Halee: Science is not as stable as we originally thought. Pluto is not a planet, Brontosaurus never existed, and the universe is expanding at a rate that modern physics cannot account for. I am curious about your reactions to findings contrary to the standard theories of physics.
Sy: That does not surprise or bother me because science is supposed to be evolving and developing new ideas. What does bother me quite a bit is the school of thought that says, “anything we don’t understand now, science will eventually discover.” That is true, but really science has just ‘discovered’ there are things that we can never know. For instance, The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle tells us that we can never know the position and momentum of an electron at the same time. It is a statement of fact that the design of cellphones and computers are based on, and it says that there are things we can never know.
In my own field (biology) we have several questions related to the origin of life which do not seem to have an answer by any scientific means we have available. I think that when we find a way to explain the unanswered questions in biology, we will find, as we did in Physics, that there are pointers to a divine creator.
Halee: What have you learned about God from your study of the natural world?
Sy: That is a great question. The natural world is not simple. It is incredibly complex. There are these things called factorials (not just 1 or 2 or 3 dimensions, but a dimension of 2.5), which means that everything has a level of complexity that is true to all scales. You see this in everything, from leaves and clouds to mountain ranges and coast lines.
There is also something called chaos theory, which makes it very difficult to predict what is going to happen in a complex system. Then, there is also the fine-tuning of the cosmological constants. Scientists know what many of the constants of the universe are, and those constants must stay very specific to sustain the planets, stars, and humans. If they vary by a tiny amount, we would not have a universe. How did that happen? Was it just luck?
Halee: During the pandemic, I took over some of the teaching for my kids. There was a show on Amazon called ‘The History of Humankind.’ It opened with a dark screen, and then there was a big explosion with the word “Bang!” After that, everything came into being. My daughters, who were about twelve and eight at the time, just burst into laughter. They thought it was the most hysterical thing, and they could not take the show seriously after that. I have always known in the back of my mind that the chances of intelligent life coming from nothing are slim, but my daughters really showed me how ludicrous that thought is.
I have learned that my view of God is much too small, and my view of myself is much too big! Humans are not the center of the universe, and when you study how large the universe is, your view of God must expand exponentially.
Sy: I agree. I tend to focus more on the living world, and the truth is that life really should not be here. Even if we accept everything about the universe—all the laws of physics and all the laws of chemistry—it does not make sense that life exists. Even crazier, from a naturalistic point of view, human beings have abilities that we just should not have.
If you look at the biochemic details of a flower, it will amaze you in the same way the grandeur of the universe does. When I first learned about the biochemic processes that happen in every single cell, I was an atheist. I wondered, “How could this be? How could all this beauty and complexity come about? For various reasons, it cannot be by evolution. It must be something more.”
I believe that God created everything, but I do not know how. And I do not know if science will get us there. Be that as it may, when you study the natural world and you learn its secrets, the natural result is to believe in God. That is, of course, unless someone tells you, “This has nothing to do with religion.” But if nobody instills doubt, you are going to naturally believe the universe comes from a creator and a designer.