Tag: RE

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Sample answer on scientific and religious interpretations to the origins of the universe

3.a) Describe the major differences between a scientific and religious account of creation. (14)

Although many people think of the two different accounts or the origin of the universe as essentially incompatible the most major differences actually lies in the questions that they presume to answer. All religious accounts, by there very nature XXX that any scientific accounts, seek to answer the questions ‘Why? Is the universe here?’ ‘Why is everything the way it is?’ ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What is the purpose of life?’ Formulated millennia before science and the development of scientific language there accounts are couched in the language of myth and symbol with imagery drawn from the contemporary culture so that the stories they tell could be understood by the people of the time. Scientific questioning, beginning with Aristotle and Ptolemy which led to the belief that the earth was the centre of the universe, continued on through Galileo, who practically observed that in fact the earth and the other planets orbit the sun, and on again through Darwin who postulated his theories on evolution, etc., has XXX appeared to be in direct conflict with religious teaching. Couched as these accounts are in hard concrete, practical, technical terms they have consistently attempted to answer the questions ‘how?’, ‘when’, ‘where?’ concrete and practical questions.

The fundamental differences in the answers have come about because of the fundamental differences in the approach. Science uses facts, observation of the physical world, repeatable experimentation + extrapolation; religion uses experience of the numenon, faith and instinct all unrepeatable, all subjective and devoid of objective, verifiable proof.

What then are these accounts? Although there are many others I will refer primarily to the Judaeo-Christian (Biblical) accounts. In Genesis we are told:

  • That God created
  • That he created in 6 days
  • That he created Light first, t6hen the universe, then the sun, then life on earth and finally man and woman
  • That man was to reign supreme over creation
  • That man was created in God’s image and with God’s sense of morality and responsibility. Whereas the new widely accepted theory called ‘The Big Bang’ theory accounts for creation like this?
  • First all energy was compressed into a tiny space at one point of the universe
  • Then something caused an enormous explosion whereupon all matter began to fly away from this centre at terrifying speeds
  • This speed caused heat which caused light
  • As it began to slow so matter began to form, stars to coalesce, planets to clump together and after billions of years
  • Life began by evolving from single-celled orgasms an upwards

So on the face of it these two accounts couldn’t be more dissimilar – in one an outside agent – God, in the other a physical process ; in the first a mere 6 days, in the other billions of years ; the Genesis account assumes a deliberate activity leading to humanity as the culmination of creation, science logically sees human life as an accident stemming from a inordinately long series of random events ; and of course the Bible story invests a certain purpose to man’s existence, whereas science cannot but see man’s place as superior merely through the process of natural selection and by being the ‘fittest’ survivor – so far? Finally the Bible story expanded in John’s gospel shows us God the sustainer behind the universe working to keep it in balance while science predicts the inevitable end of the universe, albeit at some unimaginable time in the future, based on the hard evidence of existing physical laws and principles.

 

3.b) How far are they incompatible with each other? (6)

Having just said these two accounts seem incompatible on the surface we need to look deeper to see if they really are.

Of course religious and (scientific) fundamentalists could never accept that a blend or XXX of these two apparently opposing viewpoints could by possible. Religious fundamentalists fear that science is trying to do away with God and that Heaven and Hell are utterly real and that 6 days means just that. While scientific fundamentalists feel that to speculate that a God might have created the universe through the mechanism of the ‘Big Bang’ and that evolution equally might merely be another device God has used to realise human potential is to compromise the very rationality upon with science is based.

However, fortunately, these close-minded folk are, today, in the minority and many on both sides of the divide can see the differences as well as the similarities between the two. Indeed many famous Christian philosophers have seen that the two can go hand in hand. Teilhard de Chardin said “All roads to the truth lead to one God” and St. Anselm believed that reasoned argument can strengthen faith though it is no substitute for true commitment to God. In fact in 1884 Archbishop Temple declared that it was “impossible for science to rule out that we might be made in God’s image“.

Scientists too have counted among there number many who have also been able to believe in a creator God: notably Einstein and Newton. Einstein believed that “science without religion is lame (While) religion without science is blind” – Perhaps partially a reference to the way Galileo’s scientific discoveries were greeted by the medieval church! While Isaac Newton was convinced of a “being, incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent” by rational reflection on the orderliness of nature.

Perhaps we should let Francis Bacon have the final say: “We have a book of God’s words (the Bible) and a book of God’s works (nature) (and) both should complement each other.”

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Sample answer to the design argument for the existence of God

2 (a) Examine the design argument for the existence of God

This is the ‘teleological’ argument, the argument which looks at the ‘design’ of the world/universe and concludes that there must be a designer → God.

From as early as St. Thomas Aquinas 13th Century and his ‘5th way’, which argues that there is design in nature an therefore purpose and that must be driven by something → i.e. God, philosophers and even scientists have believed that the universe is not chaotic, that that it is too complex for it just to have appeared (Swinburne).

The famous scientist Sir Isaac Newton felt that rational reflection of the orderliness of nature had convinced him of the necessity of a ‘being, incorporeal, living, intelligent and omnipresent‘.

William Paley’s analogy of the watch and the watch maker can serve to illustrate this argument quite well. He described the finding of a perfectly working watch in an unusual location; upon opening it up and observing the intricate movements and workings, the finder could only conclude that it must have been made by something else; the parts worked together so perfectly that it could not have just some together by accident. He called the maker the watch maker and then compared the whole thing to the universe. Even in our little corner of the universe all its parts work together so perfectly (if anything were to go wrong the whole thing would fall apart) that there has to be a maker or designer on a cosmological scale and that (Paley called) God.

John Wisdom further explained using his ‘parable of the Gardener; in this a pair of jungle explorers came across a clearing in the jungle. It is so beautiful, full of the finest flowers, etc., that one of them concludes that it must have been created by a gardener. The other includes him, saying that in fact that although it is undeniably beautiful it is nevertheless a random accident. The first sticks by his belief and waits around to see the gardener. Upon his non-appearance, the second thinks he has proved his point, the first however merely argues that the gardener is invisible! (Rather hard to argue with!).

Like the cosmological argument this is also based on the assumptions that effects must be caused and that just as we build machines to do our bidding, so did God or some designer cause the universe, which is after all just some large machine, to come into existence.

 

2 (b) i) What are the strengths of the design argument?

To be fair, as yet, science has not actually managed to disprove this argument so its strength is certainly time tested. However, it is really strong?

It is most certainly based squarely in our experience. We see effects and work back to their causes; we know the pull of the moon affects the tides; we know if we draw out too much money our bank account will go into the red!

But Hume argued that just because so far we have seen these effects have causes it doesn’t necessarily mean that all effects are caused. So just because we design machines doesn’t necessarily mean the world is a machine which was designed. And anyway if there was a God who designed the universe who designed God? In fact Darwin in his ‘Theory of Natural Selection’ believed that the existence of the world, the way it is now was XXX on chance and many of his evolutionary theories have subsequently been recast as facts.

Immanuel Kant also felt our experience was too limited to give us enough objectivity to judge.

Perhaps again we should rely on Ockham’s razor to judge the strength of this argument by: viz the simplest explanation (however weird) is usually the correct one!.

 

2 (b) ii) Comment on some of the criticisms raised against the design argument?

Hume’s suggestion that if there is a designer who is called God, then who or what created God, is ridiculous! Any definition of the term God must include an “all powerful” being therefore there can not be another being any more powerful!

Also his and Kant’s suggestions that out experience is limited, while correct in themselves, forget that this is all we do have to judge by and it will have to do until something else comes along!

Others have said that Paley’s analogy is weak because it is just that, an analogy, but again this is how humans learn and perceive the world and it’s a good method as far as it goes.

Perhaps one of the strongest arguments against the design argument is that if the world is designed by a God it ought to be perfect; it manifestly isn’t therefore it can’t have been designed. Obviously this is a huge topic for discussion and this particular argument propounded by David Hume is particularly hard to refute. The only thing we can say in belief is that it is all to do with the defining characteristics of God. Classical theorists hold that God has to be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent; Hume argues that the existence of evil proves God is not omnipotent or it would not exist and therefore God cannot exist. But to use his own argument, who are we to say that evil and suffering don’t have a purpose just because we cannot see it!

In conclusion then there can be no cast-iron proof, like all arguments for and against the existence of God; there are plenty of subjective, persuasive arguments both ways but in the final analysis as Auselm said: faith cannot come through reasoned argument it can only strengthen it.