This evening, I attended a panel discussion about different methods of proving God's existence. The panel consisted of one Mr. Moose from Reasons to Believe, Dr. Batts, and Dr. Forringer. It turned out to be highly entertaining, and also quite thought-provoking.
Mr. Moose began the proceedings by declaring that the existence of God can be proved scientifically. Or so he said. His position was more like that of the other two, saying that the existence God could not be proved conclusively, but that there is overwhelming evidence for it. He began with a brief history of the physics of last century. Einstein paved the way for the expanding universe, which was confirmed in April of 1992. In the 70's, Hawking showed that time had a beginning. All this points to the existence of a Creator. He briefly went over the theory of intelligent design, lending more weight to his argument.
The second panelist was Dr. Martin Batts. Amazingly enough, he had a handout and two overheads prepared. Just crazy, I tell you. He rephrased the question of "How can we prove God exists?" to "Can we show with overwhelming probability that God exists?" then spent his time justifying that change. He talked about Kant's theory about two levels of knowledge (the rational and the spiritual) that cannot interact whatsoever, and about Hume saying that only the rational existed. He agreed with neither, saying that Hume is wrong because there are spiritual things, and that Kant is wrong because his ideas of epistemology weaken the Christian faith. He didn't try to prove or disprove the existence of God. But he had a handout. And quoted C.S. Lewis.
Finally, Dr. Forringer spoke. In my opinion, he had the best arguments of the three. Mr. Moose was probably the best-prepared, as he surely gives speeches like this often. Forringer began with an explanation of the reigning scientific thoughts of the late 19th century: that the entire universe was predetermined by the starting positions and velocities of all particles and the laws of physics acting on those particles. "But," he said, "quantum mechanics saves us." Quantum mechanics shows that absolute position and velocity cannot be determined, thus, there is an element of chance in the physical world. Through this element of chance, God is able to do anything without directly breaking the laws of physics. That is to say, if someone or something could control all the random elements of the universe, he could control everything. In essence, that person would be God. Thus, while the element of chance does not prove that God exists, it certainly shows how God could affect his universe without breaking his own set of rules, which is consistent with the idea of a rational God. Forringer said that in order to prove the existence of God scientifically, we must eliminate every other possibility, no matter how infeasible, a task that is practically impossible.
I have a few other editorial comments to make, but I think I shall save them for a later date. I'm also thinking about typing up the notes I took, but that would take both time and effort. As a good student, I have a strong aversion to spending either one.
Posted by Gallagher at January 21, 2005 01:11 AM