Posted by:
Henry Bemis
(
)
Date: March 13, 2014 01:10PM
Many atheists participating on this Board have been dogmatic in holding the view that there is no evidence for the existence of God; and that religious faith is per se irrational and anti-science. One recent poster, when asked (paraphrasing) whether there was even a chance that there was a God, responded, “Not even remotely. I'm telling you I think there is absolutely no reason to believe there is one.”
The claim that there is no evidence for God and the stronger claim that there is no reason to believe in God might seem logically equivalent. However, they are not. The claim that there is no evidence for God may be true, depending upon what one counts as “evidence.” However, the claim that there is no reason to believe is more personal, and as such, it is patently false. Actually, there are many quite obvious reasons for such belief: (1) Spiritual experiences; (2) NDE reports; (3) Testimonies of third parties; (4) the Bible, etc. Now, for atheists these may not be good reasons to ground such a belief, but they certainly are reasons! Moreover, on a case by case basis, they might indeed be very compelling.
As indicated, one might adopt a purely scientific view of what counts as “evidence.” I suppose further that one could insist that “justified belief” precludes “reasons” based upon paranormal phenomena, subjective spiritual experiences, or the testimonies of third parties, ancient or modern. So, rather than argue this point, let’s ask a more difficult question: Are there any scientific reasons to believe in God? Now, we must ask, “What counts as a scientific reason to believe in something? Here, the question of rational belief involves a broader range of “reasons,” that go beyond what might be strictly called “scientific evidence.” Scientific “reasons to believe” do not necessarily require the high standard of verification, confirmation, and replication, ideally required by the scientific method. Such belief must initially be supported by facts that are more tenuous and tentative, as well as less direct, but still offer justification of belief.
When Einstein first proposed his special theory of relativity, conjoining space and time into “space-time,” it was entirely theoretical. There was literally no experimental evidence to support it. It was adopted in large part to explain and resolve paradoxes related to the constancy of the speed of light, which was already well established by experimental data. Only later did evidence accumulate in support of the theory.
A second example is so-called “string theory,” which has been a dominating research program in theoretical physics for several decades. Yet, there is literally no scientific evidence to support it. Moreover, it is doubtful that the theory is falsifiable. It’s adherents have reasons to believe it because it is mathematically consistent and provides significant power in explaining the relationship between the standard model of particle physics and general relativity.
So, why was Einstein justified in believing his theory of relativity at a time when scientific evidence was lacking? Why are string theorists so tenacious in their beliefs in a context of a lack of supporting evidence? The answer is one or more of the following: (1) the fundamental assumption that the universe is ordered, and that therefore there is an answer to the questions and paradoxes raised by the data; (2) the intuitive belief that the established data leads one to the proposed theory; (3) the belief that the proposed theory has “explanatory power” i.e. it successfully provides an explanation of the known data; (4) the intuitive judgment that no competing theory provides a “better” explanation of the data sought to be explained; and (5) the intuitive belief that the proposed theory is mathematically elegant and parsimonious.
The above criteria reveals that science fundamentally proceeds with intuitively appealing theories offered as explanations of known data. One of the greatest 20th Century theoretical physicists, often referred to as “the father of quantum mechanics,” Max Planck, called these assumptions “faith” noting:
“Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientists cannot dispense with. . . . [Y]ou could not be a scientist if you did not know that the external world existed in reality, but that knowledge is not gained by any process of reasoning. It is a direct perception and, therefore, in its nature akin to what we call Faith. It is a metaphysical belief. Now that is something which the skeptic questions in regard to religion, but it is the same in regard to science.” (Wilber, Quantum Questions, p. 152-154)
Without getting hung up on Plank’s controversial mystical views as related to science and religion, let’s consider whether science offers any reasons to believe in God in this weak sense; i.e. in the absence of hard, verifiable, scientific evidence. Let’s start by calling theism a “theory,” and define it simply, without a lot of ideological and doctrinal baggage, as the theory that states only that a superior intelligence (mind) (called “God”) is a transcendent cause for the existence of the universe as revealed by science. Again, by our assumption, we admit that there is no scientific evidence for such a conclusion. We are asking only whether there are any scientific reasons to believe such a theory.
With the above points in mind, consider two well established scientific principles: (1) the apparent role and implications of mind in modern quantum mechanics; and (2) the so-called cosmological anthropic principle. Quantum mechanics, considered the most correct scientific theory to date, has established beyond question that classical determinism—the logical foundation of atheism for centuries—is false. The universe is subject to random, probabilistic processes. Moreover, quantum mechanics has established such “weird” things as wave-particle duality, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, non-locality, and the “superpositions” of mathematically defined (probability), non-physical “states” of some kind. It is well beyond the scope of this post to delve deeply into any of these issues. However, what is important for our purposes is the role of mind and freewill in the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics. For the first time in science, it appears from the empirical evidence that mind and consciousness, through the operation of freewill, provides a causally efficacious power within the physical universe. Free choices, as exhibited through measurement, are said to “collapse the wave function” such as to establish a definitive and measurable universe which was otherwise physically ill defined, if physically existent at all. Established originally by physicist John Von Neumann as the logical implication of the Copenhagen model of QM as put forth by Niels Bohr, some involvement of mind in QM has remained the prevailing view, despite some ingenious but unsuccessful attempts by many to extract mind from QM interpretations, and re-establish materialism. Once mind is introduced as a “substantive” causal factor in the universe, a form of mind-body dualism is implied, and with it, at least the possibility of a transcendental creator.
Henry Stapp, a distinguished and highly regarded theoretical physicist, and a major player in these issues, stated:
“These processes of choosing are in some ways analogous to the process of choosing the initial boundary conditions and laws of the universe. That is, the free choices made by the human players can be seen as miniature versions of the choices that appear to be needed at the creation of the universe. Quantum theory opens the door to, and indeed demands, the making of these later free choices.”
“This situation is concordant with the idea of a powerful God that creates the universe and its laws to get things started, but then bequeaths part of this power to beings created in his own image, at least with regard to their power to make physically efficacious decisions on the basis of reasons and evaluations.”
(H. Stapp, “Minds and Values in the Quantum Universe,” in Davies and Gregersen, Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (Cambridge University Press 2010)
Although I believe the above is greatly overstated, it highlights correctly the implications of the standard interpretation of QM for theism; most importantly mind and freewill. Less dramatic statements that are also noteworthy for their respect for the implications of QM on mind and indirectly on theology, can be found throughout the literature. In short, the introduction of a role for mind and freewill into the physical world, although not scientific evidence for God, “opens to door” for the possible role of mind in the creation of the universe. This alone represents a scientific reason to believe in God in the limited sense noted above.
The cosmological anthropic principle (CAP), simply stated, acknowledges the well-established scientific fact that the universe appears to be fine-tuned to both generate and support intelligent life: The so-called constants of nature—mathematical quantities as discovered or judged by scientists to be universally constant across the universe—are singularly and jointly fine-tuned to a remarkable and improbable degree as would be necessary to allow life, particularly intelligent life, to flourish. These constants were identified by cosmologist, and popular science writer, Martin Rees in his book called “Just Six Numbers,” a book that is still highly recommended as a starting point for considering the CAP. Rees identifies six constants of nature—including (1) the strength of the electromagnetic force that binds electrons to atomic nuclei; (2) the so-called “strong force” that binds quarks to their the protons and neutrons of the atomic nucleus; (3) the critical density of matter in the universe; (4) the cosmological constant, also known as “dark energy,” or “vacuum energy,” which relates with gravity to the expansion rate of the universe; (5) the relation between gravity and the laws of thermodynamics; and (6) the number of spatial dimensions in our world, i.e. three—as finely tuned to support life.
Of course, Rees’ six numbers, and their intricate relationships, can be found in many other books, and this issue is widely discussed by cosmologists and theoretical physicists. The CAP is NOT controversial, it is established science. Rees, himself, states: “These six numbers constitute a ‘recipe for a universe. Moreover, the outcome is sensitive to their values: if any one of them were to be ‘untuned’, there would be no stars and no life. Is this tuning just a brute fact, a coincidence? Or is it the providence of a benign Creator?”
In his book, “The Cosmic Jackpot,” theoretical physicist Paul Davies noted:
“On the face of it, the universe does look as if it has been designed by an intelligent creator expressly for the purpose of spawning sentient beings. . . No scientific explanation for the universe can be deemed complete unless it accounts for this appearance of judicious design.”
Leonard Suskin, a theoretical physicist of high reputation, put it this way in his book, “The Cosmic Landscape:”
“This book is about a debate that is stirring the passions of physicists and cosmologists but is also part of a broader debate controversy, especially in the United States, where it has entered the partisan political discourse. On the one side are the people who are convinced that the world must have been created or designed by an intelligent agent with a benevolent purpose. On the other side are the hard-nosed, scientific types who feel certain that the universe is the product of impersonal, disinterested laws of physics, mathematics, and probability.—a world without purpose, so to speak. By the first group, I don’t mean the biblical literalists who believe the world was created six thousand years ago and are ready to fight about it. I am talking about thoughtful, intelligent people who look around at the world and have a hard time believing that it was just dumb luck that made the world so accommodating to human beings. I don’t think these people are being stupid; they have a real point.” (emphasis added) . . . Here I share the skepticism of the intelligent-design crowd: I think that the dumb luck needs an explanation.” (Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape, page 5)
The above represent just two well-known and well-established scientific principles where theology comes into legitimate discussion. This is because the data of science has itself raised issues inviting theological speculation. Of course, many have suggested alternative theories that remove both mind and God from consideration. But, that is beside the point. Alternative theories that are themselves highly speculative, and unverifiable, do not either change the data, or undermine clear implications of the data as related to mind, consciousness and theology. Moreover, alternative theories do not attain a preferred status simply because they embrace an underlying dogmatic assumption that anything suggestive of mind and/or theism is per se objectionable.
The above points, offer scientific “reasons to believe” that are available to theists to support a rational faith, even though there is no direct experimental evidence for the existence of God. In the above examples, the God theory encompasses explanatory power in the face of genuine scientific data that not only is in desperate need of an explanation, but by its very nature points to a universe that suggests a creative force beyond simple cause and effect relationships, or random probabilities.
Several points need to be made clear. First, your everyday theist does not base their faith on science. As such, whatever they do base their faith on is subject to critical evaluation. A belief may very well be irrational when based upon faulty reasoning, even if there are other legitimate reasons to believe that are unknown, or not considered. Second, I do not mean to suggest by all this that everyone, or anyone, should abandon atheism. Arguably, most God theories, as specifically spelled out by specific religious doctrines (dogma), have very little if anything to recommend them by way of either evidence, or objective “reasons to believe.” However, when an atheist dogmatically, and often condescendingly, states or suggests that theists must necessarily be deluded, lack critical thinking, and be unscientific, it betrays a misunderstanding of both science and religion.
Given the details of modern science, it is perhaps not surprising that many of the founders of quantum mechanics—including Planck, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, and Pauli—had a deep respect for independent role of mind, the mystical qualities of reality, and the legitimacy of faith in God.