An Honest Debate.com

This week I had an opportunity to debate a passage in the book of Genesis with a Christian friend. Ironically, my argument with my friend is a mirror image of my recent debates with my atheist friends both here and at DifferHonestly.com. What made this debate even more ironic was that it was based on the same set of facts I have been using in my arguments with unbelievers, Big Bang and its implications.

In my debates with my atheist friends I have been trying to make the case that Genesis 1:1 — and dozens of other passages that say the same thing — were right all along and that science has only recently caught up. You see, the Genesis 1 is Unique among all of the world’s creation myths in that it declares that the universe is finite, that it had a beginning, and that it was created out of nothing. Further, the Bible uniquely posits a transcendent God as the cause for it all. In recent days Science has been drug kicking and screaming to the same conclusion (except for the part about God, though some have come around). My position was well stated by Gregg Easterbrook in an article Wired Magazine, in December 2002:

“Look up into the night sky and scan for the edge of the cosmos. You won’t find it — nobody has yet. Instruments such as the Hubble Space Telescope’s deep-field scanner have detected at least 50 billion galaxies, and every time the equipment is improved, more galaxies farther away come into focus. Space may be infinite — not merely vast, but infinite — encompassing an infinite number of galaxies with an infinite number of stars.

All this stuff — enough to form 50 billion galaxies, maybe fantastically more — is thought to have emerged roughly 14 billion years ago in less than a second, from a point with no physical dimensions. Set aside the many competing explanations of the big bang; something made an entire cosmos out of nothing. It is this realization — that something transcendent started it all — which has hard-science types….using terms like “miracle.”

Arno Penzias, winner of the Noble Prize for his part in the discovery of the background radiation that confirmed big bang, said it this way:

“The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing more to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole.”

In arguing with my atheist friends I have tried to make the point that given the facts, certain cosmological explanations have to be taken off the table. For example, there can be no material, natural or physical explanations for the origin of the universe because matter, nature, physics and time and space itself, did not exist prior to Big Bang. And since the effect can not be its own cause, the explanation for Big Bang has to be, as Greg Easterbrook has said, transcendent (beyond time, space and matter).

This argument has created a bit of a stir. I’ve even received the brilliant analysis of a Dr. of Cosmology, Dr. Jason Dick, who made this memorable statement that his…

“hypotheses are well supported by theories.”

But as I pointed out to the good Doctor, his arguments and theories are, at the present time, unsupported by facts. This leaves us with nothing to support them other than what Neuroscientists, Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary have referred to as, “promissory materialism;” the hope that someday we will find an answer that will enable us to escape going to the place the facts on the table are pointing us.

The irony here is these same people say they do not believe in God because of an absence of evidence, yet the have no problem believing in a non-supernatural hypotheses for the origins of the universe in spite of an absence evidence. But when I see someone refusing to accept the facts on the table based on the hope that someday there will another explanation, I recognize that I am not seeing a commitment to follow truth wherever it leads, but a commitment to a non-supernatural explanation.

This brings me to my argument with my Christian friend. Historically there have been a number of interpretations for the first two chapters of Genesis. I have been arguing that if there is a unity of truth, then the facts currently on the table eliminate some of these interpretations and favors certain others (mine, naturally).

My friend has a scientific background (he has an undergraduate degree in a branch of science), yet he is currently enamored with an interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis that I believe has been refuted by what we now know about the origins of the universe. But here’s the Irony, he is using the same argument as my atheist friends.

Based on his knowledge, my friend is arguing that just as science finally confirmed the finiteness of the universe and a transcendent cause, it may someday discover something that will put his favored interpretation of Genesis back on the table. He has also pointed out that we were wise in continuing to insist that that the universe and a transcendent cause even though scientist were telling us it was eternal. His point? We should not let science dictate our interpretations of scripture.

I agree with his argument with respect to scientific theory, but when the facts are in we have to deal with their implications. But like my atheist friends, my Christian friend refuses to look at the evidence and consider its implications. Instead he flees to the shelter of the vast universe of things we do not know and may never know.

Now it occurs to me that when stripped of the issues and looked at from a pure logical standpoint, my atheist friends and my Christian friend are making the same argument, and both are avoiding dealing with the implications of the facts on the table. This leads me to believe that my Christian friend’s commitment in this case, is not to truth, but to faith; specifically, faith in a certain reading of the first chapter of Genesis.

Since I wrote the last paragraph I have resumed my debate with my Christian friend. It would be unfair to say that he is not committed to truth, but in the final analysis his commitment to faith prevents him from considering the full implications of a verifiable body of evidence.

I would say the same thing about my atheist friends. It is not that they have no commitment to truth, it is just that they have a prior commitment to materialism/naturalism which prevents them from considering the implications of the things we now know about such things as the origins of the universe, the cell, DNA, etc. As a result, they believe — without evidence — that science will someday be able to find evidence to refute the facts on the table. And surely they might, but to believe this is faith pure and simple.

However, there are some whose commitment to truth is such that they are willing to go where the evidence takes them. This is how the Intelligent Design movement began, and it is how many thinkers moved from unbelief to faith.