What is Pascal’s Wager? It’s an argument for belief in God based on the possible benefits of such belief rather than trying to prove whether or not God exists. Here is Pascal’s simplest statement of the argument:
“God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up… Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose… But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is… If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.
So to give a quick summary: 1. You bet that God exists. If you’re wrong, you’ve lost nothing. If you’re right, you’ve gained eternal joy. 2. You bet that God doesn’t exist. If you’re wrong, you’ve gained eternal misery. If you’re right, you’ve neither gained nor lost. So the better choice is to bet that God exists. (more…)
Posted by Lon on December 10th, 2007 in Philosophy, Science | 9 Comments »
“God is slick, but He ain’t mean.”
– A. Einstein
When asked what he meant, Einstein replied:
“Nature hides her secret because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse.”
Our ability to “do science” — to explore the physical universe, determine how it is organized, and figure out why things happen the way they do — is dependent on the uniformity of creation. In other words, if you do something in a particular time and place and get a particular result, you can count on the same thing happening in other times and places, provided that all other conditions are the same. Scientists call this concept reproducibility, and it’s impossible to do science without it.
So what’s this got to do with theism and intelligent design? Consider what I stated in my last post about the doctrine of Creation:
“God . . . continually upholds [His creation]: every particle of matter, every quantum of energy, and every physical law governing how matter and energy interact, all of these continue to exist because God holds them in His thought.”
The God in whom we believe is an orderly, rational, consistent being. That’s one of the reason why the Bible encourages us to trust in Him. And if God is orderly, rational and consistent, then the Creation, which He continually upholds in His mind, is as orderly and rational as He is. In fact, it works both ways: the Bible teaches us that God reveals Himself in nature (Ps. 19:1ff; Rom. 1:20); thus, the order and rationality of creation teach us that the Creator Himself is orderly and rational.
The scientists of the Renaissance and Enlightenment — folks like Newton, Copernicus, da Vinci, and others — viewed the world through the lens of theism. Regardless of whether or not they were Christians, they believed in a Creator God, and they considered their “natural philosophy,” their science, to be a window into the mind of God. They felt that the only reason why they could do science, why they could expect to find a set of orderly laws governing the behavior of the natural world was that the Creator Himself was orderly and rational. Some historians of science have argued that the scientific method could not have come into existence apart from the Judeo-Christian world view. And this way of looking at things is so integral to science that scientists who weren’t even theists, let alone believers, used the language of theism to express their belief in an orderly universe. Hence the opening quotes — Einstein believed in nature, not God; if anything, he was an agnostic. Nevertheless, he had to resort to the language of theism to express his belief in the orderliness of the universe.
More recently many (possibly most) scientists and science popularizers have rejected the theism of their scientific forebears and thoroughly bought into an arrogant, atheistic materialism. And many Christians have allowed their understanding of science to become distorted. Some have accepted a kind of dualism, acknowledging that God created the universe and occasionally tweaks things in response to prayer, but otherwise has little to do with the natural world, being more concerned with the spiritual. Others constantly seek scientific evidence for creation when there’s no reason why there would be any — it’s the fact the universe exists at all that argues for the existence of a Creator. As Christians living in the early 21st century, we need to renew our faith in God as the rational Creator and Sustainer or the universe, a faith that gives us (together with other theists) a rational basis for doing science and enables us to better behold the glory of God in the magnificence of His creation.
Posted by Lon on August 24th, 2007 in Science | No Comments »
As promised, some comments on Intelligent Design and the nature of science. Of necessity, I’ll occasionally be using the technical language of science, philosophy, and theology, but I’ll try to define the more obscure terms as I use them.
Christians and indeed all theists believe in the doctrine of ex nihilo creation: God didn’t use any starting materials when He made the universe. God is separate from His creation, but He continually upholds it: every particle of matter, every quantum of energy, and every physical law governing how matter and energy interact, all of these continue to exist because God holds them in His thought. This is pretty basic stuff, and pretty much all believers who have given any thought to these matters will say, “Yeah, sure — of course we believe that.” (more…)
Posted by Lon on August 16th, 2007 in Science | 6 Comments »
