God: The Failed Hypothesis (5 page)

Still, any god model remains a human invention, formulated in terms of human qualities that we can comprehend, such as love and goodness. Indeed, the gods of ancient mythology—

including the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God—are clearly models contrived by humans in terms people could understand. What is amazing is that in this sophisticated modern age so many still cling to primitive, archaic images from the childhood of humanity.

On the flip side, when a model is strongly falsified by the data, then those elements of the model that have been severely tested by observations should be rejected as not very likely to be representative of an objective reality.

The following example should illustrate this rather subtle concept. Observations of electromagnetic phenomena support a model of electromagnetism containing pointlike electric charges we can call
electric monopoles.
Examples include ions, atomic nuclei, electrons, and quarks. Symmetry arguments would lead you to include in the model point magnetic charges—
magnetic monopoles.

Yet the simplest observed magnetic sources are described as
magnetic dipoles
—bar magnets that have north and south poles.

Electric dipoles such as hydrogen atoms, with a positive and a negative point charge separated in space, exist as well. But you can tear them apart into separate electric monopoles, such as an electron and a proton. On the other hand, if you cut away a piece of the north pole of a bar magnet, instead of getting a separate north and south monopole you get two dipoles—two bar magnets.

Despite these empirical facts, some theoretical basis exists for magnetic monopoles, and they have been searched for extensively with no success. The current standard model contains perhaps a single magnetic monopole in the visible universe, which has no effect on anything. That is, the model does include a magnetic monopole, but we can proceed to use our conventional electromagnetic theory, which contains no magnetic monopoles, for all practical applications.

Let us apply this same line of reasoning to God. When we show that a particular model of God fails to agree with the data, then people would not be very rational in using such a model as a guide to their religious and personal activities. While it remains possible that a god exists analogous to the lonely magnetic monopole, one who has no effect on anything, there is no point worshiping him. The gods we will consider are important elements of scientific models that can be empirically tested, such as by the successful consequences of prayer.

The Scientific God Model

So, let us now define a scientific God model, a
theory of God.
A supreme being is hypothesized to exist having the following attributes:

1. God is the creator and preserver of the universe.

2. God is the architect of the structure of the universe and the author of the laws of nature.

3. God steps in whenever he wishes to change the course of events, which may include violating his own laws as, for example, in response to human entreaties.

4. God is the creator and preserver of life and humanity, where human beings are special in relation to other lifeforms.

5. God has endowed humans with immaterial, eternal souls that exist independent of their bodies and carry the essence of a person’s character and selfhood.

6. God is the source of morality and other human values such as freedom, justice, and democracy.

7. God has revealed truths in scriptures and by communicating directly to select individuals throughout history.

8. God does not deliberately hide from any human being who is open to finding evidence for his presence.

Most of these attributes are traditionally associated with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, and many are shared by the gods of diverse religions. Note, however, that the traditional attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence—the 30 characteristics usually associated with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God—have been omitted. Such a God is already ruled out by the arguments of logical inconsistency summarized above. While the 30s will show up on occasion as supplementary attributes, they will rarely be needed. For example, the case against a creator god will apply to any such god, even an evil or imperfect one. Furthermore, as will be emphasized throughout, the God of the monotheistic scriptures—Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur’an—is not omnibenevolent, and so not ruled out by logical inconsistency. The observable effects that such a God may be expected to have are still testable by the normal, objective processes of science.

The Generic Argument

The scientific argument against the existence of God will be a modified form of the lack-of-evidence argument:

1. Hypothesize a God who plays an important role in the universe.

2. Assume that God has specific attributes that should provide objective evidence for his existence.

3. Look for such evidence with an open mind.

4. If such evidence is found, conclude that God
may
exist.

5. If such objective evidence is not found, conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that a God with these properties does
not
exist.

Recall that it is easier to falsify a hypothesis than verify one. The best we can do if the data support a particular god model is acknowledge that faith in such a God is rational. However, just as we should not use a failed physical model that does not work, it would be unwise for us to guide our lives by religions that worship any gods that fail to agree with the data.

Notes

¹
Theodore M. Drange,
Nonbelief and Evil: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998), p. 41.

²
See also John L. Schellenberg,
Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993).

³
For a good example of data mining, see my discussion of the experiment by Elisabeth Targ and collaborators in Victor J. Stenger,
Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003), pp. 250-53.

⁴
Karl Popper,
The Logic of Scientific Discovery,
English ed. (London: Hutchinson; New York: Basic Books, 1959). Originally published in German (Vienna: Springer Verlag, 1934).

⁵
Rudolf Carnap, “Testability and Meaning,”
Philosophy of Science
B 3 (1936): 19-21; B 4 (1937): 1-40.

⁶
Philip J. Kitcher,
Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism
(Cambridge, MA:
MIT
Press, 1982). Note that the author was refuting the common creationist claim that evolution is not science because it is not falsifiable. Kitcher need not have bothered. Evolution is eminently falsifiable, as we show in chapter 3.

⁷
I discuss several examples in Victor J. Stenger,
Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World beyond the Senses
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1990).

⁸
Karl Popper, “Metaphysics and Criticizability,” in
Popper Selections,
ed. David Miller (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 214. Originally published in 1958.

⁹
Ibid.

¹⁰
National Academy of Sciences,
Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science
(Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1998), p. 58. Online at
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/5787.html
(accessed March 5, 2006).

¹¹
Phillip E. Johnson,
Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism
(Dallas, TX: Haughton Publishing Co., 1990);
Darwin on Trial
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991);
Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law, and Education
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995);
Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997);
The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).

¹²
Nicholas Everitt,
The Non-Existence of God
(London, New York: Routledge, 2004).

¹³
Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier, eds.,
The Impossibility of God
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003).

¹⁴
Ibid.

¹⁵
Douglas Walton, “Can an Ancient Argument of Carneades on Cardinal Virtues and Divine Attributes Be Used to Disprove the Existence of God?”
Philo
2, no. 2 (1999): 5-13; reprinted in Martin and Monnier,
The Impossibility of God,
pp. 35-44.

¹⁶
James Rachels, “God and Moral Autonomy,” in
Can Ethics Provide Answers? And Other Essays in Moral Philosophy
(New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), pp. 109-23; reprinted in Martin and Monnier,
The Impossibility of God,
pp. 45-58.

¹⁷
Martin and Monnier,
The Impossibility of God,
p. 59.

¹⁸
Theodore M. Drange, “Incompatible-Properties Arguments—A Survey,”
Philo
1, no. 2 (1998): 49-60; in Martin and Monnier,
The Impossibility of God,
pp. 185-97.

¹⁹
Ibid.

²⁰
Ibid.

²¹
J. L. Cowen, “The Paradox of Omnipotence Revisited,”
Canadian Journal of Philosophy
3, no. 3 (March 1974): 435-45; reprinted in Martin and Monnier,
The Impossibility of God,
p. 337.

Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings animated and organized, sensible and active!… But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences… How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness!

—David Hume

Paley’s Watch

P
erhaps no argument is heard more frequently in support of the existence of God than the
argument from design.
It represents the most common form of the God of the gaps argument:

the universe and, in particular, living organisms on Earth are said to be simply too complex to have arisen by any conceivable natural mechanism.

Before the age of science, religious belief was based on faith, cultural tradition, and a confidence in the revealed truth in the scriptures and teachings of holy men and women specially selected by God. As science began to erode these beliefs by showing that many of the traditional teachings, such as that of a flat Earth at rest at the center of a firmament of stars and planets were simply wrong, people began to look to science itself for evidence of a supreme being that did not depend on any assumptions about the literal truth of the Bible or divine revelation.

The notion that the observation of nature alone provides evidence for the existence of God has a long history. It received perhaps its most brilliant exposition in the work of Anglican archdeacon William Paley (d. 1805). In his
Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearance of Nature,
first published in 1802
¹
, Paley wrote about finding both a stone and a watch while crossing a heath. While the stone would be regarded as a simple part of nature, no one would question that the watch is an artifice, designed for the purpose of telling time. Paley then alleged that objects of nature, such as the human eye, give every indication of being contrivances.

Paley’s argument continues to be used down to the present day. Just a few weeks before writing these words, two Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door. When I politely expressed my skepticism, one began, “Suppose you found a watch…” Design arguments never die; nor do they fade away.

Sophisticated modern forms of the argument from design are found in the current movement called
intelligent design,
which asserts that many biological systems are far too complex to have arisen naturally. Also classifying as an argument from design is the contemporary claim that the laws and constants of physics are “fine-tuned” so that the universe is able to contain life. This is commonly but misleadingly called the
anthropic principle.

Believers also often ask how the universe itself can have appeared, why there is something rather than nothing, how the laws of nature and human reason could possibly have arisen—all without the action of a supreme being who transcends the world of space, time, and matter. In this chapter and those that follow, we will see what science has to say about these questions.

Darwinism

When Charles Darwin (d. 1882) entered Cambridge University in 1827 to study for the clergy, he was assigned to the same rooms in Christ’s College occupied by William Paley seventy years earlier
²
. By that time, the syllabus included the study of Paley’s works and Darwin was deeply impressed. He remarked that he could have written out the whole of Paley’s 1794 treatise,
A View of the Evidences of Christianity,
and that
Natural Theology
“gave me as much delight as did Euclid
³
.”

Yet it would be Darwin who provided the answer to Paley and produced the most profound challenge to religious belief since Copernicus removed Earth from the center of the universe.

Darwin’s discovery caused him great, personal grief and serves as an exemplar of a scientist following the evidence wherever its leads and whatever the consequences.

Although the idea of evolution had been around for a while, Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin being a notable proponent, no one had recognized the mechanism involved. That mechanism, proposed by Darwin in 1859 in
The Origin of Species
⁴
and independently by Alfred Russel Wallace
⁵
, was
natural selection
by which organisms accumulate changes that enable them to survive and have progeny that maintain those features. Darwin had actually held back publishing for twenty years until Wallace wrote him with his ideas and forced him to go public. Darwin’s work was by far the more comprehensive and deserved the greater recognition it received.