A Working Faith In An Age Of Science: Science And Religion In Harmony

By Ken Dutton

If you suspect that religion is just outdated superstition, left over from a less sophisticated age, you may well wonder how it is that many well-educated scientists can also have an active religious faith. On the other hand, if you have a genuine religious faith, but are not particularly well informed about science, then you might view the world of science and technology as a threatening place in which to try to justify (or even admit to) your faith,

This book is intended for anyone described above. The author has been both a professional scientist and an active Christian for about 40 years, and his book equally defends both good science and faith in God.

The book is aimed at any interested reader from late teenage onwards. Specialist terminology from both science and theology is avoided where possible, and explained where it cannot be avoided. The book's introduction includes a list of 21 interesting questions which are addressed in the book, some of which are questions which have arisen more than once in question-and-answer sessions following talks given by the author.

The science in this book is written in a “popular science” style, and there is more of it than in most books on this topic. There is sufficient science to indicate how scientists go about their work, how much science has achieved, and how reliable its results might be. One reason for that is to encourage religious people to realize that good science cannot simply be dismissed without good reason. Another reason is to highlight some of science’s limitations.

The religious aspects of the book include an indication of what religious people really believe (as opposed to the stereotypes propagated by some atheistic writers), and how such beliefs can actually assist scientists in understanding more aspects of the way the universe seems to be.

Some of the areas visited are:
•Achievements and limitations of science
•Creation
•Evidence for God’s existence
•Evolution
•Free will
•How God might act in the world
•Miracles
•Prayer
•Suffering

The author is a highly qualified professional engineer, and thus very much an applied scientist. He has also been an active Christian for 40 years. Every project he has worked on, during 10 years of research and development in industry, and whilst acting as a consultant during 30 years as a university lecturer, has had to work in the real world. His faith has to do that too, and the pragmatic approach of the professional engineer is evident throughout the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Dutton
• Release date: Aug 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9780992965921

Ken Dutton

General•Born in Sheffield, England.•Chartered professional engineer.•Qualifications etc: BSc, PhD, CEng, FIET, FInstMC.•Married for 39 years.•Two daughters.•One granddaughter.Christianity•Attended Greenhill Methodist Church, Sheffield, England, since before birth.•Occasionally ejected from Sunday school, due to disruptive behaviour. Father inevitably not amused!•Excellent knowledge of science, for his age, prevented him "becoming a Christian" in his mid- to late-teens.•Learned more about the relationship between science and Christianity by reading / praying.•Became a Christian at age 22.•Now a speaker and author on the relationship between science and religion.Science•BSc and PhD in control systems analysis and design.•Chartered engineer - so an applied scientist, as opposed to a pure scientist such as a theoretical physicist.•Elected a Fellow of two UK engineering institutions.•Ten years working in process control research and development in the steel industry.•Obtained PhD (on automatic control of flatness when rolling stainless steel) whilst working full-time in the industry - mainly on other projects!•25 years full-time lecturing in control system analysis and design at Sheffield Hallam University.•Took early retirement in 2010, but still does some carefully-selected university lecturing.• Is still retained by the University to carry out an idustrial liaison role.

Book preview

A Working Faith in an Age of Science

science and religion in harmony

Ken Dutton

Hemhill Books

Published by

Hemhill Books

website: http://www.hemhillbooks.com

e-mail: [e-mail]

Copyright Ken Dutton, 2014

http://www.kendutton.com

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be distributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copies from their favorite authorized retailers. Thank you for your support.

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Front cover images from photographs provided by the author.

Back cover background from a watercolour by Hilary Bradley.

Scripture quotations taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984

by International Bible Society. Used by permission.

ISBN (Smashwords version) 978-0-9929659-2-1

ISBN (Paperback version) 978-0-9929659-0-7

To

Lizzie, Suzie and Katie

With love

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction – Interesting Questions

A few questions

About this book

About the Author

Chapter 1 Science and Religion – What’s the Problem?

Conflict or harmony?

What is the scientific method?

Faith and science

Different types of explanation

Chapter 2 Science and Religion – Some Wider Issues

What is the problem with proof?

Nothing buttery

Where is the god of the gaps?

Surely it’s not all intellectual?

Moving on

Chapter 3 Uncertainty and Unpredictability

Does the universe run like clockwork?

Uncertainty

Unpredictability

Why does this matter?

Chapter 4 Creation

How did we arrive at 21st century science?

In the beginning – why the ‘big bang’ idea?

What other evidence is there for the big bang?

What happened in the very early universe?

The proportion of helium in the universe

The cosmic microwave background radiation

Religious aspects of the big bang

Chapter 5 The Structure of the Universe

Where did the stars come from?

How many stars?

The lives of the stars

How was the carbon for life formed?

Chapter 6 The Evolution of Life

Cells, genetics and DNA

Towards the origin of life?

Intelligent design?

Chapter 7 Science, the Bible and Morals

How do science and Genesis compare?

Is that the best approach?

What does Christ have to do with creation?

The moral law

Chapter 8 What is the Fine-Tuning of the Universe?

What does fine-tuning mean?

Are simple explanations enough?

Chapter 9 A Few Examples of Fine-Tuning

The Goldilocks zone

The existence of carbon

The forces of gravity and electromagnetism

The strength of the strong nuclear force

Dark matter and dark energy

The smoothness of the universe

The masses of the proton and neutron

What can we conclude from this?

Chapter 10 Free Will and Free World

What does God have to do with free will?

Does the universe make itself?

Chapter 11 Does God Act in the World?

Prayer

How might God be able to act?

Miracles

Non-obvious actions of God

Chapter 12 Drawing it All Together

Drawing it all together

Before You Go

Endnotes

Index

Acknowledgements

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For more than 45 years I have been helped by the writings of a large number of authors, of various persuasions. Whenever I refer to their work, I accept full responsibility for my interpretation of it, and for omitting their closely reasoned supporting arguments, in order to keep this book suitable for a general readership. Those writers have all gone about their tasks much more rigorously than some of my brief interpretations might suggest.

I am extremely grateful to my wife, Liz, who didn’t expect me to spend so much time producing another book immediately after I had ‘retired’. She has supported me throughout, and is always a source of love, affection, good humor and good sense. Many others of my family and friends have been consistently helpful and encouraging during the writing of this book, and I thank them too – you know who you are.

Finally, special thanks go to those who gave up their time to make helpful comments about various aspects of the book: Ian Bell, Liz Dutton, Naomi Gordon, Tim Hanstock, Iris Harris, Zoë Hobson, Alison Hull, Rob Keen, Jane Pettinger, Mick Rolley and David Wilkinson. Four of these good folk were kind enough to provide comments on the entire manuscript.

As a result of the various suggestions, the book is at least 33 percent shorter than the original draft, and much more readable. I ignored some perfectly valid suggestions though, so the responsibility for any shortcomings in the final result rests firmly with me.

I am happy to receive any comments via my website at

http://www.kendutton.com

Ken Dutton

Sheffield,

July 2014

Introduction – Interesting Questions

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Since you have picked up this book, you are probably interested in the relationship between science and religion. Excellent! Those two areas of knowledge have perhaps had a greater influence than anything else on the development of our modern societies.

Both science and religion have valuable things to say about the universe and our place in it, but in order fully to appreciate the relationship between them and the contribution that each can make, it is necessary to have a significant level of knowledge in both areas. Starting on the next page is a list of interesting questions, which demonstrates this requirement quite well.

To someone who knows a lot of science, but relatively little about religion, religion can seem distant from her every-day world, perhaps even completely irrelevant. Occasionally though, it might get uncomfortably close – at those times when religion is blamed for wars and terrorist attacks, for example.

On the other hand, if someone has a religious faith, but is not particularly well informed about scientific matters, the world of science and technology might seem a threatening, unapproachable place in which to try to explain his religious views. Incidentally, I don’t like the words ‘religion’ and ‘religious’, but the reasons for that can wait until later.

It took me many years to satisfy myself that there need be no real disagreements between science and religion, and that I could hold an authentic religious faith at the same time as being a professional scientist. This book will have fulfilled its purpose if it helps you to learn something new about the relationship between science and religion, in a much shorter timescale than it has taken me.

This Introduction ends with a short section containing a little about my qualifications for writing the book but, before that, here’s an introduction to some of the things we shall be considering later.

Note that clicking on a number in square braces, such as this [1], will take you to the appropriate note at the end of the book. Usually, clicking on the number of that endnote will then bring you back to your previous location in the text. However, please see the list of exceptions at the start of the endnotes section. The endnotes can be ignored if you wish, but they do provide extra information and more detailed explanations.

A few questions

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Over many years I have given occasional talks to various groups about the relationship between science and religion. Both the talks themselves, and the question-and-answer sessions after the talks, have covered some fascinating questions.

The idea for this book arose from the desire to present some of the material from my talks, and listeners’ questions, which might be helpful to a wider audience.

There follows a list of some of the interesting questions considered later in the book:

How do scientists actually go about their work?

What are the limitations of the scientific approach?

What different types of explanation might there be for any given situation? For example, is the kettle boiling because of heat energy being transferred to the water from the heating element, which has an electric current flowing though it? Or is it boiling because I want a hot drink? If you’ve not come across this illustration before, note that the ‘scientific’ explanation is about the mechanisms and processes, whereas the alternative explanation is about the purpose, or intention involved. Neither of the two explanations needs to make any reference to the other; both are correct, and both are necessary for a full understanding of the situation.

How should the writings in ancient holy books be interpreted? Our present scientific method of analyzing things didn’t emerge until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so it seems illogical to interpret them as modern science texts. Perhaps they are more about the second type of explanation in the previous paragraph – more concerned with purposes than with mechanisms and processes. Could those purposes lie in the Mind of God?

What do religious people actually believe? The media in general, and overtly atheistic writers and broadcasters in particular, tend to propagate caricatures of religious belief and behavior. Ill-informed caricatures of religion, or even deliberately misleading ones, bear little relationship to the genuine article and are easy targets; the real thing is not so easy to dismiss.

How does the scientific view of the creation of the universe relate to the religious view that God created it, and that he[2] holds it in being from moment to moment?

Why do most scientists think that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old? If you think that it is of a different age, what are the consequences of believing that?

Is evolution, as built on the ideas of Mendel and Darwin, a good scientific theory? If so, what are the consequences for holding other views?

Even though Genesis (the first book of the Jewish and Christian scriptures) is not a science text, how well does its bronze-age creation account stack up against our best scientific descriptions?

Assuming that God exists, if he is all-loving and all-powerful, why is there so much suffering in the world?

Does God answer prayers, or can it always be put down to coincidence?

If God does answer prayers, are there any that he cannot answer? If there are, where does that leave the idea that he is all-powerful?

If God is all knowing, is he perhaps a bit incompetent too, given that the world sometimes seems to be in such a mess?

Christianity suggests that you and I can have personal relationships with God. However, given the scale of the universe, it seems that we might have appeared by chance, on an insignificant speck of dust, orbiting a star which is only one of at least 200 billion stars in our galaxy (that’s two hundred thousand million). Our galaxy is then only one of perhaps 100 billion galaxies, in a universe that, some suggest, is only one of a vast number of universes. So why on Earth should God care about us?

Why is it that the laws of nature seem to have ‘already’ been built into the universe at the instant of creation – where did they come from?

Why is it that the fixed numbers which we use in those laws of nature (such as the speed of light, and the gravitational constant) seem to have ‘already’ been in existence when the universe was created – where did they come from?

Why is it that we can apply the laws of nature at any time and in any place and get the same results?

Given that the laws of nature are so regular, if God exists is he able actually to do anything by way of directly acting in the universe? For example, can he grant miraculous answers to prayer? If he is able to do such things, how is it that we can actually discover those consistently regular laws of nature at all? Instead, shouldn’t we be experiencing a chaotic series of unpredictable miracles, making science impossible because there would be no regular, repeatable patterns of behavior to be observed?

If we assume that God has given us free will to make our own choices in life, can he act without infringing the free will he has given?

Why would a supposedly loving God create hell, and then allow some (presumably bad) people to be born, knowing that they would be condemned to spend eternity there?

Would you have to disengage your brain in order to be able to believe in a god?

About this book

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There are many good books available that would help in answering the questions in the previous section. However, I have not seen one that compares favorably with this book in all of the following aspects:

The author has been both a highly qualified professional scientist, and an active Christian, for almost 40 years.

The author is a chartered engineer – and the uniquely pragmatic approach of the engineer is evident throughout the book.

You don’t need a degree to understand this book. Specialist technical words are avoided where possible, and explained where they cannot be avoided.

There are very few books which cover everything mentioned in this one, and even fewer that do so in an introductory manner using non-specialist language.

There is more explanation of the scientific aspects in this book, than in most others in this area. The science is covered in a ‘popular science’ style, in keeping with the book’s introductory ethos.

The best of the competitive books tend to be much more expensive than this one.

There is a wide range of views about the relationship between science and religion. In my late-teenage years, my own viewpoint might have been summarized as, ‘fairly knowledgeable about science, sympathetic to religion, but unable to match the two together – and, as a result, tending to stick with the science’.

Within the more fundamentalist reaches of religion, there are those who will not accept scientific results, however well researched they may be, if the science seems to contradict their religion. In science, there are some who could also be called fundamentalists. They claim that anything worth knowing can be explained by the methods of science; if something cannot be scientifically tested, it is considered to be of little value. Religion, to such people, simply looks like outdated superstition, left over from a less-enlightened age.

Both those sets of people, and those of many shades of opinion in between, can benefit from considering the questions posed in the previous section. In looking at questions that arise at the interface between science and religion, this book seeks to foster mutual understanding between those two ways of viewing the universe and our place in it.

In doing so it presents details of sufficient science to ensure that less-scientific readers can gain an understanding of how science works, what its limitations are, and why its properly researched results must be taken seriously.

In parallel, it describes how religious ideas can sit side-by-side with the modern scientific results. It explains that the existence of God can never be logically proved or disproved, and that therefore we can each decide for ourselves whether God might be, in fact, the best explanation for the way some things seem to be.

The book acknowledges the tendency of some religious people to use God as an explanation for anything they don’t understand, but it also demonstrates that such gaps in our knowledge have often been closed as our scientific understanding has advanced. It therefore advises against that kind of approach.

Instead, it emphasizes some of the areas where religion can contribute to our knowledge using the types of explanation which science cannot offer, because of science’s self-limitation of the types of problem it can address. This section ends with a brief summary of the structure of the book.

The book was written with the intention that it would be read from front to back, in sequence. However, some parts may occasionally go a bit too deeply into the science for some readers. In such cases, as you read, there are suggestions as to where you may skip material if you wish, though you may miss something important if you do. The following chapter summaries indicate what you will find in each chapter, and therefore what you might miss if you read the chapters out of sequence.

The first two chapters are introductory, and include more detail about several of the ideas we have already mentioned.

Chapter Three looks at two relatively recent ideas in science. As a result of these, we now know that it is impossible for science to generate a completely ‘clockwork’ description of the universe. This is important because, over the years, some scientists have always predicted that such a description would remove the need for God altogether; many people who are unaware of the material in Chapter Three still believe that. In fact, it turns out that we shall never be able accurately to predict how a lot of the systems we analyze will behave as they propagate into the future. As one specific example, these ideas indicate that accurate long-term weather forecasting will never become a reality. For some people, the type of information in this chapter makes it intellectually acceptable to consider that God might exist, and might be acting in the world in ways that do not compromise the findings of science.

Chapters four to six are largely presentations of the main, currently accepted, scientific ideas of creation and evolution. They constitute a mini popular-science introduction to the big bang theory, the formation of galaxies and stars, the nuclear reactions in stars that generate all the chemicals we need for life, the basic ideas behind evolutionary theories, and some of the workings of DNA, chromosomes and genes. As well as indicating how carefully science has gone about analyzing these areas, and how reliable the results are, these chapters also indicate some of the areas where science does not go, because they are unsuitable for scientific testing and analysis. Religious ideas can safely be proposed to fill this type of ‘gap’, as science will not close such gaps in the future. These ideas are complementary to the science, not competitive alternatives to it.

The first part of Chapter Seven looks at the apparent discrepancies between the first two chapters of Genesis (the first book of the Jewish and Christian scriptures) and the scientific ideas of creation and evolution. These have been a point of contention between some Christians and others for over 150 years. Although the overall view of this book is that Genesis was not intended to be a science text, the comparison between Genesis and science is an interesting one. The latter part of Chapter Seven considers the fact that we all seem to have an idea of what is right and wrong, and that the more fundamental parts of this knowledge seem to be independent of cultural influences.

Chapters eight and nine look at the fact that several unlikely coincidences must have occurred in order for Earth to exist, and for us to exist on it. Specific examples are given of some of these coincidences, which are unlikely to an extreme degree. The basic suggestion is that science can really only say that these are very unlikely coincidences, whereas religion can propose that God had a purpose for the universe and set things up accordingly. The attempts of some scientists to provide alternative answers seem at least as speculative as the God idea.

Chapter 10 looks at the notions that we have free will to choose what we shall do, and that the universe has freedom, in some sense, to ‘make itself’. God is linked to both these ideas, and Chapter 11 goes on to consider how, if the ideas of Chapter 10 are correct, God might be able to act in the world without infringing those ‘freedoms’ that he is assumed to have given. There is also the problem of how God might be able to act without upsetting the regular workings of the universe on which the progress of science depends. In discussing these things, Chapter 11 also looks at how prayer and miracles fit into all of this.

Finally, Chapter 12 draws together the various threads that have run throughout the book. In discussing all the various matters outlined above, the book has been gradually gathering some of the pieces of evidence for the existence of God; Chapter 12 summarizes them.

About the Author

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Here’s a little more about my background, to help you understand my approach and biases whilst you’re reading.

From a very early age I displayed an excessive interest in all things scientific and technical. I always chose science and mathematics options at school, and my first degree is in a very technical area of engineering. I eventually achieved Chartered Engineer status, and was elected a Fellow of two of the United Kingdom’s professional engineering institutions.

All this makes me very much an applied scientist, rather than a pure scientist such as a theoretical physicist. Everything I have designed, whilst working in industry, and as a consultant during my university career, has had to earn its keep. Unusually, I even carried out my PhD whilst working full-time in industry, because it fitted in with the research and development work I was doing on the automatic control of a difficult industrial process.

I spent 10 years as a research and development engineer in the steel industry, so I have a very pragmatic approach – my science has to work in the real world.

I have spent almost 30 years as a university lecturer, in a branch of engineering that some students can find difficult, and I co-wrote a major university textbook in that area. I am used to explaining complex things in straightforward language.

My pragmatic approach extends to my thinking about the relationship between science and religion. My religion also has to make sense in the real world, and there cannot be any contradiction between it, and my knowledge of science.

Because I am a Christian, there is an unavoidable Christian bias in the religious aspects of this book. Since I anticipate a predominantly ‘western’ readership, that doesn’t necessarily matter. However, from my contact with people of other faiths, I know that many of the ideas will still be of interest to them. I have not set out overtly to preach Christianity in this book, but I do have to refer to it because it is the faith about which I am most knowledgeable.

I have attended a Christian church since birth, but I didn’t feel able to take the step of becoming a Christian until the age of 22. The main reason for that was my knowledge of science in my mid- to late-teenage years.

At that time, it seemed to me that the predominant view in my church was that the universe had been created in six days, as suggested by a literal reading of the first two chapters of the Christian Bible. My knowledge of the ‘big bang’ theory of creation, for which I knew there was excellent scientific evidence, meant that I therefore found myself at odds with what I thought I was expected to believe in the church. To a lesser extent, the same applied to my knowledge of the scientific thinking on evolution.

Those problems were solved by starting to read books about the relationship between science and faith, rather than just the books about science that I had been reading ever since I was old enough to do so.

My hope is that the distillation of some of my reading, thinking and discussions, in this introductory book, will be of some help to you too.

Chapter 1 Science and Religion – What’s the Problem?

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The chances are that you live in