How about some "modern" assertions for the existence of the universe such
as nature, causality and matter?
Mediaeval European
conceptions about the nature and existence of the universe were strongly underpinned
by the authority of the Church which in turn relied upon arguments from scriptures
that had long since deviated from their true originals. As modern scientific
thinking developed, it met a great deal of hostility from the Church whose authority
it challenged. The rift in European culture between science and religion deepened
steadily until the two became irreconcilable. Eventually, religion came to be
seen as a domain of blind beliefs and consolatory rituals about which science
could have nothing to do with God, let alone deferring to the authority of Divine
Revelation. The Darwinian account of evolution sealed and popularized a tendency
to regard existence as self-originated and self-sustained, a process which unfolded
by itself according to laws which would, sooner or later, be understood fully
(and therefore to some degree manipulable) by human beings. Many scientists
(by no means all) have in principle and practice maintained that natural causes
or so-called laws of nature are sufficient to explain all phenomena.
While the Prophets
who, despite having lived in different places and at different times, were unanimous
on how existence originated and is sustained—as indeed they were on all other
essential issues pertaining to life and existence—and again while a considerable
number of scientists agree with the Prophets on this matter, scientists and
philosophers who favor naturalistic and materialistic views of existence differ
greatly in their explanations.
Before
passing on to discuss this viewpoint, we should point out that unlike the Prophets
who, despite living in different places and at different times, were unanimous
on how existence originated and is sustained—as indeed they were on all other
essential issues pertaining to life and existence—and again unlike a considerable
number of scientists who agree with the Prophets on this matter, scientists
and philosophers who favor naturalistic and materialistic views of existence
differ greatly in their explanations. Some of them attribute creativity and
eternity to matter and attribute life and consciousness to it. Others argue
that nature is eternally self-existent and claim to explain everything by natural
causes and laws. Still others, unable to explain the origin of life, attempt
to explain existence with notions such as chance and necessity. Quite briefly,
we shall discuss the impossibility of explaining existence unless the existence
and Unity of God is affirmed.
Natural laws have a nominal, not a real, existence
Natural
laws have a nominal, not a real, existence. They are propositions tendered as
explanations of particular kinds of event or phenomenon, they allude to imaginary
forces inferred from the motions or relationships of events or phenomena. The
law of gravity or the law of reproduction and growth in living organisms or
other laws such as magnetic attraction and repulsion are not entities whose
existence is verified through our own external senses or through instruments
that enhance those senses. Whatever truth the law of gravity, for example, may
be said to have, can we claim that the real universe (one in which that law
operates) has (or must) come about because of it? Is it at all reasonable then
to ascribe the existence of anything, let alone intelligent and conscious living
beings, to entities that exist only as propositions?
Natural laws
and causes are inferred from the motions or relationships of events or phenomena
in the universe
Natural
laws and causes are inferred from the motions or relationships of events or
phenomena in the universe. Therefore they are, in principle, dependent upon
events or phenomena rather than their origin or originators. Certainly, they
are not self-dependent or self-existent.
The existence
of the universe as a whole and of all events or phenomena within it is contingent.
That is, their existence is not absolutely necessary—it is equally possible
for them to exist or not.
The existence
of the universe as a whole and of all events or phenomena within it is contingent.
That is, their existence is not absolutely necessary—it is equally possible
for them to exist or not. Evidently, there are almost limitless alternatives
for any particle of sustenance which could form the building block of an embryo,
to go to any one of its innumerable cells. Anything whose existence is contingent
cannot be eternal and needs one with the power of choice to prefer its existence
over its non-existence or merely potential existence.
All contingent
entities are contained in time and space and therefore have a beginning
All contingent
entities are contained in time and space and therefore have a beginning. Anything
that has a beginning must certainly have an end also, and cannot therefore be
eternal.
Natural causes are in need of each other to bring about
an effect
Natural causes
are in need of each other to bring about an effect. For example, an apple needs
an apple blossom for its existence, and the blossom needs a branch, and the
branch a tree, and so on, to the seed of the tree which needs earth, air and
moisture to germinate and grow. Each cause is also an effect and, unless we
accept as many deities as the number of causes, we must look to a single cause
outside the chain of causes and effects.
Many deaf,
blind, ignorant, unconscious causes and laws cannot come together by themselves
into the subtle and complex arrangement we recognize as a living organism
For a
single effect to come into existence an infinite number of causes must come
together and collaborate in a way so coordinated and reliable that we call their
collective operation ‘natural laws’. For example, a single apple requires for
its existence the co-operation of air, earth, sunlight, water, the 23 degree
inclination of the earth’s axis, and the complex rules of germination and growth
of seeds and plants. So many deaf, blind, ignorant, unconscious causes and laws
cannot come together by themselves into the subtle and complex arrangement we
recognize as a living organism, still less into a living organism such as man
who is not only living and conscious but also intelligent and responsible—able
to answer questions about his intentions and actions.
There
is not an appropriate relation or acceptable proportionateness between causes
and effects
A tiny seed
contains in itself a huge tree. A human being, the most complex of creatures,
grows from a female ovum fertilized by a microscopic male sperm. In short, there
is not an appropriate relation or acceptable proportionateness between causes
and effects. Extremely weak, simple, ignorant and lifeless causes result in
very powerful, complex, intelligent and vigorously living effects.
All natural phenomena and processes have their opposites
All natural
phenomena and processes have their opposites; north and south poles; positive
and negative poles; hot and cold; beautiful and ugly; day and night; attraction
and repulsion; freezing and melting; vaporization and condensation; etc. Something
which has an opposite and needs its opposite to exist and be known by means
of its opposite cannot be a creator or originator.
Causality is not enough to explain things and events
We often
witness that although all the causes necessary to the existence of an effect
are ready, that effect does not come into existence, and, conversely, something
happens or comes into existence without any causes that we can recognize or
understand as such. Also, the same causes do not always bring about the same
effects. It is because of this that some scientists reject the idea of causality
as a way of explaining things and events in the universe.
Although the
most capable of ‘causes’ or ‘agents’, man is so weak and helpless as not to
be able to resist even a microbe
Among
causes, man is the most capable and eminent, distinguished with intellect, consciousness,
will-power and many other faculties and inner and outer senses and feelings.
Yet he is so weak and helpless as not to be able to resist even a microbe and
he is caught up in endless needs and pains. If man, being the most capable,
intelligent, powerful and conscious of causes, has no part in his own coming
into existence and no control over the working of even his own body, how can
other causes have creativity?
Natural causes
have neither knowledge nor will nor power so that they can be responsible for
things to come into existence which evidently require knowledge and will to
come into existence
Materialists
take the conjunction of events for causality. That is, if two events coexist,
they imagine that one causes the other. In their determination to deny the Creator
they make claims like: water causes plants to grow. They never ask how water
knows what to do, how it does it and what qualities it has that enable plants
to grow?
Does
water possess the knowledge and power to grow plants? Does it know the laws
or properties of the formation of plants. Or, if we attribute the growth of
a plant to the laws themselves or nature itself, do the laws or nature know
the properties of the formation of plants? While some sort or amount of knowledge,
will and power are absolutely necessary to make the least thing, for example,
to build a cottage, to write an article, should it not be necessary an all-encompassing
knowledge, and an absolute will and power to make this universe, so complex,
amazing and miraculous that in the ‘age of information’ our knowledge about
it is very scanty.
Consider
a flower. How does its beauty come about and who has designed the relationship
between it and man’s senses of smell and seeing and faculty of appreciation?
Can the unconscious, ignorant and deaf seed, or soil or sunlight have done this?
Do they have the knowledge, the power or the will even to make a flower, let
alone make it beautiful? Can man, the only conscious and knowledgeable being
on the earth, make a single flower? A flower can only exist with the whole universe
in place first: to produce one single flower, therefore, one must be able to
produce the whole universe in which it exists, that is, have absolute power,
knowledge and will, which are the attributes of God alone.
The argument
we have so far brought forward against the view that natural laws and causes
are self-existent, self-sustaining, even, in some sense, eternal, holds true
for related views which attribute creativity to chance and matter.
Matter is obviously
changeable and susceptible to external interventions; it cannot be eternal or
capable of origination. Also, matter is deaf, blind, lifeless, ignorant, powerless,
and unconscious; how can it be the origin of sensible life, knowledge, power
and consciousness? It is evident that something cannot impart to others what
it does not possess.
When
there is in the universe such abundant evidence of purposive arrangement, organization
and harmony, it is irrational to speak of chance or coincidence as its cause.
Whether
defined according to the principles of classical physics or new physics, matter
is obviously changeable and susceptible to external interventions; it cannot
be eternal or capable of origination. Also, matter is deaf, blind, lifeless,
ignorant, powerless, and unconscious; how can it be the origin of sensible life,
knowledge, power and consciousness? It is evident that something cannot impart
to others what it does not possess.
When
there is in the universe such abundant evidence of purposive arrangement, organization
and harmony, it is irrational to speak of chance or coincidence as its cause.
There are 60 million million cells in a human body and a single cell contains
about one million proteins. The possibility of a protein occurring by chance
are infinitesimally small. Without One who has the power of choice to prefer
its existence and the absolute power to create, it who has an absolute, all-comprehensive
knowledge to pre-arrange its relations with other proteins, with the cell and
all parts of the body and place it just where it must be, the existence of a
single protein is not possible. It is when they admit this One—God, the Creator
of all things—that the sciences will find their true course. (One day they will
have to do so).
The following
simple scientific experiment, reported in Discover, 20 August 1993, will help
in understanding this significant argument:
Overbeck
and his co-workers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston were trying
to practice some gene therapy techniques by seeing if they could convert albino
mice into colored ones. The researcher injected a gene essential to the production
of the pigment melanin into the single-cell embryo of an albino mouse. Later
they bread that mouse’s offspring, half of which carried the gene on one chromosome
of a chromosome pair. Classic Mendelian genetics told them that roughly a
quarter of the grandchildren should carry the gene on both chromosomes— should
be ‘homozygous’, in the language of genetics- and should therefore be colored.
But
the mice never got a chance to acquire color. ‘The first thing we noticed,’
says Overbeck, ‘was that we were losing about 25 % of the grandchildren within
a week after they were born.’ The explanation:
The melanin-related
gene that his group injected into the albino mouse embryo had inserted itself
into a completely unrelated gene. An unfamiliar stretch of DNA in the middle
of a gene wrecks that gene’s ability to get its message read. So in the mice,
it seems whatever protein the gene coded for went unproduced, whatever function
the protein had went undone, and the stomach, heart, liver, and spleen all
wound up in the wrong place. Somehow, too, the kidneys and pancreas were damaged,
and that damage is apparently what killed the mice.
Overbeck
and his colleagues have already located the gene on a particular mouse chromosome
and are now trying to pin down its structure. That will tell them something
about the structure of the protein the gene encodes, how the protein works,
and when and where it is produced as the gene gets ‘expressed’, or turned
on, ‘Is the gene expressed everywhere, or just on the left side of the embryo
or just on the right side?’ Overbeck wonders, ‘And when does it get expressed?’
These
questions will take Overbeck far from the gene-transfer experiment. ‘We think
there are at least 100,000 genes,’ he points out, ‘so the chances of this
happening were literally one in 100,000.’
There is no trial and error in creation
It will
take many thousands of tests therefore, and cost the lives of many thousands
of mice, for this type of experiment to be carried out with success. However,
there is no trial and error in nature, and any seed under earth, unless some
impediment like lack of enough moisture intervenes, germinates and ultimately
becomes a tree. Likewise, an embryo in the mother’s womb grows into a living,
conscious being equipped with intellectual and spiritual faculties.
The human
body is a miracle of symmetry, as well as of asymmetry. Scientists know how
an embryo develops in the womb to form this symmetry and asymmetry, but they
are completely ignorant of how the particles — the particles that reach the
embryo through the mother and function as building blocks in the formation of
the body — can distinguish between right and left, how they are able to determine
the place of each organ, how each goes and inserts itself in the exact place
of a certain organ, and how they understand the extremely complicated relations
among cells and organs, and their requirements. This is so complicated a process
that if a single particle which should be placed in, for example, the pupil
of the right eye, were to go to the ear, it could lead to malfunction or even
death. Another point concerning this is that all animate beings are made from
the same elements coming from earth, air and water, and similar to one another
with respect to the members and organs of their bodies, yet they are almost
completely different from one another with respect to bodily features, visage,
character, desires and ambitions. This uniqueness of the individual is so reliable
that one can be identified absolutely by one’s finger prints.
Whatever exists
gives the message: “Either each ‘particle’ possesses almost infinite knowledge,
will and power or One who has such knowledge, power and will creates and administers
each particle.”
How do
we explain this? There are the two alternatives we mentioned at the beginning:
either each particle possesses almost infinite knowledge, will and power or
One who has such knowledge, power and will creates and administers each particle.
However far back we go in an attempt to ascribe this to cause and effect and
heredity, these two alternatives remain valid.
Even
if the existence of the universe is attributed o some entity other than God—to
evolution or causality or nature or matter or coincidences and necessity—no
one can deny that everything displays, though its coming into existence, its
subsistence and death, an all-comprehensive knowledge, and an absolute power
and determination. As we saw in the experiment referred to above, a single misplaced
or misdirected gene, may suffice to ruin or prevent life. The interconnectedness
of everything, from galaxies to atoms, is a reality into which every new entity
enters and wherein it must know its unique place and function. And is there
not a further demonstration of the existence and free operation of an all-comprehensive
knowledge, and absolute power and will, that particles made up of the same bio-chemical
constituents should be able to produce through the subtlest adjustments in their
pattern of mutual relationships, entities and organisms which are unique? Is
it satisfactory to explain this as heredity or coincidence, seeing that all
such explanations again rest upon the same all-encompassing knowledge, absolute
power and will?
We must not
be misled by the apparent fact that everything happens according to a certain
program or plan o process of causes. This process of causes is a veil spread
over the flux of the universe, the ever-moving stream of events.
We must
not be misled by the apparent fact that everything happens according to a certain
program or plan o process of causes. This process of causes is a veil spread
over the flux of the universe, the ever-moving stream of events. The ‘laws of
nature’ which may be inferred from this process of causes have a nominal, not
a real and concrete. existence. Unless e attribute to nature the attributes
we would normally attribute to the Creator of nature, we must accept that it
is, in essence and reality, a printing mechanism, not a printer, a design, not
a designer, a passive recipient, not an agent, an order, not an orderer, a collection
of nominal laws, not a power. The same argument holds if, in place of ‘nature’,
we choose the terms ‘matter’ or (the preference of French biologist Jacques
Monod) ‘coincidence and necessity’. (*)
The purpose, harmony and interrelatedness in existence
In order to
understand better why blind, deaf, inert, unconscious, and ignorant chance,
nature and causes cannot have any part in existence, we had better see more
closely the purpose, harmony and interrelatedness in creation and therefore
observe some plain facts. Again, Morrison draws our attentions to some of these
facts:
The
bulk of the earth in now reduced to very permanent dimensions and its mass
has been determined. Its speed in its orbit around the sun is extremely constant.
It rotation on its axis is determined so accurately that a variation of a
second in a century would upset astronomical calculations. Had the bulk of
the earth greater or less, or had its speed been different, it would have
been farther from or nearer to the sun, and this different condition would
have profoundly affected life of all kinds, including man.
The earth
rotates on its axis in twenty-four hours or at the rate of about one thousand
miles an hour. Suppose it turned at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. Why
not? Our days and nights would then be ten times as long as now. The hot sun
of summer would then burn up our vegetation each long day and every sprout
would freeze in such a night. The sun, the source of all life, has a surface
temperature of 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and our earth is just far enough
away so that this “eternal fire” warms us just enough and not too much. If
the temperature on earth had changed so much as fifty degrees on the average
for a single year, all vegetation would be dead and man with it, roasted or
frozen. The earth travels around the sun at the rate of eighteen miles each
second. If the rate of revolution had been, say, six miles or forty miles
each second, we would be too far from or too close to the sun for our form
of life to exist.
The
earth is tilted at an angle of twenty-three degrees. This gives us our seasons.
If it had not been tilted, the poles would be in eternal twilight. The water
vapor from the ocean would move north and south, piling up continents of ice
and leaving possibly a desert between the equator and the ice.
The
moon is 240,000 miles away, and the tides twice a day are usually a gentle
reminder of its presence. Tides of the ocean run as high as fifty feet in
some places, and even the crust of the earth is twice a day bent outward several
inches by the moon’s attraction. If our moon was, say, fifty thousand miles
away instead of its present respectable distance, our tides would be so enormous
that twice a day all the lowland of all the continents would be submerged
by a rush of water so enormous that even the mountains would soon be eroded
away, and probably no continent could have risen from the depths fast enough
to exist today. The earth would crack with the turmoil and the tides in the
air would create daily hurricanes.
Had
the crust of the earth been ten feet thicker, there would be no oxygen, without
which animal life is impossible; and had the ocean been a few feet deeper,
carbon dioxide and oxygen would have been absorbed and vegetable life on the
surface of the land could not exist. If the atmosphere had been much thinner,
some of the meteors which are now burned in the outer atmosphere by the millions
every day would strike all parts of the earth.
Oxygen
is commonly placed at 21 per cent [in the atmosphere]. The atmosphere as a
whole presses upon the earth at approximately fifteen pounds on each square
inch of surface at sea level. The oxygen which exists in the atmosphere is
a part of this pressure, being about three pounds per square inch. All the
rest of the oxygen is locked up in the form of compounds in the crust of the
earth and makes up 8/10 of all the waters in the world. Oxygen is the breath
of life for all land animals and is for this purpose utterly unobtainable
except from the atmosphere.
The
question arises how this extremely active chemical element escaped combination
and was left it the atmosphere in the almost exact proportion necessary for
practically all living things. If, for instance, instead of 21 per cent oxygen
were 50 per cent or more of the atmosphere, all combustible substances in
the world would become inflammable to such an extent that the first stroke
of lightning to hit a tree would ignite the forest, which would almost explode...
If free oxygen, this one part in many millions of the earth’s substance, should
be absorbed, all animal life would cease.
When
a man breathes, he draws in oxygen, which is taken up by the blood and distributed
through his body. This oxygen burns his food in every cell very slowly at
a comparatively low temperature, but the result is carbon dioxide and water
vapor, so when a man is said to sigh like a furnace, there is a touch of reality
about it. The carbon dioxide escapes into his lungs and is not breathable
except in small quantities. It sets his lungs in action and he takes his next
breath throwing into the atmosphere carbon dioxide. All animal life is thus
absorbing oxygen and throwing off carbon dioxide. Oxygen is further essential
to life because of its action upon other elements in the blood as well as
elsewhere in the body, without which life processes would cease.
On
the other hand, as is well known, all vegetable life is dependent upon the
almost infinitesimal quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which, so
to speak, it breathes. To express this complicated photo-synthetic chemical
reaction in the simplest possible way, the leaves of the trees are lungs and
they have the power when in the sunlight to separate this obstinate carbon
dioxide into carbon and oxygen. In other words, the oxygen is given off and
the carbon retained and combined with the hydrogen of the water brought up
by the plant from its roots. By magical chemistry, out of these elements “nature”
makes sugar, cellulose and numerous other chemicals, fruits and flowers [all
in different smell, taste, color and shape according to the kind of plant
or tree. Can this infinite difference or variation be attributed to tiny seeds,
blind, ignorant and unconscious?]. The plant feeds itself and produces enough
more to feed every animal on earth. At the same time, the plant releases the
oxygen we breathe and without which life would end in five minutes. So all
the plants, the forests, the grasses, every bit of moss, and all else of vegetable
life, build their structure principally out of carbon and water. Animals give
off carbon dioxide and plants give off oxygen. If this interchange did not
take place, either the animal or vegetable life would ultimately use up practically
all of the oxygen or all of the carbon dioxide, and the balance being completely
upset, one would wilt or die and the other would quickly follow.
Hydrogen
must be included, although we do not breathe it. Without hydrogen water would
not exist, and the water content of animal and vegetable matter is surprisingly
great and absolutely essential. Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and carbon,
singly and in their various relations to each other, are the principal biological
elements. They are the very basis on which life rests.
We
pour infinite variety of substances into this chemical laboratory—the digestive
system, which is the greatest laboratory of the world— with almost total disregard
of what we take in, depending on what we consider the automatic process to
keep us alive. When these foods have been broken down and are again prepared,
they are delivered constantly to each of our billions of cells, a greater
number than all the human beings on earth. The delivery to each individual
cell must be constant, and only those substances which the particular cell
needs to transform them into bones, nails, flesh, hair, eyes, and teeth are
taken up by the proper cell. Here is a chemical laboratory producing more
substances than any laboratory which human ingenuity has devised. Here is
a delivery system greater than any method of transportation or distribution
the world has ever known, all being conducted in perfect order. From childhood
until, say, a man is fifty years of age, this laboratory makes no serious
mistakes, though the very substances with which it deals could literally form
over a million different kinds of molecules—many of them deadly. When the
channels of distribution become somewhat sluggish from long use we find weakened
ability and ultimate old age.
When
the proper food is absorbed by each cell, it is still only the proper food.
The process in each cell now becomes a form of combustion, which accounts
for the heat of the whole body. You cannot have combustion without ignition.
Fire must be lighted, and so [you are provided with] a little chemical combination
which ignites a controlled fire for the oxygen, hydrogen, and the carbon in
the food in each cell, thus producing the necessary warmth and, as from any
fire, the result is water vapor and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is
carried away by the blood to the lungs, and there it is the one thing that
makes you draw in your breath of life. A person produces about two pounds
of carbon dioxide in a day, but by wonderful processes gets rid of it. Every
animal digests food, and each must have the special chemicals it individually
needs. Even in minute detail the chemical constituents of the blood, for instance,
differ in each species. There is, therefore, a special formative process for
each.
In
case of infection by hostile germs, the system also continuously maintains
a standing army to meet, and usually overcome, invaders and save the entire
structure of the man from premature death. No such combination of marvels
does or can take place under any circumstances in the absence of life. And
all this is done in perfect order, and order is absolutely contrary to chance’
(Morrison, 14, 16–9, 22, 24–7, 76–7).
Does all this
require and point to One Who knows man thoroughly, with all his needs, environment,
and the mechanism of his body, One Who is the All-Knowing and able to do whatever
He wishes? As, again, Morrison puts it (p.65), ‘purpose seems fundamental in
all things, from the laws that govern the universe to the combinations of atoms
which sustain our lives. Atoms and molecules in living creatures do marvelous
things and build wonderful mechanisms, but such machines are useless unless
intelligence sets them in objective motion. There is the directive Intelligence
which science does not explain, nor does science dare say it is material.’
Annotations
* Suppose you take ten pennies and mark
them from 1 to 10. Put them in your pocket and give them a good shake. Now try
to draw them out in sequence from 1 to 10, putting each coin back in your pocket
after each draw. Your chance of drawing No. 1 is 1 in 10. Your chance of drawing
1 and 2 in succession would be 1 in 100. Your chance of drawing 1, 2, and 3
in succession would be 1 in a thousand. Your chance of drawing 1, 2, 3, and
4 in succession would be 1 in 10,000 and so on, until your chance of drawing
from No. 1 to No. 10 in succession would reach the unbelievable figure of one
chance in 10 billion.
The object in dealing with so simple a problem is to show
how enormously figures multiply against chance.
So many essential conditions are necessary for life on our
earth that it is mathematically impossible that all of them could exist in proper
relationship by chance on any one earth at one time. Therefore, there must be
in nature some form of intelligent direction. If this be true, then there must
be a purpose. (Morrison, op. cit., p. 13)
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