I am not surprised that the more scientists discover about the world we inhabit, the more obstacles to faith are removed. My optimism comes from a fusion of my engineering education at university with my theological education at seminary.
That’s not to say that the messaging from advocates of materialism has been ineffective. Cambridge-educated scientist Stephen Meyer reports a poll indicating that many people disbelieve because “the findings of science make the existence of God less probable.” They accept the hoax that faith and science are mutually exclusive.
The belief that “the cosmos is all there is” had pronounced results in the last century. It was the foundation for dehumanizing ideologies which destroyed millions of lives. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated the issue concisely when accepting the Templeton Prize in 1983: “Men have forgotten God.” If God does not exist, then people are products of mindless chance and have no more intrinsic value than a tree or rock. It means free will and objective morality are illusions. Life has no meaning, purpose, or destiny. When we die, we rot. To internalize this sad ideology is to add to the shocking daily headlines born of despair.
Yet I am optimistic that obstacles to faith are being removed by science. Take the fine-tuning argument, which posits that the physical constants of the universe fall within narrow ranges, permitting life in a most improbable way (absent intentional design). Sir Fred Hoyle, a Nobel-winning scientist, considered the complex evidence and admitted, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology.” C.S. Lewis commented on complexity as well. “Do not let us deceive ourselves,” he writes. “No possible complexity which we can give to our picture of the universe can hide us from God: there is no forest, no jungle thick enough to provide cover.”
When fine-tuning and other scientific discoveries point you Godward, it affects your thoughts about meaning, purpose, and destiny. It affects how you view yourself and your place in His plan. When you believe in Christ Jesus, your life begins yielding the fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). That makes you part of the solution for what’s wrong with the world.
God exists whether you believe or not. He is the source of life. “Material laws alone do not explain our life or give it direction,” Solzhenitzen writes. “The laws of physics and physiology will never reveal the indisputable manner in which the Creator constantly, day in and day out, participates in the life of each of us, unfailingly granting us the energy of existence.” Science may never reveal that, but it continues to remove obstacles that prevent you from seeing God’s eternal power and divine nature through what He has made.