The night sky from Jersey is exceedingly beautiful - and huge. The deep midnight blue of a few nights ago sparkled with tiny lights. But 'tiny' is a misnomer for the stars. These are huge far-away suns.
Walking underneath the 400-year-old yew tree in St Clement's Parish Churchyard, one wonders how many yews there are in existence in Jersey that had come from that tree. The Men of the Trees tell us that all yews in Britain, and Jersey, are descended from one found half way up an Irish mountain in the 1700s.
The universe and all life in it, including the yew, is indeed, huge and complex - so complex that virtually all scientists (including Richard Dawkins in his best seller 'The God Delusion') agree that any alternative to creation is highly improbable (see quote).
One might think then that the case for God is proven, as required in criminal court proceedings, beyond reasonable doubt.
Dr Dawkins has given the following as a title to the fourth chapter of his polemic: Why there almost certainly is no God. What then is the one alternative to God the Creator that non-creationists hold on to as the reason for the universe – and life like the St Clement’s yew?
Put very simply, no doubt with some loss of accuracy, this “reason” says that, yes, indeed the universe and life is complex and improbable but not as complex as a creator God would have to be if "it" was the one who made it (see quote).
The argument then goes on to say that it is therefore easier to believe (and one is less credulous if one believes) that the universe and life happened without a creator (unlikely though that is).
So.....it’s better to believe a universe that came into being by chance than to believe in a vastly more unlikely (because inevitably more complex) creator God.
This argument rests on an unstated assumption, however. The assumption that underlies it is that the creator God would have come on the scene, appeared (as it were), out of nowhere as some stage aeons ago - just as (it is claimed) the universe we see and life on it came on the scene out of nowhere aeons ago. That would, indeed, be very exceedingly improbable. So (it is claimed) the least improbable thing is the thing to be believed: that the universe and life on it are chance happenings. The unstated premise behind this so-called ‘anthropic’ principle therefore is the non-eternity of the creator God.
The Bible also has an underlying assumption. Its underlying assumption is directly opposite. It takes as a ‘given’ the definite eternity of the creator God and of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
The first book of the Bible, written by Moses in about BC 1350, starts with the words, "In the beginning, God ....". And the super record of the life of Jesus Christ, written by His apostle John in about AD 90, starts with the words, "In the beginning was the Word (Jesus Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
What then of this eternal Son of God, the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us AD 0 - AD 33, who was killed - and rose from the dead? To whom will you liken Him?
Take a look, as Isaiah was instructed by Him to do around 720 BC (see above), at the stars He has made, at the yew in St Clement's Churchyard and at all His living creation in Jersey. Who created these? |