Will Science Someday Rule Out The Possibility of God? (Part 1)

Recently theoretical physicist Dr. Sean Carroll from the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) made a cultural splash when he suggested that the inevitable progress of science may rule out the possibility of the existence of God. He argued that, given enough time, science will be able to give us a theory of the universe that is entirely "self-contained," meaning that there will be no need to postulate the existence of God. Is he right? In one sense, he is quite right--but only if "God" is defined as a postulated deus ex machina. If, however, we define "God" as the biblical Yahweh--the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--then, no, he is not right. Dr. Carroll's splash, while not at all threatening to faith in the one true God of the Scriptures, does serve as a helpful call to a self-criticism of the Church's theology. How do we define God?

deus ex machina

a portion of Michelangelo's fresco on the Sistine Chapel.

"Deus ex machina" is a Latin phrase, which means "god out of the machine." In literature, it means that the playwright or author has introduced an arbitrary and external element in order to keep the plot going. This element is external in that it has nothing to do with the setting, characters, or actions of the play. In the case of ancient Greek stage plays, this was done by lowering an actor, playing one of the many Greek gods, onto the stage by way of ropes and pullies (or machines) so that he may alter the plot, which did not previously involve him. From a literary perspective, this is an illegitimate move that merely exposes the author's inability to write a solid plot. Of course, legitimate use of a god may be made by integrating the god throughout the narrative (i.e. Homer's Odyssey and Iliad). In philosophy, deux ex machina means that one appeals arbitrarily to a transcendent being (i.e. God) in order to make his philosophical system work. [1] To commit a deus ex machina in philosophy is considered to be equally illegitimate as it is in literature.

If the Christian God is merely defined or treated as an entity, which must be postulated to make our moral or natural system work, then the Church may face a crisis of belief as science progresses. If, as Dr. Carroll proposes, someone could come up with a scientific theory of everything that could uphold Christian commitments to morality and community, then it is conceivable that this deus ex machina could be written out of the play. The only obstacle that remains is that science is still a lousy playwright. But, she's getting better.

Is God merely a postulated entity that must be believed in in order to make sense of everything else? Or, is God the Personal Being that we encounter when we pray and meditate on the Scriptures? Ultimately, God is not a human philosophical crutch. He is the God who revealed Himself perfectly in history as the Incarnated Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:3), who penetrates human hearts through the power of His Word (Hebrews 4:12), and who calls his elect to salvation through the effectual drawing of the Holy Spirit (John 6:44) . It is this God who has legitimately integrated himself into the cosmological narrative that can't be reduced to a postulate and, therefore, eliminated by science.

How is this not irrational fideism?

Christian belief in the God of the Bible is potentially falsifiable, however. It is, therefore, not irrational or fideistic (faith for faith's sake). Christians would have good reason to abandon their faith, for instance, if the whole world flooded (Genesis 9:11) or if we definitively found the dead body of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:14). [2] Likewise, Christians would have good reason to abandon their acceptance of the inerrancy of the Scriptures if, in fact, Darwin's thesis that all life originated from a single organism could be definitively proven, because the book of Genesis claims that God created "each [animal] according to its kind." [3] (Genesis 1:11, 21, 24) 

God as a philosophical crutch

The reason that Dr. Carroll's claim is a much needed impetus for Christian self-criticism is that the Church (at least in America) is experiencing something of a philosophical revival, and that comes with some inherent dangers. Christian studies of worldview, philosophy, and apologetics have become a booming industry. [4] These studies are being emphasized heavily in Christian higher and secondary education, and some churches have even begun to implement apologetics into their teaching curriculum. This is a much-needed correction to the anti-science and anti-intellectual impulse of 20th-century American evangelicalism. However, like the Christian philosophical rationalists of the 17th century (i.e. Rene Descartes and Gottfried W. Leibniz), the contemporary Church could easily reduce its God to a rational postulate and little more.

It is conceivable that a Christian could spend so much time considering the arguments for the existence of God and the consistency of his own worldview that he never really knows the God of the Scriptures personally. What a tragic judgment day that will make. (Matthew 7:21-23) Christians could read books about the inerrancy of the Scriptures but never actually read the Scriptures. Christians could quote line after line of C.S. Lewis, St. Anselm of Canterbury, or William Lane Craig, and not know a single line from the Old Testament. Christians could argue for the existence of God until blue in the face but never invite their neighbors to experience his saving grace now.

In his work, Philosophy and the Christian Faith (1968), Colin Brown writes:

"The God of the rationalists was a hypothetical abstraction, a deus ex machina, invoked to make the system work, but not one who was encountered personally in history and present experience. His existence was, moreover, based upon arguments which we have already seen to be dubious. It is not surprising, therefore, that, when later thinkers rejected the rationalist approach...they felt that God and religion had been disposed of altogether..."

This controversy has provided the Church with an opportunity to ask itself: How do we define "God"?

(In Part 1 I have argued that the occasion of Dr. Carroll's claims can be a useful call to authentic Christian faith. In Part 2 I will address the philosophical claim that there could potentially be a theory of everything so encompassing that God is rendered totally useless.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Not every reference to the transcendent God is a deus ex machina. The blogger Maverick Philosopher presents a good but lengthy discussion of how to distinguish legitimate usage of God from deus ex machina here.
[2] What constitutes a "definitive" find is difficult to say, but, if I believed beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus body had been found, I would leave the Christian faith, which would be reduced to a pitiable myth. (1 Cor. 15:14)
[3] Some Christians maintain both theistic evolution and biblical inerrancy by stating that the Genesis account is poetic and, therefore, may be interpreted more symbolically and figuratively. Even if taken as poetry, however, I think it doesn't make sense to include the detail of each creature being created "according to its kind" if God created all biodiversity from a single living organism. At best, the theistic evolutionist would have to assume multiple original life forms to be consistent even with a poetic reading, and I think this position just collapses back into creationism. Given that, I believe that either Genesis or Darwin must be wrong. In this case, for a number of reasons, I believe Darwin is wrong. If the hang up for some is the age of the earth, I do believe that an "old earth creationist" view (God uniquely created each "kind" over a period of billions of years) is conceivably consistent with a more figurative reading of "day" in Genesis.
[4] I teach systematic theology, apologetics, worldview, and philosophy at a private Christian high school.