Category: Science

Free Will and Free Won’t

Science suggests that the decisions we make are actually prompted by brain activity before we are conscious of making the decision.

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Do we have free will? Modern materialists say, no. This is what I learned watching an episode in a series on science that was hosted by Stephen Hawking on Public Broadcast Television.

Hawking explained the experiments that informed this view. In the experiment, the subjects were told to choose to push a button and to note the time on the clock at which the decision was made. At the same time, the subject’s brain waves were being monitored for activity. Over and over again, the brain waves were measured showing that the uptick in brain waves happened before the subject was conscious of the actual decision being made to take the action.

The experiment demonstrated the following sequence: (1) a brain signal occurs about 550 milliseconds prior to the finger’s moving; (2) the subject has an awareness of his decision to move his finger about 200 milliseconds prior to his finger’s moving; (3) the person’s finger moves.

This was interpreted as evidence by Hawking that we don’t have free will. The decisions we make are actually prompted by brain activity before we are conscious of making the decision. The conclusion is that we are responding to some prior stimuli and only think that we are making independent decisions. Hawking concluded, therefore, that we are determined, as everything is, by natural laws in an endless stream of cause and effect.

But wait, there is more. The scientist who conducted these experiments, Benjamin Libet, actually came to the opposite conclusions. And lest you think this is only an interesting experiment with no practical application, I find some interesting applications to our struggles with sin.

Continue reading “Free Will and Free Won’t” →

What is the Nothing Out of which the Universe Emerged

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

On a typical Sunday morning, I am contemplative, thinking about God, the nature of the world and other ultimate things. I have gotten home from church. The distant rumbling of thunder portends more rain to add to the buckets (more like vats) that came down earlier this morning. (We’ve had an unusual amount of precipitation in the Chicago area for about a year now.)

Though sunlight threatens to break through the clouds, despite the rumblings to the contrary, it’s a good day for reading and thinking.

In that vein, I raed an article from Forbes magazine that came up in my Google feed: Ask Ethan: Can We Really Get a Universe From Nothing? Ethan, is Ethan Siegel, a Forbes contributor. He is an astrophysicist, author and “science communicator” according to the short bio at the end of the article.

It just so happens that I spent my Friday evening this week with another astrophysicist, Hugh Ross, a brilliant man who is a Christian, and also a man of science. In fact, it was science that led him to his belief in God. But I digress. (You can hear the story of how science led Hugh Ross to God in his own words here.)

My meeting with Hugh Ross isn’t really relevant to the topic, other than the fact that our conversation got me thinking about science and ultimate things, things that science doesn’t really address (or hasn’t yet answered). Does God exist? Where did the universe come from?

The article suggests an answer to one of those ultimate questions: where did the universe come from? It suggests that the universe didn’t really come from nothing – at least not the kind of nothing that we usually imagine when we think of nothing. It entices the reader with a title that suggests an ultimate answer, but it doesn’t deliver.

Continue reading “What is the Nothing Out of which the Universe Emerged” →

Welcome to the Faith Club

Our commitment to brute assertions is faith.

kevingdrendel1 Comment

Here is a bold statement: faith is the foundation on which all reasoning proceeds. Tough it is a bold statement, indeed, I believe it is true (pun intended). Let me explain why.

First of all, though, I have to admit that didn’t come up with the statement. Tim Keller did, but it aligns with what I have come to believe is true. That is that we all have faith, even materialists who say they have no faith.

I have written about it from time to time, including Reflections on Confidence in Faith and Atheism, Darwin’s Faith: The Religion of the New Atheism, and  Are Reason & Faith in God Contradictory Terms?, to cite just a few examples. So this isn’t a new thought for me, but I like the way Keller approaches the topic.

Keller asks us to consider the Enlightenment premise: the only things we can really be sure of are things that are scientifically proven. This is a popular modern sentiment on faith, science and the nature of truth and reality. We have increasingly come to trust science and what science can tell us, and we have grown to distrust faith. But is that a sensible position?

Continue reading “Welcome to the Faith Club” →

It Is All Relative

On the application of scientific theory to theological constructs.

kevingdrendel3 Comments

I encourage reading the post I am reblogging (https://wp.me/p13zfD-1zB) if you like science and faith, or just thinking generally. I firmly believe that science and faith are not only reconcilable, they are intricately synergistic. One informs the other. Whether we study the special revelation of the Word of God or the natural revelation of the creation of God, we learn something of our Creator in the process.

I have often played (only played) with the thought that we misunderstand God and sin and judgment when we see them primarily through a moral filter. It’s not necessarily that the type of filter is the problem so much as our perception of that filter, perhaps. In western thought, we tend to view moral absolutes as ideals that exist in and of themselves. Thank you Plato.

We view moral absolutes as stand alone ideals, independent of God and, therefore, applicable to God. We get caught in the undertow of the Euthyphro dilemma because of this misconception. (Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God? (See God’s Love is Not Platonic)) There is no way out of the construct, but the construct, itself, is wrong.

Rather, God is God and everything flows from Him. Goodness is good because it is God’s nature and character. Good is only determined relative to God. The article that I am reblogging quickly reviews the book, Faith Across the Multiverse, by Andy Walsh. Walsh applies scientific theory to theological principals with some interesting illumination. Among those scientific theories is the theory of relativity and what it might illuminate about faith. If you like thinking about these things as much as I do, you will like the article and may want to buy the book.

Doubts About the Viability of Darwinian Theory Increase

kevingdrendel2 Comments

sad chimpanzee

I am reblogging this post as I have the distinct impression that most of the world, including most of the academic world, don’t realize that the Theory of Evolution, which seems to be accepted more like a fact in modern society, is still not completely settled. While the official face of the scientific world continues to bow in homage to Darwinian Theory, doubts of its ultimate viability and explanatory scope are increasing.

This is not to say that doubts about evolution, generically, are increasing. Evolution can mean any number of things, including the adaption of species over long periods of time. Garden variety evolution is not seriously in question (to put a layman’s spin on it).

Rather, evolution as an explanation of the origin of life and which defines the entirety of the biological process, from beginning to end, is still in some flux. If you don’t believe me, listen to Stephen Meyer and Perry Marshall debrief the Royal Society meeting of eminent biologists last November. (See Unbelievable? What happened to evolution at the Royal Society? Stephen Meyer & Perry Marshall)

Their report (as well as others) reveals a Neo-Darwinian theory in crisis. Many scientists are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the old paradigm, even with a face lift, in light of ongoing research and discovery. The old model is straining under the pressure.

It isn’t any wonder, then, I suppose, that the number of scientists willing to sign a petition expressing skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution has risen ten times since 2001.

Skepticism About Darwinian Evolution Grows as Over 1000 Scientists From Around the World Declare Their Doubts About Darwinism WASHINGTON, Feb. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Over 1000 doctoral scientists from around the world have signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution, according to Discovery Institute. The statement, located online at http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org, reads: “We are […]

via Doubting Darwin — God does not believe in atheists

Commitment to a Worldview

The commitment to atheism can be as dogmatic as any other belief.

kevingdrendelLeave a comment
From the Unbelievable! discussion involving John Lennox vs Peter Atkins – Can science explain everything?

In a recent discussion on theism and atheism with the Oxford professors, John Lennox and Peter Atkins representing both ends of the spectrum, the dialogue stopped, and a time of questions and answers began. One person, a scientist, wrote in saying that he is an atheist, but his commitment as a scientist to follow the evidence suggested to him that God does exist. For him, the issue isn’t the evidence, but his own feelings, instincts and emotions.

When this question was put to the two guests to respond, the answers were very intriguing. John Lennox, the Christian, suggested that the man should continue to question and research and to test the position (that God exists) personally, not from afar. The response of the atheist, Peter Atkins, was simple: stick to your “commitment to rationality” (which to him presupposes atheism).

Think about it. Would you suppose the answer, to stick to your commitment, would more likely come from the Christian or the atheist? I would. I think most people would expect that answer to come from the Christian, but it doesn’t in this case. It’s the atheist sticking dogmatically to a presupposition.

Continue reading “Commitment to a Worldview” →

The Trickiness of Consciousness

Is the ghost in the machine nothing more than information?

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Justin Brierley has been doing a series of interviews entitled “the Big Conversation” on his Unbelievable? podcast on the British Premiere Christian Radio. In the latest, and I believe the last, episode, he interviews Daniel Dennett, the Tufts professor and so-called “new atheist” and Keith Ward, the British philosopher, theologian, priest and scholar. Their topic is consciousness. The idea of the “ghost in the machine” comes up about half way through the discussion, and Dennett responds in the segment below:

Among other things, Dennett says that the “ghost in the machine” is nothing more than information. He says, “Information is embodied in the brain”, and “the user of the brain is the brain.” There is no “ghost”.

Of course, to call what Keith Ward describes as the most important aspect of you and me a “ghost” is to minimize it and to reduce it to something of insignificance. Dennett, though would say that the information is the significant thing. There is nothing going on other than the embodiment, transfer and process of information.

So what about consciousness?

Dennett says, “Consciousness is the user illusion of the brain itself…. The brain has been designed to have user interfaces inside it…. Consciousness is a user illusion that is designed by evolution and by learning and by cultural evolution to make our brains capable of getting out bodies through this complicated world.” [Emphasis added]

These remarks are the backdrop for my thoughts today.

Continue reading “The Trickiness of Consciousness” →