Will science ever find God's fingerprints? - Prof. John Lennox & Prof. Pieter Kruit

good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you all for coming here tonight to be with us before I'm going to introduce you to the host I'm wanted I want to thank you for coming here tonight and do a cert and going on a search for us the search for evidence because that's what the fair this forum is all about the ferreters forum wants to search for the big questions and wants to search for the answers on it because that answers define what we are where we are going to and I think it's it's very important to see those questions and to search for the answers and that's what the fear the forum wants to do earlier we had forums about love about identity about career about political ideal ideals and tonight we're going to discuss the question is there a god another big question and I think that it's possible it is important to do that in the way ferreters always wants to do to look at the subject from different perspectives to give every person every philosophy their own time to present what they think and to see and learn from each other we want to do that tonight we want to learn from each other we want to see what we have to say to each other and I hope that we can get a little bit closer to the answer on those questions I want to thank studium Generale for helping us with the organization of this event and if there is god I want to thank him for bringing us here together now I'm going to introduce you to the host of this evening martini from failure martini from failure did industrial design engineering here at the TU delft and got her PhD on medical engineering now she's connected to the incubators and the Center for Entrepreneurship at the TU delft as a coach and entrepreneur she also is a leader for the Dutch education node of the climate kick I like to invite a martini up here and I think she will do great give a warm applause for a martini yes thank you very much and welcome to all of you I have to be honest I'm a little bit surprised to see you all here that there are such what is it high amount of students and other interesting people here that came all the way to delves to talk about the subject of tonight will science ever find God's fingerprints and I have to say that when I was invited for this evening to do the hosting my theatres I thought well nice very toast because they always have very nice subject like last year the subject was love and who doesn't want to talk about love and two years ago it was about identity also very interesting topic and then I read that the topic for tonight was indeed will science ever find God's fingerprints and then I thought I don't know oh I thought we have been in this discussion already so many times and actually we already know the answer I mean we always will have this discussion between the religious people who believe in God and they seek out fingerprint everywhere so they also see it in science and then you have this other group the non-believers and they don't believe in God so they also don't find his fingerprints anywhere so also not in science so was a little bit of phrase for tonight but now I see that it's a very relevant discussion and I'm going to move forward now to you because I'm really honestly very curious to know why you are here what kind of answers do you want to answer tonight so I'll start here yes you were on the front row so your bad luck tonight can someone after you tell me why you're here these are the most important questions that you can ask in my opinion because it's about silencing is about the God and those are the two most important solving in your life yeah great okay good to hear any other other impressions other reasons to be here anyone wants to add here you are I will come to you but I will first start here I thought it was just a very interesting topic and I think I'm III already checked professor Linux on YouTube so I know a lot of us arguments but I'm looking forward to it so maybe it will not be surprise for me but yeah it's good to have him here great that's a good that's a good one you also want to say yeah I'm here because this subject interests me and I believe that in the future science and religion will agree that's interesting okay so maybe we will already agree tonight so that is the very short future that might happen okay I'll move forward there was someone here really really wants to say why he is here can you do it very sure because you look like someone who is going to look the problem is in my life I am I come from a civil civil side background I was in two more years in psychiatric clinic in dallof yours and I want to understand why I exist and why I'm not the still dad and why I am not a white man Longman strong man superior race I'm grace I'm brown I am straight I'm Hindu writer I am Devin and Devin uncle Thomas my big site website in Dutch and English and I belong to the Hindu fundamentalist group say Holland yeah so but that those are really very or is it hard questions I mean I'm not sure I don't expect we are going to answer them tonight but I hope we will do and we do have the speakers here who can answer those questions I hope and I I think I can already ask you to go to the States both of you so professor John Lennox and professional Peter crowds because you can already sit down in the chairs [Applause] sit down please and before I give you both the floor for your arguments tonight I am going to ask you the same question so I will start with Professor John Lennox he is a professor in mathematics at Oxford University and he has really a great record track record in science he had many papers many what is its presentations publications and he also used quite a lot of his time also in during his career to think about the topic of science and religion so not only on mathematics so I think for him it's a little bit more obvious why he is here because it's also part of its job but maybe you can answer answer the question which questions the question why you are here why did you come we invited you of course I know it's not about money because I know food it does and they don't have much money so it's not about money it's something else and maybe he can tell us I'm here for one of the reasons that's been expressed by the questioners these are very important questions and what I discover is I travel around the world that audiences like this get bigger and bigger and bigger so it's obvious that we're touching a nerve and why I'm here is because I have a delightful co-presenter from this university and what we're going to do is throw into cyberspace so to speak some arguments and we believe that you can decide between them so I'm all for a rational public friendly debate and I'm delighted to see all of you here good thank you very much then we have the other speaker professor Peter Krebbs and he is a professor here a science professor at the Faculty of Applied Science here at TU delft and actually I know that you didn't spend a lot of your career thinking about this topic so I think it's really very great that you you are here tonight and want to share your your what is it your your opinion with us you also have a great track record and I especially like the fact that you have 50 patents on your name which is very unique for a professor so you're also very ansible professor you also started two companies and that's actually it's my personal interest so that's that that's what I like but I'm also really very curious why did you also accept this invitation to come here mainly these are my students and I know from my own experience that students when they're around 20 they think about these things and they should have input for for good solar thinking so they must have different arguments the ones they get with them from their family from home the ones they read in the papers and the arguments that they can hear from people like Professor Lennox and maybe myself because we probably have some different opinions about things I must say that what I met professor Kroy tonight I I was subject to a little bit of unchristian Envy because I discovered he's got a pilot's license okay great professor Lennox I may invite you as a first presenter so you can come up and take your position here I know you have a clock so I don't have to be strict on you but you have 20 minutes to make your point fall for wachting Clapton's heart it is an inordinately sure for me to be invited to this distinguished University to talk about the question will science ever find God's fingerprints lose a bit of irony in that because actually the motor that drove science in the 16th and 17th century was precisely that because people like Galileo Kepler Newton and so on believed that God's fingerprints could be found and the obvious question is this when Newton was a believer in God and inspired the rise of science in that way why is it that the person who now holds our recently held Newton's chair professor Stephen Hawking thinks that we have to choose between science and God and we're going to talk about this question there are various misconceptions that need to be cleared up briefly in advance the first is that there is a conflict between science and belief in God physics is an immensely important subject of last year's Nobel Prize winner for physics was a Scotsman which delighted that nation no end professor Peter Higgs he's also an atheist a few years before that professor William Phillips won the same prize he's a Christian so it ought to be obvious but it isn't to people around the world that the conflict cannot be a simplistic one between science and faith in God because these two men are Nobel Prize winning physicists what divides them is not their science what divides them is their worldview one is an atheist and the other a theist and I want to submit to you tonight that the real conflict lies at the worldview level there are scientists and each side of it so that the question we're actually asking is which way does science point does it point towards atheism or does it point as I would suggest towards theism now when we're talking about science and God we need to be clear what we mean by God because I think one of the for the polarization in the contemporary debate is confusion about the idea of God Stephen Hawking clearly believes that the god I believe in is a God of the gaps like the ancient Greek god of thunder do some atmospheric physics with professor Krait and soon the god of thunder will disappear the idea is I can't explain it therefore God did it now this is important to understand if you believe in a God of the gaps then you have to choose between science and God because that's the way you've defined God and it's very important to say I've never met an intelligent Christian Muslim or Jew who believed in a God of the gaps I believe in the God of the Bible a supernatural God who's the creator of the universe and the upholder of it the creator of the things we do understand and the creator of the things we don't a God of the gaps leaves no fingerprints that God of creation leaves an immense number of fingerprints so that's the second confusion the third confusion is the nature of explanation science explains but in what sense when I learned the law of gravity at school I thought it told me what gravity was but it doesn't it's brilliant of course Newton's laws of motion enable us to land a person on the moon and do those calculations but the law of gravity doesn't tell me what gravity is nobody actually knows according to Nobel Prize winner Richard phiman what gravity is so science though powerful is limited and the problem is when people say science has explained this they seldom realize that the explanation is not full Viki enstein it was who said this the great deception of modernist thinking is that the laws of nature are explanations of the phenomena of nature so a second confusion that gets us into the heart of this problem is there are different levels of explanation God is not the same kind of explanation of science what do I mean by that well when you Tintin is law of gravity he didn't say I've got a law of gravity therefore I don't need God because he was sensible enough to see that the law of gravity is a mathematical description of something happening out there in the universe that is a mechanism law description if you like God is an agent description often when I go to schools in universities I put it this way what would you think of someone who said to you I've got two explanations of this Ford Motor car engine the one is internal combustion the law of internal combustion and automobile engineering the other is Henry Ford please choose between the two that's absurd and I wonder if why people like Richard Dawkins can't see that there are different kinds of explanation and of course you've all heard the old statement why is the kettle boiling well the temperatures rates the molecules are vibrating so fast etcetera etcetera no no no it's boiling because I want a cup of tea the point is those explanations in terms of agency on the one hand and Lowe and mechanism of the other don't conflict they don't compete they complement and incidentally the more I understand of art the more I can admire the genius of a Rembrandt not the less the more I understand of Engineering the more I can admire the genius off let's take a typical German car engine the rolls-royce obviously you're still awake the more I can admire the genius so the more I understand of the universe the more I admire the God that did it that way so when they gravity waves are announced the other day I was on the British radio yesterday and they said does this affect your faith I said profoundly it increases it because I see the discovery in physics of the wonderful who would have thought that something could happen in 10 to the minus 35 seconds that was significant for the development of our universe glorious ideas magnificent ideas far from obscuring God they get me should beg him more so that's the first thing to clear these things out of the way and then we can look at the positive evidence for God now the first thing I mentioned was this the history of science is unequivocal CS Lewis summed up what Merton sisa says Alfred North Whitehead stasis call it what you like men became scientific why because they expected Lord nature why because they believed in the lawgiver now this is highly significant in the history of Western thought you see let me put it this way ladies and gentlemen far from being embarrassed that being a scientist in a Christian I'm not the slightest because Christianity gave me my subject and that must be for me it is one of the big pointers towards God that it was belief in God that far from hindering science was the motor that drove its rise and I find the broad agreement among scholars about this thesis and it's a very interesting one because if you reverse it and say well everybody believed in God then well not everybody you're very Western orientated if you think of that in China they did not develop abstract science so they developed some technology printing fireworks and so on and Joseph Needham who was a neo-marxist chemistry worked at Cambridge tried for years to explain why didn't we get science in China in the abstract sense and he came to the following conclusion he said I can only see that the difference is that they lacked the concept of a single creator who created the universe that ran according to laws that we could detect so you can check it out in that sense in both directions now one of my biggest reasons for not being an atheist actually and believing in God is the very fact we can do science you see scientists have their foundation faith Einstein once said I cannot imagine a real scientist note that faith it didn't mean faith in God he meant faith in the rational intelligibility of the universe you have to believe that in order to do physics and my physics teacher at Cambridge professor Sir John Polkinghorne says in one of his books physics is powerless to explain its faith in the rational intelligibility of the universe for the simple reason that you have to believe that in order to do physics in the first place now let's set that question in these two worldviews which worldview makes most sense of the fact that we can do science is it atheism or is it in my case Christianity well let's take the view that's been made popular in the Netherlands recently by a book called you are your brain that's a very interesting thesis if it were true you wouldn't know it of course but there you are and because it brings us back to the rational justification of the intelligibility of the universe on which science is based ok I do science with my mind suppose my mind is the brain well what is the brain well it's the end product of a mindless unguided process according to naturalism well I suggest to you that if your iPad was the end product of a mindless unguided process you wouldn't trust it for a moment now I'm not the first to thought of that Darwin thought of it and Darwin wrote this with me the heart of dirt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind which has been developed through the mind of lower animals are of any value or at all trust worthy now this is very interesting because this reductionist thesis that reduces thought the mind to the brain thought to neurophysiology is of course self-destructive if Crick's thesis is true says John Polkinghorne he says we are nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells if kraits thesis is true we could never know it for not only does it relegate experiences of beauty and moral obligation and religious encounter to the epiphenomenon scrap heap it also destroys rationality thought is replaced by electrochemical neural events when the famous philosopher of Dutch origin Alvin Plantinga says this if Dawkins is right that we are the product of mindless unguided natural processes then he has given a strong reason to doubt the reliability of human cognitive faculties and therefore inevitably to doubt the validity of any belief that they produce including Dawkins own science and his atheism now listen to this his biology and his belief in naturalism would therefore appear to be at war with each other in a conflict that is nothing at all to do with God no thus prove in this argument has been ratcheted up massively by Thomas Nagel who's a brilliant American philosopher he is an atheist and he's really stirred up the world of thought by saying look reductionist science has been very successful why because we've left out the mind that's doing the science and he says if the mental and I'm quoting is not itself merely physical it cannot be fully explained by physical science evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn't take any of our convictions seriously including the scientific worldview on which naturalism itself depends now ladies and gentlemen I'm passionate about science I want to be able to take my conviction seriously I think the only idea that makes sense of that is that there's an intelligent god behind the human mind in other words there's a top-down explanation not simply a bottom-up one so my main reason for rejecting atheism and believing in God at the scientific level is the fact that I can do science now when we come to other evidences we could talk about lots of things at great length that is the origin of the universe when Arnold Penzias had discovered the microwave background he wrote a very interesting thing he says and so physics leaves us with a unique situation a universe created out of nothing so fine-tuned that one could almost say it had a supernatural plan now the getting something out of nothing is a very interesting question it raises the question of what is ultimate reality many of my friends and colleagues believe the universe of the multiverse or mass-energy is ultimate reality but then they discover that the universe is finite backwards in time according to Alan Guth and Alex Vilenkin who are two of the world's top cosmologists so they are pushed back now to the situation where there was nothing to start with what do you mean by nothing but philosophically it means there wasn't anything I'm well aware that Stephen Hawking thinks that nothing's a quantum vacuum so it isn't nothing there's much ado about nothing these days but that's a different matter and we not go into it in detail all I'm saying is this that the results of contemporary cosmology present a big problem in the 1960s when I was alive in Cambridge as a student when the first evidence of the hot Big Bang came in it was resisted massively by the British scientific establishment the editor of nature says we can't we can't go down this route why because it will give too much leverage to those who believe the Bible ironic isn't it for centuries Europe was dominated by Aristotle a universe without a beginning suddenly the evidence comes the Bible been saying it for centuries that's not a bad score for the Bible actually and I have had the cheek to suggest that some of the top physicists in the world that perhaps if we take in the world view represented by the Bible more seriously we'd have looked for evidence for the hot Big Bang a lot earlier than we did so it seems to me that this origin of the universe question raises what causes something to come from nothing what is the answer to lighten it's question why is there something rather than nothing materialism can give no answer but of course Christianity can because it says that the primary thing in the universe is not mass energy anyway it's God it's mind so if you like the two worldviews were considering tonight have this property the first one starts with mass energy or something and everything else then must be explained bottom-up in terms of mass and energy the other worldview starts like this in the beginning was the word and the Word was God all things came to be through him so you either start with mass energy and a mind derivative or you start with mind and of mass energy derivative which makes more sense well from the cosmological problem I think there it's a no-brainer it's obvious the fine-tuning is regarded by many of my atheist friends as the best argument I've got and I was debating in Oxford last year and the professor philosophy there said look and please give us your best argument what is my best argument I said fine-tuning the fact that the universe seems to be geared to life is exactly what you'd expect that there's a mind behind it and that begins to give you Inklings of a vast sense of purpose now related to all of those things and there's particularly the linguistic study of the universe is this the idea that word is primary puts a hole to my mind in the purely reductionist view of explanation you see scientific reductionism has worked spectacularly in many areas but well it doesn't work at all is when there's a linguistic dimension the moment you see letters symbols that carry semiotic dimension that carry meaning when you see that up there you instantly and fare upwards to a minds involvement no matter what the technology is no matter what unguided mindless processes are behind projection you know that a mind has been involved and you can see that in the first four letters of my first name you can deduce it from that so I say whatever processors are involved in the origin of life and that is a fascinating question on which some of you in this audience are world experts I see the longest word that's ever been discovered the DNA code and I'm puzzled when I talk to my physicist friends in Oxford and when they say John they say intelligence when they see 3.5 billion letters in exactly the right order they say chance of necessity now that strikes me as a little bit odd because the immediate perception suppose it was a black box whatever natural processor involved mind is written all over it and I would want to argue ladies and gentlemen that God is a massive fingerprint and every one of the 10 trillion cells of your body it's the longest word that you will ever find but you see can we find God's fingerprints through science if you just find my fingerprints you'll never get to know me with you how far do we get with a search even if we conclude that the science leads us to fingerprints as I do fingerprints can be used to identify a criminal but if you just take my fingerprints and see them you'll never get to know me because you see ladies and gentlemen I'm a person I'm not a theory I hope so anyway I hope you'll accept that but you see many people think that God is a theory but he's a person so now I want to bring evidence not simply from science which is only part of reality but from history because the reason I'm a Christian is not because science has led me to Christianity in science I can see the glory the wisdom the brilliance of God but in Christianity I see a God who revealed himself who's come to this world who's taken part in its activities and who has died and risen again that begins to break open very big possibilities so that my faith is not sinned in the god of the scientists some remote theistic god but it's in the god of Christianity and you see the proof of the pudding is in the end in the eating because if God is person and is real and has revealed himself then you can get to know him and I would simply conclude by saying that over the last 60 years life has been an enthralling adventure of getting to know and trying to follow as best I can the God whose revealed himself both in the natural world and in the intellectual world but above all in the world of my own experience than that of my family thank you very much I'll stay here professor Lennox thank you very much for your engaging talk I I know you are really convinced and I hope that you also convince the audience but we will see because we have another presenter Peter glad you can come up here and we would like to hear your view one of the questions that was raised on the Veritas forum was can science prove the existence of God but what does it mean to say can science prove that it basically means can people prove the existence of God using scientific methods so we need to talk about scientific methods or we cannot talk about this question just like dr. Lennox said we need to talk about what do we mean with God so scientific method what is the scientific method for proving that something exists for instance how do we prove that this this this structure here exists I look at it and I see it I feel it I ask you to look at it you see it you can feel it I I must make sure it's not a hallucination an illusion a dream so I go away I come back it's still there and finally when you all have seen it and touched it then we say okay very likely that this exists so well can we prove the existence of God in such a way I don't think so because then we would all agree so it's different it must be a different kind of proof than that so that was the first question I thought I'm done with that now is science able to convincingly argue that God does not exist what's the second question that was raised well say you tell me there is a structure like this or a chair at the other side of the universe and I can't see it I can't go there so I cannot prove that it exists or does not exist so it is very difficult to prove that something does not exist so that's the answer to that science will probably not be able to convincingly argue that something if it's God or not does not exist so those are the two answers to these two questions am I done maybe not maybe we need to go one deeper right it's not that simple God is in a sort of invisible when you just think about it in these terms I don't know why he is invisible I mean when I listen to dr. Lennox description of God he could be as visible as he wanted to be because he can interact he can he can put these DNA molecules together so he can interact with matter so he could just be here so that I could touch him and see him and feel him he isn't he doesn't want to do that for some reason I don't know why he doesn't want to do that he is playing hide and seek maybe right dr. Lennox is trying to find him oh he's found him I haven't found him yet or maybe he's not there it is a game high does he he doesn't want to show himself or does he if he wanted to it would be here if he doesn't then he's so all-powerful then we can't find him so isn't that sort of a paradox we have to play this height and seek game to see if we can find his fingerprints or see some evidence but okay tonight I'll play the game God is invisible are we going to find gonna try and find some fingerprints so now let me see if I have a comparison something else that's very difficult to see or feel it's invisible that's first for instant gravity right we know here there's gravity here how am I going to prove as a scientist that there's gravity we how does that work how does it the theory of something invisible comes up in science we observe certain things we observed there an Apple falls we observe that the moon goes around the earth we observe many of these things that have something to do with in perhaps an interaction between these bodies and then someone raises his finger and says let us assume that there is a force between objects proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the distance squared and everybody says why why would it be that I think it's inversely proportional to the third power of the radius or someone says now I think it is the will of these masses to come together so we have these different hypotheses and now what are we going to do we are going to make predictions see if we can apply that simple theory to something else and whether it is according to this same law and then if it is according to this our to do to inverse to R squared or to our third we can measure that and then after a while we decide it's inversely proportional to R squared so we don't even have to start assuming that it will always work there's no assumption there we just try it out and we'll see what happens and then after we've done this many times then it is very likely that gravitation is a good description of the interaction between masses that's all it is science is nothing but finding a description which is as simple as possible as few words as possible so first we had to describe all the events separately the Apple falling to the earth the moon going around the earth and then after we have gravity it is sort of a general description of many things that happen and we can make predictions so the signs then explain observations is it an explanation it depends on what you call an explanation it is that's that's gravity now explain that the moon goes around the earth I don't think so unless you say well that is that's what we call an explanation if you can describe it with words that are more simple than we had originally then there is an explanation so what do we do with well I just want to give you one more example we when we look around us we see we see colors we see in millions of different molecules that interact we see lightning we see so many things and it is so complicated to describe all these things it's incredible and to see the the the relations between all these between building materials and colors and smells and then science gets to work for a while and we find that molecules are made up of atoms and that when you combine atoms with the theory of Maxwell we can see light we we have suddenly we have much fewer we need we need many fewer words or equations from which we can explain why there are molecules and why there are colors so then at some point we had still 200 atoms and Maxwell theory and electrons still quite quite complicated and then we go a step further and we find atoms are made up of neutrons protons and electrons suddenly we only need three particles and the interaction only one equation for the interaction between those the electroweak force and now from these few elements we can build atoms we can understand or understand we can we can formulate why atoms are so there is a kind of a wide there's that explanation again we have a simple description for many things that we see around us so that is about science and explanations in science it's mainly about different descriptions of what we see now what counts as an explanation there's they used to be an explanation for the moon going around the earth that was God God helps the earth and the moon in his hand and he was able to make the perfect circle of the moon going around the earth that was the explanation does that count as a scientific explanation it's not a simplification right it is if you want to describe God it's not one equation I think you agree on that God is more complicated than one equation in fact you cannot describe him in words he is infinitely complicated so God as an explanation is certainly not possible in science because that's where we go to more and more simple explanations also you can't predict anything with that because if God would want to then he could make a totally different shape of the moon going around the earth so so something like like saying God explains it is is indeed I agree with dr. Lennox they're a totally different explanation than a scientific explanation which is merely a description so we've seen that there are a few rules for scientific proof and that in fact it all comes down to when you go deeper into explaining things you need to go to fewer works words to simpler concepts in order to to describe complicated things and the description gives you the possibility to predict future events to also explain other events than from which you have deduced your original scientific statement also you're never quite sure that the description is the ultimate description right that's very essential for science for a scientific law or explanation when we say we found gravity and gravity explains all the interactions between masses then we always keep in the back of our mind maybe not perhaps it's not quite right and that happens all the time in science science does not give absolute truth example for gravity at some point Einstein came up and he says now you don't really need that second mass you can have a photon and the photon will also be influenced by the mass of the Sun so he gave up Newton's law he said it's a little deeper we need to have curved space and from curved space gravity did the law of gravity is a good approximation in certain cases but we have to go deeper so that is science and now we have to get back to to whether we know how science works can we find evidence for the existence of the god that dr. Lennox described in these terms I think essentially he gave to two ways where science would point towards the existence of God the the first had a few examples the the one example the first example was human beings have reason and an ethics and you can't have that from a mindless evolution so he has an observation right he makes an observation he sees human beings with the the the possibility to reason to think and he says now I I'm going to explain this there must be a God but that doesn't somehow that that's not something in science in science you wouldn't do that you would try to find loss which are simpler than the description of all these Minds from which you can derive conclude through logical arguments that brains have reason because if you if you use if you introduce something as complicated as God then it's not it's not what you do in science you don't make it more complicated when you try to explain something so so what does he so what does he do when he says there a god that created reason in fact he says there's a gap there we do not have presently an exact description of how reason comes about when we have a neuron system it is sort of the same as when you don't have a law of gravitation you see the moon go around the earth then you say okay then it must be God but here it's just we don't have an exact description of how reason comes about from complicated systems with newer arms and and everything that's in the brain and all the senses so we just need to work a little harder and he has two more of those examples the relation between the physical constants in the universe we do not understand exactly why the electron has to mass and a charge that it has no I don't understand that either I don't know why I cannot describe that in a more fundamental law but that's not the first time in history not very long ago we had separate theories for electricity magnetism light there were just the most incredible relations between the permittivity and the speed of light you know you know the law I mean right seus C square this epsilon times mu zero case no Z to an incredible relation between three constants of nature nobody understood and then Maxwell came about and he made Maxwell theory and suddenly we understand exactly why that relation is there well something like that may happen with the constants in the universe we don't know we don't have it yet it might come there if you then say no we'll never find that God made that relationship then there is filling in the gap in our knowledge by the assumption that there is a God and the third example basically exactly the same there's life on Earth there are DNA molecules very complicated again comes in we don't understand this by how this can come about there might be all kind of of intermediate steps we don't know the first thing we do is bring in the god of the gaps so all these 3 arguments are essentially back to the same old fashioned there's a storm on sea there is the moon there is lightning there must be a God who makes that so that is yet again the design argument the other argument is the one about why why is gravity as it is don't know maybe there's no why maybe that's just how it is and then the cosmological arguments if we have a big bang it's it must come from somewhere so that is the end of all the descriptions right just imagine that at some point science is complete we have we have the description there from where we can show how ratio is in human brain we have the description of how DNA can arise when there are sufficient molecules around we have the one theory that tells us why all the constants in the universe are as they are then we still have that question of where does the universe come from and that's a very difficult question because it will always be there science will end somewhere there is a beginning of of that description and anything it's allowed to say there is a supernatural being that made it but you can't know anything about this being or whatever it is there's nothing to know because it's at the other end of the Big Bang no information comes through there and it certainly is a totally different concept totally different from the god that that dr. Lennox Lennox described to which he can talk that he can get to know that's just a different concept a whole it's in a different dimension I should almost say and still even then there are alternatives right you can we can say okay the universe had to be created but that already assumes that there is something before the Big Bang and there are many alternative theories around just just one time started with the Big Bang so there is no before so then we have two hypotheses one is God created it the other is there was no time before the start of the Big Bang how are you going to find out which of the two there is I don't think science can can do anything there so where do we end with this the the relation or the possibility to to say with science with the descriptive science as as I know it to say something about God or not is just not in it you cannot use scientific arguments to say that there is God so so if you want to be if you want there to be God you'll just have to believe it do not try to look for evidence because that is just not possible in the way we do science and and then there is the question will there ever be I think it was on the screen here yes will science ever find God's fingerprints I think it is getting more and more unlikely the certainly when we when when we need to rely on the God of the gaps but I've told you that already there are fewer and fewer gaps so if we if we take another law of science that is the law of induction then we should say there are fewer and fewer instances where we can still point at a possibility of interference of God and in the end there will be no point left to find fingerprints yes so that's one law of induction then there's one other law of induction that is the Christian religion is not the first on this earth we've had the Greeks the Egyptians the Germanic tribes - my ass the Incas so many other religions and they've all disappeared so the law of induction tells me that at some point Christian religion will disappear but I have no objection if you want to believe that it doesn't but I do hope that you allow others to think otherwise thank you yeah thank you all so very much professor Kratz I can imagine that that maybe some questions are answered but I can also imagine that there are many more race and that's why we have a ten minutes Intermezzo or break or whatever you want to call it yes that's true yeah and we have some music there so you can use that time to already discuss and and let it all get down into your brains and maybe you can already discuss a little bit with your neighbors meet each other ask questions who are you and what do you think all of this and then after the break I will come back to you and see what kind of yeah opinions there are in this room so is there someone here wants to just tell a little bit about what kind of discussions you were doing here someone that's maybe interesting that Lenox said that he didn't say that there is a God of the gaps and it's a dollar opponent says well there is a God of the gaps and gaps there will be less gap so God will probably well in the future will be well for proofing that he's not there yeah I noticed that too that actually Lana's was really saying no I don't believe in cut witty caps and then pizza crowd said yes you do believe in the god of the capsule we will continue with that later on I think that's in the interesting question so anyone here who would like to tell a little bit about the discussions you have a little bit upstairs maybe someone here in this part you want to know someone here don't be shy just yes well it's not just about the discussions today but even generally I believe that the whole understanding of science is strongly based on a space-time correlation how exactly does one define God that supposedly exits outside of the space-time framework that that was already something that came up so we could buy my might also add a little bit on that later yes some wonder can you yeah I'm I'm always afraid of losing my microphone but maybe you can come up here or is that possible well Rita we discussed actually the question is that who will be wrong with science ever find the Gaza fingerprints because Christianity might help you to find Gaza fingerprints in science but science itself doesn't necessarily help you to find Gaza fingerprints in science so actually I have a question to Professor Dan Lennox because you proposed rational intelligent guy so without rational I mean the ultimate creator of the universe it couldn't be explained that how the universe works and also how human beings exist now but then how could explain all those seemingly strange or irrational stories of the Old Testament or even of the New Testament so okay yeah yeah so the question is how can a rational God do so many irrational things I I would like to save those questions and those options after the next item on our program so you have to wait a little for the answers if you don't mind because I want to introduce the Hartmann he is associate professor at the Faculty of TPM also here at the Delft University he's also well-known on his sharp columns in the Delta magazine and he is really strong atheist and he talks about that sewed up I will invite you to the stage and I also just learned from Professor Lennox that he is going to read aloud a written column because you cannot you cannot speak a column Emma right now he is going to read aloud a written column he still doesn't agree but he will do his job so you can listen to him whatever you call it is written down and I'm going to read it [Applause] good Mike home is called the god hypothesis and just to keep things simple I will refer to God as he even though God might well be a she or an it or they or he may not exist at all of course in the 19th century physicists believed that there was an ether an invisible space filling substance through which light propagates it was common knowledge that every wave phenomenon needs a medium to support those waves so obviously light waves needed an ether however in 1887 Albert Michelson and Edward Morley performed a famous experiment which proved that there was no ether more precisely they found no evidence of an ether with those properties that the scientists had attributed to it and more importantly it provided direct proof for Einstein's theory of special relativity a theory that still holds strong today for thousands of years people have believed that there is a God a Supreme Being the creator and sustainer of the universe will there ever be a Michelson Morley type of experiment that proves that God too is a flawed hypothesis the answer is no maybe I hear a big sigh of relief vice versa can we prove that God does exist let us assume that there's only two options either God exists or he does not exist if God does not exists then there's obviously nothing to prove if God does exist then the next question is does he want us to find irrefutable proof of his existence now if God does not want us to find such proof then there's nothing we can do about it assuming that God is all-powerful and that he created the entire universe including the gravitational ripples in the 3 Kelvin background radiation and all the giraffes and all the platypuses preventing us from finding scientific proof for his his existence should be a piece of cake that leaves just one option God does allow us to find proof that he exists but in that case he made it very difficult because after thousands of years we still have found no such proof we found planets around other stars we found the Higgs boson but we have not found God it is very simple for God to prove that he exists if on a sunny afternoon God shapes the clouds in the sky to read the message tomorrow at noon greens meantime I God will turn the Eiffel Tower upside down and the next day that actually happens I am converted according to the Old Testament God has awesome power so it should be child's play to perform this small miracle and make me and everyone else on the planet believe in God so clearly God does not want to convert all the unbelievers in this simple and effective way why not apparently God wants you to believe in him without scientific proof this is called faith and it deliberately leaves you in a perpetual state of uncertainty you will despair doubt and maybe even hate God when a devastating earthquake destroys your hometown killing 10,000 people but you will praise and love him again when ten days later an old woman is found alive underneath the rubble here's the thing God only exists because people want him to exist and as long as that makes people happy and they do not harass non-believers there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing wrong with having an imaginary friend God exists in the same way Santa Claus exists we wanted Santa Claus to exist because he brings joy and happiness and let's not forget presence so we made him up throughout history people all over the world wanted to believe that God existed and so they made him up because it's a comforting thought that all things happen for a reason and there is someone out there who loves you and takes care of you in conclusion it is impossible to prove that God does not exist just like it's impossible to prove that there are no green pigs fairies or Smurfs people who believe in God should be grateful for that think about it this way if you honestly believe that there is a God and tomorrow some brilliant scientists proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that God does not exist would you stop believing in God just because he is not real thank you thank you very much stop interesting because you yeah you raise the same points as Peter cloud did about okay if God exists why is he playing hide and seek so why isn't he just revealing himself to us and why do you really have a have to be very good good good scientists to see some fingerprints so professor Leonard's may I ask you to answer that question if you of course you may I'm not convinced about comparing God with Santa Claus ladies and gentlemen because have you ever met an adult that came to believe in Santa Claus and I think this is actually very important the Freudian argument is brilliant and it works provided there is no God he's a wish fulfillment and Germany's top psychiatrist Bamford Lutz has just written the book to make this point if God does not exist the argument that God is a wish fulfillment is brilliant but if God does exist the very same argument proves that atheism is wish-fulfillment the desired never to have to meet God never to have to do with God and so on so Manfred Lutz's bottom line as a psychiatrist is on the substantive question whether God exists or not Freud Jung or Franco can't help you but I think what can help you to come to your question I was a bit puzzled for Peter here and we've been getting on like a house on fire of the in the interval so that God hides himself that's only to a certain extent truth I mean one of the central points I made ladies and gentlemen was my major reason for believing God is that he hasn't hidden himself he's revealed himself in space time in history in Jesus Christ and it's that specificity of the Incarnation life death and resurrection of Jesus and there documentation that for me is by far and away the biggest evidence that God does exist what is often always impressed me about Christianity is this that God doesn't force his way into our thinking if he turned the Eiffel Tower upside down I'd love to read the books by atheists the next day explaining how it happened and that's not going to convince anybody when God came into the world he came in in such a way that did not threaten people they they weren't wiped out by a colossal Display of power God came into the world almost incognito so that people could get to know him and get to see how he cared and so because the big thing at stake to my mind is human love and trust and you don't win that by a display of magic tricks or power you win it by what I believe happened during the Incarnation so I don't think God has hidden himself but he hasn't made himself so obvious that you have to bow down whether you believe it or not because you cannot get people to accept a truth on the basis of force so you have to do it another way and the central message of Christianity is after all that God loved the world not that he was going to impose something by force mm-hmm so that's my initial response to your question thank you so Peter the New Year John Lennox talking about Christ about Jesus saying okay God did revealed himself and he did it in the person of Jesus Christ so yeah I didn't want to touch on that subject because I love that story it's really one of the great legend of the human race in in two weeks from now I'm going to sing it out loud because it is just the history of this culture it is fantastic but we were going to talk about science today and not about legends and I don't know how I should make a distinction between the legend of Jesus Christ and the legend of the native Indians and the legend of Buddha and and all these fantastic stories of the human race so what what can I do to distinguish between all these things that come to me and they are equivalent for me all of them and all of them have had a fantastic evolution in the story when you go back to that story of Jesus Christ it started very differently from what it is now and that's what happens with the stories that we love because people bring this in and they bring that in and and all the great elements are in there but it doesn't it doesn't mean that it needs to be true how do I know mm-hmm but and and can you answer or can it's it possible for you that it could be like that I mean not as a scientist because then of course there are scientists in there that I and and that's what we always try to do when there are contradictions in there you think there must be something wrong that's how you reason as a scientist Peter about natural science I mean the claims of the New Testament teaches us to do with history do you recognize that as a rational dispense not natural science of course but it's a perfectly rational discipline and I think the answer to your question visited is it the legend or not is ancient history because oh come on look at all the history books and how they are changed all over that's what I do not trust history as a description of the actual truth that has happened not about how the how King Arthur came out there - and and and how the the Dutch wars against the Spanish were fought all these things come in there look at at history books and how they are changed over the time if you're a physicist mathematician neither of us is a historian right so what do we do what do I do well I'm not an ancient historian so I consult them and I discovered that there's not a single leading ancient historian that denies the existence of Jesus as amen yes exactly has a man who did well that's a guru has fantastic stories so that's a good place to start what I what I mean is these are unrepeatable you can't use your law of induction on right but what you can do is approach to them by using historical methodology and then of course you can test it than the experience as I hinted at the end of my talk so I think there's a way of getting at them I'm not so despairing of the historians as you are Peter I am a little bit and then and then what what you usually what you usually do about the story of crisis you say there are witnesses yes well we know witnesses right and then I say okay how many witnesses were there we have 12 for rody Dan they say about some others but who were closest to all that happened there the whole Jewish population what did you think about Chris's about Christ they were there all of them is that a question that's a question and well well I'm sorry to interrupt you because there were some other items and I think I think those forms yeah we think this will be the subjects for the next forum about the scientific what is it existence of Christ of Jesus so because there were some other items and indeed one was the god of the cap so pizza you really or sorry first professor Lennox said no I don't believe in God of the gaps and then you accuse well that's maybe not right right word but you said no you do believe in God of the gap so why why did you say that because the the three examples well let's take let's take the example of the human race the human how do you call it not ratio but the the the possibility to reason rationality rationally yeah human rationality cannot be explained by the structure of his brain is basically what you say and I say that's a gap in our scientific knowledge whether it can or cannot mm-hmm okay well let me respond that it was inevitable that this would happen of course because you deal with one aspect of the god of the gaps in your opening presentation that is the idea that God's shoving the moon around and you do science and explains it but if you believe in a God who created the whole show that's not disturbed by that kind of removal of a god of the gap so science gets rid of a whole lot of the gods of the gaps but it seems to me that it relates to what you were saying about explanation going from the simple to the complex that's an ideal but it doesn't always work and what I would suggest to you that there's one notable exception where that doesn't work and it doesn't work in aspects of science and that is whenever you have a semiotic dimension now I tried to make the point but I didn't explain it well enough clearly because if you look at the board you see language and meaning now you would not ascribe what you see up there to an author of the gapps coping with the meaning and the rationality of those words is not within the explanatory power of physics and chemistry so it's a good I distinguish that I've written about this between good gaps and bad gaps the bad gaps are closed by science the good gaps are revealed by science and for instance suppose I go into a cave in China and I'm with an archaeologist and on that cave I see two vertical strokes they're very simple one goes down to the left the other comes from middle down to the right two scratches and I look at those and I ignore them completely and she looks at and says human intelligence that I said don't be so crazy your explanation is infinitely more complicated than the thing you're explaining she says don't be silly this is the Chinese character run which means the human being and the only explanation of those scratches ever simple is in intelligence because they've got a semiotic dimension and it's that what I mean in other words you would never say to that archeologist your postulating a human of the gaps are the intelligence of the gaps it's the nature of the gap that leads you to the intelligence that's a very different thing from the God of the gaps and we instantly perceive if we see the letters of our name inscribed on a bait sur in the sand whatever automatic process is regarded as a black box it is reasonable it seems to me to argue that there's been an intelligent input and for that reason whatever natural processes are involved in the production of DNA it seems to me to be highly reasonable to infer an intelligent input as well as a scientific attitude to it not as a science stopper because when the archaeologist recognizes that this has been written by a human intelligence that's the start of science at a different level she lends say what kind of intelligence was it what kind of culture and so on it doesn't stop science that's what I mean by that kind of inference does that make more sense or is it worse though it only says that you know you're only telling me that there are gaps so big they can't be filled by science No Deal is still a gap yeah it is a gap but do you believe that physics and chemistry has got the explanatory power to cope with semiotic s-- because I mean were stress you mean words I mean words and language oh but that's it made many physicists that say that information is not reducible to mass and energy now do you think it is I'd be very interested information needs a carrier it does but information there on character is not the medium is not the message is not the medium I'm not quite sure that this is what is here it is it's a deep discussion information I agree what every matter has information we have to go to to discussion of entropy and the definition what information is but let's go back to words have you followed what is happening in automatic recognition of language mm-hmm I've tried to follow that that patellas it is computers can read sentences and they can act on sentences and who programmed them that's so now we are coming back so now we're coming back to the question of the intelligent design Oh certainly right it's a very old idea no it is an old idea and there were so many old ideas about where you needed God to explain something and many of those gaps have closed really you have three left now no not a few hundred years ago there were a few hundreds of those yes no no no no you misunderstand me completely when uten got his law of gravity what did he do he wrote the principia mathematica it wasn't I've closed the gap I don't need God it was look isn't it wonderful that God did it that way and he wrote his principia mathematica with a remark in the Flyleaf that he hoped it would persuade the intelligent person to believe in the deity it was his progress in science that of course closed some of what I call the bad gaps that led him to increased worship of God okay so you know good bets good gaps and bad gas yes I think that's right and the bad gaps have been closed and Gotha gaps are the only thing wider and wider science advanced so now could we it's it's too bad we are not going to live long enough yes make it would be great if we could set a bet that in a hundred years there is a description that from the structure of the brain you can get rationality I bet in about a hundred years we'll have that description now with that bet would you be willing to give up the existence of God if that happens well I want to move this after because I think yes sorry I was going to give them the chance of winning a lot of money but you you don't have time to answer but I first want to also introduce another guest that we have and yeah we have to give him time of course because he also have far beautiful things to say probably it's the professor gage Decker he is do I need to introduce you for apparently not distinguished professor here but probably you you already know him also good evening at I'm also asked to to present a column that's not an English verb vert apparently it's a different English word in Dutch we know what it is a column right so enough called it with mind and heart so tonight we're debating the question whether or not God exists with the added twist can science prove that twisted indeed of course the answer to the last question is simple no science cannot prove God and science can also not disprove God there's simply no way that I could go into the lab and do the definite God experiments yet we can search and find God I was reminded reminded by what Jesus Christ Christ called the greatest commandment to love God with all of your heart with all your soul with all your strength and with all of your minds interestingly Jesus emphasizing the love and God with both your heart and your mind likewise I do think that we should search for God with both our heart and with our minds now minds tonight mind takes center stage indeed we can use our minds to weigh the evidence for the existence of God while absolute proof is impossible we can certainly examine many scientific facts that are pointers to the existence of God in such pointers one focus is not so much on the specific scientific scientific results themselves but one reflects on their wider implications think for example of the laws of nature where do they come from a law giver is a natural suggestion or take cognitive psychology where research has shown that children have a natural tendency to believe in God or take the Big Bang we discussed it already the absolute beginning of energy matter space and time what caused that Big Bang what was before it clearly the first cause must have been something you the powerful beyond matter and outside space and time and that's the description that comes pretty close to what most people would call God or take the fine-tuning of the universe I've been impressed by the fact that that cosmos has been found to have exactly those properties that allow for life it could have been otherwise but the physical constants of nature is like the strength of gravity or the beginning state of the universe like its density need to have been extremely precise need to have extremely precise values to enable life these various deduce for example the expansion speed of the universe if the expansion would proceed a tiny bit too rapidly galaxies and stars could not form if a tiny bit too slow universe would collapse before life could evolve and that tiny bit comes ridiculously precise an estimate for the cosmological constant for example indicates a position of 1 in 10 to the power 53 that's like throwing darts to the to a dartboard which is the size of the universe where the dart pin ends up writing the bull's eyes which is the size of your fingertip that's 1 to the power 10 to the power of 53 so what does it all mean random chance simply is not a rational explanation anymore in my opinion this extreme fine-tuning points towards a Provident God who wanted to create a universe with humans and we could go on and on and discuss many such pointers to the existence of God but these questions of the mind are not the full story the god question ultimately is a deep existential question a question of the heart Pascal famously said the heart has its reasons which the mind knows nothing of indeed all of us all of us know the existential questions of the heart Who am I what is the meaning of my life is there a god that you tell me my personal story since my teenage years I've experienced a sense of meaning in life looking at the staggeringly complex world around me I simply cannot convince me myself that all this chain of being is at bottom utterly senseless I have pondered the option of becoming an atheist I have but I cannot persuade myself I would have to declare so many things as illusionary my inner sense of purpose my experiences of God dignity of man altruistic goodwill towards others even my own free will according to atheism these are illusions that my brain tricks with me with ultimately all merely spontaneous eruptions of a random chain of atomic collisions I find this bleak picture of atheism entirely unconvincing by contrast I find faith in God so much more credible the Christian worldview provides a coherent or robust intellectual understanding of reality where all those so-called illusions naturally fall into place purpose men's dignity free will and so on it certainly all makes sense so the essential questions of their hearts pointed me to God in a way that far surpasses the pointers of the mind so let's search for God with all of our mind as we do tonight but surely our also with all of our heart thank you very much [Applause] thank you case Decker also for your addition because you really drawn the discussion also back to our heart which is also very interesting so let's see if we you already want to respond on the hard question okay great that's good okay if you want okay so we know what the heart consists of it's a pump the amps your blood around that is a metaphor but a metaphor for what it's a metaphor for a certain function of your mind okay now we're getting well you you I I'm not sure you're the boss you you you can respond along just very quickly to show him what what you meant by the word heart of course we know that that kind of things that we know lots of we have not of knowledge of our body our heart and mind our brain but I'm a human being I experience things and I take this personal knowledge these personal questions this extends existential questions seriously and I think that's a that's a fair thing to do and it's also a fair thing to bring into a net intellectual debate because it's not only a mind discussion in my view but also a personal discussion of human beings in search from meaning that's my answer to that yes but nevertheless it is a function of your brain that once that makes you want to have this this purpose and and everything you you asked for and it's also a function of your of your brain and your thinking that makes you love and admire you don't understand me still you're basically saying you are your brain right I'm saying I'm a human being with a brain with the minds and with my personal experiences and that's that total human being how do i express it it's a totality of my human human kindness that is important as to recognize it's not only that on my brain if you say I am my brain that's a worldview statement that your worldview philosophy to reduce me to my brain and my physicists don't think it's a real description it is a incredibly complicated thing that happens there absolutely but it is still a function of the molecules and and everything that's in there but if that was true Peter you wouldn't know it but I can about myself I cannot know it but I can know about you no no I can know about someone else I mean if your thoughts are simply the result of pointed out many times and is increasingly being pointed out if you could reduce your thoughts to the mindless operations of atoms then you can't discuss everything rationality disappears so you've destroyed rationality a good description of how it works of rationality but that's meaningless then it comes no it becomes about automatically oh wow you've got great faith old chap this is we are we are back to our bet about over yes in a hundred years yes and in a hundred years I bet you find if you've got a complete description it will involve the input of a mind how much the about me no that is a different discussion you're going back to the history no I'm not going to the future talking about a mind as it is presently here or the one in a hundred years and let's let's take the discussion about how it arose in evolution as a separate discussion but now we can talk and measure our brain works and how it functions and how all the complicated connections there create knowledge and create reason yeah but I understand how those complicated connections came today you see but there's a separate question it is once they are there yes they can describe in terms of atoms and currents what rationality is no they can't I think that is where you that's got to prove to be impossible right and so that's where I say you say this is gap I say this is a gap and I telling I'm making the bet that in a while people will say people like you will say oh there was one of the bad gaps no so I find it very interesting that for the first time in my life the first time in my life I'm discovering leading atheists like Thomas Nagel questioning the whole basis of this philosophy and when was Thomas Nagel just now he's just written a book an explosive book it's subtitle well I tell you what his book is it's called mind and cosmos and this is by a man who says I don't want there to be a god I don't believe in God but he's one of those brilliant philosophers alive and he's written a book called mind and cosmos which is innocent enough but the subtitle is not innocent why the neo-darwinian view of the world is almost certainly false and his argument is precisely this one that we have assumed incorrectly that the mental is reducible to the physical it is not and until we face that we're never going to get anywhere and we're getting so much closer to the proof of that that the state mental is reducible to the physical yes but Nagel is making the philosophical point that I think is perfectly about philosophy yes you are I'm talking about physicists no case Dekker was absolutely right but he said you were making a worldview statement you have a fundamental belief in that reducibility I'm saying that comes out of a worldview no it is my law of induction that I've seen this happen over and over and over every time I go deeper into a question I find that this works and now we are already going deeper into how the brain of simple organisms work and we see that simple organisms by just understanding their neuronal structure we can understand why they do what they do and now it's only simple structures the same that God created right the animals and the the bacteria we can understand those we can understand those in the scientific definition of understanding we can describe those in simpler units like atoms and molecules and sorry to interrupt but but can I ask a question because I I had the impression that there was some miscommunication between the two of you when you were talking about gaps so I think maybe professor lemons also said like in this complexity you said okay it's simple because we already know it now or complex things we will know in the future but it still makes it complex because you see how difficult it is and i think professor lennox said that that that was like a language like a written poem where you can identify a writer behind or and all well that's exactly right yeah so my question and I thought there was some misunderstanding about it but do you understand that comp concept or do you I am afraid that how do I say this politely oh please go ahead I'm afraid that you are a little bit behind on artificial intelligence and and what's happening there in in what computers already can do with language and reacting analyzing language reacting to it and and and the computer is so much more simple than our brain that it is not difficult for me to assume that a brain can can do more than the present-day computer and that one can already do so much with words with language with understanding but I have the slightest problem than that I think you are a little bit behind with real intelligence rather than artificial intelligence let us fight let us define intelligence by which I bade is that all this brilliant work and I've excited about it as you are kei is coming from your brilliant brain it's intelligently designed sir how you go back to the history I think we really should take that separately once we have this brain I we have this blade what that is that's true it's fantastic how that came to be if you if you look at those in the literal sense of the word your account of it is fantasy exactly it's fantastic it is that's fantastic to see how that was created from write created from thank you very much from a simple from a very simple organism going on and developing and then coming out where we are I mean I am amazed every time I see it but then when you look at it at each little step you start to find that the description could work but it is history so it is so difficult to find out how this was done exactly I mean I think you you use the the example you've baked the cake and looking at the cake it's very difficult to find out what what happened in the process so history is difficult to find out but once it's here we can measure we can see we can measure what the structure of neurons can do and that intelligence can come out of it and at some point consciousness all that stuff say and you just don't believe that well I'm touched by your faith as I've said no but my faith is the law of induction I see it coming closer and closer and closer and making a step in another step in another step but you heard about the inductive astir key didn't you I mean it got fed every day for 364 days either they expected to be fed in the 360 v but that was Christmas Day and Bertrand Russell made the point now I of course I agree with you about induction we can't prove induction of course and what I'm saying is that we mustn't allow the success of induction to take our minds away from abduction where we cannot repeat the process I mean I was interested at the very beginning you made the point we never got talking about it perhaps we can't have time to you said about the table you can come to it you can investigate it we can't do that with God I think we can in the sense that we can come to God every day and experience his reality answers to prayer and all that kind of thing no you might not admit that as as valid but it seems to me to be equally valid with your investigation of the table but that's to open up another massive discussion and probably that's that's not fair to nobody in that sense if you want to respond because we do have some time but we I have to consider that there was another question that we need to deal with that was about the rationale God doing irrational things so but all right but if you want to respond on this one baby there I can define a God that exists and then imaginary one or it is to God that you have created yourself in in your brain together with all the others and communicate it about and and and used to to give purpose to your lives and to create values and that is in the end it is something real and I would not deny that and not deny the value of that but you know there's not what I'm claiming no but it is still a definition of God I'm not interested in manufactured God's okay I mean what M to say is the same question love interest be in science it's the truth question no I is not interesting truth oh yes it is science interested in a good description no half a moment you told us that Einstein was a better approximation than Newton proximation - what approximation to reality - what we say in the observation yes I don't you wouldn't do science if you weren't interested at some level in finding the truth out about reality would you if you call a good description of reality the truth about reality ok ok good we can agree on that oh great then then I'll move to this question indeed that we had from the audience about we were talking all about rational things tonight but we also know yeah some stories from history again and and and actually the woman who asked it yes she's thought about it that's irrational so how can a professor Hoffman refer to didn't they and tsunamis and so on it isn't there right yes yes well ladies and gentlemen this is the hard question for me it's a hard question for everybody I believe in God as you heard I come from a nation Northern Ireland which is reputed for religious violence I still believe in God I live in a world which is full of suffering I don't know how many hundred thousand infants have died needlessly since we started our evening and I can sympathise greatly with many of my colleagues who become atheists because of that I have many friends who lost all their family in the Holocaust I've stood and wept in Auschwitz many times and this is a problem I face all the time and it's the number one problem and it's the most difficult problem so give me a couple of moments just to say this is we need a whole evening on this but let me say one or two things firstly I say that atheism claims to solve the problem by saying that's just how life is Dawkins says this universe is just as unique to be if at bottom there's no good no evil and no justice but do you see that strikes me as a non solution because it doesn't remove the suffering it's still there what it does remove is any hope now you might say as Dawkins did to me directly that's it it's bleak that doesn't prove it's false I said Richard that doesn't prove it's true either we need to go deeper than that now one of the reasons ladies and gentlemen one of the biggest bits of evidence for my Christian faith has to do with this problem because we face it all the time I as a human being discover I'm a moral being I discovered a desire for justice is that ultimately an illusion because if there is no God and in particular there's no life after death it is an illusion the vast majority of people who have ever lived will never get justice they'll never get relief they will never have any answers to their hurt a few of us in the West are lucky and we may get some kind of justice in this life now from my point of view I have a problem but you see that is where I would like to suggest to you that Christianity is utterly unique and it doesn't compete with any other religion because no other religion offers me this you see at the heart of Christianity there is a cross and what I see there if that really is God I try and come with me if you want to judge Christianity you have to listen to what it says if that really is God what does that tell me at the very least that tells me this that God has not remained distant from human suffering but has himself become part of it now that to my mind is profound and I can see and have seen many times that becoming a window of possibility for people now you know that the next claim is that Christ did not remain on the cross he died and he rose again well that opens up a vast new world for me it means well it means this and the is my final thought we can argue philosophically all night all year it's been done for thousands of years what a good god should Kurt must might all this kind of thing and have you ever been satisfied by that argument no why not because what we're faced with when all the arguing's finished is a world that's a mixed picture it's a bit like Coventry Cathedral that was bombed during the war you go into it you see that a bombers hit it but you also see traces of beauty look at life look at our world it's beautiful kirpan Wolff phenomenal which I visited for the first time last year and I blew my mind away but I see the barbed wire I see the cancers I see that tsunamis so I'm presented in looking at this world with a mixed picture so how do I face it well I ask this question I can't solve the philosophical question and I say look is there any evidence anywhere in the universe that there's a God who cares and who I can ultimately trust with the answer my answer to that is from personal experience and all that I've said tonight is that they're lower can't answer everything I've learned enough and I'm speaking very personally now because it is a personal thing I believe I can trust God but the answer atheism has no answer whatsoever it has no hope to offer ultimate hope it may have temporal hope and it is utterly no solution ultimately to the problem of evil and suffering thank you for this this III think final comment from you but I I yeah of course sure yeah but I also want to give you of course time to to react on this I mean it was about hope so what kind of hope the science give us science is not there to give hope it's not the purpose of science and if you take it a little bit more personal because a professional energy went personal so maybe you can get a little bit personal what is your hope I mean do you have any hope as as a person it's a sciences that's a person I have found that this kind of hope I don't need to be happy I don't need it to love my children my hope is that my children will have a good life that's enough hope I don't need this kind of Hope I don't need to to get these these complicated stories about suffering and still a god that's that's good it that dad does when I listen to that I feel your emotion but I also feel totally irrationality there it doesn't make sense if you if you have this I'm always I'm always thinking of how to solve this problem right you come with this problem of of suffering and then ice then I think okay make a different model introduce devil or something like that next to the God because then they can fight and and you can go either to hell or to heaven or something like that that's all stated that then you have a better model but back to the personal thing I don't need that hope I am totally happy with the thought that I've been here I've seen the coconut off I have loved my children and at some point I will I will die just like the leaves on a tree die in autumn and then it's over to the cocoa hoof but if you see the earthquake what what do you think then then I say then I think an earthquake oh there must be two of these plates that have been moving there okay is it okay believe it with that or do you want to have no that's I'm sorry I thought so I just wanted the say ladies and gentlemen I find it interesting that he said the death and suffering of Christ didn't mean anything and yet he's got to sing the Matthew Passion yeah that's right that's interesting to me it's beautiful music at that time it was very difficult to get away from the church and write music that was not related to the church because the church was so powerful that they could control what people could do in society it was one of the not-so-great times of Christianity right there was not that much freedom outside and that's why I am so happy that I can sit here and I can talk about my convictions and and we can part as friends and I don't have to be afraid that tomorrow I will end up on on the stake or the fire and I'm that I won't end up either thank you Peter very much [Applause] yes so this ends the discussion here on the stage but the discussion will continue or let me say conversation will continue and I even think after this but citizen knows more about that so my job is also done and I really want to thank you the audience also for your input and your questions it was really great having you here and again our two speakers and of course two columnist we will thank you very much for this evening Thank You Bettina I hope you all enjoyed the forum I did actually and I hope we maybe got a little bit closer to those questions I was talking about in the beginning now I'd like to thank the people who made this possible forum after this forum possible and in the first place that are the guests I'd like an applause for John Lennox and we have something for him [Applause] and I also like to thank Peter cards for sharing it starts with us tonight [Applause] and I I'd like to invite the colonists case Decker and Department up here thank you for your contribution and lost I want to thank Martina for failing thank you for being an excellent house [Applause] I also want to say thank to our sponsors Stud studium koala and deaf project and I want to say thanks to the whole team who made this forum possible thank you [Applause] before this evening is over I want to make a few announcements one is there is a book shop at the exit he has the two books that will will be sold there is one book of John Lennox the Dutch translation of it and I think John will be there to sign them to tomorrow there will be the possibility to have a lunch with John Lennox to ask more questions about topics that we discussed this evening but there will be limited place so if you want to join in that lunch you can come to here and here's a list there are 30 places so if you want to join you can subscribe here the evening will proceed on configure that's the Society of césaire and it's on the outer Delft 9 you will be invited to join us there and the first bottle of beer will be free the last last announcement I want to make is the kickoff of the fundraising campaign for a fair test the organization of the ferret reform isn't without a price and we are setting up a fundraising campaign among graduates and working adults for the getting the money together for the forum and I want to kick it off by showing our promotional video that is made for for it [Music] I fear those forums where incomes of an energy state of Hocus whole bye bye Alice student and the center from hearty welcome sign over theaters forum Stanley fans fracas enter when you start work NACA doctor over very poor till kena Soga Dan my Dakota flag have a little Ava we panic mark agna to become a fact need of knowledge and order and also area merit fear it was having therefore laundering and am bringing it will did speed because for Eric Belanger I calmed up Stu dear and very key in the day to shop but it's an out Maria mark jin-sook and the taking his favor that's a black and a built in the physical form but still delivers column okay you moot x9 theaters for whom common lot tire had the ballpark food over the extra and how to pack from the area and I out the extant order home to stable even a snow-covered except if you seen in its face of autumn is from belong about the professionally tied Hawkins family understand and I thought and claim of supplies units amazing my Okla this winter supportive if stare at in theaters for crows belong on the key fear in me behind ROTC student neither kinda Nazis great the stoppers neither kind enough is Krishna even a new token of a theater school for either Lane before asked on ones and he leaves no toughest players I am worried about over the faculty afternoon in Italy instead infielder for his belong like on the nail on the new hinted at Siemens know they beholden harkens regard couldn't have been and all species rather serious for me [Music] the fiercest form is belong right remove the dissident act support come on well thank you thank you all for coming don't forget to hand in your survey and I hope to see you next time [Applause]

Channel: Het Veritas-forum

Views: 73,962

Rating: 4.6811595 out of 5

Keywords: Veritas-forum, TU Delft, Veritas Forum (Nonprofit Organization)

Id: 7u1w4BzzzwI

Length: 124min 51sec (7491 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 08 2014