John Lennox: Full Q&A from 'Cosmic Chemistry: Do Science and Christianity Mix?'

welcome back everybody I hope you've had a nice break thank you so much for all the questions you've sent in to us and we had yeah to look through and we're really looking forward to putting which it's been John well John you certainly caused quite a bit of debate and we've had lots of questions as as Jose just said so I'm gonna kick off we've tried to group your questions so we apologize if you don't hear exact words but with so many questions we've tried to get them into themes so we'll we'll hope we do all this John how do you respond to the objection that Newton Kepler etc only believed in God because they were taught in institutions run by the church and everyone traditionally believed in God in those days your starter for ten well ladies and gentlemen let me just say that this is a Q&A so you're bound to be disappointed the reason for that is this I can simply react to the questions and tell you how I would begin to think about them but that's not a bad thing because if your question that you asked there's a genuine question I'm not just simply being asked to test what I know you'll soon realize I know relatively little but if it's a genuine question then the far more important thing is that when you go home and you're not satisfied with what I say that you will do the work to get a satisfactory answer to your question and as live with you for the rest of your life so it's an inadequate process I will try and keep my answers short and they will be by definition inadequate now the question about Newton and Kepler and so on it is the fact that in the Europe of the 15th and 16th centuries the general world view was theistic but you see the way the question is phrased this reminds me of Richard Dawkins asking the very same question everyone believed in God in the world that is not true Dawkins had forgotten China for instance and the interesting thing here is one that yes there was a Christian theistic background in Europe and that's what educated Newton and Cole but the argument that somehow there's no real connection between the rise of science and the Christian background is rather rendered negative by the fact that there was one person who was puzzled by the fact that science in the sense of abstract science never developed among the Chinese technology yes printing fireworks and so on but there was an expert on China spoke fluent Chinese and his name was Joseph Needham he was a chemist he wrote the standard dictionary on Chinese technology and interestingly he was a new Marxist in his philosophy and he tried for some years to explain within an atheist paradigm why it was the Chinese never developed the natural sciences us happened in the West but he came to this conclusion he said I can only see it in the fact that the Chinese lacked the concept of a single creator who had created the universe to run according to laws that he had designed so it's documented there so it is not the fact that everybody believed in God and it's also demonstrable that the Natural Sciences did arise in that part of the world that believed in God and that thirdly it stands in one sense to reason that what theism biblic theism gave to these people was the concept that this is a rational universe of therefore science can be done that fits together perfectly and in fact this thesis has been developed by John Hadley Brooke for example with whom I worked in Oxford and his successor who actually argues that the rise of science was not simply due to Christian theism and monotheism it was due in part to the changed attitude of the reformers towards the understanding of Scripture in that they were prepared to approach the Bible and let it speak for itself instead of imposing on it methods of allegorical interpretation and so they said let's do the same with the universe let's go and see what the universe says now John in order to win a one-way trip to the Vatican here's the next question does Christianity not stifle scientific discoveries as in the case of Galileo and the Catholic Church and why did the Catholic Church feel it necessary to persecute christian scientists like Galileo and Copernicus well the history of this is utterly fascinating if you want a good read at Christmas try reading Galileo's daughter by Dava so Bell you see the interesting thing is when you this is an iconic story it's used all the time to show that the attitude of the church Christianity towards science was negative and so on but when you analyze it it becomes so much more interesting firstly the first people to attack Galileo were not they're members of the Catholic Church they were the philosophers the Aristotelian philosophers and they believed that the earth was fixed because that is what Paris tatl had taught it did not move they were the principal objectors to Galileo claiming at now the Catholic Church had jumped on that bandwagon because they found statements in the Bible that they thought supported the idea that the earth did not move the Lord has set the earth of its pillars that it should not move so they jumped on the bandwagon of the bad science of Aristotle it's very different from science versus faith in God thirdly or secondly Galileo was not an atheist he was a believer in God when he started and he was a believer in God when he finished and the net result of a great deal of scholarship done on this and they're amusing things you know Galileo was a bit of a rascal really he insisted on writing science in Italian rather than Latin and that offended people and then to make matters even worse he in one of his famous books putting forward his views he had the views of the Pope coming out of the mouth of a character he called simplicious the fool which did not earn him a great welcome in the Vatican and so on and the general verdict on that story and on the Huxley Wilberforce debate given by Colin Russell an eminent professor of the history of science at our Open University is these stories keep being used to demonstrate a conflict between science and religion and the thing that needs to be explained is how they ever came to fulfill that role because history shows that they do not support it at all now there is of course no excuse for the way in which the Catholic Church treated Galileo and only repented of it recently but he wasn't persecuted as far as we know he lived to the end of his days in luxury provided by his friends so again it's an iconic story that does not establish what is Eustace one more question before I hand over to Joe do you ever have private conversations with Dawkins or just public debates and what about Stephen Hawking did he ever respond I never really had any private conversations with Richard Dawkins only very brief I only met him at the debates and so the answer to that question is no and Stephen Hawking of course was confined to a wheelchair and speaking through a mechanical device because of his motor neurone disease so there was no response and there has been no response to my book raising these questions from any of his colleagues which I found quite surprising but there's no question of having a discussion with him because he could only work at a very slow speed and everything had to be characterized had to be laid out before in total text and I never had that opportunity I'm afraid Joe over to you the next to the creation story in Genesis gets the order of events mixed up of it how could God the language see if it was always going to be scrutinized when science got there it should be perfect and then that please can you give us your opinion as a mathematician on the role of poverty in the theory of evolution we're told that random chance has it played a large part in the natural selection of genes how likely is this in your being how many hours have you got well that's but let's be brief of just that approach this you see the assertion is that Genesis gets it mixed up there's a book called the Genesis in the math it's written by a non theist who is one of the highest placed scientists in our country who happens to be a friend of mine and he was giving a talk on bioluminescence in front of a group of journalists who said you sound like Genesis and he thought Genesis was a pop group or something what do you mean Genesis they said genesis in the bible and he was curious about this so he went and got a bible and started reading page 1 and then he read it again read it again and the result was a book called the genesis enigma he said from what I know of science this is so accurate that what I do not understand is how they knew and if ever and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact quote if ever there was a page of literature that would convince me that there is a god it would be that well what the questioner is probably referring to is that the order of events in Genesis 1 appears on the surface to be different from the order of events as recorded in Genesis 2 but it seems to me that that is very easily understood by remembering that there are different kinds of order there is chronological order and Genesis 1 certainly gives an impression of being chronological there is a sequence but then there's logical order for instance if I'm talking to an architect and builder about a hospital in Birmingham and they say tell me about the hospital well first we dug a big hole in the ground and then we put in various basic steel girders that reached the roof and then we built a carpark and then we built administration offices and then we built a ward and then we built operating theaters above that and then we built more wards above that and in the air-conditioning in the roof that's a chronological description but if I ask the head surgeon of the hospital tell me about your hospital he's likely to say something like this well this hospital is very convenient because you see in the middle we put the operating theatres and above them and below them we put the wards and then of course there's the admin in the carpark and so on when you hear that description do you imagine that suddenly the operating theaters appeared in the sky above of course you don't because you know intuitively how to separate logical order in chronological order well if we do that in our everyday language surely were grown up to allow it in the Bible a lot of the confusions with the Bible are applying to it canons of grammar that we wouldn't apply to any other book now that's a huge topic and I'm going to do another bit of shameless advertising because I get this kind of question of our Genesis so often that I've written a little book about it called seven days that divide the world the second question was about evolution I'm not a biologist the law I'm fascinated by biology and the question is limited to the role of probability meaning presumably chance in evolution now of course you have to step back from this what is evolution and what does it do and I'm a mathematical skeptic here I must confess that straightaway but clearly mutation and natural selection do something just have a look around this room why do we all not look the same well thankfully we don't but the reason is that there has been selecting I selected my wife at least I think I did she probably selected me 50 years ago and that's why our children look as they do it was selection of a very real type and most of us are afflicted I say it that way because they're mostly Dilla Terius with mutations of which we might eventually die so natural selection and mutation do something and clearly there is from the perspective of analysis there is a random element in it I don't think that difficult and certainly since we're all different and I believe that God has behind it God is behind that the bigger question whether the neo-darwinian theory or its modifications today can support the weight that is put on it that is can it support the idea that it creates and I'm skeptical very skeptical about that I don't see the evidence but the one point I would make about it ladies and gentlemen is the greatest confusion comes in the failure to distinguish evolution whatever it does or doesn't do and the origin of life the one thing evolution clearly didn't do was produced like even though Dawkins has been saying for years that it did why because evolution whatever it does or doesn't do can only operate when life already exists so it cannot be used to account for life now that's like huge topic and I'm not gonna say I've written a book on it even though I have outside the universe I'm not sure what that means you know there's simplest things we observe are the most difficult we don't know what time is we don't know what energy is and we know relatively little about the universe I believe that God exists we asked the question where and of course ideas of dimensionality of see as Lewis pointed out long ago can help us we have our four dimensions of space and time and we can imagine certainly as a mathematician I can imagine many more dimensions and all of that kind of thing but our minds completely boggle but now the multiverse question where does that come from the idea for multiverse is you by some to solve the problem of the fact that we live in an extraordinary universe that seems to be geared to the supporting of carbon-based life and over the past hundred years the natural sciences have revealed the extremely accurate fine-tuning that's necessary to have a universe like this one basic constant of nature basic ratios that if they're changed just a tiny bit either the universe would fly apart or and so on and so forth now Hawking called his book the grand design why because he notices this and he mentions it in some detail he said the universe and I'm paraphrasing again the universe appears to been designed with these precise concepts and that leads some of us to the old view that the universe was the work of an intelligent creator and then he says but that is not the view of modern science it would seem that this universe is one of many universes now that's a very interesting statement first of all it commits the crime of chronological snobbery which CS Lewis defined to be the old view if it's old that can't be right well I'm old so I can't be right that is a ridiculous notion the basic mathematics hasn't changed since I was a child there are lots of old things that are perfectly right so that isn't an argument but secondly rejecting that creator and saying look the thing that explains why this universe is so finely tuned is the fact that this universe is one of an infinite number of universes whatever that means we're in everything that could possibly happen does happen so it's not surprising that we live in universe like this now that sounds very interesting until you begin to ask what is the evidence for it there is no access by definition to these other universes and several scientists believe in them but there's a war in the world of physics as to whether they believe in them or not now I was taught quantum physics at Cambridge by Sir John Polkinghorne and he looks at this view and he says and that mixed farm were sent to him to believe in a single creator God than in a multiplicity of universes to which we have no access and new evidence for their existence sir Martin Rees on the other hand our astronomer royal he says he prefers to believe in the universe but that's not a scientific statement that's simply a preference but now what is very interesting from the theoretical point of view is if there is a God he can create as many universes as he likes so you cannot pitch the multiverse against the existence of God and indeed one of Stephen Hawking's co-workers who wrote several eminent papers were from dumpage is a Canadian physicist is a Christian and believes in the multiverse simply because philosophically there's no intrinsic objection to God creating as many universes as he likes and my final point is in a book that I place great store by it's called the Bible there are hints that this is perhaps not the only universe that exists but that's another story right now we're running short on time so I'm going to combine two questions in relation to your worldwide travels I assume you came across a variety of belief systems should being born into another culture or belief system dictate our morality and ultimately our destination after death or are all religions pointing to the same theme and similarly in a society where we have access to many religions how do we decide which one to follow you'll start up a ten the question is very important because it enables me to say something that relates to my first statement tonight what impressed me with my parents was that they believed that every man and women whatever they believed was of infinite value made in the image of God now it is a very common idea that religions are vastly different in the moralities they teach that's simply not true and if you do the investigation and again I was first put on to this by CS Lewis but other writers have corroborated it and it's a book he wrote in 1940 called the abolition of man at the back he lists I don't know how many 20 30 40 different religions and philosophies and in every one of them he finds a version of the Golden Rule the fact is morally there aren't the vast differences that we think now of course there are differences but there are certain basic values that run through everywhere now that's exactly what I would expect if the biblical record is true if every man and women is made in the image of God as a moral being we would expect all sorts of different world views to come up with essentially the same morality and that is a very important thing now the first part of that was if you're brought up just tell me exactly what I should being born into another culture or belief system dictate our morality and ultimately our destination after death or are all religions pointing to the same thing well there are two questions there at least dictation of morality sounds a little bit like determinism to me and one of the things that was very important to me was to answer a variant of that question remember I told you the story about being accused of being Irish of course you believe in God now what was very important to me which I didn't mention was to experience firsthand that it's possible for a person to change their worldview that was very important to me and I entered into dialogue with a mathematical friend at Cambridge and the dialogue went on for two years and at the end of the two years he became a convinced Christian and that was for me the beginning of a whole trail of evidence showing that it is perfectly possible to change your worldview because you believe that another worldview parallels more closely truth now I did a debate with Peter Singer who's the world's most famous ethicist and he threw this at me at the very beginning of the debate you can see it at YouTube he said I told the whole audience which is fight this size and was in the tiny Hall but in Melbourne I said about my parents and he stood up and he said well there you go you know you're a Christian because your parents where this is my big objection to religion everybody stays in the religion in which they were born well I then asked him the quest I said Peter I told the people about my parents you didn't tell them about yours were they atheists he said yes they were I said so you stayed in the faith in which you were brought up Oh buddy said that isn't a faith and I said Peter I'm really sorry I thought you believed it no that is very revealing of the contemporary concept of faith and I'm not going to go into that but it showed that he didn't realize his atheism was a belief system but that supreme irony came at the end when the first person who went up to greet him identified with his culture and he was delighted to meet this person who came from his culture in Eastern Europe and then this person said but I have become a Christian so the very first person he met at the end of the debate was someone whose change their worldview so I think it's a matter of yes we are profoundly influenced by our parents and that isn't all bad of course it isn't but as adults we come out into the big world and we have to decide what our answers are to the big questions of life and through life that is why I've gone about opening myself to questioning like tonight well what was the second but the second one in a society where we have access to many religions how do we decide which one to follow well I only know one way of deciding which of anything to believe is on the basis of evidence you see there's a confusion about faith many people have accepted Dawkins definition of faith is believing where there's no evidence that's nonsense faith is an ordinary word it's not just a religious word it's an ordinary word it means trust and usually I suspect that all of you you don't trust either facts or people without having evidence or as you're a bit silly and your bank manager won't trust you with a loan unless you provide evidence of lateral isn't that true we all know what evidence-based faith is but somehow the word has been spread around by Dawkins and Co that faith is a vice because it's believing for there's no evidence that's nonsense that is blind faith and it's very dangerous it's the kind of faith that causes young men to fly planes into tall buildings that's blind faith Christianity is evidence-based listen to this John at the end of his gospel he says Jesus did many other signs of the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah the son of God and that believing you may have life in his name in other words here's the evidence on which faith is based now how do you decide between religions whether there are several ways very briefly just think of the three major monotheistic religions Judaism Christianity and Islam when it comes to Christ my Jewish friends and I have many of them believe that Christ died and did not rise I as a Christian believe he died and rose my Muslim friends believe he didn't die those three things cannot be simultaneously true and therefore I simply invite people to investigate the evidence and one of the most seminal experiences my life was sitting on the ground in a bright sunshine and Trinity College Cambridge listening to one of the world's top lawyers actually an expert in Islamic law but a Christian and he was a credence counsel amongst many other things sir Norman Anderson I think his book is still obtainable and he got up and says I want to do a forensic investigation of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and the place was absolutely packed and I'll never forget it because that was the beginnings of understanding that there is a rational forensic defense of this and we have to make up our own minds but there's another method of approach and it's this you see of every worldview in religion I asked several questions and when it comes to religions I asked what is the shape of the religion how is relationship with God determined so let's just confine ourselves for a sake of illustration to god-fearing religions not religions that don't really believe in God and so on but god-fearing religions like the three I've mentioned and what I discover by constant questioning of people is that there's a general pattern that there's some sort of initiation right perhaps performed on a child perhaps performed on an adult and the person is on the way and the descriptor the way is often used and I often draw this in I draw a little door you get in and a wavy line this is the way it goes up and down and then there's a gate another big door at the far end and I draw the scales of justice there and at the other side of that gate is Nirvana heaven what-have-you paradise and I say as you're on the way you various people that teach you and help you and so on but even they come up guarantee your acceptance into heaven or whatever at the end why because you have to go through the final assessment a judgement and why is that because the principle of the religion is merit and so you have to hope that with all the teaching you've got an old experience that your good deeds will outweigh your bad deeds and you'd be accepted and I find that by and large most people say that's exactly what we believe and I say it's exactly not what I believe and they say of course you do you're a Christian you believe as well as I do that good works are important yes I say I believe they're important but they're not the basis of acceptance and they say but how can that possibly be well I say you think of that wavy line and you're on that wavy line and you cannot by definition be sure of acceptance it's like Birmingham University you get in you do you're a levels wonderful you're in and then there are nice professors like me teaching you but I can't guarantee you get a degree why because you have to get through finals that's the day of judgment folks isn't it and many of you remember it and that is what the vast majority of people think a religion is and then I drop a little bomb into their minds and I say but that isn't Christianity folks in religion acceptance comes at the end on the basis of an assessment of merit well if that's religion Christianity is not a religion it's a relationship and acceptance comes at the beginning that's radical and you know I believe in our country and in my original country many people have rejected Christianity why because they've never understood this they don't realize that Christianity is not a merit-based religion because Christ came into our world and he told us that if we listened to him and accepted his word and believed on him as the Savior the Son of God we would have in that moment eternal life and we would not come into judgment that's utterly radical so the acceptance comes at the beginning and so ladies and gentlemen I don't give lectures like this and discussions like this to earn God's forgiveness I do them because I got it that's radical and you all understand that let me Ram this in with a little illustration can I do that only take a minute wait this is it then you have heard you've heard about my wife well over fifty years ago I saw this vision in Cambridge so I decided I'd like to marry her so I came to her one day and I had a little present wrapped up for her it was a cookbook so I said I'd like to marry you Sally now the condition would be this let's look at page 147 it's apple cake and here are the laws for making apple cake thou shall take so much flour thou shall take somewhat sugar and there you are not here's the way it's gonna be if you keep these laws for the next forty years I think about accepting you if you don't you can go back to your mother but look why are you laughing that is what many of you sitting here think about God and you would never insult a fellow human being by basing a relationship of merit you wouldn't and so my marriage it's been good why because my wife is not cooking in order to gain my acceptance she likes cooking because she's got it and the wonderful thing about Christianity precisely that it's not religion in that sense it's a relationship [Applause]

Channel: ChaplaincyPlus

Views: 14,746

Keywords: John Lennox, IS FAITH REASONABLE?, Birmingham churches, Christian Apologetics, Chaplaincy Plus

Id: 5fjKETXPIU0

Length: 37min 17sec (2237 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 10 2019