moon
(greater and lesser lamps) & he also
made the stars (sic!)
Day five: God made Sea creatures and
flying creatures
Day six: God made Land animals.
God made Mankind (adam) Male&
Female in God’s image
Day seven: God rested from his work.
•God said: “It is not good that man
should be alone; I will make him an
ally comparable to him”. The LORD
God … brought [every beast of the
field and every bird of the air] to the
mans to see what he would call them.
.. But for the man there was not found
an ally comparable to him.
•God caused the man to sleep, and
took his side to make a woman. The
man called her wo-man, for she was
taken out of man.
•For this reason a man will leave his
father and mother and be united to his
wife, and they will become one flesh.
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
What kind of literature?
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
Day 7:
The heavens and earth were finished and God rested
What kind of literature?
•
•
Gen2:4-7 -- more patterns:
These are the generations
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
•
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!
What kind of literature?
• 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.
What kind of literature?
• 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
What kind of literature?
• 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 185 - 254: 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 (354-430) 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 (1040-1105), “Commentary on Genesis”
• Many more examples, e.g. Maimonides (1135-1204) etc…
Writers of “the Fundamentals”
•
•
•
James Orr
1844-1913
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 Bible and Science
• All truth is God’s truth, so, properly
interpreted, science and the Bible cannot
contradict
“The Bible must not be placed under any other authority!
…no authority, even one at the apex of the scientific
world, may impose his authority on the Bible in order to
dictate how it is to be understood, even with the best
intentions.”
“Instead of an authority, however, a ministerial, servantrole apears possible. ….. The knowledge derived from
the observation of reality (`science’) would help us to
understand the language of the Bible better.”
•Henri Blocher “In the Beginning” IVP (1984) p 25
The Bible and Science
Wayne Grudem
The lesson of Galileo, …, should remind us
that careful observation of the natural world
can cause us to go back to Scripture and
reexamine whether Scripture actually
teaches what we think it teaches.
Sometimes, on closer examination of the
text, we may find that our previous
interpretations were incorrect.
•Wayne Grudem, “Systematic Theology” IVP (1994)
p 273
The 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.
John Calvin
1509-1564
Advice from Schaefer
Francis Schaefer
1912-1984
• 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
History of life on earth
earth forms from
space dust
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
History of life on earth
• Does where we come from determine who we are
and how we should live? = controversy?
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.”
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
• Earth is old
• 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.
Case study:Is the earth old?
Science is a tapestry -- you can pick at a few strings, but that doesn’t break the
whole cloth
•Radiometric dating (many overlapping isotopes)
•ice cores:
up to 8000 years -- volcanoes like Vesuvius
up to 740,000 years
•Milankovitch cycles
•Tree rings
•All these methods (when used properly) agree.
There is no scientific controversy
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html
Case study: Is the earth old?
Milankovitch Cycles: here seen in 420,000 years of
ice core data from Vostok, Antarctica research
station.
What kind of literature?
• 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
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)
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.
72-74)
Warfield on evolution
• B. B. Warfield (1851-1921). A biblical inerrantist as
evolutionist. Livingstone DN, Noll MA, 1: Isis. 2000
Jun;91(2):283-304.
•
The theological doctrine of biblical inerrancy is the intellectual basis for
B.B. Warfield
1851-1921
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.
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 what 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 philosophy, this difference touches precisely what does not matter.
(C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock Eerdmans (1970), p 46)
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.
http://www.wts.edu/news/creation.html
More reading
•
•
•
•
•
•
www.cis.org.uk
www.faraday-institute.org
The Design of Genesis -- The Briefing Oct 2006 (ask Tom)
Henri Blocher “In the Beginning” IVP (1984)
Ernest Lucas “Can We Believe Genesis Today”, IVP 1989
Paul Marston “Understanding the Biblical Creation Passages”,
Lifesway (2007) -- via www.cis.org.uk
• C. John Collins, “Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and
Theological Commentary”, P&R (2006)
• Derek Kidner, Genesis Tyndale Old Testament Commentary,
IVP (1967)
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...
Biological self-assembly
http://www.npn.jst.go.jp/ Keiichi Namba, Osaka
• Biological systems self-assemble (they make themselves)
• Can we understand?
• Can we emulate? (Nanotechnology)
Biological self-assembly
viruses
• Self-assembled from identical subunits (capsomers).
• Characteristic number T.
• Capsid T: 12 pentamers, 10(T - 1) hexamers.
5/20/2016
Self-assembly of “computer viruses”
Computer viruses?
Monte-Carlo simulations: stochastic optimisation
http://www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/user/IainJohnson/
Self-assembly with legos?
Thinking Christianly about
biological complexity ....
• Wonder and Worship
• Fearfully and wonderfully made ...
“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
Francis Collins
Director, National Human
Genome Research
Institute, USA
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)
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
• Earth is old
• 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.
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...
Church fathers and nonchronological interpretations
•
“What man of intelligence, I ask, will consider as a reasonable
statement that the first and second and third day, in which there are
said to be both morning and evening, existed without sun and moon
and stars, while the first day was even without a heaven
• Origen 185 - 254 (First Principles, 4.3)
• Augustine
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)
See also: Can we believe Genesis today,IVP (UK) Ernest Lucas
http://www.ivpbooks.com/product/1844741206.htm
see also www.cis.org.uk/resources/books/books.shtml
In the Beginning : The Opening Chapters of Genesis, Henri Blocher, Leicester:
Inter-Varsity Press, (1984).
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. 72-74)
History of life on earth
earth forms from
space dust
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
History of life on earth
• Does where we come from determine who we
are and how we should live? = controversy?
--OUTLINE -• Thinking about science:
•
•
•
•
Mechanism and meaning
Nothing buttery
Scientism and the limits of science
God of the gaps and miracles
• Thinking about biological complexity
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 P for 2000 matches
enough Cl to disinfect
a swimming pool
enough Fe for 1 nail
enough fat to make
10 bars of soap
Nothing Buttery
humans are collections of chemicals:
enough P for 2000 matches
enough Cl to disinfect
a swimming pool
enough Fe for 1 nail
enough fat to make
10 bars of soap
Nothing Buttery
humans are collections of chemicals:
enough P for 2000 matches
enough Cl to disinfect
a swimming pool
enough Fe for 1 nail
enough fat to make
0.1 bars of soap
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”
Bill Newsome, Stanford U.
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))
God of the gaps?
•
•
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
‘Science’ studies the
“Customs of the Creator”
• God only present through interventions?
• God present in the whole thing?
•
•
•
“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
If God were to stop “sustaining all things” the world would stop existing
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Donald MacKay, The Clockwork Image, IVP
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“An act of God is so marvelous that only the daily doing takes off the
admiration John Donne (Eighty Sermons, #22 published in 1640)
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Nature is what God does (St. Augustine of Hippo)
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“Miracles” are not God “intervening in the laws of nature”: they are God
working in less customary ways
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
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 Leibnitz 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
Leibnitz 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”
Laplace and Napoleon
• Mécanique Céleste
(1799-1825)
• Napoleon: Why
have you not
mentioned the
creator?
• Laplace: "Je n'avais
pas besoin de cette
hypothèse-là.”
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,
773-779 (12 April 2001)
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
History of life on earth
• Does where we come from determine who we are
and how we should live?
--OUTLINE -• Thinking about science:
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Mechanism and meaning
Nothing buttery
Scientism and the limits of science
God of the gaps and miracles
• Thinking about biological complexity
• Language matters!
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.”
Language: Random or stochastic?
• Random mutations and natural selection...
• Stochastic (Monte Carlo) optimisation
• e.g. used to price your stock portfolio .....
Lego blocks or clay?
• Evo-Devo Lego Blocks:
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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)
Why so few genes?
Mycoplasma genitalium (483)
(300 minimum?)
Drosophila Melanogaster
(13,500)
E.coli (5416)
C. elegans (19,500) & P.
pacificus (29,000)
S. cerevisiae (5800)
H. sapiens (22,000)
Why so few genes?
We share 15% of our genes with E. coli
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“
25% “ “ “
“ yeast
“
“
50% “ “ “
“ flies
“
“
70% “ “ “
“ frogs
“
“
98% “ “ “
“ chimps
what makes us different?
Gene language
Why are there so few genes?
complexity comes from the
interactions
gene networks
systems biology
transcriptional network for yeast:
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Gene language
[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)
[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)
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)
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.)
Convergent evolution in mechanical design of lamnid sharks and
tunas
Jeanine M. Donley, et al. Nature 429, 61-65 (6 May 2004)
Convergent Evolution
North America:
Placental Sabre-toothed cat
South America”
Marsupial Sabre-toothed cat
Convergent Evolution
compound eye
camera eye
Convergent Evolution?
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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 nearinevitability. SCM, “Life’s Solution”, (CUP 2005) pp328
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
THANK YOU