Is There a Role for Natural Theology Today?

By Dr. Owen Gingerich

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics


Dr. Owen Gingerich is Senior Astronomer at the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory and Professor of Astronomy and of
the History of Science at Harvard University. His professional
interests range from the recomputation of an ancient
Babylonian mathematical table to the interpretation of stellar
spectra. He is co-author of two successive standard models for
the solar atmosphere and is a leading authority on the works of
Johannes Kepler and Nicholas Copernicus. Gingerich has
edited, translated, or written 20 books, over 150 technical or
research articles, 200 popular articles, and 150 reviews. 


In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked
how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that,
for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it
perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer.

But supposing I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how
the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly
think of the answer which I had before given, that for any thing I knew, the
watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this
answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible
in the second case, as in the first?

For this reason, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to inspect the watch,
we perceive that its several parts are framed and put together for
a purpose . . .. Th[e] mechanism being observed (it requires indeed an
examination of the instrument, and perhaps some previous knowledge of
the subject, to perceive and understand it; but being once, as we have said,
observed and understood), the inference, we think, is inevitable,
that the watch must have had a maker: there must have existed, at some time, and
at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it
for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its
construction, and designed its use.[1]

Whether you have read this passage before or not, I'm sure you recognize it as
the famous argument from design that introduces William
Paley's Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the
Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature. Paley's
Evidences, written nearly two hundred years ago, continues to have its modern
repercussions, as witnessed by the title of the best- seller from
the Oxford biologist, Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins writes,
"When it comes to complexity and beauty of design, Paley
hardly even began to state his case."[2] But he also declares that Paley's
argument "is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong,"[3] and the subtitle
of his book boldly states, Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe
without design.

As an astronomer, I have always been intrigued by some of the astonishing
details of the physical world, to say nothing of the intricacy and
complexity of the biological domain. To me, looking out at the universe through
the eyes of faith, these data have seemed to be impressive
evidences of design and purpose. I propose to sketch briefly the modern
scientific scenario of the creation of the universe and the origin of the
elements, pointing out at least two wonderful episodes where it appears, on the
face of it, that a designing hand has been at work.

Yet science today eschews any hint of design or purpose in its description of
the world. Thus, my scientific scenario will be grist for two more
specific questions: Dare a scientist believe in design? and, Is there a role for
natural theology today?

Modern Science Rejects Teleology

That it is unfashionable in scientific explanations today even to hint at
purpose or design is made clear repeatedly, and not just in such
avowedly atheistic polemics as exemplified by Dawkins' subtitle. Reductionism is
the name of the game.

A few years ago Science magazine carried a report on the toxins of certain cone
shells, which I happened to notice because my wife and I are
avid shell collectors. A supplementary news article, entitled "Science digests
the secrets of voracious killer snails," remarked that "the great
diversity and specificity of toxins in the venoms of the cone snails are due to
the intense evolutionary pressure on the snails to stop their prey
quickly, since they can't chase it down."[4]

Very promptly a letter to the editor objected that this language implied that
some real pressure was driving the snails to develop the toxins.
"The reality is that those snails that produced toxins that immobilized their
prey quickly tended to obtain food more often than those
possessing slower-acting or no toxins, and thus over time the population of cone
shells became dominated by those possessing the fast-acting
agents. There was no pressure! In the vernacular, `If it works, it works; if it
don't, it don't.'"[5]

The response shows clearly the current philosophical orthodoxy about the
non-directed nature of evolution. It also typifies the enormous
change of view that has occurred over the past century with respect to the
wonders of the biological world. What is now seen as the zigzag,
largely accidental path to amazing organisms with astonishing adaptations was in
earlier times routinely interpreted as the design of an
intelligent Creator. The long neck of the giraffe, which so well adapts the
creature to an environment where food is available high off the
ground, would have been seen, in William Paley's words, as a "mark of
contrivance, in proof of design, and of a designing Creator."[6]

Even Jean Jacques Rousseau, not best known as a theist, declared, "It is
impossible for me to conceive that a system of beings can be so wisely
regulated without the existence of some intelligent cause which affects such
regulation. . . I believe, therefore, that the world is governed by a
wise and powerful Will."[7]

The notion of design suggests, of course, the existence of a goal-directed or
end-directed process, what can aptly be termed teleology. Ernst
Mayr, a leading evolutionist who has written very clearly on the modern
philosophy of evolution, remarks that there are different types of
end-directed processes. "The third category, organic adaptness, is not directed
toward an end but rather an adaptation to the environment in
the widest sense of the word, acquired during evolution, largely guided by
natural selection. The fourth teleology, the cosmic one, is not
supported by scientific evidence."[8] So much then, for a role for the Creator
in modern biology.

"Man was not the goal of evolution, which evidently had no goal," wrote G. G.
Simpson in a more visceral fashion. "He was not planned, in an
operation wholly planless."[9]

Astonishing Details of the Universe

Yet, despite the articulate denials of cosmic teleology by the leading
evolutionists of our age, there still remain enough astonishing details of
the natural order to evoke a feeling of awe-beginning with the remarkable
scenario that the cosmologists have woven together concerning the
earliest moments of the universe. During the past two decades knowledge of the
world of the smallest possible sizes, the domain of particle
physics, has been combined with astronomy to describe the universe in its
opening stages. The physics ultimately fails as the
nucleo-cosmologists push their calculations back to Time Zero, but they get
pretty close to the beginning, to 10e-43 second. At that point, at a
second split so fine that no clock could measure it, the entire observable
universe is compressed within a dot of pure energy, a wavelike blur
described by the uncertainty principle, so tiny and compact that it could pass
through the eye of a needle. And then comes the explosion.
"There is no way to express that explosion" writes the poet Robinson Jeffers, 

. . . All that exists
Roars into flame, the tortured fragments rush away from
each other into all the sky, new universes
Jewel the black breast of night; and far off the outer nebulae
like charging spearmen again
Invade emptiness."

It's an amazing picture, of pure and incredibly energetic light being
transformed into matter, and leaving its vestiges behind. "But," you may
well ask, "how do we know this story is plausible? Or is it just a strange kind
of science fiction?" I have not time here to outline the systematic
steps, starting with the ancient Greek astronomers, in laying out the scale of
ever larger reaches of the cosmos, and culminating in our own
century with the measurements of the realm of galaxies, where the distances are
so vast that they are reckoned in millions and billions of light
years. Added to this is the remarkable discovery that the more distant the
galaxy, the faster it is rushing away from us. These data arrived on
the scene just as the cosmologists had begun to speculate on the large-scale
properties of the universe, and out of this confluence of theory
and observation arose the concept of the expansion of the universe. It was a
picture of quite awesome beauty: from a super- dense state, "All
that exists roars into flame, the tortured fragments rush away from each other
into all the sky" in Robinson Jeffer's phrase.

Let us, for a moment, run time backward in mind's eye, and inquire what happens
as the universe is squeezed back together and its density
increases. The total of the mass and energy remains the same, but the
temperature rises as the matter-energy is compressed. Finally the
temperature becomes so high, and the mean energy of the components so great,
that the presently-known laws of physics no longer apply.

Now let us run the clock forward again. In the first microseconds the
high-energy photons vastly outnumber particles of matter, but there is a
continual interchange between the photons and heavy particles of matter and
antimatter. Einstein's famous E=mc^2 equation helps describe
how the energy of the photons is converted into mass and vice versa. By the end
of the first millisecond, the creation of protons and
antiprotons is essentially finished, and the vast majority have already been
annihilated back into photons. As the universe loses its incredible
compression, the average energy per photon drops, and during this first second
electrons and antielectrons (called positrons) are repeatedly
formed and annihilated, finally leaving about 100 million photons of light for
every atom.

The thermonuclear detonation of the universe is now on its way, and in the next
minute fusion reactions take place that build up deuterium and
helium nuclei. After the first few minutes the explosive nuclear fireworks are
over, but the headlong expansion continues, and the cosmic egg
gradually cools. The left-over radiation, redshifted into the microwave region
of the spectrum, is ours to observe, and those photons have been
observed by looking out every direction into space, the fossil evidence of the
primeval fireball of the Big Bang. "It was like seeing the face of
God," declared astronomer George Smoot in an over- enthusiastic response to the
especially accurate data from the COBE satellite. This
observed background radiation is one piece of evidence supporting the
contemporary scientific picture of creation. The other is the observed
abundance of helium and of deuterium, which match well the predicted amounts
that would be formed in that cosmic explosion.

This picture, by itself, seems quite mind boggling, but there is something else
that astrophysicists began to notice a few decades ago. The
universe seems quite finely balanced between the outward energy of expansion and
the inward pull of gravitation. Had the universe exploded
with somewhat greater energy, it would have thinned down too fast for the
formation of galaxies and stars, the astrophysicists concluded. Had
the energy been somewhat less, gravity would have quickly got the upper hand and
would have pulled the universe back together again in a
premature Big Crunch. Like the Little Bear's porridge, this universe is just
right.

Let me be just a little more specific. According to this scenario, only two
elements-hydrogen and helium-are produced in any abundance in the
Big Bang itself. In order to get the carbon, oxygen, and iron needed for the
formation of life, a very long period of cooking in stellar
interiors-some billions of years-is required. So, to have a life-bearing
universe, it must be very old and very large.

It sometimes seems a little intimidating to be on such a small speck of a planet
in such vastness of space, but according to our modern
understanding, this immensity is a requirement for us to be here. Not just that:
it looks as if the entire universe has been tuned-shall I say
designed?-for the emergence of intelligent life. And these facts have not
escaped notice. The evidence of design appeared so striking that
cosmologists even gave it a name: the anthropic principle. The initial energy
balance of the universe and many other details were so
extraordinarily right that it seemed the universe had been expressly designed to
produce intelligent, sentient beings. Such was the original
context that led to the anthropic principle.

Unique Properties of Carbon

I shall return to the idea of the energy of the universe being so finely
balanced, but first I wish to examine another evidence of design. One of
the first scientists to consider how the environment itself made life possible
was the Harvard chemist L. J. Henderson. Early in this century, after
Darwin's emphasis on the fitness of organisms for their various environments,
Henderson wrote a fascinating book entitled The Fitness of the
Environment, which pointed out that the organisms themselves would not exist
except for certain properties of matter. He argued for the
uniqueness of carbon as the chemical basis of life, and everything we have
learned since then reinforces his argument. But today it is possible
to go still further and to probe the origin of carbon itself, through its
synthesis deep inside evolving stars.

Let me sketch briefly how stars spend their lives in order to explain where
elements like carbon and oxygen come from. Most of the time stars
get their energy by converting hydrogen into helium. But when the available
hydrogen has been exhausted, the core of the star pulls together
under the irresistible tug of gravity, the temperature increases, and finally
the formerly inert helium becomes a fuel, fusing into carbon and later
into oxygen. If the star is massive enough, a whole sequence of higher elements
will be generated.

Eventually, however, there comes a place where the atoms no longer yield up
nuclear energy for powering the star; instead, they demand
energy. This happens when the chain has gone about a quarter of the way through
the list of elements, approaching the element iron. When the
star has burned the atoms to this point, it swiftly falls into bankruptcy, and
the star is about to become a supernova. Gravity resumes its
inexorable grasp, and within a split second the core of the star collapses,
squashing the electrons and protons into a dense sphere of neutrons.
On the rebound, the neutrons irradiate the lighter atoms, and in a colossal
overshoot, they build up the heavier elements including the gold and
uranium. From the cosmic debris come the building blocks for future stars and
planets, and even for you and me. We are, in a sense, all recycled
cosmic wastes, the children of supernovae.

Now back to carbon, the fourth most common atom in our galaxy, after hydrogen,
helium, and oxygen. Carbon is made in the cores of stars long
before they reach the supernova stage, although it is the later explosion that
spews the element back into space where it becomes available for a
subsequent generation of stars and planets. A carbon nucleus can be made by
merging three helium nuclei, but a triple collision is tolerably
rare. It would be easier if two helium nuclei would stick together to form
beryllium, but beryllium is not very stable. Nevertheless, sometimes
before the two helium nuclei can come unstuck, a third helium nucleus strikes
home, and a carbon nucleus results. And here the details of the
internal energy levels of the carbon nucleus become interesting: it turns out
that there is precisely the right resonance within the carbon that
helps this process along.

Let me digress a bit to remind you about resonance. You've no doubt heard that
opera singers such as Enrico Caruso could shatter a wine glass
by singing just the right note with enough volume. I don't doubt the story,
because in the lectures at our Science Center at Harvard, about half
a dozen wine glasses are shattered each year using sound waves. It's necessary
to tune the audio generator through the frequency spectrum to
just the right note where the glass begins to vibrate-the specific resonance for
that particular goblet-and then to turn up the volume so that the
glass vibrates more and more violently until it flies apart.

The specific resonances within atomic nuclei are something like that, except in
this case the particular energy enables the parts to stick together
rather than to fly apart. In the carbon atom, the resonance just happens to
match the combined energy of the beryllium atom and a colliding
helium nucleus. Without it, there would be relatively few carbon atoms.
Similarly, the internal details of the oxygen nucleus play a critical role.
Oxygen can be formed by combining helium and carbon nuclei, but the
corresponding resonance level in the oxygen nucleus is half a percent
too low for the combination to stay together easily. Had the resonance level in
the carbon been 4% lower, there would be essentially no carbon.
Had that level in the oxygen been only half a percent higher, virtually all of
the carbon would have been converted to oxygen. Without that
carbon abundance, neither you nor I would be here now.

I am told that Fred Hoyle, who together with Willy Fowler found this remarkable
nuclear arrangement, has said that nothing has shaken his
atheism as much as this discovery. Occasionally Fred Hoyle and I have sat down
to discuss one point or another, but I have never had enough
nerve to ask him if his atheism had really been shaken by finding the nuclear
resonance structure of carbon and oxygen. However, the answer
came rather clearly about a decade ago in the Cal Tech alumni magazine, where he
wrote:

Would you not say to yourself, 'Some super- calculating intellect must have
designed the properties of the carbon atom,
otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of
nature would be utterly minuscule.' Of course you
would . . .. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a
superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with
chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking
about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the
facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond
question.[10]

Natural Theology: Evidence, not Proof

A few years ago I used the carbon and oxygen resonance in a lecture, and in the
question period I was interrogated by a philosopher who
wanted to know if I could quantify the argument. Clearly my petitioner was
daring me to convince him, despite the fact that I had already
proclaimed that arguments from design are in the eyes of the beholder, and
simply can't be construed as proofs to convince skeptics. So now I
hasten to dampen any notion that I intended the resonance levels in carbon and
oxygen nuclei to demonstrate how to prove the existence of God.

Even William Paley, with his famous watch and his conclusion that it pointed to
the existence of a watchmaker, said that "My opinion of
Astronomy has always been, that it is not the best medium through which to prove
the agency of an intelligent creator; but that, this being
proved, it shows, beyond all other sciences, the magnificence of his
operations."[11]

For me, it is not a matter of proofs and demonstrations, but of making sense of
the astonishing cosmic order that the sciences repeatedly reveal.
Fred Hoyle and I differ on lots of questions, but on this we agree: a
common-sense and satisfying interpretation of our world suggests the
designing hand of a superintelligence. Impressive as the evidences of design in
the astrophysical world may be, however, I personally find
even more remarkable those from the biological realm.

The game plan for evolutionary theory, however, is to find the accidental,
contingent ways in which these unlikely and seemingly impossible
events could have taken place. The evolutionists do not seek an automatic
scheme-mechanistic in the sense that Newtonian mechanics is
determined-but some random pathways whose existence could be at least partially
retraced by induction from the fragmentary historical record.
But when the working procedure becomes raised to a philosophy of nature, the
practitioners begin to place their faith in the roulette of chance
and they find Hoyle an aggravation to their assumptions about the
meaninglessness of the universe.

Despite the reluctance of many evolutionary theorists, there does seem to be
enough evidence of design in the universe to give some pause. In
fact, scientists who wish to deny the role of design have taken over the
anthropic principle. Briefly stated, they have turned the original
argument on its head. Rather than accepting that we are here because of a
deliberate supernatural design, they claim that the universe simply
must be this way because we are here; had the universe been otherwise, we would
not be here to observe ourselves, and that is that. As I said,
I am doubtful that you can convert a skeptic by the argument of design, and the
discussions of the anthropic principle seem to prove the point.

Natural Theology: Coherency

So this leads back to my central question: Is there a role for natural theology
today? If you can't convert skeptics, what's its use? Is it all mere
rhetoric? And I would answer, "Of course it's rhetoric, but rhetoric is not mere
rhetoric." In the twelfth century, logic and rhetoric were equally
esteemed components of the medieval curriculum. In some pursuits logic was more
suitable, whereas in others, such as ethics, rhetoric led the
way. In the following century, the time of Thomas Aquinas, logic began to gain
the ascendancy. Today, common opinion places logic on a
pedestal, while "mere rhetoric" is a term of opprobrium.

Actually, surprisingly little in science itself is accepted by "proof." Let's
take Newtonian mechanics as an example. Newton had no proof that
the earth moved, or that the sun was the center of the planetary system. Yet,
without that assumption, his system didn't make much sense.
What he had was an elaborate and highly successful scheme of both explanation
and prediction, and most people had no trouble believing it,
but what they were accepting as truth was a grand scheme whose validity rested
on its coherency, not on any proof. Thus, when a convincing
stellar parallax was measured in 1838, or when Foucault swung his famous
pendulum at 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning, January 8, 1851, these
supposed proofs of the revolution and of the rotation of the earth did not
produce a sudden, new-found acceptance of the heliocentric
cosmology. The battle had long since been won by a persuasiveness that rested
not on proof but on coherency, and what persuaded people of
that coherency was the cogency of the essentially rhetorical arguments mustered
in its favor.

Now if we understand that science's great success has been in the production of
a remarkably coherent view of nature rather than in an
intricately dovetailed set of proofs, then I would argue that a belief in design
can also have a legitimate place in human understanding even if it
falls short of proof. What is needed is a consistent and coherent world view,
and at least for some of us, the universe is easier to comprehend if
we assume that it has both purpose and design.

Just as I would try to persuade my hearers that the awesome details of the
natural world make more sense, have more coherence, in a theistic
framework, there are those who polish their rhetoric to make the contrary case,
as Dawkins puts it, to allow atheists to be intellectually
fulfilled.[12] Dawkins gives a lively and articulate defense of natural
selection as the agent that has very gradually led to sentient, questioning
beings. When I saw the subtitle of his book, Why the evidence of evolution
reveals a universe without design, I guessed, quite wrongly, that
he introduced some empirical evidence against the role of design. He might, as
Darwin frequently did, have defended the notion of imperfect
design, or he might have argued from the stupefying percentage of species that
have gone extinct, that if a designer was at work, he was at best
clumsy and inefficient. But no, Dawkins seems to feel that by defending the view
that a mechanistic process could have brought about
humankind, his case against design had been made.

But we can look at the same data and come to opposite conclusions. He is no more
able to prove the non-existence of a Creator than I, by
arguments from design, can prove the existence of a super-intelligent Designer
and Creator. It's as if someone from a far different age or culture
were to hear what he might take as a cacophony of sounds, but to us that same
onrush of notes would be a Mozart symphony. We hear the
same notes, but come to opposing interpretations. I would like to think that
hearing the sounds as a Mozart symphony is closer to reality. With
respect to natural theology, it is not a tight logical deduction, but, in
Pascal's memorable words, "the heart has its reasons that reason does not
know."[13]

Natural Theology: Alleged Weaknesses

I, having made the leap of faith, find the arguments from design very
illuminating; nevertheless, there are two issues worth facing before giving
even a qualified endorsement to a modern-day natural theology. On the one hand,
there has been a persistent criticism that arguments from
design will cause scientific investigators of Christian persuasion to give up
too easily. If the resonance levels of carbon and oxygen are seen as
a miracle of creation, would a Christian physicist try to understand more deeply
why, from the mechanistic view of physics, the levels are that
particular way and not in some other configuration? Might it not be potentially
detrimental to the faith to explain a miracle? On the other hand,
what if the scientific explanation changes, and an argument suddenly loses its
efficacy? Is faith now undermined?

Consider once more the design of the Big Bang, the observation that the universe
seems so closely balanced between too much and too little
energy of expansion. During the past decade this narrow balance has been the
focus of ever greater attention, and cosmologists versed in the
intricacies of the general theory of relativity found that the situation was
more acute than they had earlier imagined. If the universe has too little
energy to expand forever, its global geometry corresponds to what mathematicians
call Riemannian or spherical space. If it has an excess, the
global geometry is called Lobachevskian or hyperbolic space, and if it hangs in
the balance in between, the familiar Euclidian geometry holds
and the space is referred to as flat even though the universe has more than two
dimensions.

The wonderful discovery was that in the very earliest stages of the expansion,
the universe had to be incredibly flat to maintain its present
near-flatness. Even a tiny departure one way or the other would cause a runaway
situation that would bend the space one way or the other.
And-hold your breath-the flatness required was one part in 1.0e60, that is, one
followed by 60 zeros.

To the cosmologists, this looked like more than just good luck or a
super-intelligent designer who tuned the universe this way. It seemed that
some fundamental property required the universe to be this way. I won't go into
the splendid scenario schemed up to make this happen, called
inflation. It would derail us to consider its technical aspects or some of its
fascinating ramifications, such as the fact that this theory can't be
empirically demonstrated and simply must be believed because of its beauty. But
in a sense it punctures the notion of a Creator, who, with a
kind of cosmic roulette, picks just the right starting conditions to enable us
to arrive on the scene. Of course, it can make us turn in awe at a
Designer who built the inflationary epoch into the plans for creation, and
perhaps all we have to worry about is whether, in fact, the Designer
had a choice in the matter.

If natural theology is mistakenly viewed as a source of proof for the Divine in
the universe, then inevitable changes in scientific ideas pose a
serious threat. However, if natural theology deals with hints and coherencies,
not proofs and forced convictions, then I think it is on safe and
reasonable ground. But what about the other criticism, that belief in design
could deter investigators from pushing their inquiries to the limit? In
other words, dare a scientist believe in design?

There is, I believe, no contradiction between holding a staunch belief in
supernatural design and being a creative scientist, and perhaps no one
illustrates this point better than the seventeenth-century astronomer Johannes
Kepler. He was one of the most creative astronomers of all time,
a man who played a major role in bringing about the acceptance of the Copernican
system through the efficacy of his tables of planetary
motion. One of the principal reasons Kepler was a Copernican arose from his
deeply held belief that the sun-centered arrangement reflected the
divine design of the cosmos. Kepler's life and works provide central evidence
that an individual can be both a creative scientist and a believer in
divine design in the universe, and that indeed the very motivation for the
scientific research can stem from a desire to trace God's handiwork.

Conclusions

In reflecting on these questions I have attempted, in a somewhat guarded way, to
delineate a place for design both in the world of science and
in the world of theology. There is persuasion here, but no proof. However, even
in the hands of secular philosophers the modern mythologies
of the heavens, the beginnings and endings implied in the Big Bang, give hints
of ultimate realities beyond the universe itself. Milton Munitz, in
his closely argued book, Cosmic Understanding,[14] declares that our cosmology
leads logically to the idea of a transcendence beyond time
and space, giving lie to the notion that the cosmos is all there is, or was, or
ever will be.

Munitz, in coming to the concept of transcendence, describes it as unknowable,
which is somewhat paradoxical, since if the transcendence is
unknowable then we cannot know that it is unknowable. Could the unknowable have
revealed itself? Logic is defied by the idea that the
unknowable might have communicated to us, but coherence is not. For me, it makes
sense to suppose that the superintelligence, the
transcendence, the ground of being in Paul Tillich's formulation, has revealed
itself through prophets in all ages, and supremely in the life of
Jesus Christ.

To believe this requires accepting teleology and purpose. But I think that the
philosophers might rightfully point out that purpose transcends
design, that is, there can be purpose without design; God could work God's
purposes even in a universe without apparent design, or with
designs beyond our finite comprehension. It would be possible to be a theist and
a Christian even in the absence of observed design.

Nevertheless, just as I believe that the Book of Scripture illumines the pathway
to God, so I believe that the Book of Nature, with its astonishing
details-the blade of grass, the Conus geographus (with its lethal harpoon), or
the resonance levels of the carbon atom-also suggests a God of
purpose and a God of design. And I think my belief makes me no less a scientist.

To conclude, I turn once again to Kepler, who wrote, "If I have been allured
into brashness by the wonderful beauty of thy works, or if I have
loved my own glory among men, while advancing in work destined for thy glory,
gently and mercifully pardon me: and finally, deign graciously
to cause that these demonstrations may lead to thy glory and to the salvation of
souls, and nowhere be an obstacle to that. Amen."[15]

[This article is an abridged reprint from Science and Theology: Questions at the
Interface, edited by Murray Rae, Hilary Regan, and John
Stenhouse (T & T Clarke, Edinburgh, 1994), pp. 29-48.]

END NOTES 

1. William Paley, Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature (first
edition, 1803; quoted from Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 5- 7.
2. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York and London, 1987), p. 21.
3. Dawkins, op. cit., p. 5.
4. Marcia Barinaga, "Science Digests the Secrets of Voracious Killer Snails," Science, 249 (20 July 1990), 250-51.
5. James L. Carew, "`Purposeful' Evolution" (letter), Science, 249 (24 August 1990), 843.
6. William Paley, Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature
(Edinburgh, 1816), Chapter 5, section 5, p. 61.
7. J. J. Rousseau, Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar (1765), quoted in Alan Lightman and Owen Gingerich, "When Do Anomalies Begin?"
Science, 255 (1992) 690-95.
8. Ernst Mayr, "The Ideological Resistance to Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 135
(1991), 123-39, esp. p. 131.
9. George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution (Mentor Edition, New York, 1951), p. 143.
10. Fred Hoyle, "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections," pp. 8-12 in Engineering and Science, November, 1981, esp. p. 12.
11. William Paley, op. cit., (note 4), Chapter 22. 
12. Dawkins, op. cit. (note 2), p. 6.
13. Blaise Pascal, Pensees, in Great Books of the Western World, vol. 33 (Chicago, 1952), p. 222.
14. Milton K. Munitz, Cosmic Understanding: Philosophy and Science of the Universe (Princeton, 1986).
15. End of Book V, chapter 9 of Harmonice mundi, Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke, 6, 362; my translation is based on the ones by Charles
Glenn Wallis in Great Books of the Western World, 16, and by Eric J. Aiton, forthcoming, American Philosophical Society.

Copyright (c) 1995-1999 Leadership U. All rights reserved. 
This site is part of the Telling the Truth Project. 
Updated: 24 October 2000

Oryginal: http://www.origins.org/real/ri9501/natural.html

POWRÓT