Does Scientific Evidence Point
to a Creator?

O LORD my God, thou art very great ... who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. — Psalms 104:1, 2

Andy Weeks

Is it proper for Christians to spend their time understanding scientific discoveries about Creation? David hints at a positive answer to this question in Psalm 19:1, "The heavens declare the glory of God!" There is much to learn about our Father’s meticulous care in providing us a place to live within this universe. The exciting part is that the facts concerning our dwelling place tell us of God’s glory in many different ways. The writers of the Bible spent much time pondering nature and how it shows God’s mighty power and glory. Consider the following scriptures:

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." — Psalm 19:1–4, NIV

"Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you." — Job 12:7, 8, NIV

However, it is easy to be intimidated by scientific claims. Many Christians feel this way because of "conclusions" often trumpeted loudly which are contrary to belief in a creator. But we do not have to shut our ears to firm evidence. More and more, the facts surfacing from astronomy and the hard sciences are demonstrating a profound and delicate design in our universe, which speaks of an intelligent designer.

Even computer simulations about how the universe and our solar system were formed point to intricate fine-tuning, which is inducing many scientists to speculate about the existence of a creator. The following famous quote from a self-proclaimed agnostic astronomer is to the point.

"For the scientist who has lived his dream by faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." — God and the Astronomers, Robert Jastrow, W. W. Norton & Company, 2nd Edition, p. 107.

Chance or Design?

Almost all scientists have now discarded the idea prevailing earlier this century, that the universe did not have a beginning. Since the late 1920s, when Edwin Hubble discovered that the galaxies of our universe are generally racing away from each other, the notion of an expanding universe has grown in popularity and is now the accepted wisdom. And this concept, mentally run backward in time, implies the universe had a beginning. But this conclusion forces the question: How did the universe begin?

Many people presume we exist by the good fortunes of chance. Some even postulate that our universe is but one of billions which are spawned and absorbed in a sea of bubble universes. The motivation for such a theory is to explain how at least one universe (ours) is fortunate enough to have conditions so finely tuned as to allow life to develop and survive. Quantum mechanics permits such theories because it allows that a universe can pop into existence at any given moment. But as such a phenomenon can never be verified through observation or experiment, it points to the weakness of the arguments against a creator.

The Evidence of Design

If the Bible is true, then time and evidence are on God’s side. The more "universal" facts are uncovered, the more they will point to evidence for the God of the Bible. Many brilliant minds, even agnostics and athetists, have pondered the implications of the sensitive balance of physical constants which allow life as we know it.

"The laws of science, as we know them at the present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton to the electron. ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development for life." — Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, atheist.

"A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." — Fred Hoyle, astrophysicist.

"The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation ... His religious feeling takes the form of rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals the intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection." — Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist, agnostic.

Parameters Worth Pondering

What shines out like the sun at noonday to us who believe is the tender, thoughtful care that God has taken to make us a place possible to call home. You may be amazed at the inflexible intricacy of many parameters of physics it takes to have a world that is habitable for human life. Here are just a few:

• Expansion rate of the Universe — If the expansion rate of the universe had been smaller by just one part in 1055, the universe would have collapsed back on itself before it reached its present state. If larger, galaxies would not clump together since the effects of gravity would be overwhelmed. (The heavy elements necessary to life would not be available without galaxies.) (The Creator and the Cosmos, Hugh Ross, pp. 112, 113.)

• Electromagnetic Force — The Electromagnetic Force determines molecular bonding. If this force were just slightly stronger, the atoms would not release electrons. If just slightly weaker, atoms would not hold on to electrons at all. We can conclude that unless this force is delicately tuned, chemical bonding for life chemistry could never take place. (Source as above.)

• The Strong Nuclear Force — The strong nuclear force governs the degree to which protons and neutrons stick together in atomic nuclei. If .3% stronger, all protons and neutrons would never break apart and there could be no hydrogen, and thus no stars. If 2% weaker, protons and neutrons would not stick together, leaving us with only helium in the universe. Once again star formation would be impossible. (Source as above.)

• The Small Excess of Matter over Antimatter — "If there had not been a small excess of electrons over anti-electrons, and quarks over anti-quarks, then ordinary particles would be virtually absent in the universe today. It is this early excess of matter over antimatter, estimated to be ... one part in about 1010, that survived to form light atomic nuclei three minutes later [after the Hot Big Bang], ... [and] after a million years [formed] atoms, and later ... cooked [into] heavier elements in stars [which provided] the material from which life would arise." — Scientific American, "Life in the Universe," Stephen Weinberg, October 1994, p. 45.

New Concerns Being Discovered

What would have happened if the matter from the creation event had been a little lumpier or a little smoother? "A ten times lumpier ‘soup’ would have formed a universe with dense super-massive galaxies. In such galaxies, Tegmark and Rees found, frequently stellar encounters would disrupt planetary systems before life could evolve." — Sky and Telescope, February 1998, p. 20.

Concerning the importance of having Jupiter in our solar system: "The near circular orbit of our largest planet, Jupiter, actually promotes the stability of circular orbits among the other eight planets, simulations have found. If Jupiter were in an eccentric orbit, Earth and Mars would have been flung out of the solar system long ago ... The existence of intelligent life may depend on Jupiter and Earth being in mutually stable orbits." — Sky and Telescope, March 1998, p. 37.

Concerning the importance of our moon: "The moon kept the earth’s rotation relatively stable. Studies have shown that without the moon, the tilt of Earth’s axis would vary chaotically between 0 and 85 degrees ... their report in the September 1997 Icarus reveals that if the Earth’s axis tipped ... evolution of an ecosystem would face catastrophic changes every few tens of millions of years. Life would repeatedly have to reassert itself ... These results seem to provide additional constraints on the likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe. It could be that planets need an axis-calming satellite to ensure climatic stability." — Sky and Telescope, March 1998, p. 21.

Summary for Fine Tuning

Astronomer Hugh Ross, in his book The Creator and the Cosmos (pp. 143, 144) has compiled an extensive list of parameters that are needed to have an habitable planet. He lists 41 factors whose sensitive adjustment is necessary for life (and thus humans) to exist at all. By lumping them together, he concludes that the probability of all 41 factors occurring together would be 1051 (10 with 51 zeros after it). Science is showing us more clearly what we already believe by faith about our creator: He is an awesome, caring God who took great measures to provide us a place to live. Praise his holy name!