Galileo said, “Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the Universe.”
In Genesis 1:3ff, God said, “Let there be… and there was…”
Psalm 19:1-4 praises, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. …Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”
Romans 1:18-20 builds on this, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
Science was designed by Christian worshipers as a methodology for discovering God’s natural law… and through it, the law maker. Scientific fields like chemistry, astronomy, physics, etc were nothing more than human divisions of labor in learning to hear the voice of God in the language of God to those “who have ears to hear” and do not “suppress the truth.”
“Science” can be corrupted when confused with philosophical materialism,[1] but it’s birth demanded souls searching out the intentionality and consistency of the One Holy Creator in His creation.[2]
Two famed atheists made similar responses when asked what they would do if they met God.
Philosopher Bertrand Russell, a “Guild Socialist,” Communist admirer in spite of their murder of tens of millions, has two reported versions of his answer.[3] He declared that he would say to God, “Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence,”[4] and also, “Sir, why did you not give me better evidence?”[5]
In Ben Stein’s[6] interview with famed biologist, New-Atheist, Christian-hater Richard Dawkins, after Dawkins has blamed alien seeding on earth’s systems for the appearance of intelligent design, Stein asks, “What if, after you died, you ran into God, and he says, ‘What have you been doing, Richard?’” Dawkins intentionally echoes Russell, saying, “Sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?”
Stein then gets right down to the point that men like Russell and Dawkins refuse to grasp, intelligent as they may be. He says, “But, if the Intelligent Design people are right, he isn’t hidden. We may even be able to encounter God through science, if we have the freedom to go there. What could be more intriguing than that?”
I agree with Ben Stein here, but Dawkins’ and Russell’s question is not unfounded.
Question: Can God not do a “better” job revealing Himself? Can’t He just show up, and walk around saying, “I’m real… and knock that off”?
Short Answer: Honestly, yes and no.
Long Answer:
Yes, people would know that God is real, but it would also eradicate one of the key things Scripture claims that God is seeking in His creation of man.
God made the universe for a reason. He focused a “certain amount” of His unlimited creative force in establishing our Earth, seeding it with life, and crowning that work with man, who is able to “reason” out the existence of the Creator from the created. This bespeaks purpose and communication.
Based on the ways that God has revealed Himself to man beyond His self-proclamations in creation itself, we may determine that God seeks relationship, that God seeks faith and love, and that God desires authenticity in them. A full manifestation of Himself would overwhelm the will of man, and eradicate the need for faith.
Based on the ways that God has openly revealed Himself to man—the Angel of the Lord, the glory cloud, the pillar of fire, storm theophanies like Sinai, the voice from heaven, mighty wonders, and the coming of Christ—we may hang our heads and know that man’s capacity to disbelieve is yet greater than these.
Adam and Eve who communed with God, listened to the Serpent and rebelled against the Lord. Those who saw the great plagues, left Egypt with Moses through the Red Sea, saw the pillar of cloud and fire, and ate Manna from heaven also perished in the wilderness. Many who heard the voice from heaven speak true about Jesus in His earthly pilgrimage, said only that it thundered.[7] Even after witnessing the mighty wonders of Jesus, Judas betrayed Him. The religious leaders remained stalwart in their rejection of Jesus even after the resurrection and in spite of the testimony of the Roman Soldiers that an angel from heaven rolled the stone sealing Jesus’ tomb away.[8]
The exchange between Abraham and Lazarus in Jesus’ “parable” in Luke 16, is important in this regard. In verse 27, a once rich man in the torments of hellfire cries out to Abraham concerning the poor man who died without mercy at the rich man’s gate. “I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham’s reply is vital. He says, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” The man rebuffs, “No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” Abraham knows otherwise. He replies, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
So, no, it is not the lack of evidence that God has provided for His own existence that is the reason men like Dawkins and Bertrand Russell don’t believe, nor why the drug dealer, lying politician, or self-absorbed housewife won’t believe.
We have a chatty God revealed in Creation and Christ, heaven and wonders, but John 3:19 said it best. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
[1] That only matter exists, and that there is no law maker.
[2] It could never have been articulated by pagans, and will eventually be (and is being) denied and undermined by those who reject God.
[3] I’m sure he was asked this a lot and had variations on his actual replies.
[4] Emily Eakin, “So God’s Really in the Details?,” the New York Times, May 11, 2002; Wesley C. Salmon, “Religion and Science: A New Look at Hume’s Dialogues,” Philosophical Studies 33 (1978), 176 n. 20.
[5] Leo Rosten, “Bertrand Russell and God: A Memoir,” The Saturday Review, February 23, 1974, 25-26.
[6] Ben Stein, Kevin Miller, & Nathan Frankowski, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Premise Media, 2008.
[7] John 12:29.
[8] Matthew 28:15.
