When I was about six years old, I went with a friend’s family to a circus. Before the show began, we went into a tent where you could feed peanuts to the elephants. I was so intrigued as I held out a peanut and the huge elephant would reach out with her long trunk and, using it like a hand, take it from me and put it in her mouth. Since then I have loved elephants, as I think most people do.
Yes, elephants are great in circuses (though many are no longer using them in their shows), zoos, and wildlife reserves. However, as we all know, they do not belong in people’s living rooms. So, whenever something is an obvious problem for someone, or a group, that they may try to ignore or deflect, we often say, “They have an elephant in their living room.”
If you read the materials from our website and newsletters you probably know that one of the most prominent modern worldviews is Naturalism. Naturalism asserts that all that really exists is what is seen in the natural universe of time, space, matter, and energy. Its promoters generally reject any form of the supernatural (especially a god), and contend that everything can be, or will be, explained by the fixed laws of nature and physics. They regard humans as just the highest animal species that has evolved by a mindless process of natural selection over millions of years. When this physical life ends, that is all there is – with nothing beyond.
But for all their self-confidence, adherents of Naturalism have elephants in their living room! In other words, there are some facts of science that they cannot explain. So, in many cases they simply choose to ignore them or deflect them by saying science hasn’t had enough time to figure them out (which in some cases is not true – time has already run out).
So what are these proverbial elephants in the room of Naturalism? In this article we will examine three of them. Appropriately, we will call them “JUMBOs”.
Jumbo #1 – The Origin of the Universe
Perhaps the greatest discovery of the 20th Century took place in June of 1964. Two scientists at Bell Laboratories, Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, using a somewhat rustic radio telescope, were listening for microwave transmissions from far away stars. In the process, they noticed that they kept receiving a very low level of continuous background microwave energy no matter where they pointed the telescope. At first they thought it was caused by some flaw in the equipment, or even bird droppings in the telescope itself. After checking out all the possible problems and seeing that the background noise still remained, they did some investigation and realized that years before Albert Einstein had predicted just such a phenomena if the universe had begun at single moment of time. The two men had discovered what has become known as Cosmic Background Microwave (CBM) radiation.
That discovery, along with many others since then, has virtually proven that the universe had a beginning from nothing. That is to say, all time, space, matter, and energy existing in the natural universe came into being in an instant from nothing before. That fact presents a major problem for the Naturalistic worldview. How could everything that exists come from absolutely nothing? (And when we say “nothing” we mean nothing in the sense of no time, no space, no matter, no energy at all. What I call “nothing nothing.”)
Of course Christian Theism says that God created the universe Ex nihilo (from nothing). Only a supernatural conscious being existing outside of time and space with infinite power could cause the universe to come into being. But for the Naturalist it is an elephant in the living room!
Jumbo #2 – The Origin of the Laws of Nature
So while the origin of the universe poses an inexplicable problem for Naturalism, another related issue is just as problematic. Naturalists like to talk about the fixed Laws of Nature.They point to the amazing way that mathematics and physics can explain the way the physical universe works, even to the smallest degree of atomic and subatomic particles. As Galileo once said, perhaps a bit sarcastically, “Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.”
It is certainly true that science has been able to find rational explanations for many phenomena in nature. But not all. There are some physical phenomena that defy logical explanation, such as Quantum Particle Entanglements, which Einstein called “Spooky action at a distance.” In any case, Naturalism is at a loss to explain why the laws of nature are as they are and why they are as finely tuned so that the universe can exist the way it does. If those laws were different by even the smallest percentages, the balance of physics would not allow the universe as we know it to exist. It would either collapse on itself or expand so rapidly as to destroy itself.
Christian Theists assert that God designed the laws of nature and fine tuned them to just the right degree for the universe to develop, and for humanity to live and thrive on earth. But, for Naturalism, it remains an elephant in the living room.
Jumbo #3 – The Origin of Life
When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, he claimed to have discovered how the various forms of life evolved and diversified into different species by the random process of natural selection. He argued that all life had originated from a single, one celled organism. Then over millions of years, by natural selection and survival of the fittest, life developed into higher and higher forms of life culminating in humanity.
The only thing Darwin did not try to explain was how that first organism was formed to start with. He, like many after him, probably believed in the primordial soup theory. That is, that some where a warm pool of random chemicals settled together, and by some unknown natural force generated the first living cell. Of course Darwin did not understand just how complex are even the simplest forms of life. In the years since Darwin, biologists have learned enormous amounts of information about the chemical components of living things. They have also tried many times to synthesize those chemical components to create simple life in a laboratory. And while they have been able to synthesize some biological chemicals and enzymes, they have yet to even come close to actually creating a living cell. As time goes on, they learn how life is even more complex than they ever imagined.
Christian Theism looks at the amazing design of life and sees the handy work of a mind and engineer far beyond the scope of human ability. God designed and made life in all its complexity, and we are just beginning to understand His infinite genius.
Perhaps someday scientists will synthesize a living cell. But even if they do it will not alleviate the elephant in the room that plagues the Naturalist concerning the origin of life. In fact, it may even exacerbate it. If all the most brilliant biologists and scientists in the world, working for over a hundred years, have not been able to unlock the secret to making life, then how can they possibly claim that it happened completely by chance? Scientists have set up laboratory systems containing precisely what they think is necessary to bring about wanted results. But even with that they have not succeeded. Can pure chance do better? That is an elephant too big for the living room of Naturalism!
Yes, elephants are wonderful animals. But they need to stay where they belong. They just don’t fit in people’s houses. The same can be said for ideas that don’t fit people’s ideologies, yet they can’t explain them away. In this article we have looked at three such concepts that challenge the naturalistic worldview, yet fit very well into Christian Theism.
Comment 1 : “Evolution is guesses about history. How can we rely on that the interpretations of the evidence are correct, as opposed to other interpretations?”
Reply: “”Simple, by other people doing them, and even you can go do them. However lacking belief in one thing does not mean something else is automatically true. So you might lack belief in evolution and other facts about the universe, but that doesn’t mean God is real.””
Evolution is, indeed, guesses about history, but guesses based on naturalistic worldview beliefs. The problem with that is that Naturalism requires empirical proof as a part of its evidentiary system. It is fine for science to put forth hypotheses, then try to prove or disprove them using empirical means, but it is not permissible to simply throw out guesses — and that is all evolutionary scientists do. Science has NEVER given ANY proof that demonstrates naturalistic evolution to be true (or even possible) based on its own requirements. Belief in naturalistic evolution is a religious belief, not a scientific one.
And of course, lack of belief in one thing is not proof that something else is true. But Christians have never claimed that, so your observation really doesn’t address what Christians believe and why they believe it. When you begin with the assumption that Naturalism is true, which you seemingly do based on this and previous statements you have made, you dismiss out of hand worldview beliefs that don’t fit your paradigm — without giving any reason for your dismissal. What you don’t seem to understand is that God is not subject to empirical verification. Science can only deal with things that exist as a part of the natural universe. God exists outside of that, and in fact is the Creator of the natural universe. Beyond that, human beings are not merely natural creatures, but we have an objectively real spiritual part to our existence that is able to interact with God because He made us with that capacity. We don’t believe in God because we can so some science experiment to prove He exists, but because He has revealed Himself to us and we have opened our lives to Him to engage in a personal relationship.
It is actually possible for you to know Him to, but not until you are willing to put aside your limiting naturalistic religion and open your life to Him.
“objectively real”
“Theres the thing. We dont know if there is a soul or not. We can only believe.
Plus, how would you defend it?”
“an old belief — based on the Bible — that the “firmament” used to refer to a belief that the stars were decorations on a very high ceiling.
YEC was never accepted because the “evidence supported it,” it was accepted because there was no alternative proposed. One of the earlier proposals of a counterclaim was done by Kelvin, who computed based on heat transfer physics that the earth can be no less than 30,000 years old — and that was before anybody could have known that the core stays hot by radioactive decay.”
Your observation can only be true if a naturalistic worldview is true. Objectively real doesn’t mean that it can be empirically verified, it means that it actually exists. Obviously you don’t believe that a transcendent reality exists, so it is understandable that you would comment the way you have. But for your argument to have any validity, you have to demonstrate your own beliefs empirically – which you can’t do. Without that, you have done nothing more than give your opinion based on nothing. You have made a religious statement, not a scientific one.
The fact that God can’t be proven using empirical methods does not mean he doesn’t exist. It means that He exists outside of the natural universe and is not constrained by natural laws. We can know this as we make a personal connection with Him by faith in Jesus Christ. That is possible because God is “objectively real,” and has made human beings to have a spiritual part that is capable of knowing Him. If you would ever take that step, you would know what you can’t know by denying it.
As for the last part of your argument, you are once again arguing as if there is no transcendent reality. Until you are able to demonstrate using an empirical methodology that the naturalistic assumptions you are basing your argument on is true, you are doing nothing more than sharing your religious point of view.