The Scientific Shift Toward God
Tom Griffin /
Recent advanced scientific evidence points to the existence of God.
This is the provocative thesis of Michel-Yves Bollore and Olivier Bonnassies’ book, “God, the Science, the Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution.” The book was originally published in French and was recently translated into English. Its authors claim there is little proof for the age-old assertion that knowledge of the cosmos encourages atheism. The more we discover about the universe, particularly its genesis, the more evidence we have pointing to the need for a Creator.
Bollore and Bonnassies have written a comprehensive analysis (over 500 pages) of the newest scientific evidence, along with the history of scientific research stretching back to the 16th century. They argue that the pendulum is swinging toward a belief in God because of science, not despite it. The following does not serve as a book review of the work but seeks to shine a spotlight on their findings, which can help embolden one’s faith and provide arguments against those who claim there is no proof for God’s existence.
Much of the science that points to a creator relates to the expansion of the universe. The Big Bang theory is perhaps the best-known example. It was created by a Catholic priest named Fr. Georges Lemaitre, who held a Ph.D. from MIT. In 1927, he published a paper arguing, in part, that there is a law of proportionality between how far a galaxy was from the Earth and how fast it was moving away from the Earth. This was later confirmed by the Hubble telescope in 1929.
Universal expansion impacts a tremendous number of things in physics and astronomy. It means there must have been a starting point of expansion, a beginning. It also means that there will be a thermal death of the universe, which is also proven through other means in modern science. Bollore and Bonnassies explain it this way: “The Universe is like a fire crackling away in a fireplace. Subject to the laws of thermodynamics, both are designed to burn themselves out over time … eventually only a handful of embers are left smoldering, until they too begin to go out, one by one.”
The rate of the dwindling of the fire can be measured through strict mathematical considerations. If the measurement of its dwindling can be demonstrated, then we can prove that the fire has not always existed. If the fire had always existed, then it would have burned out an infinitely long time ago. This metaphor is applicable to the thermal death of the universe. Since this can be measured it means that the universe has not always existed (otherwise it would have burned out by now).
All the data from modern science leaves us with two possibilities: “a creator God or pure chance,” writes Bollore and Bonnassies. So, they spend much time explaining how the likelihood of it being true is so magnificently small that there must be a God. Here are a few examples.
In the nanoseconds following the Big Bang, there are certain constants in the universe that are established. These constants are measured and always the same. They provide the foundation for how the universe operates, expands, and is able to sustain existence.
One specific example would be the mass density of the universe. This explains the absence of curvature in the universe. If this number varied infinitesimally, even at the 60th decimal place, the universe would not exist. The cosmologist Trinh Xuan said that the improbability of this number being randomly crafted (without order from a creator) can be compared with the improbability of an archer firing a bow and arrow and hitting a target that is 1 square centimeter in diameter, 15 billion light-years away. “In other words,” he said, “the probability is zero.”
Overall, scientists have been able to calculate that the odds of our universe existing from random chance are 10 to the 60th power. As a contrast, there are roughly 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand in the Sahara Desert.
This book by Bollore and Bonnassies—along with many other recent works and discoveries—is dispelling the myth that increased scientific knowledge leads away from faith. In fact, it reveals that it is more plausible to believe in God than to believe that the universe came from a random act. It takes more blind faith to be an atheist than a believer—simply consult science to find out why.
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