The New Atheists and Remembering A Notorious Atheists’ Prayer/Part 5

Contents

The Power of Science as Pre-Evangelism

Significantly, post-conversion, Dr. Flew no longer believed that evolution was possible – even accepting a multi-billion year age of the universe, there was still far too little time for abiogenesis (the spontaneous generation of life) to succeed.^[1] Citing philosopher of religion Richard Swineburne on the universe: “… what will be inexplicable is its existence at all throughout infinite time. The existence of the complex physical universe over finite or infinite time is something ‘too big’ for science to explain.”^[2] Dr. Flew had finally realized, citing the lyrics of Richard Rodgers,

Nothing comes from nothing,

Nothing ever could.^[3]

While we might agree with one reviewer at Amazon.com that, “This book was a great read but it amused me to think that such an intellect had to battle for a lifetime to come to the same conclusion as many of us reach instinctively” – we can certainly agree that better late than never.

Dr. Flew was spot on when he observed that “atheists have to be embarrassed by the contemporary cosmological consensus.”^[4] That is an understatement to be sure.

Indeed, as Dr. Flew pointed out, it was scientific discoveries that “forced,” his rejection of atheism and conversion to theism – further, he pointed out that it is the greatest scientists who, when fairly considering the evidence, find an inevitable connection between the laws of nature and the Mind of God – including Einstein, Heisenberg, Hawking, Schrödinger (and I might add, Lord Kelvin, Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, Pasteur, Edison and I have dozens of other examples in my files.)

As an aside, it is simply an historical fact that most of the major branches of modern science were founded by Bible believing Christians because of their Christian worldview. In fact, it’s not too much to say that apart from biblical Christianity, there would be no modern science, at least not in its current advanced development.^[5] “1. Most of the greatest scientists of the past 1000 years were Christians and creationists. 2. To these scientists, Christianity was the driving force behind their discoveries. 3. The Christian world view gave birth and impetus to modern science.”^[6] Dr. Flew himself cites physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist Paul Davies in his Templeton address as observing that “science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.”^[7] In Dr. Flew’s words, Einstein agreed with Spinoza that “the pursuit of science in study nature leads to religion.”Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag

The irony is that in substituting the non-entities of absolute nothingness and pure chance as the alleged causation of our entire magnificent universe, while simultaneously rejecting and persecuting the very Christian worldview that not only gave rise to science but provides much needed stability to science, science is thereby slowly committing suicide in the process.^[8] Really, if every living scientist knows that a simple pin on the floor required design and intelligence, how do they make the fantastic leap that this massively complex universe originated from complete nothingness and blind chance? Talk about blind faith!

Read Part 6

Notes

1. ↑ Anthony Flew, There Is a God, 124
2. ↑ Flew, There Is a God, 141
3. ↑ Flew, There Is a God, 133
4. ↑ Flew, There Is a God, 135
5. ↑ “… as shown by the historical research of Pierre Duhem [The System of World: A History of Cosmological Doctrines from Plato to Copernicus and Others], Stanley Jaki [The Origin of Science and the Science of Its Origin; The Savior of Science] and (partially) Robert Merton, the worldview of Christianity was necessary for the rise of modern science.” (Eric V. Snow, Christianity: A Cause of Modern Science?” <http://www.icr.org/article/christianity-cause-modern-science/>. See also Eric Snow, “Christianity: A Cause of Modern Science? The Duhem-Jaki and Merton Theses Explained,” <http://www.archive.org/stream/IsChristianityACauseOfScienceTheDuhem-jakiAndMertonThesesExplained/IsChristianityACauseOfScience_djvu.txt> See also: Nancy Pearcey, Charles B. Thaxton, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy; Henry Morris, Men of Science, Men of Faith: Great Scientists Who Believe the Bible; Dan Graves, Scientists of Faith: 48 Biographies of Historic Scientists and Their Christian Faith. David F. Coppedge, “The World’s Greatest Creation Scientists from Y1K to Y2K; <http://creationsafaris.com/wgcs_2.htm>; W. R. Miller, “Scientists of the Christian Faith: a Presentation of the Pioneers, Practitioners and Supporters of Modern Science,” http://www.tektonics.org/scim/sciencemony.htm
6. ↑ David F. Coppedge, “The World’s Greatest Creations Scientists from Y1K to Y2K,”; http://creationsafaris.com/wgcs.htm#top.htm
7. ↑ Flew, There Is a God, 107
8. ↑ For discussion see, RC Sproul, Not a Chance: the Myth of Chance in Modern Science and Cosmology.