← I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
What is the Story of Everything? with Dr. Stephen C. Meyer
00:49:45
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- [00:03]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, do you know anyone who is extremely science minded? In fact, they're so science minded they somehow think that science has disproven God or there's no need for the God hypothesis. What if I were to tell you that you can show that God exists without any reference to any religious work? You don't need the Bible to know that there is a theistic God out there. In fact, science itself appears to be pointing to, when properly interpreted, to someone who could be the God of the Bible. And there is a way of showing them that in a cinematically beautiful way. In about two weeks, in fact, on April 30, May 1, May 2, May 3, May 4, May 5, May 6, you're going to have an opportunity to bring a friend to a film that I think, if they're honest, will blow their atheism out of the water, their materialism out of the water. Because properly interpreted, the effects that we see all around us are pointing to a being toward or pointing toward a being which appears to be God, the God of the Bible, potentially. And there's nobody better to explain why the man who is behind this great film. In fact, the film is called the Story of Everything and of course it's the great Stephen C. Meyer, ladies and gentlemen, all the way from a bunker somewhere in Washington D.C. it's always, it's always great having Steve on the program. Steve, how are you?
- [01:48]
B
I'm doing really well, Frank. I didn't expect the clapping that we
- [01:54]
A
always bring our, our own crowd with us, Steve.
- [01:56]
B
Yes.
- [01:57]
A
And you have been on the road promoting this new film, the Story of Everything, for I think about the past three weeks. You, you've been living out of a hotel. You're in a hotel right now. Because this film, the Story of Everything, is really the story of your life's work. And I've seen an advanced screener of it, Steve, and it is just brilliant. And let me say also that it is in no way preachy at all. You can bring anybody to this film and if they're honest, they're gonna go, oh, if I'm not a believer, I've got a big problem here. What's behind this film, Steve?
- [02:38]
B
Well, you know, we keep being asked if or told it's a faith based film, but we correct people and say it's not a faith based film, it's a science based film that happens to be faith affirming.
- [02:50]
A
Yes.
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B
Because it shows that the implications of modern science, especially the things that have been discovered about the origin of the universe, the Structure of the universe and the interior workings of living cells point decisively to a transcendent, active, intelligent, creative intelligence. And so we make that case from the scientific evidence and then let people kind of assess it on their own and decide what they want to make of it.
- [03:26]
A
Yes, and it's based on your most recent book, the Return of the God Hypothesis, that came out three or four years ago. But this film has been in the works for how long, Steve?
- [03:38]
B
About three or four years? Yeah, about four years. It's the film adaptation of the book. But the book, of course, is not just based on my work, but the book synthesizes the work of many scientists and many scientific discoveries and developments, tells the story of what I call the return of the God Hypothesis, which is to say that the book and the film have a kind of rise, fall, rise, plot structure. Science rises in a decidedly Judeo Christian milieu, or context, for decidedly Christian and biblical reasons. The early scientists believed that they could understand the world because their minds had been made in the image of the same rational creator who built rationality and design and lawful order into the world. They believed the world was orderly because they believed in a God of order. And they wanted to study nature because they wanted to give glory to the Creator. And, and so there was a very decidedly Christian or Judeo Christian reason for science in its inception. Talking about the period of the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries. By the end of the 19th century that had shifted with so many materialistic ideas in play, especially materialistic theories of origins like Charles Darwin's theory of the origin of species and, and other ideas about the origin of the solar system and the assumption that the universe had been eternally here, that it was eternal, self existent and essentially self creating. A kind of materialistic framework arose out of science. The idea was sometimes called scientific materialism, that science supports the idea that matter and energy are all there is. They've always been here and there's no need for an external creator. And what we tell, what I told, the story I told in Return of the God Hypothesis is the story of three great scientific discoveries over the last 100 years. But that pace of discovery accelerating right up to the present, that is suggesting the need for an intelligent designer. Yes, but an intelligent designer who has the attributes that Jews and Christians have always ascribed to God. Transcendence, intelligence, volition and conscious awareness. And so it's a new day in science. And the film adapts the message of the book in a way that I think will be much, will be, we'll say even more accessible than the message of the book. The book was. I tried to make it accessible, but there were a lot of footnotes. And the producers have just done a fabulous job. There are 400 visual effects in the film. Beautiful cinematography that takes you way out into space, great nature shots, but then deep into the cell with some beautiful animations. And so I'm personally, I felt very honored by the job they did in adapting my work for something that is visual and accessible to, we hope, millions of people.
- [06:47]
A
Lee Strobel is one of the producers in this, ladies and gentlemen, and he's been out talking about the film. As I say, it's going to hit the theaters beginning April 30th, all the way through May 6th, depending on how well it does in those first seven days. It may. It may get a further run in the theaters as well. Correct, Steve, Is that the way this
- [07:09]
B
works depends on box office? It may click and do a further run. The film is being distributed by Fathom, and this is the longest run they've ever allowed for or ever committed to for a film. They did have a chosen episode that they did that was seven days in theaters, but. So we're very pleased about that. But there's also the possibility of extending it if people get out and see it and get their friends out and get their church groups out. And so we're hoping for a good turnout and a good turnout of skeptics. I've had a lot of interviews on tech outlets and science outlets. We had a fantastic review of the film in an unexpected place. The Hollywood progressive. And so this is. It's not aligned with right wing or left wing. It's just, I think, resonating with a lot of people who have grown weary of the materialistic worldview that's left so many people feeling hopeless and wondering if there's any ultimate meaning to their existence. And we're sort of. We're challenging that whole system of thought, not in spite of science, but because of the science. We're showing that the science is pointing to the reality of a creative intelligence. It's very much in a biblical frame, a kind of Romans one argument where Romans one says that from the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, sometimes rendered wisdom in older translations, these attributes are clearly seen being understood from what has been made. So we're moving from the evidence what's been made to the conclusion of the existence of an intelligent and powerful creator who has the attributes of the God of the Bible.
- [08:59]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what has been known as natural theology. You reason from effect back to cause. And what Steve does so well in the book the Return of the God Hypothesis and his other books. And now this new film, the StoryOfEverything film, by the way, that's where you go to see and get tickets. The storyofeverything.film. steve, Dr. Meyer here is reasoning from effect to cause. So if there's an effect like a universe, space, time and matter came into existence, he's reasoning back to a cause. What could have caused that? If there's design in the universe, such as fine tuning, which we'll get to in this program, he's reasoning back to a designer, a fine tuner. If there's evidence in life of say, a code, then there must be a coder. He's reasoning back to a coder, a mime. That's what this film does and it does it in a non preachy way, using scientists who are even atheists. In the film, we're gonna talk much more about it with Dr. Stephen Meyer, the mind behind the film. Don't go anywhere. You're listening to I Don't have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Ladies and gentlemen, what is the story of Everything? Well, you can find out a good portion of the story of everything by the brand new film hitting theaters April 30th called the Story of Everything. Go to the StoryofEverything film. Tell your congregations about it, pastors, because this is a fine film that anyone can see. It doesn't matter what their worldview is. They can be atheist all the way to Christian. They're going to enjoy and I think be stunned by the kind of evidence that is presented in this. As I say in a non preachy way. This is not a cheesy Christian apologetics kind of film. It is something that, say, National Geographic might put together in terms of its cinematic quality. And it's not preachy at all. In fact, why don't we take a quick look at the trailer? Here it is.
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B
Today I'm going to tell you a story which may seem very strange. Galileo, Kepler, Newton, each tried to explain events in the history of the universe. Has the universe always been here or is it finite?
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A
Is there something else that would lay these questions to rest?
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B
It reopens that question of ultimate meaning. How in the world did this start? The simple simulation theory, the multiverse. You can't trust what's in front of your eyes. Come on. That's, that's ridiculous. That belongs in the movies.
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A
We want to take our metaphysical hypotheses and see what they point to.
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B
And I can remember him saying, here is evidence for what can only be described as a supernatural event. He himself made a discovery that shook his personal philosophy.
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A
The fact the universe sprang into being at a definite moment seems to me theological.
- [12:10]
B
And it is science that has revealed this. We were dealing with a system of manifold complex design. One part in 10 to the 10,110 turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. We associate and find information with a rational intelligence behind it. It had an uncanny resemblance to a digital bit string, very much like an information carrier.
- [12:39]
A
You can read the same segment forward to get one protein and backwards to get another.
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B
It struck us with a tremendous impact. Without guidance, we would get a life unfriendly universe. Many organisms have beauty beyond anything that's relevant for their survival. Survival value. The concept of life as a cosmic phenomenon should have many consequences. The question then was, what does one do about it?
- [13:21]
A
That's the trailer for the Story of everything hitting theaters April 30th. Steve, I've noticed you've got a lot of non Christians in this film. Tell us about it.
- [13:29]
B
Well, it opens with the the voice of Sir Fred Hoyle, the great astrophysicist who coined the term the Big Bang in order to ridicule or stigmatize the idea that the universe had a beginning that was beginning to arise as a result of discoveries in astronomy in the 1920s and 30s. Hoyle was a strident scientific atheist at that point in his career. Then he made a discovery as someone, I think, said, maybe it was me in the trailer that shook his scientific philosophy or his personal philosophy, and that was that the laws and constants of physics, the basic parameters of physics, are exquisitely finely tuned in order to allow for life. In particular, he was trying to account for the abundance of carbon in the universe, which is an absolute necessary condition for building living systems because carbon uniquely forms long chain like molecules that can store information which is crucial to building things, building living systems. So it opens and closes with the voice of Fred Hoyle. We tell his story. It's one of the many stories we tell in the film. The long arc of the storyline is the return of the God hypothesis, the loss of that idea in the 19th century, but the restoration through three big discoveries in modern science. But along the way, we tell the story of scientists like Fred Hoyle, whose world was rocked by their own discoveries and who shifted from a materialist view, in Hoyle's case, to a view that embraced intelligent design. I Don't know that he ever came to a specifically religious system of belief. But he rejected his scientific atheism and believed that there was behind the fine tuning was a fine tuner, as you put it. There's also a little clip in there from Alan Sandage speaking at a conference that I attended when I was 27 years old as a young scientist. And the conference really blew my mind. That was the clip where Sandich was saying, here is evidence for what can only be described as a supernatural event. He's talking about the Big Bang. So many Christians, I think, sometimes confuse what the scientists are saying about that. The Big Bang is not the first cause. It doesn't replace the God hypothesis. It's the first effect that requires a God hypothesis to explain it. And Sandage was acutely aware of that. If matter, space, time and energy all come into existence a finite time ago, then independent of all that, there is no matter to do the causing. And it must be something. There's no physics to do the causing. So it can't be a physical cause. It's not something within nature, can't be a natural cause. It has to be a supernatural cause, something beyond nature. And this was one of the factors that in his case did lead to not only to a rejection of his prior scientific materialism, but it also led eventually to a full religious conversion to Christianity. He actually announced that and shocked the audience at the conference I attended when I first became aware of his work. One of the top astrophysicists in the 20th century, he was Edwin Hubble's PhD student and went on to himself verify the expansion of the universe in all different quadrants of the night sky. So just. There's some. Just extraordinary people. We've got. There's a lot of historical footage in the film of the key figures that made the key discoveries in the 20th century and right up to the present. So we've got a really great sequence on Watson and Crick. Einstein shows up in the film. Couple different places in one place. He's looking through Edwin Hubble's telescope. It's a newsreel footage from 1931, very famous footage. And two weeks later he comes, he grants an interview to the New York Times and announces that he says the three hardest words in the English language. I was wrong. He had denied the idea that the universe had a beginning. He'd fiddled with his own equations to try to obscure that fact. But then, having seen the evidence of what's called the red shift, the recession of galaxies as the light coming from Them indicating that they're moving away from us. He changed his mind and later said that his own attempt to obscure the implications of his own equations, which were pointing to a beginning, was the greatest blunder of his life. So. So yeah, and then the trailer, we got a little clip from Jim Tour in there, who's just fantastic in the film. John Lennox is in the film. One of the things that the filmmakers did that I think is. Was just brilliant in the way it worked out is they eschewed any reliance on a narrator and a host. Instead they used a device that was used in the big short, the film about the financial crisis where they let the. The principles in the story tell the story. And so it creates a faster pace of storytelling as you intercut from one testimony to another. And the story builds as the different experts, current experts and past experts explain what was discovered and why it's significant.
- [19:02]
A
And the three major arguments, if you will, that the film covers. Steve, what are they? Just for clarity for our audience here. People need to see the film. It's not just arguments that are stated. It's a story that's told. The film is called the Story of Everything. But you're covering what, three scientific discoveries?
- [19:26]
B
Yeah, we cover the discoveries and then let people reflect upon what the discoveries most likely mean. And in the process, yes, a persuasive case gets made that for theism, the return of a transcendent and active intelligent creator. Not a deistic creator, not a space alien, not a simulation hypothesis. You heard Berlinski there in the little clip where he says he's talking about the multiverse and the simulation. He says that's ridiculous. That belongs in the movies.
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A
I love Berlinski. He's not a believer, but he is so.
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B
Well, he's almost know it from the things he says in this film. He's actually probably. But he. I think he's. I think he's theistic leaning. Let's just say that.
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A
Yeah, let's just say he's not.
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B
He's not religious, but he's. Yeah, he's theistic leaning.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And. But he's also. He's. He has that wry sense of humor and Yes. I don't know if it's. He's thinks he's not trying to be funny. He just always makes people laugh. He's got some great, great incis. Incisive clinching lines at the end of Acts in the film. He was. He did a great job. Jay Richards is fantastic in this. He and I kind of function in lieu of narrator and we're always filling in the gaps for the, for the audience to make sure that people are following the narrative and sort of the explainers in chief. So it just. Everybody has a different role in it, but it's very good. The three discoveries, to answer your question, are, number one, that as best we can tell, based on observational evidence, based on observational astronomy and theoretical physics, the universe had a definite beginning. We address briefly attempts to circumvent that conclusion with something really heady called quantum cosmology, something that Stephen Hawking developed to try to essentially circumvent the implications of one of his own powerful theorems, the singularity theorem. And we show that even that attempt to circumvent the case for the beginning just brings the existence of God in on other grounds. We then look at the discovery of the fine tuning and we tell the story of Fred Hoyle, which is just an absolutely fascinating story. I didn't. The producers actually found some tape, old fashioned, not eight track what it was. The reel to reel tape.
- [22:00]
A
The old videotape.
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B
Yeah, yeah, from Caltech, with the Caltech scientists expressing their absolute amazement of how this funny little man, they said, who came into the lab, he came to give a talk on something else and then he came into the lab to ask them if they would test one of his theories about how carbon might have formed. He had this very specific prediction and it was just bang on. And so we were able to find this reel to reel tape, tell this story, and then unfold the argument that the fine tuning seems to be best explained by rational intelligence. Fine tuning points to a fine tuner. And we also addressed the digital code discovery in the foundation of life and DNA. And that suggests a master programmer for life.
- [22:54]
A
It's all beautifully laid out in the fascinating and cinematically wonderful film called the Story of Everything, hitting theaters in just a couple of weeks. Go to the storyofeverything film and we'll be back right after the break.
- [23:14]
C
Students across America are more open to the truth of Christianity than ever before. And Dr. Frank Turek is taking the powerful evidence for God to campuses like UC Berkeley, the University of Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama, reaching thousands in person and millions more online. But every event now requires costly security to keep students safe. And Cross Examine never charges students to attend. That's why we urgently need your support. The culture is dark, but hearts are open. Help keep the light of truth shining by donating today@crossexamine.org that's cross examine with a D on the end.org.
- [23:57]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, what is the story of everything. The brand new film coming out April 30th will show you in a beginning, beautifully cinematically rich way. And we're going to go back to the brains behind that film, Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, in just a second. I want to mention some things that are coming up on the calendar this coming week. I'll be at the Faith Forward Pastor Summit by TP USA in Dallas, Texas. If you want to be a part of that, you can go to our website or go to TP USA and check it out. It's going to be three days, April 21st to the 23rd. You don't want to miss that, especially if you are on staff at a church or you're a pastor. That's going to be a great place to be and network. Then on the 27th, Rob Schneider will be in town with me here in Charlotte, North Carolina at Freedom House Church in Cornelius. It will be live stream 7:30, whatever Rob wants to talk about. We're going to talk about how faith and freedom and comedy go together. So you're not going to want to miss it. That's the 27th of April. Then we're going to be at the University of Tennessee, Alisa Childers and myself, University of Tennessee on April 30th there in Knoxville. Lisa's going to talk about why she almost lost her faith to progressive Christianity and why she didn't. We're going to give you some evidence as to why biblical Christianity is true and then take your questions. That will also be live streamed the following week. Cinco de Mayo, May 5 will be at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. It's the Change My Mind tour in honor of Charlie Kirk. And then we'll be at Calvary Church there with Skip Heitzik the next night. That is May 6th. We have some other events coming up, but check all that out on our calendar. And the great Stephen C. Meyer is out there speaking as well. Steve, give us an idea of your calendar. You got speaking events coming up soon where people can see you in the flesh.
- [25:55]
B
Lots, lots of interviews. There'll be premiere at the Museum of the Bible on May 6th. So in the D.C. area may want to come to that. And there'll be a number of premieres. They're still getting lined up though, so we'll maybe have to just keep people apprised of that so when people can
- [26:15]
A
see the film in theaters beginning April 30th.
- [26:18]
B
Lots of people, by the way, are doing either Theater buyouts or buying big blocks of tickets and taking lots of friends, friends along. And that is turning out, I think a lot of people are intrigued with the idea that that may create a really fun event, you know. So yes, the great thing about the film I think is that it creates a nice conversation afterwards. It's not just the watching, it's the questions that it raises that I think create an opportunity for really great discussion with friends.
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A
In fact, you mentioned Sir Fred Hoyle earlier, the man that derisively gave the beginning of the universe the name the Big Bang. And it kind of stuck.
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B
It stuck.
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A
Ye, yes, yes. And I remember a quote from him and I'm paraphrasing it, you might have it verbatim, but after he discovered some of the fine tuning, he said something like a common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics and biology and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.
- [27:19]
B
You nailed it. You nailed it. And I always love the way the monkeys make it into the origins discussion. You've got monkeys at the typewriter or somebody monkeying with the universe. But by monkeying he clearly means. Well, he says it's a super intellect. So yes, a super intellect is. Well, it's an intellect big enough to structure the whole universe to work out so that it's life friendly. And we're getting pretty close to the God hypothesis right there. But you add in the other evidences that we discuss in the film and it makes it, I think a pretty compelling case.
- [27:52]
A
Well, in fact, let's go back now. You mentioned that the three major scientific observations that have occurred are the creation of the universe, the fact the universe was the beginning. The universe is also fine tuned and there's evidence in biology that there's a mind behind all this. Let's start at the very beginning, the beginning of the universe. What kind of evidence do we have? Scientific observations do we have Steve, that show us that the universe did indeed have a beginning?
- [28:18]
B
Now this starts, it's such a fascinating story. It starts a little over a century ago. There's a relatively unknown American astronomer named Vesto Slipher and he notices that the light coming from these different, these distant nebular structures is. It's redder than it should be. If the nebular structures are stationary in relation to us, people may remember the Doppler shift idea from high school physics or science class. If you've got a train and it's moving away, the pitch of the whistle will drop and that's a consequence of the wavelength of the sounds being stretched out because of the receding train, it's moving away from us. So the wavelength of the sound is stretched and it appears to our ear to have a lower pitch in the same way light is stretched out, if the object from which it's coming is receding from us, and then it will have a redder color. If you remember, if you shine light through the prism, red to violet, it separates into the different colors of red to violet. Sorry. And the red light corresponds to longer wavelengths. And so this shift towards the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum of the light coming from distant nebula was an initial indication that something was being, things were moving away. But at the time, people didn't know that nebula were actually galaxies. And it wasn't until 1924 when that was really settled. And then at that point people realized, oh, there are other galaxies. That was a big discovery. But those galaxies are moving away from us, and the further away they are, the faster they're moving away from us. And that suggested a kind of spherical expansion of the universe, like a balloon blowing up. And if you wind the. So that's a pretty. That also is a mind blowing discovery. So first discovery is there are other galaxies. The second discovery is they're moving away from us. The third discovery is they're moving away from us in such a way that suggests that the universe is expanding in a roughly spherical way. And then the implication of that is what really hit people. Because if you wind the clock backwards in your mind's eye, that expanding balloon of the universe would at every point in the past be a bit smaller and smaller and smaller. And so however far back you go, you eventually get to a limiting case where you cannot go back any further, where everything would have congealed to a single starting point, which marks the beginning of the expansion of the universe and arguably the beginning of the universe itself. And so that's one of the first big observations that began to lead scientists to question the idea that the universe was eternal and self existent.
- [31:14]
A
So Hubble actually saw that also through his telescope. And you have, as you mentioned earlier, video of Einstein looking through hubble's telescope at Mount Wilson there in 1931. And Einstein had to repent of his suggestion that the universe didn't have a beginning.
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B
Yeah, the literal sense of rethink, you know, he had to rethink things. Now his own theory of gravitation called general relativity had the same implication of a dynamic and expanding universe. His theory of gravity implied that massive bodies literally curve the space or Space, time and dimensions around a massive body. So that if you pass light, pass a, if you pass light in a trajectory near a planet or a sun, that light is going to actually bend. And that was actually verified by Arthur Eddington in a famous experiment in 1919. But the implication of that is that if gravity is the only force at work in the universe, then it would be curving space so tightly in on itself that everything would eventually congeal into one big black hole of a blob. So where there would be no empty space. But we don't live in that kind of a universe. We live in a universe where there's empty space between massive bodies. And that suggested there must be some sort of anti gravity force, some sort of outward pushing force that is counteracting gravity, creating the empty space and suggesting most naturally that there was some kind of expansion again from a beginning point going on. Einstein later fiddled with the value that he assigned to that outward pushing force. To obscure that reality. He fine tuned his own anti gravity force to portray the universe as in a kind of perfect balance of the outward pushing force and the inward pushing force. So he could portray things as static and the universe as being eternally the same, eternally self existent and the same. But he had to change his mind in response to some of the evidence that came along.
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A
Talk a little bit, Steve, about the discovery of the remnant heat from the initial Big Bang explosion that Penzias and Wilson discovered in 1965.
- [33:39]
B
Yeah, that we were able to tell a bit of that story too. And it's pretty cool. So you got these two Bell Labs physicists and they're actually just, they're trying to make a connection to a satellite with this big horned antenna. And they keep getting this noise and it's this really low hum, this noise. First they think it's pigeon droppings. They try to sweep out their horned antenna. They go through all these protocols to try to eliminate any sources of noise, and pretty soon they can't get rid of it. They realize they're not getting rid of it. And it's coming, it's ubiquitous, it's coming from all directions. And they attended a seminar that was put on very. They were in New Jersey at Bell Labs and there was a seminar at Princeton University that was conducted by a physicist named Robert Dicke. And he was explaining that if the Big Bang theory is true, there would have been a time at the very beginning of the universe or soon after when all the matter of the universe would have been condensed into a very hot, dense point. And it would have. As the universe expanded, the radiation coming off of that hot, dense concentration of matter would have started to radiate out into the expanding universe as the universe expanded, and we'd have a remnant of that. The example I used to use when I was teaching with students was imagine you've got a turkey in the oven and you turn off the oven and you then open the oven and then you put the turkey, well, maybe put the turkey out into the room, close the oven. The turkey's going to radiate. It's going to give off heat energy that's going to slightly warm up the temperature of the room, the ambient temperature of the room. And it was the same kind of idea, that hot, dense ball of matter at the beginning, as the universe expanded and space was created by Einstein's cosmological constant, that's the outward pushing force, the remnant of that hot, dense point is going to warm up the room. The universe and the scientists were able to predict exactly the effect that it would have. And they found that radiant energy at exactly, very nearly, exactly the predicted value. And that was a really, that was kind of the death knell in Fred Hoyle's steady state model. It's something that should have existed if the Big Bang were true. It should not have existed if the steady state were true. So it was a kind of definitive test of the two models. And after that, the Hoyle model really felt fell by the wayside.
- [36:17]
A
In fact, it's all in the movie, the Story of Everything. Beautifully done. Go to the storyofeverything film, ladies and gentlemen, because you're going to want to see this movie and you want to take your friends to it as well. April 30th through May 6th. It may be extended if enough people see it and you're going to want to see it. So go to the storyofeverything film and we'll talk more about these, about these observations, these scientific observations which are pointing to back to God, a creator. Right after the break with my guest, Dr. Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute. Don't go anywhere. We're back right after the break. Ladies and gentlemen, what is the Story of Everything? You can find out by going to the story of everything.film and seeing the great new movie that is based on the work of my guest today, Dr. Steven C. Meyer. The movie is called the Story of Everything. So go to the Story of Everything film. You'll see it there and you can get tickets. We're talking right now about one of the three major scientific discoveries over the past hundred years that are having people return to the God hypothesis. One of them is the creation of the universe out of nothing. And Robert Jastrow was a agnostic astronomer who back in the 70s, wrote a book called God and the Astronomers. In the first page of the book, he says, I'm an agnostic on religious matters. But the book he. In the book, he basically says there appears to be a creator, even though he's an agnostic. And in an interview, he said this. I'm going to read this quote. It's quite telling. Jastrow said astronomers now found they painted themselves into a corner because they have proven by their own methods that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the Earth. And they have found that all this has happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, why would an agnostic astronomer say such a thing?
- [38:32]
B
Well, as he himself explained, the evidence compelled him to recognize that our universe of matter, space, time and energy had a beginning point. And therefore to explain the origin of that universe, to provide a causal explanation for that, we can't refer to anything within the universe itself because it's the universe itself that comes into existence. It. It needs a cause that is by definition, separate from itself, causes being separate from their effects. So independent of, or I've often said before, the beginning of the universe with its matter, space, time and energy, there was no matter to do the causing. It's more accurate to say independent of the origin of the universe, because the time itself began. So it's hard to know whether we should be talking about time at all before the beginning of the universe. But independent or separate from the universe, we don't have the matter, space, time, and energy of the universe. It must be something beyond or transcendent. And in return of the God hypothesis, I examined the different possible candidates for explaining the origin of the universe. And really, the God hypothesis has the postulation of a theistic or deistic creator that has a mind that is separate from time and space, that transcends those domains, and is capable of a volitional act that shifts us from nothing to everything, is the kind of entity that has the attributes that would be necessary to explain the origin of the universe. So the causal candidates kind of fall away, and you're left with something like the God hypothesis. I Think a deistic God does as good a job as a theistic God of explaining the origin of the universe. But deism fails as an adequate explanation when we get to the evidence from biology where we see design, new design arising along the timeline long after the beginning of the universe. A deistic God does not act after the beginning. So the ensemble of the different evidences that we look at I think eliminate both a deistic concept of a creator or a space alien, and certainly materialism. I think the best evidence points to a theistic, a God with the attributes that theists have long ascribed to God, or the same kind of attributes you find with the biblical God.
- [41:12]
A
You know, Steve, I provide these arguments on college campuses, as I know you do as well. And I normally say if space, time and matter had a beginning and the evidence shows it, it does, or it had a beginning, then the cause must transcend space, time and matter. In other words, the cause must be at least spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal and intelligent to have a mind, to make a course, to make a universe, to make a choice, to create a universe. And I say, look, there's six attributes for what appear to be a theistic God. Spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent. And some atheists will say back, or will say this back to me, and I want to get your response to it. Okay, maybe, but why not just say we don't know, we're agnostic, we don't know what caused the universe. How would you respond to that?
- [42:03]
B
Well, it's a bit of a cop out, really. It says we're not going to think about this any more deeply. And what atheist cosmologists are now doing is very clever mathematical modeling to try to accommodate all the evidence that we have for a beginning within some, some larger framework, imagining some sort of infinite cycles or something. There was an earlier model that did this called the oscillating universe, where it says, okay, yes, we're expanding now, but we're going to. The universe is going to contract later and then it's going to bounce and contract and bounce and contract. And this model fell by the wayside for a couple of reasons. One, there's not enough matter in the universe to cause a subsequent contraction, gravitational contraction. And secondly, even if there were, you wouldn't get a bounce. You'd be running out of energy available to do work. You'd have essentially spent energy like a ball bouncing. Doot, doot, doot. Eventually it just settles to the ground. But there are new models that attempt to do the same kind of thing that the oscillating universe tried to do. And we're starting a series responding to those at the Discovery Institute at our Science and Culture Today website. Bruce Gordon, our first rate philosopher of physics, has been working on some really great responses with me and a colleague, Brian Miller. But what we found as we look at these infinite universe cosmologies that are being hatched is that invariably, first of all, there's nothing in the observational data that suggests we should be looking for an infinite past. Everything seems to congeal back to a limiting case, a starting point. You can then sort of model your way out of that. But there's always a cost. And one of the big costs is the introduction of additional sources of unexplained fine tuning. Just as Einstein had to fine tune his cosmological constant to portray the universe as static, these new models invariably involve unexplained fine tuning. But that just provides additional support for theism on other grounds. And so the attempt, even the attempt to get around the beginning and people can very cleverly try to do that, invariably comes at a very high cost for scientific materialism or scientific naturalism. And one of the biggest costs is the invocation of additional evidence for the God hypothesis, albeit of a different kind.
- [44:40]
A
Yes, and I know that people like Sean Carroll and others try and come up with these mathematical models, but to come up with a mathematical model doesn't mean it necessarily applies to reality. Right?
- [44:51]
B
Well, yeah. Well, the other thing we're finding about these models is they're often very convoluted. They have, they invoke numerous ad hoc theoretical entities that, that needlessly complicate the explanatory picture. And they often also invoke physics that either has no known precedent in our actual universe processes or fields that have attributes that we never see at work in the actual physics of our universe, or often they postulate things that violate known principles of physics. So the they come. Our argument is, yeah, there's a way to get around the beginning if you want, but if you're a philosophical materialist or naturalist, it's coming at a very high cost. A cost to the coherency of the physics, a cost to the simplicity of the explanation, and a cost in the form of a postulation of unexplained fine tuning that reaffirms theism, albeit again on alternative grounds.
- [45:57]
A
In fact, we're going to get to the fine tuning argument in Tuesday's midweek podcast. We can't cover the waterfront here, but that argument, even atheists have admitted is the most difficult for them to answer. So we're going to cover that in the next show. If you're listening to this on radio, you might not hear that program on radio. You're going to have to go to the I Don't have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist podcast in order to see more about that. But the movie you want to see is called the Story of Everything. Go to thestoryofeverything film. It begins in the theaters April 30th. But Steve, with just about three minutes to go, I do wanna ask you about this. Cause I know as a young man, a young teenager, you were worried about the meaninglessness of life. These discoveries that have been made over the past hundred years, that there is a being out there that is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal and intelligent. What does that do? If that being really does exist, what does that do for us in terms of the meaningfulness of our lives?
- [46:57]
B
Well, nothing can mean anything to an atom or a molecule or a rock or a planet. Things only mean things to persons. You and I have a meaningful friendship because we're both people care about each other, but the problem is that we all die. And so if there's to be ultimate meaning, there must be a person whose existence is not confined by the time that you and I have on Earth or anyone else. In other words, if there is a personal creator who is responsible for the material world, then the question of ultimate meaning is back on the table. And there's the possibility of an eternal relationship with that personal creator, if that personal creator wants to know us. Now, we don't prove all of that in the film, but we show that the materialistic worldview that has undermined the very possibility of ultimate meaning is likely false. And it's the science that shows that. And the science is also pointing to the reality of an intelligent, AKA personal creator, an intelligent, conscious creator to whom we could mean something. So that's about as far as you can go from the science, but it reopens the question, and that's what natural theology does. It then leads you to the question, well, what do we make of not just the general revelation of nature? Is there any more specific, more specific revelation about what that creator intends towards us? And that's, for me, as a believing Christian, where the Bible comes in and the evidence that we have of its reliability.
- [48:45]
A
Friends, we're going to pick up this conversation with Dr. Stephen C. Meyer on Tuesday. You're not going to want to miss it. In the meantime, go to the storyofeverything film the storyofeverything film. You can buy your ticket now for April 30th through May 6th. Let's bring a friend to this because it's amazing anybody can see it. It's going to lead to great conversations afterwards.
- [49:06]
B
Understand it. We went into some heady stuff here, but it's very understandable to the average person.
- [49:15]
A
Amen. See you next time, friends. God bless.
- [49:20]
C
Dr. Frank Turek is bringing powerful evidence for God to campuses like UC Berkeley, the University of Georgia and Ohio State, reaching thousands in person and millions online. But each event now requires costly security. Your gift helps the light of truth pierce the darkness. Give today@crossexamined.org.