The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel Page B
Authors: Lee Strobel
Tags: Children's Books, Reference, Personal Growth, Children's eBooks, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity, Christian Books & Bibles, Christian Living, Religious Studies, Science & Religion, Religious Studies & Reference, Religions
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Descartes set the bar unrealistically high—that is, using his proofs to try to create ironclad certainty that God exists—and he couldn’t clear it. You can’t absolutely prove—or disprove—the existence of God.
“As a result, the opinion developed that arguments for God’s existence don’t work and that therefore there’s no rational basis for faith. Then Darwin, by showing that the appearance of design could be explained through natural mechanisms without an actual designer, contributed to the conviction that there was no rational or evidential basis for believing in God.
“In light of that, religious believers had a choice: reject faith, because it has no rational foundation, or reject the idea that you need a rational foundation for faith. The ones who remained believers took the latter, by saying, ‘I believe, I just don’t have or need a rational basis for doing so.’ They would then adopt strategies that would compartmentalize faith and reason, which led to the conclusion that faith and science occupy two different realms.
“But there’s a third option, which involves making a persuasive case for faith without using deductive proofs. Mathematician William Dembski and I wrote an article in 1998, articulating a model of reasoning that we think can be used to support theistic belief. It’s called ‘inference to the best explanation.’
“This is a form of practical reasoning that we use in life all the time. It says if we want to explain a phenomenon or event, we consider a whole range of hypotheses and infer to the one which, if true, would provide the best explanation. In other words, we do an exhaustive analysis of the possible explanations and keep adding information until only one explanation is left that can explain the whole range of data.
“The way you discriminate between the competing hypotheses is to look at their explanatory power. Often, more than one hypothesis can explain the same piece of evidence. For instance, as we just agreed, deism and theism can both explain the beginning of the universe. Okay, fine. But if you keep looking at the data, you find that only theism can explain the evidence for design in biology after the origin of the universe. And so theism has superior explanatory power.
“We reach conclusions with a high degree of confidence using this form of reasoning in our everyday life. This is what detectives do. This is what lawyers do in courts of law. Scientists use this approach. This model can enable us to achieve a high degree of practical certainty.
“And when we look at the evidence I’ve mentioned from cosmology, physics, biology, and human consciousness, we find that theism has amazing explanatory scope and power. The existence of God explains this broad range of evidence more simply, adequately, and comprehensively than any other worldview, including its main competitors, naturalism or pantheism. And the discovery of corroborating or supportive evidence is accelerating.
“In 1992, the historian of science Frederic Burnham said the God hypothesis ‘is now a more respectable hypothesis than at any time in the last one hundred years.’ 17 I’d go even further. More than just being ‘respectable,’ I’d say that the God hypothesis is forceful enough to warrant a verdict that he’s alive and well.”
THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS
Several questions popped into my mind as I listened to Meyer’s analysis. “I gave you the opportunity to offer six strands of scientific evidence for theism, and I’ll be following up with specific objections when I explore them in-depth with other experts,” I said. “But I don’t want to leave without posing at least four overall challenges to you.”
As he listened, Meyer removed his gold-rimmed glasses and started cleaning them with a handkerchief. He looked up at me and said, “That sounds fair. Go ahead. What’s your first question?”
I glanced down at my notes before speaking. “If the scientific evidence
“As a result, the opinion developed that arguments for God’s existence don’t work and that therefore there’s no rational basis for faith. Then Darwin, by showing that the appearance of design could be explained through natural mechanisms without an actual designer, contributed to the conviction that there was no rational or evidential basis for believing in God.
“In light of that, religious believers had a choice: reject faith, because it has no rational foundation, or reject the idea that you need a rational foundation for faith. The ones who remained believers took the latter, by saying, ‘I believe, I just don’t have or need a rational basis for doing so.’ They would then adopt strategies that would compartmentalize faith and reason, which led to the conclusion that faith and science occupy two different realms.
“But there’s a third option, which involves making a persuasive case for faith without using deductive proofs. Mathematician William Dembski and I wrote an article in 1998, articulating a model of reasoning that we think can be used to support theistic belief. It’s called ‘inference to the best explanation.’
“This is a form of practical reasoning that we use in life all the time. It says if we want to explain a phenomenon or event, we consider a whole range of hypotheses and infer to the one which, if true, would provide the best explanation. In other words, we do an exhaustive analysis of the possible explanations and keep adding information until only one explanation is left that can explain the whole range of data.
“The way you discriminate between the competing hypotheses is to look at their explanatory power. Often, more than one hypothesis can explain the same piece of evidence. For instance, as we just agreed, deism and theism can both explain the beginning of the universe. Okay, fine. But if you keep looking at the data, you find that only theism can explain the evidence for design in biology after the origin of the universe. And so theism has superior explanatory power.
“We reach conclusions with a high degree of confidence using this form of reasoning in our everyday life. This is what detectives do. This is what lawyers do in courts of law. Scientists use this approach. This model can enable us to achieve a high degree of practical certainty.
“And when we look at the evidence I’ve mentioned from cosmology, physics, biology, and human consciousness, we find that theism has amazing explanatory scope and power. The existence of God explains this broad range of evidence more simply, adequately, and comprehensively than any other worldview, including its main competitors, naturalism or pantheism. And the discovery of corroborating or supportive evidence is accelerating.
“In 1992, the historian of science Frederic Burnham said the God hypothesis ‘is now a more respectable hypothesis than at any time in the last one hundred years.’ 17 I’d go even further. More than just being ‘respectable,’ I’d say that the God hypothesis is forceful enough to warrant a verdict that he’s alive and well.”
THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS
Several questions popped into my mind as I listened to Meyer’s analysis. “I gave you the opportunity to offer six strands of scientific evidence for theism, and I’ll be following up with specific objections when I explore them in-depth with other experts,” I said. “But I don’t want to leave without posing at least four overall challenges to you.”
As he listened, Meyer removed his gold-rimmed glasses and started cleaning them with a handkerchief. He looked up at me and said, “That sounds fair. Go ahead. What’s your first question?”
I glanced down at my notes before speaking. “If the scientific evidence
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