Michael Ruse vs John Lennox • Science, faith, and the evidence for God

For more discussion updates and bonus clips, sign up for the great talking points show. Well, thank you so much for joining us here at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London for today's live audience edition of The Big Conversation with me Justin Brierley, The Big Conversation is an incredible Series exploring

faith

,

science

, philosophy and what it means to be human in partnership with the Templeton Religion Trust and today our topic of conversation is

science

,

faith

and the

evidence

of God, and a great conversation partner that I'll be sitting down with tonight is John Lennox. and Michael Ruse John Lennox is a professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, a well-known Christian thinker and speaker, he is the author of books such as God's Undertaker, he has science buried in God and points to God, why the new atheists miss the mark white, he argues. that science and our growing knowledge of cosmology and biology are consistent with the view that a divine mind is behind the ordered universe in which we live.

Michael

ruse

is a professor of philosophy of science at Florida State University. He has published books including Atheism, What Everyone Needs to Know and Darwinism and recently Purpose, which is an exploration of purpose in philosophy, science and religion, as an atheist he is however critical of the new atheist movement represented by figures such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, who believe that a better conversation between faith and science is possible. tonight we will ask questions like how science replaced God as the explanation of life and the universe or whether the rise of the new atheism sold out the

evidence

for God in short order.

I'm sure we're going to have a really interesting evening. Say hello again to my two guests, John Lennox and Michael, let's see if they shake hands right now. I'm very excited about this conversation between the two of you because this series and what we're doing tonight I think is a very good example. of how to bring two different perspectives together and hopefully have a fruitful substantive discussion even though we come from very different points of view, so maybe let's start with a little idea of ​​those points of view, first of all, John, would you like to describe how? briefly, what worldview you inhabit as a Christian.

I grew up in Northern Ireland, as you can immediately guess, which doesn't have the best reputation for spreading Christianity, but my parents were living examples of what I understand the Christian faith to be. not so much a formal religion but a personal relationship with God through Christ of death. I learned some absolutely basic things from them. We lived in a divided religious community. My father believed in the Genesis statement that all people are made in the image of God and so he insisted on trying to employ people from both sides of the religious community and I was bombarded for it and grew up with this feeling that the way to have greater meaning in life was to treat everyone exactly the same and that's why I've had the privilege throughout life to have people like Michael and others be able to discuss these things publicly and that's where I started, but my parents did something else, they encouraged me to think so that when I got to university I would read a lot of things and I immediately began to investigate whether my Christian faith was credible or not compared to other world views and so, practically the first day, I decided that the best way to proceed was to make friends with people, that is, make friends with people who did not share my worldview.

Because when I got to Cambridge, of course, the first thing they told me was, of course, they believe in God. All the Irish fight about it, so I really had to get some answer to that Freudian point of view and that's why I've been doing all this. of my life mmm fantastic thanks John sherry and Michael Where do you come from in terms of your metaphysical perspective on life? Well, first of all, as you can see from my accent, I was born in England, in fact I was born in Birmingham in 1940. My father was a conscientious objector and during the war they came into contact with the Quakers and after the war my father and my mother joined the Quakers and so I grew up very intensely as a Quaker to the point that I was sent to a Quaker Boarding School when I was a teenager.

I'm still not too sure, but around the age of twenty-one my faith began to fade, as I say, it wasn't very simple nor did it put us all on the road to Damascus. It was just like I like to say, like collecting stamps and loving baked beans. One day I made these things and I loved them. The next day, they more or less disappeared and I really thought at that time 20:21 well, I'm sure I'll get it. at 70 I will side with the big guy in heaven again, but it was not to be, however, that said that my non-existent God, who is a Calvinist and therefore guides everything we do, made sure I was going to go to work in Charles Darwin, which meant that I got in touch with the science-religion relationship and this has been something that has been both a personal interest and a professional interest because my day job is a philosophy teacher and so This has been a constant theme , should I say?, of great interest to me.

I spent a lot of time fighting creationists in the 1940s, but I've also come more and more into contact with people like John who are really trying to build a bridge. the gap between science and religion as I say, I am now 78 years old and I no longer have faith. I'm a theist about Christianity but I'm pretty agnostic about whether any of that means anything and I'm sure this will come up more in the discussion so I always like to say once a Quaker will always be a Quaker and I've certainly grown up with a intense feeling that the only truly happy person is the person who serves others and would be very, very lucky.

I've been a teacher all my life, it's a wonderful job in that sense, but also the Quakerism that I grew up with was very mystical in the sense that God really wasn't someone like me on a sheet. I am much more unknown and unknowable as I say I no longer believe in a force for good or a force for evil, at least in that sense, but certainly my religion then and now has always been one that you know, it's Christian, it's agnostic. , you know, there are days when I'm not really sure, no, it's almost always agnostic, but it's quite a continuum, it's not like Richard Dawkins, where you go and suddenly you fall off the cliff, well, if God has a little , I'm sure.

It would be very similar to yours, it's interesting to hear you say that because in a sense you say that you are probably more agnostic than a fighting atheist and I am quite an atheist in that I don't believe Jesus was the son of God, now I won't ask you to reveal exactly how old are you, but do you feel that, looking back, my wife is 56 years old and is a man who has broken the cardinal rule of every husband? I was going to see what I mean, do you feel like you could? I'm still persuaded, but no, I don't believe it, so you don't believe, I don't believe, so I don't believe, first of all, and I think this is where John and I are going to disagree very much.

I'm very interested in being persuaded in the sense of: is there any evidence that leads to whatever it is? I can certainly see some experience that can fill me with faith. I don't expect it to happen, but that's the only way I could see it happening. Thank you both Michael and John for joining us. I'm sure it will be a fascinating discussion. We have a lot of ground we want to cover, but we'll see where we go in the conversation. I mean, I think it's a It's kind of significant that we meet here at the institution for mechanical engineers founded by Georgia Robert Stevenson in 1847, drawing largely on the fruits of the scientific revolution that in soap gave us so much of what we We enjoy today.

I guess my initial question is although when it comes to modern science, do you both share the sort of view that it owes something to the Judeo-Christian type foundations, if you will, of Britain and the West, what is your view on that? I believe a lot, so I remember him as a teenager subjected by a friend to reading Alfred North Whitehead and he's a difficult philosopher, you know, but I remember coming across the notion that the rise of modern science was due to the insistence rational to repent of the medieval insistence and rationality of God and then, reading CS Lewis, who summarized it in a little simpler language, said that men became scientists because they expected the law in nature and they expected the law in nature because they believed in the Giver of the law, so in a sense I am delighted to be both the scientist if a mathematician is lowered to say that he is a scientist, which is another matter, and a believer in God because possibly It was the Christian cradle that gave rise to my topic and, of course, I later noticed that there were many people who were not necessarily Christians, like Melvin Calvin, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and said, as I look back to ask where came this belief, an order that is fundamental to all science, in fact it is the fundamental faith of scientists, we cannot do science unless we look for order in nature, it is said to have arisen from an idea first put forward by the ancient Hebrews and then communicated later in the Judeo-Christian tradition and John Hadley Brook, who was an expert historian of science, is perhaps more nuanced than I would be and a little more cautious, but still that tenor of the argument is that There is certainly a deep connection for a very obvious reason: if you believe that behind the universe there is a rational mind, then you hope to be able to do science, so I would put the two together quite strongly, we would do it first.

You agree that there is a sort of Judeo-Christian heritage that has informed the modern sciences, but also how far it goes along John's line that an ordered science presupposes a sort of ordered mind at some level behind it. Well, I think he has done it in the past yes, first of all, I agree with John. I think modern science owes a lot to him. I mean, we want to say that we have to be broad and we have to incorporate Buddhism and all that, but the simple fact of the thing is that modern science basically owes its being to Christianity, I mean at least the science that we have and I'm sure we will talk about Darwinism and I would say that it owes its existence to Anglican Christianity, but I certainly think that you are quite It is true that modern science owes its existence to Christianity.

John and I were talking just before they both took me, a friend you took courses with and I, about a woman called Mary Hesse, who was a professor of philosophy at Cambridge and she made a lot of metaphors and I've believed this lot , you know, hook and sinker line, I don't think science is just, you know, like a sweeper net, just the facts, ma'am, just the facts, science is interpretation, science is the facts like you put them together. and you find meaning in them and I think the key is the metaphor now, until the Scientific Revolution, the key metaphor that what linguists call the root metaphor was that of an organism, the world was seen as organic, I mean Plato in the Timaeus.

It comes out clear with that, but Aristotle, do I think there was a change of metaphor? No, I'm not saying anything that John Hadley Brooke and others wouldn't say that there was a shift in metaphor to that of a machine, now, of course, to a certain extent. It was largely driven by the fact that we now had increasingly sophisticated machines. and particularly watches, which this was the biggest, so I think that in the Scientific Revolution the world was increasingly seen as a machine made by the divine. engineer and what happened was this became tremendously powerful in the late 16th century and certainly in the 17th century, you read people like Robert Boyle and all these others who used the machine metaphor all the time, but the thing was that more and more people found When it came to the budget, doing science, God was not much help to use today's language, you simply had to remain a methodological naturalist and abandon, so to speak, metaphysical naturalism, the question of God or not, no, God.

One of the great historians of the Scientific Revolution said, over time, God became a retired engineer when they started with the machine. Of course, it was looked at in terms of this. It's good who the divine creator was, but as I say, I think that with the passing of the years, No. It was because people were necessarily irreligious, many of them like Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle were, but they increasingly discovered as scientists that it was not necessary and not very useful to include God in the discussion. Descartes says this now, the fact is they wanted to continue believing in God, but that began to open the way for what Richard Dawkins has called that one could be an intellectually justified atheist.

They were not atheists in the 17th century, but it was the thin end of a very large range. Do you agree with that assessment, John, to some extent? I think we also need to recognize that it depends on what area of ​​your science you're talking about. I am a pure mathematician and when I teach pure mathematics I do not mention God. at all and if I were designing the rocket locomotive that George Stephenson designed, we wouldn't mention God at all. God does not arise in the many practical aspects of science, not even in thebiology, where the deepest questions arise or why we can do science in everything that this universe has that allows us to do science and there I would begin to see the fingerprint of a divine mind so that it is not so much in the mechanisms now there are exceptions to That's because when you ask questions about the origins, inevitably, if you look at the history of ideas you will see that the question of God arises a lot and God as the one who creates the universe and sustains it but you will not find God.at the bottom of the piston cylinder of a automobile engine and of course it won't, and the danger is that because that kind of practical science was so successful in generating technology, people began to take what I consider to be a completely illegitimate step and that is to eliminate God completely and the main reason for this is the notion that science cannot answer all questions.

Scientism is widespread today and I think it is dangerous to simply explain what scientism is. Well, it's the idea that science is the only path to truth. and of course, as a statement, if I say that science is the only path to truth, that is logically contradictory because that statement is not a statement of science, so if it is true it is false, maybe it is too soon, but The point is that many people like it. Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking consider that science is the only path to truth, that would close their Philosophy Department and that would be absurd and the Cambridge Philosophy Department reacted very severely to Hawking's statement before Michael returns to this.

He just he would be interested. You've somewhat openly mocked the idea of ​​why we can do science. That's a great question because as a mathematician, do you agree? I think it was Eugene Wigner who said that the universe is written in the language of mathematics. he talked about the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. It's a famous article from 1961 that all mathematicians love, but it was wrong, you see, because the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics assumes naturalistic philosophy. It is absolutely unreasonable for mathematics to work if you assume an atheistic or naturalistic philosophy, but if you believe that there is a God whose mind is behind this universe and behind our minds, then the effectiveness of mathematics is something I would expect and of course , Newton was the genius that he was.

This was one of the evidences of him when he wrote down mathematical principles. At the beginning of the help, a thinking person would see that there was a deity from his descriptions of the universe. Kepler said similar things. What do you think of that idea of ​​the very order of the universe? The fact that we do mathematics the way we discover that the world is written in the language of mathematics six in the universe is that it somehow points beyond himself as John obviously thinks towards some kind of divine mind well, Of course, as a philosopher I'm going to say that it depends on what you I mean, no, I want to give three responses to the line that John is pressing.

The first is: I feel like I'm getting into one of those arguments like, have you stopped hitting your wife? As soon as you say yes, you say, well, why did you hit yourself? first of all if you say no if then you say well maybe you should is the fallacy of a complex question and I'm a little worried that we are already being led into discussions about proof of the existence of God. I like to describe myself as a very conservative non-believer and I'm NOT all that interested in natural theology in that sense. I think religious belief certainly Christian belief should be based on faith.

I'm with Cardinal Newman on this, he said I believe in design because I believe. in God I don't believe in God because I believe in design, so that's my first kind of statement that I would like to make about the second, okay, if it's design, then you have some questions to ask about nature. of the designer, I mean, you know the Richard Dawkins type questions well, who designs God, when and you'll have to say something like well, no God is a necessary being and that will lead you to I'm not saying insoluble questions to ask. with the nature of existence, but at least somewhat, I mean, take, for example, Oliver Roose sitting up front, it's possibly conceivable that my wife and I only had two children, we jumped from Emily to Edward and Oliver was just , you know a flash in the pan or not even what they say in Glyndon, a dirty look in his father's eyes, in other words, Oliver exists but he doesn't have to exist, while of course I believe that the God from John in there has to be some level, the third point I would like to make is if we have a designer, what is this designer?

John and I before we arrived, as all men tend to do, were exchanging stories about, you know, I'm more seriously ill than you. I'm going to collapse on stage before you, but I mean, let's take it from the fact that neither of us mentioned hemorrhoids, my dad, huh? I think any God who cared even a little bit about human beings would have invented a world that allowed hemorrhoids. so I think if you're going to go into design, then you have to take the rough with the smooth, so to speak, and I think there are all kinds of problems, there are three problems together, bring those kinds of examples okay yeah I'm happy, right?

Can we start with at least one of those? I'd like to start with all three, so if I remember correctly, there's the question of natural theology. Michael doesn't like that I think that if you're going to believe, believe on the basis of faith alone, not speculation about the universe, that there's this question of where God came from in the first place and then there's the question of why, if He's a designer, why hemorrhoids, so yeah, well, take the first one, it's quite clear that Michael and I differ fundamentally in what we understand by faith because, for me, faith is an integral part of my life as an intellectual and scientist.

Scientists believe certain things. I believe in the theory of gravitational attraction. Because? Because I have evidence. that's why I think my wife loves me why because I have evidence of it and my Christian faith is not about faith as a leap into the unknown but about a commitment based on evidence, otherwise I wouldn't be even remotely interested in Christianity and I notice that Richard Dawkins Faith is based largely on evidence, that's why I write a 400 page book called God, so I think we have a fundamental difference about faith and secondly, I didn't use the word evidence, Michael , I'm too picky to use the word proof.

I think it is a question of evidence, it is very interesting to me that when Paul talks about the impact of the universe he says that the existence of God and his power are perceived through the things that are done, it is a perception and what intrigues me is that perception. is admitted by so many people that you would think they wouldn't admit an idiot and they say that it is terribly tempting to believe that a design Stephen Hawking co-authored a book called Great Design Why because you see the design and then come all the arguments that I No I find it convincing to say that well, it's not a real design, it's just an apparent design, so that's the first thing.

My faith is an evidence-based commitment. Secondly, the question of who designed the designer and Richard Dawkins was posed to me and is the heart of The. God Deception Argument: If you say God created the universe then you have to ask who created God and he will ask you because if you ask who or what created X then you are assuming that X was created but the biblical God was not created . the question doesn't even apply to him, so it's one of those questions that you think is something really important, but he misses the point and in the end I put it to the dolphins.

I said your question makes no sense apart from created things. but I don't need you to tell me that created gods are an illusion, most of us think they are, we call them idols, but I said, let me test your question with you, you believe that the universe created you, so if your question is valid , let me ask who created your Creator. I've waited 10 years and got no answer, but before you come to part 3, because the question about hemorrhoids is really a question of even I think I'm going to leave that and maybe I'll come back to this a little later, but we have many, no is no, no, no, I want to address it, but at least with these first two problems and John's answers, Michael, what is your opinion?

Well, I particularly want to talk about that. the first, this whole question of being evidence-based and what exactly that means if, for example, someone tells me quickly, like my physics teacher taught me when I was in school, if they tell me that Galileo's laws work or something like this and then the physics teacher says, well, let's do some experiments to show you exactly how this kind of thing works and we swing some pendulums back and forth and that kind of thing, now I understand that it's an evidence-based belief that I'm going a Let the missiles go in parabolas instead of circles or regular circles or something now that I see that it's based on evidence, now let's get back to the whole God thing, like I said, I don't want to eliminate the evidence. of history, but I am concerned that evidence is used to justify these beliefs in God.

I believe in design because I believe in God. I don't believe in God because I believe in design, while in the case of physics I believe in Galileo. laws because I believe the physical evidence was there, so it seems obvious to me that any Christian will look at the world and interpret the world in a way based on the evidence. I mean, for example, we'll think about the difference between Heinrich Himmler and and Sophie Sean, who died in the guillotine because she was a member of the white rose group in Munich, surely anyone who is a Christian will interpret these actions and there will be evidence based on that kind of sense that yes, what I see here is a person a case of a person who is made in the image of God and that is what makes him evil if it were done for a time it would be dangerous but it would not be evil well like I would as a Christian would see Heinrich Himmler was deeply evil.

I see Sophie Scholl as transcendently good, so she draws on evidence in that sense, but she doesn't prove my beliefs. My beliefs are something I have through faith. It really is a question, friends, a soul on the road to Damascus. Seoul was not. you know, someone who says, by the way, Seoul, I'd like to present the ontological argument to you. I think you know, if we spend a couple of hours talking about this or we talk about the design argument, and Seoul says, you know. You're right, I'm on the road to Damascus and now I believe in God.

It didn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. It's God's gift. That's the basis of it. But wait, Michael, wait. You see, Paul was convinced what the evidence was. the appearance of the resurrected Christ, that's what started Christianity, it was the appearance of the resurrected Christ and the fact that there was other evidence for his resurrection that launched Christianity into the world and me. I'm intrigued by your example, the moral example you set. See, you mentioned what I would call testability if you don't prove to prove Newton's laws and all this kind of stuff, and I'm constantly faced with the question of how can a scientist use belief. the things of him what is not provable and I say who said it is provable, you see, why am I sitting here as a Christian because I proved the claims that Christ has made?

Let me give you a simple example, we may want to discuss this later. in I don't know, but Christ promises that those who trust in him and receive him will receive peace with God and forgiveness and a new life and a new power. I've seen it happen to me and people countless times and you'd see a and Do all the time you start to believe that two and two make four. I think it is eminently verifiable and therefore returning to Michael's side forever. I think there are different levels of argument. Michael, you mentioned testing laws in the lab, but there are a lot of things.

In science, as we know, that is not verifiable, you cannot prove the origin of life in the laboratory, you have to make an inference about the best explanation and the past, and that is true for many things, so for me The evidence on which my faith is based is based on a cumulative part of objective intellectual arguments and all this kind of stuff, but a lot of it has to do with the evidence of if it really works in life, why doesn't that tell you? satisfies so well? Things I Want I think John and I probably have a very different view of the resurrection.

I have a feeling that, for John, proving that it actually happened physically is very important to you and you're the kind of person who says, "Well, look at the fact that it was women who reported this and women normally wouldn't do it, so this must be significant. It must be true. As a non-believing conservative, I think the physical resurrection is of no importance. I think the important thing is that those disciples on the third day, who were despondent and felt that they saw this man. that you know executed in the most horrible way, they suddenly said that our Creator lives and that it was within them, if there were laws to prove this I think it is irrelevant I would say.

I'm starting to worry that you're not an evidence-based atheist. See how you say the resurrection is.Irrelevant? I don't find that we are not the physical resume that I didn't find. the relevance of the Christian resurrection is the key, just a minute we will see the word anastasi without Greek means to rise again, it is a physical resurrection and its meaning is so vast here that we all face physical death if the problem of physical death It has really been solved. It has been sold historically. I want to know about this to say that it is irrelevant.

I just don't understand it, especially from a philosopher, but let's get back to some of the really important miracles, like turning water into wine. Yes, now that one, do you think Jesus really was? in the wine business and if you knew if you wouldn't mind right now I'm a very good glass of Bordeaux or do you think the presence of Jesus there filled the host with such a feeling of guilt and love, you know, he said to hell with that . I've been hiding my good wines. I'm going to take out these that make Jesus much more important to me.

David Copperfield, is this also the talking scientist in you? Do you feel that the miracles reported are literally true as water in wine? Physical resurrection somehow goes against the scientific enterprise and the way you should think about the world. Well, they go against the scientific enterprise, but I see them as inherently consistent for a Christian as, for example, McMullen would say okay, but human salvation required the direct intervention of God, so these are not scientific claims, but This is the point I would like to make clear. I wish someone like John would tell me: I believe in a literal resurrection.

I know. I hear arguments that it was women who first discovered that the tomb was empty, that sort of thing. I mean yes, you believe this by faith and you know we differ here, but I understand where you're coming from, but we're not going to do it. argue about it, we can argue about other things, but I think we'll probably end up arguing about it. You are surprised that your selectivity as a person interested in rationally solving something, what you mentioned about women has stuck. in your mind because it's actually very important evidence from the Jewish point of view totally No, well, that's your belief.

I'd like some evidence that it's totally irrelevant. It's not an evidence-based statement, but what about water and wine? Oh, the will of the water, why do we naturally assume that it actually had something to do with Jesus shaming the host into getting the best wine out of him? Nothing miraculous happened, well, of course, if you are a naturalist, you have to assume that I have no choice, but if you are sitting where I am sitting, this is the first sign that Jesus did something from which we become semiotic and it is an indicator of something much deeper and what he said at the end in the chapter of John.

The second is that Jesus did this beginning of his signs in Cana of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. His initial faith was partly a response to what he did and I believe he turned water into wine. Don't know. I think he broke the laws of nature. This is God nurturing a new event in the laws of nature. I can't say anything about it, but I think it had a deep meaning because that water was religious water. The religious ceremony ended. It's seven days. wedding and they ran out of wine, which was a social catastrophe and what Jesus did was bring the religious water into the middle, which would have been a major shame, don't bring religion back into this, we were having fun and he turned the religious water. in the best wine they could drink, it is a powerful miracle that becomes a sermon because wine is a symbol for the Jews and for many of us it is a symbol of joy.

Why does joy end at many weddings like it ends at a million? It has to do with purification and Christ was beginning to indicate by what he did what he was going to do about it, so I see it as a real miracle. He is proving that he is the son of God, the creator of the universe, but he is doing it in such a way. way to communicate something to Kait about how he's going to approach this question, going back to John's point about the idea that, as far as he's concerned, miracles aren't a problem for science because if there's a God at hand, that God can feed new events there are only a problem for naturalism now what is your opinion on that I don't know if you would subscribe to naturalism are you yourself Michael well I think it would be I call myself a naturalist I'm not sure I would call it Myself, the material I was, I would certainly call myself a naturalist, but I mean, on one level, I can accept miracles.

I mean, when I grew up, Dunkirk, everyone I knew said Dunkirk was a miracle, why? Because the British army, despite everything, was able to escape. almost tired and what did that mean? It meant that Britain had the ingredients for a professional army that they could then rebuild from there and go back and fight Hitler. Now what would people say? They said that God did this so that it would not be like this. He stopped Hitler, but he made it possible for us to fight Hitler now. If you had asked anyone you were talking to, do you think God really intervened or do you think it was just the laws of nature that fortuitously came together at that moment?

At this point I think most people would have thought you're joking and it's not in very good taste because that's totally irrelevant; It's the meaning of this that somehow God made it possible for us to pick up and continue to fight this great evil that You don't think that's what happened, obviously, the prospect of free milk, it wasn't a miracle because in my perspective it was a miracle, but it wasn't necessarily one that required God to say, sure, I'm going to break the laws of meteorology at five o'clock tomorrow afternoon but, in a sense, they, then, take the view that it was that confluence of yes, Look, if I were a Christian, I would have absolutely no problem accepting it, it wouldn't have been interesting, although I am a very liberal non-believer.

I realize that John and I are so far apart on this issue, although it's important to point this out, although we are still completely far apart on this, so to me these things not only didn't happen. but they are not relevant, I mean, they are feeding 4,000 or 5,000 depending on which gospel you read. I mean you know Jesus wasn't working for Fortnum and Mason or Sainsbury's and having them bring you sandwiches, no he was. He filled the people with love so that the people who had brought food shared it with those who did not have it, that for me is a real encouragement, that is why all life on some level is secular for me.

Miracle, what I'm hearing is essentially that if you were a Christian, Michael, you would be a very liberal Christian, essentially a Christian. I just said that if I were a Christian, I would be seeing God's actions in the world all the time, why? I mean, yeah, I'm not a fundamentalist. I'm not. I mean, you know he wasn't Agustín. You know a lot of these stories are for people who were preliterate and all that kind of stuff. I don't think about myself the way I expect, let me rephrase that. There is a type of Christianity that you would find plausible and attractive, which is obviously very different from the considerably more sophisticated one of John, but it is also a very conservative position, right?

I want to respond that sophistry is a very interesting phenomenon, but I think what you think Michaels does when he knows it easily is nothing because you see that I agree with them more than he thinks and the first thing is that I see God all the days normally. things in life, but I notice that when we look at the different types of claims of supernatural interaction, the Bible is graded, some of them are simply the workings of the laws of nature like Dunkirk. I'm very happy with that, but there are special events. where the level of intervention is higher and of course that's what you would expect.

I would rarely expect it because a God who constantly intervened in a special way would intervene virtually everything until he eliminated it from existence. In fact, I believe that the regularities of the universe are essential for us to perceive miracles and that is why I strongly disagree with your notion that these beliefs grew in a pre-scientific era, they did so in terms of chronology, but you see , when the man who was born blind was healed by Jesus, he said well. since the beginning of the world this has never happened he recognized it as a miracle as a special event caused by God because he knew what normally happened and when I when Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant he didn't say Oh wonderful how interesting God did he know that that he wanted to divorce her?

Because he knew, as well as any modern gynecologist, where babies come from and therefore we must realize that David Hume was totally wrong in talking about these beliefs in Rosen's pre-scientific days because you can only recognize something as an intervention supernatural if you know the norm, that's why the resurrection of Jesus was so impressive because corpses weren't coming out of the tombs everywhere. Well, I feel, John, that you are reducing the Gospels to the level of Grimm's fairy tales, you know we have miracles happening in Grimm's fairy tales and I think the way that John approaches the gospel is, if I may be pretty rude about it, I think you're degrading a tremendously important story to one of you know David Copperfield from that you know Jesus was a miracle worker and I just don't see Jesus in that kind of life maybe one final comment and we'll move on , well, I never exactly get to the hemorrhoids, I find it.

It's hard to call it a degradation when through all of this there comes to my mind a growing sense of the absolute wonder and glory of God in Christ the Son of God and evidence that that is who he is. I would put it another way, I think we are bringing it down to the level of Grimm's fairy tales because I believe in the story. I am Irish. I am a storyteller and I love history. It's not Michael or both, and in my case I want the story, but no. I want the story I understand the story, it's not what I want, the question is what is true or not and I believe that the story is enhanced and increased in its power because behind it there is a reality and the reality is in terms of who we are. .

We are talking about Christ's growing revelation of who he was and it was as a result of observing these signs that led people to believe that he was the son of God the Messiah and they took that extra step of trusting him and having life in him. We will leave his name there. I appreciate there are 40 more answers from you, Michael, but I think you want to get to the third point, the hemorrhoid point, because I think we always want to get to the right end. John, I guess I mean, joking aside, this is an important question that it fundamentally boils down to, if you think there's a designer behind the whole show, why are there so many horrible things in the world?

And that's a question that's been asked ever since. since time immemorial, isn't it where you want to start? I guess from a scientific point of view, well, this is a great question, of course, but the first point I would like to make is that they are two separate questions. recognize that there is a mind behind the universe, that is one question and I think science can tell us something about that, but then there is a second question: who is behind the universe and what is its character and what is its nature now when it comes of the question. of evil, moral evil and natural evil.

I think about this a lot because I think it's the hardest question for any of us, there are no two ways about it and if you want a short answer, it's going to have to be short. My approach is the first. Everything, it seems to me that atheism does not solve it, it solves it in an intellectual sense, that people say like Dawkins, the universe is as you would expect it to be, deep down there is no good or evil, there is no justice and we simply have coping well, if that is correct, of course, it means that you solve the problem, you have eliminated it in a sense, but what you have not eliminated is the suffering in pain, so I find it philosophically a disaster, but now to answer.

To do that, as a Christian, I have to get to the heart of the Christian faith and this is the very short answer at the heart of the Christian faith that is on the other side and if that really is God there, then it tells me that God has not He stayed away from this problem but he himself has become a part of it and the cross and resurrection together seemed to me to do what atheism does not do, they give us reasons for hope and I face a universe as Michael does who presents a mixed picture is like a ruined cathedral.

Traces of beauty can be seen in Coventry Cathedral, and bomb marks can be seen. I call it beauty and barbed wire and whatever our philosophy is, it's a worldview, we have to deal with it because that's reality and the only way I can see a window into this I can't figure it out I wouldn't fake it or insult to no one who suffers by doing so. I have been to Auschwitz many times and cried every time, but I would say we will never do this. solve the problem philosophically of what a good shared word of God could have done, etc., so we havea problem and there is a mathematician, if he can't solve a problem, he does a different one and I am granted that the different question is So, is there somewhere in the universe evidence that there is a god that we can trust and I believe there is something revealed in Jesus Christ?

That's my short answer, Michael. I guess at this point John draws on his Christian faith in a pretty direct way in the way that you expected him to be in this in some ways, the point is that yes, ultimately this is a question that won't necessarily be answered by science, but it can be answered by a revelation from Jesus Christ. What is his response? I agree with the revelation part first. I guess what I want to say is that I agree with John that well, there are two things that I think we agree on. One is that these are genuine questions.

Why is there something instead of nothing? Does the universe have a purpose? I think many of my fellow philosophers who follow Vikins Tyne would say that these are not genuine questions and you know they can't be answered, so anything that can't be answered in principle can't be answered. a genuine question in the First of all, I think that's nonsense. Of all people, I'm with Heidegger on this. I think why there is something instead of nothing. It is the fundamental question of metaphysics. The second thing is, again, I very much agree with John on this. These are not questions that science should answer.

Sorry, I talked about metaphors and, as I say, I think the metaphor we have on some level eliminates questions like why is there something instead of nothing, what is the nature of morality. There is a purpose to the universe. I think the whole metaphor we have of the Machine simply following laws and going round and round like a clock is one that excludes these questions, it doesn't mean they can't be answered and I think it's perfectly legitimate for Christians to offer their answers that The universe exists because it was created by a good god. Morality in a certain sense is following the will of God.

The purpose is eternal salvation with our Creator, so I believe these. They are legitimate answers, but I think they are open to theological and philosophical criticism and John brought up the problem. We both mentioned the problem of evil. This is where I have problems. The usual answer on the problem of moral evil. I'm not talking about the Lisbon earthquake, now I'm talking about Auschwitz. The reason the usual answer is that God gave us free will and the implication of that was that some people would misuse this. All I can say is that I don't see how we could possibly say that we have a good God who gave free will to Heinrich Himmler and thought it was more important to give free will to Heinrich Himmler than to let Anne Frank die of colic or typhoid.

Colorado instead of in Bergen-Belsen if that's the cost of getting a universe. I don't want anything to do with this. Only everyone who tells me, at least evidently, yes. I believe we can progress to believing in a good God. I mean I just don't know how. you can balance Heinrich Himmler's free will with the death of Anne Frank or Sophie Scholl or any of these others. I don't want a god of that kind of height now if you want to tell me but by revelation I believe in a God, who will make it possible. I think it's a legitimate position.

It's not mine because I haven't had the revelation, but this again brings us right back to where I think John and I have a very fundamental disagreement about the evidentiary basis. of Christianity and the answer I don't think John's position is stupid I think it's wrong of course sure well well I would reciprocate with great affection I think I would, said Michael, if I didn't believe in the final judgment, no I don't think Hamra is going to get out. with his, that is one side and, secondly, as strange as it may seem to you, I believe that God is a God who knows how to compensate and it is because of that and because of the resurrection of Christ and the promise of the future that sometimes I dare to think that when we see that what God finally makes is the Anne Frank of this world, we may not have such serious questions, but you know, Michael, what weighs most on me is not whether my beliefs help me, but whether They are true or not I have had it since I was a child I have had a passion for the truth and in Cambridge a Nobel Prize winner and this was the turning point in my life having talked about a dinner he took me to his room and three other professors around him said that the next thing he wants to do is a career in science.

I said yes, sir, well, he said in front of witnesses tonight, give up this childish belief in God, that will put you completely out of the race, and he offered. some solution, I said, what do you have to offer me that is better than what I already have and that makes me steal in some way? I thought that if I ever have the opportunity to present myself to the public as a scientist, I want to try to do it. What we have done tonight is put two sides of the argument in the public space and let people make their own decisions, but that moved me deeply and I couldn't help but think what if he had been a Christian.

I've been an atheist or left college the next day, but that was my first experience of the pressure coming from that particular person. Well, I think you're a better Christian than you let John see because I think, by God. The evidence does not matter. I don't know how you could get better evidence of the dubious nature of God's personality to say that Heinrich Himmler's free will is more important than Anne Frank's suffering and death now if we approach it from a matter-based point of view. faith and I say I'm trying to put it into perspective with my conviction already given my knowledge like you like God exists and he's loving and then I have to interpret I think that's one thing but say oh no oh no, I'm working on the evidence base.

I believe in God because of design rather than being designed because of God. That's where I wasn't going. I don't think you'll ever do that again. Let's have a final comment and I must go to some questions yes, I take the argument for design in both directions, not just one direction. I think about the alternatives and the main alternative. God could solve that very easily by turning us all into robots that were completely deterministic, but what would that do? The world of human beings is empty, you and I would not be in that world for the simple reason that having been given freedom of choice to a certain extent, we are capable of loving now that I have children and grandchildren and I remember bringing my first child to it. world and hug this girl and say: you know you could grow up and disown me.

I am a rebel. Why would anyone have children? And I believe God faced a similar problem. We have children because of the potential for love, but we know it can go wrong. but it can only go wrong because the potential for love is there now. I admit that problems like Himmler and Anne Frank are terrible problems, but if you sell them by saying that God should have made us a robot, then there was no love in the universe. That would make me think a lot in the opposite direction. Maybe we'll have a chance to follow that up during the Q&A for now.

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