I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (21 page)

Give Chance a Chance!

Can all the incredible specified complexity in life be explained by chance? Not a chance! Atheists and theists alike have calculated the probability that life could arise by chance from nonliving chemicals. The figures they calculate are astronomically small—virtually zero. For example, Michael Behe has said that the probability of getting
one protein molecule
(which has about 100 amino acids) by chance would be the same as a blindfolded man finding one marked grain of sand in the Sahara Desert three times in a row. And one protein molecule is not life. To get life, you would need to get about 200 of those protein molecules together!
¹⁶

That probability is virtually zero. But we believe the probability is
actually
zero. Why? Because “chance” is not a cause. Chance is a
word
that we use to describe mathematical possibilities. It has no power of its own. Chance is
no
thing. It’s what rocks dream about.

If someone flips a fair coin, what’s the chance it will come up heads? Fifty percent, we say. Yes, but what
causes
it to come up heads? Is it chance? No, the primary cause is an intelligent being who decided to flip the coin and apply so much force in doing so. Secondary causes, such as the physical forces of wind and gravity, also impact the result of the flip. If we knew all those variables, we could calculate how the flip would turn out beforehand. But since we don’t know those variables, we use the word “chance” to cover our ignorance.

We shouldn’t allow atheists to cover their ignorance with the word “chance.” If they don’t know a natural mechanism by which the first life could have come into existence, then they should admit they don’t know rather than suggesting a powerless word that, of course, really isn’t a cause at all. “Chance” is just another example of the bad science practiced by Darwinists.

S
CIENCE
I
S A
S
LAVE TO
P
HILOSOPHY

Unfortunately, Darwinists have been successful in convincing the public that the only bad science is that which disagrees with Darwinism (and that really isn’t science at all, they say—it’s just religion masquerading as science). In fact, the exact opposite is true. It’s the Darwinists who are practicing the bad science, because their science is built on a false philosophy. In effect, it’s
their
secular religion of naturalism that leads them to ignore the empirically detectable scientific evidence for design.

What lessons can we learn from the bad science of the Darwinists? To answer that, let’s look at more of the debate we cited in chapter 3 between William Lane Craig, a Christian, and Darwinist Peter Atkins.
¹⁷
Recall that the debate was over the existence of God. At one point, Atkins argued that God wasn’t necessary because science could explain everything.

“There is no need for God,” declared Atkins. “Everything in the world can be understood without needing to evoke a God. You have to accept that’s one possible view to take about the world.”

“Sure, that’s possible,” Craig admitted. “But . . .”

[Interrupting] “Do you deny that science can account for everything?” challenged Atkins.

“Yes, I
do
deny that science can account for everything,” said Craig.

“So what can’t it account for?” demanded Atkins.

A veteran of many debates, Craig was ready with a multifaceted answer. “I think there are a good number of things that cannot be scientifically proven but we are all rational to accept,” he said. Craig then cited these five examples of rational beliefs that cannot be proven by science:

1. mathematics and logic (science can’t prove them because science presupposes them),

2. metaphysical truths (such as, there are minds that exist other than my own),

3. ethical judgments (you can’t prove by science that the Nazis were evil, because morality is not subject to the scientific method),

4. aesthetic judgments (the beautiful, like the good, cannot be scientifically proven), and, ironically

5. science itself (the belief that the scientific method discovers truth can’t be proven by the scientific method itself); (more on this below).

(Following this barrage of examples refuting Atkins’s view, moderator William F. Buckley, Jr., could not hide his pleasure with Craig’s answer. He peered over at Atkins and cracked, “So put that in your pipe and smoke it!”)

Craig was right. The scientific method of searching for causes by observation and repetition is but
one
means of finding truth. It is not the
only
means of finding truth. As we saw in chapter 1, nonscientific (philo-sophical) laws, such as the laws of logic, help us discover truth as well. In fact, those laws are used by the scientific method!

Moreover, Atkins’s claim that science can account for everything is not false only because of the five counterexamples Craig noted; it is also false because it is self-defeating. In effect, Atkins was saying, “Science is the only objective source of truth.” If we test that statement by the Road Runner tactic from chapter 1, we see it is self-defeating and therefore false. The statement “science is the only source of objective truth” claims to be an objective truth, but it’s not a scientific truth. The statement is philosophical in nature—it can’t be proven by science—so it defeats itself.

This leads us to perhaps the greatest lesson we can learn from the bad science of the Darwinists:
science is built on philosophy. Indeed, science
is a slave to philosophy.
Bad philosophy results in bad science, and good science requires good philosophy. Why? Because:

1. Science cannot be done without philosophy.
Philosophical assumptions are utilized in the search for causes, and, therefore, cannot be the result of them. For example, scientists assume (by faith) that reason and the scientific method allow us to accurately understand the world around us. That cannot be proven by science itself. You can’t prove the tools of science—the laws of logic, the Law of Causality, the Principle of Uniformity, or the reliability of observation—by running
1.
some kind of experiment. You have to assume those things are true in order to
do
the experiment! So science is built on philosophy. Unfortunately, many so-called scientists are very poor philosophers.

2. Philosophical assumptions can dramatically impact scientific
conclusions.
If a scientist assumes beforehand that only natural causes are possible, then probably no amount of evidence will convince him that intelligence created the first one-celled amoeba or any other designed entity. When Darwinists
presuppose
that intelligent causes are impossible, then natural laws are the only game in town. Likewise, if a creationist rules out natural causes beforehand (and we don’t know of any who do), then he also risks missing the right answer. But a scientist who is
open-minded
to both natural and intelligent causes can follow the evidence wherever it leads.

3.
Science
doesn’t really say anything—
scientists
do.
Data are always interpreted by scientists. When those scientists let their personal preferences or unproven philosophical assumptions dictate their interpretation of the evidence, they do exactly what they accuse religious people of doing—they let their ideology dictate their conclusions. When that’s the case, their conclusions should be questioned, because they may be nothing more than philosophical presuppositions passed off as scientific facts.

M
ATERIALISM
M
AKES
R
EASON
I
MPOSSIBLE

When you get down to the root of the problem, you find that the bad science of the Darwinists results from the false philosophy of naturalism or materialism at the foundation of their worldview. Why is materialism false? Here are five reasons why materialism is not reasonable:

First, as we’ve already pointed out, there is a message resident in life, technically called specified complexity, that cannot be explained materially. This message cannot be explained by nonintelligent natural laws any more than the message in this book can be explained by the nonin-telligent laws of ink and paper.

Second, human thoughts and theories are not comprised only of materials. Chemicals are certainly involved in the human thought process, but they cannot explain all human thoughts. The
theory
of materialism isn’t made of molecules. Likewise, someone’s thoughts, whether they be of love or hate, are not chemicals. How much does love weigh? What’s the chemical composition of hate? These are absurd questions because thoughts, convictions, and emotions are not completely materially based. Since they are not completely materially based, materialism is false.

Third, if life were nothing more than materials, then we’d be able to take all the materials of life—which are the same materials found in dirt—and make a living being. We cannot. There’s clearly something beyond materials in life. What materialist can explain why one body is alive and another body is dead? Both contain the same chemicals. Why is a body alive one minute and dead the next? What combination of materials can account for consciousness? Even Atkins, in his debate with Craig, admitted that explaining consciousness is a great problem for atheists.

Fourth, if materialism is true, then everyone in all of human history who has ever had any kind of spiritual experience has been completely mistaken. While this is possible, given the vast number of spiritual experiences, it does not seem likely. It is difficult to believe that every great spiritual leader and thinker in the history of humanity—including some of the most rational, scientific, and critical minds ever—have all been completely wrong about their spiritual experience. This includes Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Kepler, Newton, Pascal, and Jesus Christ himself.
If just one spiritual experience in the entire history of the world is
true, then materialism is false.

Finally, if materialism is true, then reason itself is impossible. For if mental processes are nothing but chemical reactions in the brain, then there is no reason to believe that
anything
is true (including the theory of materialism). Chemicals can’t evaluate whether or not a theory is true. Chemicals don’t reason, they react.

This is supremely ironic because Darwinists—who claim to champion truth and reason—have made truth and reason impossible by their theory of materialism. So even when Darwinists are right about something, their worldview gives us no reason to believe them—because reason itself is impossible in a world governed only by chemical and physical forces.

Not only is reason impossible in a Darwinian world, but the Darwinist’s assertion that we should rely on reason alone cannot be justified. Why not? Because reason actually requires
faith.
As J. dBudziszewski points out, “The motto ‘Reason Alone!’ is nonsense anyway. Reason itself presupposes faith. Why? Because a defense of reason
by
reason is circular, therefore worthless. Our only guarantee that human reason works is God who made it.”
¹⁸

Let’s unpack Budziszewski’s point by considering the source of reason. Our ability to reason can come from one of only two places: either our ability to reason arose from preexisting intelligence, or it arose from mindless matter. The atheists/Darwinists/materialists believe,
by faith,
that our minds arose from mindless matter without intelligent intervention. We say it is by faith because it contradicts all scientific observation, which demonstrates that an effect cannot be greater than its cause. You can’t give what you haven’t got, yet materialists believe that dead, unintelligent matter has produced intelligent life. This is like believing that the Library of Congress resulted from an explosion in a printing shop!

It makes much more sense to believe that the human mind is made in the image of the Great Mind—God. In other words, our minds can apprehend truth and can reason about reality because they were built by the Architect of truth, reality, and reason itself. Materialism cannot explain reason any more than it can explain life. Materialism is just not reasonable.
Therefore, we don’t have enough faith to be materialists!

T
HE
A
THEIST VS
.
THE
C
RITICAL
T
HINKING
C
ONSULTANT

The very fact that Darwinists think they have reasons to be atheists actually presupposes that God exists. How so? Because
reasons
require that this universe be a
reason
able one that presupposes there is order, logic, design, and truth. But order, logic, design, and truth can only exist and be known if there is an unchangeable objective source and standard of such things. To say something is
un
reasonable, Darwinists must know what
reasonable
is. To say something is
not
designed, Darwinists must know what
designed
is. To say something is
not
true, Darwinists must know what
truth
is, and so forth. Like all nontheistic worldviews, Darwinism borrows from the theistic worldview in order to make its own view intelligible.

This tendency of atheists to borrow unwittingly from the theistic worldview was beautifully exposed by author Pete Bocchino
¹⁹
during a curriculum meeting for the State of Georgia’s Department of Education. Pete, who was working for an internationally known Christian ministry at the time, was slated to be on a subcommittee to review and improve the sixth- to twelfth-grade public school curriculum in subjects such as U.S. government, law, ethics, and character training.

The first of a week-long series of meetings was held in a large room where all the subcommittee members were given an opportunity to introduce themselves. Pete, who got held up in traffic, arrived late, missed the introductions, and started heading for his seat. When the subcommittee chairman noticed Pete walking in, he told him that they had already introduced themselves and asked Pete to do the same by giving his name, background, and occupation. Pete gave his name and said that he had a degree in mechanical engineering. Pete thought to himself, “I certainly don’t want to bring Christianity into this by telling them that I work for an international Christian ministry.” So he cryptically said, “I currently work for a not-for-profit organization as a critical thinking consultant.”